Biscotty Hartnell... Need I say more?

Hey there. So my friend had this idea (or a friend of a friend perhaps) for me to illustrate "Biscotty Hartnell". I don't think I really need to explain this one any further, but hey, here is the result...

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Lil' BAMF Illustration

Hey good people—

So here is another installation of this wondrous blog.

I recently had a good friend of mine at work reach out to me to help out on a logo design he was working on. Not for help on the design, but for the illustration. The premise was that the logo was going to be used on a children's clothing line for military kids. Their mascot was "Lil' BAMF"... let's see if you can figure out what "BAMF" stands for.

The illustration needed required a baby in an army helmet, wearing aviators. Seemed simple enough. His client had one request: that one of the sketches I do use a modern "Operator's Helmet". My friend tried to talk him out, fearing that this would "date" his logo, but to keep the client happy, I went ahead with the sketches as they are here:

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Now we awaited the client's response.

Though he was pleased with the initial round, he wondered if perhaps we could try substituting the sunglasses to a more modern look. He also wanted to see what the aviators would look like with a "chrome" finish to them. He shot us over an image of some pretty bad-ass looking Oakleys, and I made the revisions to what we can see here:

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It seemed after the second round that market research had lead toward using the classic WWII helmet and aviators. That being the case, I set to work on the final ink work and coloring. Pictured here is what was handed off to my buddy to finish up with some text:

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There we have it. Lil' BAMF. I'll be posting an update once my buddy gets the type done on it. Well, let's not lie, I probably won't. But I will try. I really will...

The Pitch — New Overheard

Hello, hello. 

A new overheard this week. Had a couple quick ones there last month. This one Overheard by Benn Ray at Atomic Books. 

Enjoy!

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Illustration Restoration - Pep Boys Motor Oil

Hello there.

It is rare that I actually get to illustrate at work, but when I do, I enjoy every moment of it. This one was an interesting on that came along. Pep Boys had purchased an old vintage "lubester"; an oil pump. It was restored and painted red, but it needed a "cool" vintage graphic on the front... that's where yours truly came in.

All I was supplied with was this image:

Okay. Now to get on with the recreation. I set to work in Photoshop, trying to flatten / straighten out the image so that I could get the best straight on view that I could. Next, I dropped the psd into Illustrator and started to re-create the linework. Now, I have to admit I used the blob brush tool and actually re-drew right on top of the image. I am usually complaining about "tracing" artwork, but since I had to re-create this image as historically accurately as possible, I thought tracing would be an acceptable course of action. Once the inking was in place, and set a new layer and went to town on painting using color fills and the bristle brush tool to re-create the old brushwork from the illustration on the can. After a decent amount of hours invested, I had produced this:

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So there you have it. I know a lot of people would like to see the "process" pictures / screenshots, but I will probably put them up at a later date. I thought this turned out to be a pretty cool piece, and it will definitely be one for the ol' portfolio.

The Discovery — New Overheard

Greetings good people. So the graphic novel is still plugging along, I like to think that I am within the last "10-pages" mark. Then it is on to scanning and dropping in some greyscale tones, but I am fully aiming to have it done by the end of this year. Maybe it'll make a good stocking stuffer. 

In the meantime, I've still had plenty of other freelance, the latest of which being this Overheard by Benn Ray. "The Discovery". 

Enjoy!

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A Pirate's Life for Me

Hey good people... another overheard, this one by myself.
Enjoy!

Overheard: Red-Headed Menace

I know, it has been months since my last blog post. Well, that's because I've been hard at work on the graphic novel I gave you a tease of a little while back. With the ending in sight, I hope to have this bad boy packaged and printed later in the year. Maybe early fall if I'm lucky.

In the meantime, here is another Overheard recently done for Benn Ray, the subject being a couple of neighborhood terrors that are known in the area.