Mother's Day Flower

Here's a digital painting I did of a flower. It was originally for Mother's Day 2009. The first version had "Happy Mother's Day" below the flower, but my creative supervisor told me it would look better with it off. Which, sadly, it did.

I've included my early flower sketch and some various stages throughout the painting. Also, I've included my latest portfolio layout, which I'm immensely pleased with. That layout is like the seventh version. I'm starting to see what my friend Dustin told me, regarding layouts: "Less is more." I thought you had to fill your portfolio with a ton of cool things, but he's right.

I painted this in Photoshop. For those who don't know, I drew the sketch in photoshop with my flower reference handy on my other monitor, and slowly built up the colors of each petal. I crudely drew in the background greens and browns and gaussian-blurred them.

Wizard Room

One of my first Art Institute of CO projects was to make a "Wizard Room" for Background and Layouts Class. This is my third version of it. The original was done over two or three years ago, but I think this version stands up the best. I think there's a lot of fun, small things going on in the picture, kind of like a "Where's Waldo" book. For instance, why is there a "Bush/Cheney" sticker on a conquistador helmet, or a flaming shish-ka-bob arrow? And a dolphin's head mounted on the wall? Was that THE crossbow used to bag the dolphin? Oh, and the Dr. Evil bear makes an appearance.



Come to think of it, I don't remember learning jack from background class. Argh! Damn you, Flanagan!

Windy/Concrete Jungle

My illustration a year ago when I hated life and going to work and it was cold and I felt like I was dragging ass.

My resume!

I worked hard on my resume last night. I designed AFO dogtags in Photoshop (God, they look awesome. Lol.) to add as a graphic element in my resume, and I think my resume actually LOOKS like a designer's resume now.

I'm going to post a photoshop tutorial on how I made those dog-tags. It's actually kind of easy, if you know 'shop. It'll be my way of giving back to the artistic community.

Mah Montana F150 poster

Here's a poster I made for an up and coming open casting call for a Ford F-series commercial. Since this isn't a national print-job, and it's not being published for anything other than inviting people to come in and talk, there shouldn't be a problem posting this up.

I really like it, so that's why I'm showing it.

Ask an' you shall receive!

It's no secret my internship is almost up in July/August here at JWT.

It's kind of scary at this point, because I've got friggin' medical bills to pay, student loans, orthodontic work to be done, parents to help take care of, 401 k to invest in, money to set aside for a family....GRRR! And I'm livin' in a highly competitive, sucky economy here in Denver, CO.

I'm reading this book, "The Artist's Way," about unlocking your inner creativity and finding the right path you want in your life. One of the chapters tells me to simply ask God, then be alert for signs. (God being whomever your deity is, or if you don't have one, the universe. All that's good. That guy.) So I do. I ask to find a great job that I'll be happy in, that'll lead me down the right path, that'll pay me well with benefits, and won't stress me out. It's a little weird, because I'm kind of skeptical about such things, and wouldn't consider myself a God-fearing individual.

A week later today, I get an email from a career counselor from AiC stating that the Rocky Mountain Institute, an uber-smart think tank in Boulder, needs a designer/editor/animator for a full-time position. RMI is an organization that does great things for the environment and is run by egg-heads and other smart people. I would love to work for people who stand for something. So I get to work (secretly) on a cover letter and my resume at work. Will I get the job, or something similar? We'll see!

But I DO want to thank God, Buddha, Allah, the universe, whomever for these incredible opportunities. If you're listening, I'm incredibly grateful to you.

Thank you.

ART FARCE ONE Mag Cover

If AFO was an art & music magazine, this would be one of the covers.

I've also included my portfolio layout, because I was too lazy to take it out. It's amazing what typography can do to an illustration.

I should also add that the original illustration was one I did for my friend Dana Herrmann, who's been one of my most supportive friends EVER. Hope you don't mind, Dana, but I took the illustration I did for you and turned it into a magazine cover. But I'm uber-serious when I say that I drew and painted that artwork just for you. You're the only one who'll have that hanging on their wall. If that means anything. Lol.

Iron Angels - Unit Patch

My final unit patch...the Iron Angels logo. The Iron Angels, a fictional search an' rescue/combat medic team that risks life an' limb for the good of their comrades. I tried to come up with a really cool, honorable logo that combines the selflessness of an angel + a medic team, with the rustiness, dirtiness of war.

This one was really tough to do...iron is this ugly brownish/red color, and angels stir up thoughts of sky blue, golden haloes, and angelic white. How the heck was I gonna balance these two out? After like 9 different versions, I finally came up with a solution I was happy with. Instead of choosing a rusty appearance over a more "heavenly" one, or vice-versa, I said, "Eff it! Let's do both." The top version is a sketch of my idea, the middle one is an early stage one where I was experimenting with combining rust + nice metallic metal, and the last one is my final.

I added a reflection of a sky/sunset to the wings and "Iron ngels" to give it a metallic reflection look. I loved doing this logo, and I think out of all four of the ones I've posted, it's my most successful, as far as appearance and the final solution.

I put the whole thing against black to make it stand out more, and I tilted the halo to give it a more "casual" look.