Man's Best Friends

Was just commissioned by a friend to draw portraits of him, his wife and their four dogs. It's for their holiday card! It was a quite a fun project.

Domestic Etch Illustration

My friend Elizabeth Goodspeed puts together a biannual art magazine, Domestic Etch. I asked if I could submit an illustration this upcoming go-round, and she FOOLISHLY AGREED, mwuhahahahahahaha.

Anyway, the theme is "Growth and Decay." I kind of got a little carried away in the Silly Department, but I like how it came out. Very fun. You can probably look it it several times and find something new. For instance, my favorite kid. The one pushing the bubble-mower. OR Boba Fett and the sarlacc pit.

Anyways, I'll let you all know when the mag gets published :D

Commission – Catherine

My Twitter/Skyrim friend Catherine commissioned me to illustrate her portrait. She wanted something more fun than a standard headshot to use an upcoming article. She is a whiz at all things internetty, such as Twitter and YouTube video links.

Bike Monsters

Here's an illustration I did for an upcoming bicycling charity event. I'm not really sure what the event is for specifically, but a member of the Lafayette Drink & Draw asked us all to illustrate spoke cards. So, here's mine! I had to throw Yoda in there.

New Yorkies

Last week I was commissioned to draw five dogs for a lady. She sent me a photo of each of the five dogs (four Yorkies and a biggin), with which I put together this composition. She will present the illustration to her roommate as a birthday present!

Style requested: Mostly black and white with splashes of color. Drawn with ink and watercolor on 22 x 30 inch Strathmore watercolor paper.

Help Japan

Dirty Coast asked me to design a poster to help raise money for the Japanese relief effort. I'm to be one of several artists designing posters to be sold to raise funds to donate. This is the concept I pursued. On the first version, I had the word "NOW" in white in the dot. It brought a little more balance, but it took away from the "Japanese flag" reference. I think I prefer this version.

I hope I'm able to help the effort somewhat with this design. It's nice to do something that actually has an effect on something other than just making people laugh a little, right?

Album Artwork

Here are some of the illustrations I was just commissioned to do by local singer/songwriter Sean Bruce. He asked for a quick style that is reminiscent of etchings and hatchwork of around the 1890s. There are 11 illustrations total; one for each track. It was a fun project!

Puppet Master of Ceremonies

I was commissioned to design a shirt for the release of New Orleans puppet singer/songwriter Lil' Doogie's new album, "YeahBrahCaDaBrah." The cd release party is at the NOLA House of Blues on Nov. 5.

Pretty fun rush project. Originally I had hand-drawn some smokey magical type, but the client thought it needed to look less scripty. So, this was the reworked version.

Three colors on a blue shirt. Fun use of halftones, which is something I'd like to experiment more with.

Yes, a puppet show at the House of Blues! I wish Slayer would open for him. That'd be SICK, BRAH.

Affaire De Coeur

My friend Meghann has a passion for fashion design. She just graduated; her senior project was to design a line of clothing for a fashion show that was held on campus. The line wascalled "Affaire De Coeur." She came away with some major accolades, including Best of Show, and some pretty sweet photos (Good job, again!). She has big aspirations, so I volunteered to do an illustration of one of her dresses for her portfolio.

The illustration above was based on one of the photos of the model wearing the dress during the fashion show. Done in watercolor and ink. I was aiming for a Tim Burton-ish style, which is one of Meghann's favorite directors/artists.

Meg, let me know if I got any of that info wrong, lulz.

Zach & Zach

Last week (or so), my friend Zach (Broussard) posted a note on Facebook about how he needed an artist to whip up some art for a new podcast and comedy tour featuring himself and his friend Zach (Sims). I responded that I'd like to help. But, knowing me, it turned into a full-blown illustration, including hand-drawn type and all. Haha, the things I get myself into!

I also resized/reworked this image to fit the square iTunes album artwork size. And did a borderless version and a grayscale version to cover all printing bases.

From what I gather, it'll be a fun, "character-driven" podcast with our two Zachs and featuring special guests. Maybe they'll tour the USA, saving Community Centers as they go. It's comedy, folks.

LAUGH.

Lemi Shine On!

Here are the second and third illustrations done for my friend Jody's design school project. Again, the concept is to illustrate that one can really tell the difference when using Lemi Shine to clean residue left by hard water in dishwashers.

My personal favorite of the three shows Lemi Shine being sprinkled in front of a "dirty mouth."



The third illustration features Lemi Shine passing in front of a grimy work boot. The tamest of the three, but still gets across the same "Wow, look at the contrast!" feel (on a slightly less zany level).

Burnin' Rubber Gloves

Here's the first in a series of three illustrations I was commissioned to do by my friend Jody. One of her final school projects has her taking the role of an art director who must search out a photographer or illustrator to help produce a magazine ad. The concept is that this cleaning product, Lemi Shine, cleans so well that it has the power to morph even the dirtiest of images. I may have gone a BIT overboard with the zaniness factor, but I think it still fits the concept, haha.

