Please for give the horrible lapse in my blogging these last few months. As soon as October hit, I got so wrapped up in other things that I just let it go and by the time Christmas hit I realized I hadn't bothered to post anything!

But happily, some of the distraction came from a series of projects that came my way!

One project came from Scholastic publishers in England for a 4-page story leaflet for young readers. It was titled The Giant's Smelly Feet, by Alison Milford.



This project was really fun as it marks the beginning of my foray into children's illustration.

It isn't the only children's project I was approached about since October. I'm currently beginning work on a project with Macmillan Publishers on a language workbook for kids. I won't be able to post any pieces from that project until it sees publication later in the year but I will keep you posted when it comes out.

I also was approached by a cool design studio in Seattle, Washington called Rocket Dog. They initially spoke to me about doing a few projects that fell through due to scheduling conflicts and such, but we eventually got together for a studio promotional they want to send to past clients.

Rocket Dog's look is retro space imagery and they wanted to do a series of cocktail drink coasters, each with a different pinup-style girl in a space theme. Here are a few of my faves...

On the opposite side will be a cocktail recipe appropo to the different glasses in each drawing.

Susan and Tim at Rocket Dog are the coolest and they really gave me a lot of latitude with this project!

Anyway, I hope you forgive me for not posting in so long. I hope to do better as the new year begins.

Take care and Happy New Year!

I've been reading John Keel's book, The Mothman Prophecies and it's pretty creepy. Lots of unexplained sightings of lights in the sky, visits from men in black, and... the Mothman! The common feature everyone keyed on were the glowing red eyes that held them transfixed. If you want a cool read as we lead up to Halloween, this is the book for you.

As per usual, I started thinking, "What if the mothman is just looking to make a few friends and has horrible social skills?" So I thought it would be fun to do an illustration of another of his ill-timed attempts at introducing himself to some poor schmuck.

I had a heck of a time with this drawing, specifically, the strong one-point lighting and the highlights on Mothman and the kid. I think the textures worked really well, and I'm particularly happy with how the moon came out.

This image just sort of popped into my head the other day and I decided to go with it. I wanted to create an illustration that suggested a bigger story behind it. I haven't the foggiest notion what that orb is but for some reason the kids need to get it...

After starting on the final illustration, I became really hesitant to complete it. I don't know what it was, but for some reason I was fighting to finish it the entire time. I think it shows in the final result, areas where I held back. But overall, I'm pretty happy with it.

I watched Breakfast At Tiffany's this evening and I got inspired.

As a general rule, I don't do caricatures but I couldn't help myself with this illustration. The eyes might be a bit big but that's pretty much the first thing I notice when I see Audrey Hepburn on screen. My favorite part of this one is the earring. I think I caught the glitter of diamonds without resorting to too much hard-edged detail.

This is an illustration I've had in mind for some time and it seemed like a great time to finish it out. With the trees starting to change up here in Colorado, we just last night had the first cool evening of fall. Granted, fall doesn't last too long here, so you have to enjoy it when it shows!

I'm really happy with how the last several illustrations have come out, this one in particular.



Here's a detail of the little girl. I really like the freckles.



Here's another detail of the final illustration. I used our Border Collie, Scout, as a model.

Here's the final of the Edgar Allen Poe illustration. This is from his story, The Gold Bug, from Tales of Mystery and Imagination.

I've been experimenting with more textures in my illustration and I've also been wanting to add a more darker themed pieces to my portfolio and I think this accomplishes both.

Here's a detail of my earlier Nessie posting below. This way you can get a good look at the details in the final drawing.

A few years ago I did a watercolor of Nessie being bawled out by a fisherman and I've wanted to do re-do it digitally. This time Nessie is being warned that there's some not-so-nice people on their way to the loch.

This is piece is much more soft than my usual work. I'm planning on exploring this look a little more. The final illustration took a whole evening to complete as I was working back-and-forth between Illustrator and Photoshop. The kid in the boat actually started out much more generic and with his back to the viewer but after looking at it for a while I realized he needed to be as interesting to look at as Nessie.

A few spot illos I did for the upcoming Teen Magazine summer activity booklet. My favorite is the bear.