Swish and Spit

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Arkray USA is a company using technology to make advancements in healthcare. They have a device for dentists that can analyze a patient’s saliva and look for problems. The wanted a fun mascot character that would help them to sell the device to dentists, and hired me to help them out.

We talked about various ideas including a detective, a superhero, or a cartoon character made out of saliva. Eventually we settled on a detective. I tried a few options based on detective tropes ranging from Sam Spade to 1970’s cop movies to Magnum P.I. to Brooklyn Nine-Nine. I also thought it might be fun to do a “buddy cop” thing pairing the tough detective with a cute saliva sidekick. I named them “Buckett and Spit”.

The client liked that idea. They asked me to turn the little saliva guy into a superhero and refine the design for both. Also, they changed the names to Swish and Spit:

The final request from the client was that both characters always be smiling, to show their teeth. Here’s the final art. The project is on hold for now but the client has given me permission to share the work I did. Once it launches I will try to add a link to the final campaign.

Hasbro FurReal Packaging Sketches

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Hasbro has a popular series of animal toys called FurReal. For the packaging they often illustrate a fun, welcoming environment to help display the character on the store shelf. I was hired to sketch up some packaging concepts which were then handed off to another illustrator for final painting.

Here’s a few examples of my sketch followed by the final product:

And here’s one for a baby monkey that never made it to final:

Holy Post Podcast Artwork

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The Holy Post is a popular podcast about culture, theology, politics, and living a thoughtful Christian life. The hosts include VeggieTales creator Phil Vischer, author Skye Jethani (formerly of Christianity Today), and voice actress Christian Taylor who does a great job of injecting her layperson’s questions into the conversations. Together they make a very thoughtful and entertaining team. The Holy Post has a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts with over 2,400 reviews.

The team wanted to give out a fun t-shirt to their backers on Patreon. I was hired to illustrate the three hosts (plus Plinky Pete, Phil’s ukulele) in a retro Scooby Doo parody style. I grew up watching the original Scooby Doo every Saturday morning on TV so this was extra fun to draw!

To keep the podcast from getting too serious Phil has a recurring segment called News of the Butt. News stories about our rear ends are surprisingly common and Phil takes a childish glee in sharing them, much to the eye-rolling disdain of co-host Christian Taylor. Vischer also asked me to illustrate a logo for the segment which they use on the video version of the podcast (available on their YouTube channel).

I’ve been listening to the podcast off and on for a few years now. The content is always thoughtful, entertaining, and sometimes challenging. They are closing in on 500 episodes. If you are looking for thoughtful Christian discussions on culture and current events, check out The Holy Post.

Modern Political Discourse

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I enjoy following the news and current events. I don’t enjoy reading the snark and vitriol about it on Twitter. Most of it is reactionary, thoughtless, and creates more heat than light. This is a photo illustration I made to comment on the state of our social media political conversations.

To license this image drop me a line to discuss options and cost.

This image is also available on shirts, mugs, stickers, etc. through the print on demand site Redbubble.

Order here

Baby Alive Sweet Ballerina Packaging Art

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Hasbro has a new line of Baby Alive dolls called Sweet Ballerina Baby. I was hired to develop spot illustrations for the packaging. Hasbro sent me preliminary sketches and some existing Baby Alive art for reference. I wound up redrawing much of the sketches (though not all) and then created the final vector art. The only thing I didn’t do final art for was the eyes. Instead I re-used eyes from existing Baby Alive art to make sure they stayed completely on-brand.

The dolls are hitting stores. Here’s some photos of the final product I found on the web. The illustrations are down in the lower left corner of the packaging.

GoNoodle Champs

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GoNoodle is a fun company with the goal of turning kids’ screen time into active time. Their materials are used in four out of five American public schools and at least 14 million kids play GoNoodle content each month.

They have a series of characters called Champs that they use in a lot of their content. They hired me to put together a fun group pose that they could use in various branding and marketing. They wanted something flexible that would work as a group pose (with or without logo) but could also be broken out into stand-alone characters.

After playing around with some composition ideas we settled on a combination of existing sketches/vector art for some characters and new/modified art for others. Then I pulled it all together with final art in Adobe Illustrator.