Summertime is in full swing, so here’s an illustration in honor of everyone’s favorite Summertime treat: ice cream! I did this illustration originally for HappyReading.org for a children’s poem called Ice Cream Man. I think I did close to a hundred illustrations for that client with a fairly tight turn-around time, which lent the whole series a loose, fun, and energetic quality that I think works well for this type of project.
I got a happy surprise after completing part four of the Wonder Realtor ad campaign. Turns out, everyone was so happy with the ads that they decided to go ahead and have me do one more. Heather thought it would be nice to show her and her family expressing their thanks to everyone who voted for her. (Heather was nominated for best realtor C-ville Weekly’s annual Best of C-ville.) I figured this was a great opportunity to show the whole family as having super powers, and help gives the ad a little more of a narrative flow beyond a simple “thanks for voting.”
I had so much fun working on this ad campaign and am super-grateful to have had the chance to do an additional bonus Wonder Realtor ad. And who knows? If Heather wins in August, I may get to do one more!
Wonder Realtor Part 4 came out yesterday in this week’s C-ville. It’s the last of a four-part comic book style ad campaign for Heather Griffith of Nest Realty, who was nominated for Best Real Estate Agent in C-ville Weekly’s yearly Best of Charlottesville. I had so much fun working on this campaign! While I’m a little sad it is over already, the good news it that Heather is currently ahead in the voting and may very well win. If so, I’ll have a chance to do one more final Wonder Realtor ad announcing the win and thanking all the people who voted.
Below is a shot of the ad from the magazine.
Wonder Realtor, Part 3 came out yesterday in this week’s C-ville. I decided to change things up a bit this time and went for a comic book cover approach. Given all the various powers being highlighted, there really wasn’t room to take a story based approach. All in all, I think it worked out really well and gives that feeling of a comic book packed with action and adventure that I was going for. Right now, there’s just one more ad to go. If Heather gets enough votes and wins Best Realtor, then I may get to do an additional Wonder Realtor ad. Keeping my fingers crossed!
I’ve included below a gallery of all the little action scenes from the ad, along with a work in progress image, and a shot of the ad from this week’s C-ville.
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Here’s part two of a four-part ad series, The Adventures of Heather Griffith Wonder Realtor, for Nest Realty of Charlottesville. Heather’s in the running for Best Realtor in C-ville Weekly’s yearly Best of C-ville issue, and decided to do a whole series of fun comic book style ads while voting is taking place. (You can see part one here.)
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A Charles Addams-style cartoon of a weary space traveler who unknowingly arrives at…The Wrong Planet! Wrong Planet was a single-page comic I did for a graphic novel class I took while attending VCU. I came across my rough pencils for this when I was organizing my art drawer a few weeks ago and thought it would be worth finishing up. I’m so glad I did! Not only was it a lot of fun, but I’m really happy with how it came out. Since most of the panels are more or less square, I went ahead and broke them up into individual images so I can post them as my first-ever Instagram comic. Below are images of the original pencils I did way back when, along with a recent progress shot of the inking done with a combination of brush and crow quill pen.
Recently, I was going through a drawer of old artwork when I happened across this four-page comic I did while taking a graphic novel class at VCU. We were told to create a super-villain with a defined set of powers/abilities. Once that was done, we were put into groups and had to come up with a story together where our characters fight. Even though we all worked on the story together, we were each left to make our own version and come up with our own dialogue. My character was The Mezmerizer, whose powers included disorienting people and projecting energy. I was always very fond of him, but never quite got around to using him for anything outside of this particular story. Overcompensation-Man was created by designer Matt Leahy, and Octo-Girl was created by illustrator Ally Hodges. Put it all together and you get webcomic Supervillain Throwdown!
I originally drew and inked the pages for class, but we were not required to color them. It was always in the back of my mind to go ahead and add color, but between graduating and starting a career, it got lost in the shuffle. I’m glad I went back and did this- I had a lot of fun revisiting these characters. Who knows, if I dig a little deeper in my art drawer, I may find a few more comics that get the finishing up treatment.
Here’s a little something I did initially for the 21 Day Drawing Challenge by Von Glitschka (Day 6: Get Cubistic). I recently picked up the Megapack set of Photoshop brushes from the awesome Kyle T. Webster, and thought this illustration would be a great opportunity for me to play around with them.
It’s been awhile since I did anything for Illustration Friday, but I’ve been wanting to get back into it. I’ve also been doing Von Glitschka’s 21 Day Drawing Challenge, so I thought of combining the two this week since Day 7 is Draw What You Like. This was a ton of fun to draw. I recently downloaded an awesome set of Photoshop brushes- Kyle T. Webster’s Ultimate Megapack, and they have really opened up a whole new world of exciting possibilities. You can check them out here: https://www.kylebrush.com/
Awhile back, I attempted to take on the “21 Day Drawing Challenge“, from Lynda.com’s Von Glitschka. I started off quite impressively (You can see my Day 1 drawing here.) but very quickly found myself wanting to use this opportunity to experiment with color and brushes in Photoshop. Which meant that I was going to need to spend a little more time on them. I also had the good fortune of becoming pretty busy with actual paying work within just a few days of starting the challenge. In the end, I’ve decided to settle on turning it into “21 Inspirational Drawing Prompts That You Should Totally Do When You Have A Few Spare Moments.”
The illustrations below are from the day five challenge, which was to draw three different versions of a character (I chose Bigfoot), refining the design each time. Not sure if I “refined” so much as “completely redesigned,” but I had fun and I think at least the first two came out really well.
