Last year I was hired by a local agency to develop a packaging icon for a new snack food with a buffalo wings flavor. The project ultimately went in another direction so this is as far as my involvement went. I don’t know if I have permission to mention the product name so I won’t, but the agency has finally given their permission for me to post these concept sketches.
Indiana Jones and the Office Party
(Indiana Jones is copyright © Paramount Pictures. All rights reserved.)
I stopped doing “realistic” illustration a few years ago and focus primarily on illustrating in a very cartoony style. I enjoy it more, it’s what I’m best at, and it’s much faster which means I can usually earn more per hour. I still do life drawings and portrait studies in my sketchbooks but rarely for clients.
Every once in a while I make an exception.
Last October I was hired by Fig Street Marketing to work on a project for a large corporate client in the computer industry (not sure if I can share the company’s name so I won’t, but it’s one you would recognize). Apparently every year this client hosts a big corporate event themed after a Hollywood franchise. Last year they did James Bond, this year it was Indiana Jones. The client rented the “Indiana Jones Adventure” ride at Disneyland as their locale and hired Fig Street to develop the theme. They even put together a short video spoofing the Indy movies. Fig Street filmed executives dressed as Indiana Jones characters and then digitally inserted them into actual footage from the films.
To decorate the event they produced a giant mural and life-size cardboard standees depicting some of the executives dressed in Indy garb (great for gag photos). My friend Charlie Griak was hired to illustrate the mural and I was hired to illustrate the standees. The male executives were dressed as Indy or as Indy’s father. For the female executives I was asked to invent characters wearing safari-style costumes circa 1930. For reference I was provided with a couple of head shots of each executive and a few clips of the green screen footage. The rest I culled from DVD stills of the movies.
Because the artwork was going to be blown up eight feet tall working in Photoshop would have made the files about a zillion megabytes each, way too large to be practical. So I did the illustrations as vector art in Illustrator. It was a fun project and I was pleased with how it turned out. Soon the client will be sending me pictures from the event. If I get their permission I’ll post those photos as well.
Charlie’s mural really looked fantastic. If and when he posts it online I’ll be sure to link to it.
UPDATE: Here’s two of the final standees sent to me by the client. The photos were taken by the printer. Unfortunately the motorcycle standee was packed up before they could photograph it.
Merry Christmas
People celebrate Christmas for all sorts of reasons. For me it’s not just about the presents or the time with family or even the little manger scene on the mantel. It’s also about why Jesus was born: “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners” (1 Timothy 1:15). Since I’m definitely a sinner, that’s good news. I tried to hint at that theme in this illustration.
This was intended to be my Christmas card promo. Unfortunately I didn’t quite get it finished in time to mail out to my clients. I was so busy meeting other clients’ deadlines that I missed my own. So I sent it out as a Christmas email instead.
Warmest Christmas wishes to all you blog readers and your families.
Peter Krause Has A New Website
I wanted to take a minute to plug a fellow Twin Cities illustrator, Pete Krause. He’s been doing concept art, storyboards, and comic books for years and his work is excellent. His website just got a face lift, and it looks very nice. Take a peek:
www.peterkrauseillustration.com [EDIT: Broken link has been fixed.]
My own website is badly in need of a facelift. I mean badly. Seeing Pete’s new look has lit a fire under me to stop waiting for “free time” to magically appear and instead to make time to develop a new design. My new goal: To have a spanky new website up and running by the end of the year.
Toy Concepts For Disney’s “Camp Rock”
It’s been a while since I posted any actual artwork on this blog. I’ve been cranking out artwork like crazy all spring and summer, but because of NDA’s and other client arrangements I haven’t been able to show much of the work publicly…yet. Here’s one project that I can finally let out of the box.
One of my clients is a local company that produces themed birthday cakes for licensed properties. Each cake includes a toy as part of the decoration, and I sometimes get the privilege of working up concept sketches for the toys.
Disney’s megahits High School Musical 1 & 2 were recently followed up by a new TV movie, Camp Rock. My client was hired by Disney to develop a Camp Rock-themed cake. The target audience for Camp Rock was a little older than for most cake toys, targeting teens and preteens instead of kids. Ultimately the Camp Rock cake concept never made it into stores, but the client has given me permission to post some of my work. Here’s a few of the concepts I helped develop:
“The Artist Within” Gives You The Ultimate Studio Tour
On Saturday I was in a comic book shop and came across a real treasure of a book,The Artist Within: Portraits of Cartoonists, Comic Book Artists, Animators, and Others by Greg Preston (Amazon.com link
The format is very simple. The left page of each spread contains the artist’s name, one small sample of his work, and a paragraph summarizing his accomplishments as an artist. The opposite page is one large, elegant black-and-white photo of the artist posing in his studio. If you’ve ever wondered what your favorite artist’s studio looks like, this is your chance to see where all the magic happens.
Many of the artists have allowed the photographer to shoot their studio “as is” with messy desks and cluttered shelves. While a few of the photos look very pristine and artificially posed, most do not. That’s refreshing, because it makes the studios of brilliant masters feel like places in the real world and makes these artistic giants feel more down to earth and accessible. Also, I can point to almost any page in this book and say to my lovely wife, “See? I’m not the only artist with a messy studio.”
Thumbing through the book I noticed that many of the artists have their studios crammed with books. More than a few have giant wall-size bookcases behind their drawing boards with books sometimes spilling out into piles on the floor. Since most of the artists are at least a decade or more older than me and built their careers in the pre-internet era, perhaps many of the books are filled with reference images (for you college kids, that’s how artists did research for an assignment before Google Image Search). No doubt many of the books contain inspiring artwork from other artists. As a hoarder of books myself, I can appreciate the value of a good book to help nurture my artistic brain.
It’s also fun to notice some of the unusual objects that may cross an artist’s desk. In various photos I’ve spotted a baseball, a hand-drill, a plastic skull, a handgun, a juke box, a stuffed poodle, and an Oscar (on Chuck Jones’ top shelf). And of course, there was no shortage of toys lining the studio shelves.
Some of the studios are large and open, others are small and humble, almost cramped. But each photo gives insights into the working habits of a great artist at the top of his/her field.
My wife and I are contemplating either moving in a year or two or adding on to our current house. This books gives me some great ideas to consider as I plan my next studio. I don’t claim to be anywhere near the level of the great artists featured in The Artist Within (Amazon.com link