All that being said, I guess that Lemi Shine actuall does fit into the current Illustration Friday theme of "Equipment," since you'd need some heavy-duty equipment to tidy-up this fellow. AMIRITE?

The Big Finale

NO, this isn't going to be about LOST. I'm sure we'll all be talking about that show enough in the next two weeks, AMIRITE?

I had to quickly create one last granny character for the show I've been mentioning in the past few blog posts. Here she is:

Meet Ms. Grannysplitz. She's an aerial acrobatics master, as you can see. On her way up, she grabbed a prop from nearby and is holding it for all to see.

YOU'LL see once I put up some pictures of the entire scene, haha.

Now that all the characters are complete, go ahead and tell me which character you like best! :D

The Show Must Go On!

Here are some more characters that I created for the show I described in the previous post. Enjoy!


The Grannystander
A master of balancing, she is shown carefully balancing her medicine bottles in the air. She's been training for years, so for her it's not really a hard pill to swallow.


Grandparachutist
Whether he's jumping from the top of a tent or a stack of 20 elephants, the Grandparachutist always lands softly on his feet. Or, rather, his hands. And to add to the spectacle, he likes balancing breakable objects precariously!


Seacil, the Wonder Seal
Seacil is one of the few seals that doesn't mind wearing a tu-tu around his neck, be it from good training or poor fashion sense. In the actual scene, Seacil will act as a stand and will balance a shelf on his nose!

The Greatest Show on Earth

No, I'm not talking about LOST or Battlestar, I'm talking about the CIRCUS. And/or a carnival. Because that's the theme of this post. Though I may tempt myself to meander into a LOST discussion...

A couple weeks ago I was contacted by my friend Katie. She asked if I'd be interested in helping one of her fellow students out with some illustrations for a booth. Once I found out that the art would include carnival themes and old people, you knew I jumped on that. Drawing those oldies is always a hoot.

So the mission was to create a few grannies and grandpas that are still very active in a circus environment. They were then made into plush dolls that would be adhered to an illustrated carnival background. Here's what I came up with:

Granny Suspenders holds herself aloft in the hair by sheer strength of her dentures. She "bites" onto a rope that hands down from the tent ceiling and wows the audience with her endurance. Note: The rope isn't pictured here because it's drawn into the background scene, which I'll show later.)


The Trapgeeze Artist has many, many years experience soaring on his trapeze (not pictured here) high above the ground. Though his 'stache isn't very aerodynamic, it sure does add flare.


Our beloved Unigranny gracefully rides across the stage on a tightrope. The years have given her a little extra gyroscopic balancing support, as you can see.


Our eccentric Ringleader takes delight in announcing every act for the audience. And his handy-dandy megaphone doubles as a Beethoven-style earpiece/sound amplifier.


The Grannonball knows exactly how one should be shot out of a cannon and into a pool of trick dolphins. You'll see what I mean when I post the actual booth artwork!

OK! So those are our main attractions. Like I mentioned, they will be made into fun plush dolls. I may wait to show the scene until I get pictures of the finished product. I'll keep you posted, though!

Let me know which is your favorite, and come up with a little sidestory for him or her, if you'd like. :D

Heroes & Outlaws

Finishing up the LaLouisiane illustration series (the fourth of four illustrations representing various new and interesting courses at UL Lafayette) is an image representing the class "Heroes & Outlaws," which goes into detail about various notable historic figures. Two characters that fit the bill immediately were Billy the Kid and Wyatt Earp, so I thought it'd be fun to put them in the same illustration. And plus, babies are fun!

Please note that Wyatt Earp probably never held a Billy the Baby. So please don't go fact-checking on Wikipedia ( because I surely didn't)! Ignorance is comedic bliss.

Historic Costume

Here is the third of four illustrations done for an article in LaLouisiane magazine for interesting new courses at UL Lafayette. This course, Historic Costume, discusses and displays the costumes and period dress over many eras throughout history.

I thought I'd have a little fun and draw a modern girl in a Victorian outfit. I don't think England had cell phones back then, right? Nah. Japan, on the other hand, probably did.

I Am Not A Book

Shakespeare in Politics
Though it is tough to imagine ol' Will entangled the mess of modern politics, it definitely isn't impossible. Besides looking rather dapper in a suit and tie, Shakespeare certainly knew how to play the game. Politics are embroiled deep within the plots and subtext of many of his works (I just threw the world "embroiled" in there. Hope it fits.).

Enough, in sooth, to warrant an entire class on the subject. Continuing with the LaLouisiane-commissioned illustration series (first mentioned in the post below this one), here is an image representing the class "Shakespeare in Politics."

Shakespeare looks comfy in the classic Nixon pose, don't you think?

Color of the Blues

I was commissioned by LaLouisiane magazine to do a series of four illustrations. Each illustration would represent a new course being offered by the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. The magazine selected a few of the new/interesting courses to which students have taken a shine.

The one above is for The Color of the Blues, which covers the influences of Blues music across our culture. I would have loved to have taken that course!

Featured above is Robert Johnson making a little pact with a certain character of ill repute.