Recent Posts

Monday, February 22, 2010

Brownstones to Red Dirt- Francis Vallejo

What's up friends! This piece above (4.5 x 5.5 inches, mixed media) was created for the Brownstones to Red Dirt charity auction. The goal is to raise enough funds to build a school for orphans in Sierra Leone and create a library for the youth in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn.

It's for a great cause, and the line up is stacked! Bidding opens March 6th and closes March 13th. A great chance to snag a piece of original art from terrific artists at a reasonable price. Follow the official blog for more details.

take care,
-francis

Sketch Exploration 6- Edward Kinsella






Sketch Exploration- Peter Wonsowski

Marceline, for a tribute book (and possibly poster) for Cartoon Network's "adventure time"



Sketches 3-Francis Vallejo





Some more warm-up sketches!

I've had a great beginning to 2010! A number of terrific situations have arose. I'll announce them officially soon.

take care,
-francis

Friday, February 19, 2010

Scott Brundage- Sketches 3

Subway sketches and exercises from a sketchbook I just finished out. I keep a variety of pens on me and see what each is capable of, or more accurately, what I'm capable of with them. Hope you enjoy.





-S

Private Commission- Francis Vallejo

This piece was a blast (pun intended...ayo!). It was done for the esteemed Skottie Young. I've followed his career for a while now, and have always really been into his work. So when I was asked to do a pin-up of his character "Bernard the World-Destroyer" for his new art book, I flipped out!!

Basically Bernard has been sent to Earth to study it before he destroys it. He comes to find out Kanye West is a rogue agent from Viltron Nine sent to take control of earth's people. In my picture we find Bernard busting into the studio as Kanye is recording his newest jam...haha.

Hope you digg it Skottie!

take care,
-francis

Star Wars Prelims- Doug Cowan


I recently did three new pieces of art for Topps' Star Wars Galaxy 5 trading card set. This series is set to go on sale later this week, so I'll be posting my final art shortly.

In the meantime, below are some of my preliminary sketches that were submitted to Topps and Lucasfilm.

Being that I was only able to do three of these, it would be fun to finish up some of the discarded ideas down the road.
To see more prelims, check out the personal blog here.

Thanks,
Doug

Thursday, February 11, 2010

Baba Yaga Sketches- Scott Brundage





Been shooting around ideas for a Baba Yaga painting. I knew nothing about her or her story aside from being a witch, Russian and living in the forest in a hut on chicken legs. So before doing any research I started going off that to see what happened, then slowly adding more educated images from looking up her folklore.

I figure posting this will get me to actually follow through with the painting in a somewhat timely fashion.

-Scott

Sketch Exploration 2- Andrew R. Wright





Sketch Exploration 5- Edward Kinsella





Over Ale & Alfred Hitchcock Magazine- Andrew R. Wright

Here are some new prints from Mr. Wright. The first of those is a poster for the beer Over Ale brewed by Half Acre (an awesome small Chicago establishment only underway for about 1.5 years).

The second is a way old piece (last November) for Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine.

The third is a monotype of my hero Vuillard.


-Illostop

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Children's Work and Wall St Journal- Scott Brundage

These are some recently finished paintings for a children's story pitch I've been working on. The first two I showed the finished drawings for a while back and forgot to post the finishes. Well, now I'm fixing that problem:
And here are some even more recent images from the same series.
She likes quiltin.

And there is a quickie I did last week for Derick Gonzalez at The Wall Street Journal on blacklisting job applicants.
-Scott

Sunday, February 7, 2010

Sketch Exploration 4- Edward Kinsella






To see more sketches, visit Ed's sketchblog.

Military Officer & Virginia Living- Tin Salamunic



Spot Illustration for the latest issue of Virginia Living.
-Tin

Virgin Hotline Magazine (UK)- Jason Raish

A fun assignment for Virgin Hotline Magazine which is the magazine in the backs of the chairs of Virgin trains in the UK. you can cut these out and punch out the eyes and wear it as a mask. this is David Attenborough, the narrator of BBC stuff such as the amazing Planet Earth series. So if you're in the UK and ride on Virgin trains check for my illos!

And this is Lewis Hamilton, F1 race car driver and boyfriend of pussycat doll lead singer Nicole Scherzinger. well i just saw that they split in the daily telegraph so there you go.
Also, an illo for the hartford courant about what the right age is to start taking your kids to the theatre. The Lion King was coming to Hartford so i used a lion king like actor for the show in the illo.

-Jason

Monday, February 1, 2010

The Riot Before- Peter Wonsowski

It has been a busy month or two for me in the studio, but i am just about wrapped up on one of the most ambitious records i've ever gotten the pleasure of working on for The Riot Before's new LP "Rebellion", soon to be out on the amazing Paper+Plastick Records!

Before Christmas, the band got in touch with me with a challenging concept and layout that really spoke to me personally. Dostoyevsky wrote once that "One can hardly live in Rebellion, and I want to live." In punk rock, rebellion and discontent are valid vessels and outlets, but it too often doubles as a limiting cause and effect. As we grow up, and begin to learn how the world works, and a desire to contribute to the world as well as shape it, it becomes more and more apparent that it is a restricting lifestyle with no growth or change, inwards or outwards. The band wanted a record that, utilizing die-cut windows, would appear almost as a punk rock cliche, but would open up to a more mature wider concept; one that would be a primer for the listener to understand the searching and crucial qualities to the music and lyrics. this would be a challenge conceptually, as well as in design, not to mention that it deals very much with things i think about regularly as i try and evolve and impact myself.

if you need or like, please feel free to click on these images for a better view.

One thing the band liked was perhaps having the cover look like cliched iconography, like a rising fist, or a flag, only to open up to a larger more startling scene. so we took the idea of 'the flag of rebellion" and the potential aftermath being more destructive, while a lone figure attempts to build something greater from the rubble:

So now we had what we wanted to say, but what about the cover? how could we lure the listener into thinking one thing, only to realize upon opening that it is about so much more?
we felt there was so much about rubble and building that perhaps we could have our typical flag, with a die-cut window that appeared crisp and pristine, among a weathered and cracking, but still upright, wall. Thankfully, everyone in the band and label realized that this was not going to make for an interesting cover, and no matter how nice we made the inside jacket, we had to make the cover something people would want to pick up and open. so we pushed ourselves to find a better concept that might allude to the "before" to the inside's "after." So if the inside was hard actuality, perhaps the outside could be the optimistic passion. Finally, combining ideas together, i executed the final front & back covers:

Then the inside! this record was SUCH a fun challenge; i loved every second of the process. i really had to push myself to think about and design every aspect of 4 panels all at the same time, to make sure it all lined up, or else our concept and window reveals wouldn't work. here, the flag would be tattered, and the album name "rebellion" would change drastically in new context:

This is a mock up of what the final 12" LP cover will look like in your hands :

And 12" records have to have cool labels. the vinyl junkie in me couldn't resist asking Paper+Plastick what they had in mind for the actual vinyl itself, and i think everybody's going to be blown away when they see the multiple variations (including blue and white swirled vinyl, as well as orange with red splatter!)
Take care,
-Peter