Scientific American's Skeptic column

Scientific American has a great skeptic column, usually dedicated to the various ways the human brain can malfunction and create one effect or another. There are great illustrations that go along with each article, and the subject matter is an illustrator's dream. Juicy stuff like why our brains deny/distort clear evidence, or how the brain creates consciousness.

I was lucky enough to be tasked with illustrating the recent issue. The column was skeptical of a brain surgeon's assertion that, during a near death experience, he'd had a glimpse of heaven. Seemed a sensitive issue for my normally irreverent approach to drawing.

Pretty much two approaches to the same idea. The 2nd beat of the image would show you that the brain is the culprit. 

Playing off the evidence and hallucination ideas, I thought it would be fun to draw pink elephants. I found out later they are pretty  much exclusively related to alcohol induced hallucination. Oops.

I knew going in that this was my strongest idea. It wasn't as goofy as the others and the relationship between brain and vision of heaven was more subtle. Using color to tie the elements together is somewhat new for me and I'm glad it worked out as well as it did. 

Exposing myself, Vol.2

My Photobooth library was getting overcrowded, so obviously it is time to share some reference shots. The majority were spent on a project I still can't fully share, but there are some sneak peaks here, as well as many photos of bed head and neglected shaving.

One project, The Silence of Eggs, had it's own personal collection of weird. Nailing just the right variation of psychotic focus took a bit of work.

Note use of tools on rare occasions when my face is not elastic enough.

And, by the way, I own these pants.

Corporate Dealmakers

Without fail, if I leave my studio for any extended period of time, I will get a commission that I can't turn down.

On this occasion, I went to Altoona, PA with some artist buddies to check out Illuxcon. I have a not-so-secret interest in fantasy art and this convention is the premiere showcase for original genre paintings.  While drooling over idealized yet heavily armored women and every variety of slimey monster, I received a call to do a cover for Larry Gendron at The Deal.  I went from the dude staring at paintings to the dude sitting in the corner sketching. So it goes.

Lacking a scanner I was forced to take pictures of my thumbnails my ipad, send them to my laptop and work them up in photoshop. Not exactly my ideal creative situation, but it worked.

The topic was the top 100 corporate dealmakers. When I first talked to Larry, he was trying to find reference for the top ten, so I could put them on the cover. Considering the idea of doing ten likenesses while basically scrawling on napkins left me very scared. Lucky me, editors couldn't nail down the names and faces, so instead I got to go a bit more abstract (thank Jebus).

The idea was to show these imposing corporate character as getting ready for, or running into, battle. We agreed that a color scheme based off "300" could be a nice touch. My apologies to loincloth enthusiasts for keeping the characters in suits.

running, standing tough, walking

 We settled on the standing and looking threatening option.

Pretty fun going really atmospheric, pulling out white suit highlights and really saturating the reds.

Thanks for reading!
-S

Exterrestrial cephalopods and partying shrimp.

My buddy, Irene Gallo at Tor.com, apparently REALLY likes when I draw tentacles. I've done about 4 or 5 tentacle-based illustrations for her and, honestly, that I don't mind that type-casting one bit.

The latest was a featured article about editing. One part stand alone story, one part tribute to a Tor editor.  Originally, we wanted to do a rollover with the editor's head on the octopus body, switching back and forth to the full on cephalopod head. Because of time constraints, and Irene hiking in Iceland (God bless her), we ended up dropping the rollover likeness. But you can see it here...

The winning thumbnail with some value refinement, staying loose.

The very rough sketch, establishing a mood.

A bit more refinement, plus a layer with the editor's face. All bad tie and plaid pants were specifically requested to match his "style."

After approval, I keep refining to make sure everything works spatially, and try to correct the weight and solidity of the figure and tentacles.

Clean finished drawing printed onto watercolor. 

And the final paint/post production effects.

I attempted to put a couple Easter eggs in there for those who looked closely. You can find three Hugo awards this editor (David Hartwell) won sitting on various shelves. Good luck.

And recently, I was given permission to show some exploratory work I did for Adfero. I was asked to help design a shrimp that looked friendly and healthy to represent the Gulf Coast shrimp industry*.
    Making an insect-like crustacean look cuddly is an art in itself. I purposely didn't let myself look at Peter de Séve's blog knowing he had done something similar and far superior a short while back.

Not a bad way to spend an afternoon, though.

And one last drawing from my mystery project to hold you over while I got back to my cave...

Thanks for reading- S

*Mardi the Spokeshrimp was created by the Washington, DC public relations firm Adfero Group for an organization that wanted to promote the shrimp industry in the Gulf Coast of the United States.  Playing off of the Canjun flair for creative ways to serve shrimp, Adfero named the character after the world famous Mardi Gras that takes place in New Orleans each year.**

**Sorry about the fine print.

Baseball, audiobooks, Spectrum and lots of coffee.

A little while back I had the luxury of a nice two week deadline for Library Journal. A fun crowd scene requiring a variety of faces in a theater enjoying audiobooks that was just complex enough to let me flex some rendering muscles and take my time.

With two days left to work up the final, I had to throw my relaxed pace out the window to jump into a overnighter for Wall Street Journal.

WSJ's illustration was on the growing lack of interest in baseball among America's youth. My goal was to show that disinterest through several generations. Having done all my rollovers, this actually came relatively naturally. I love the idea of one part of an image remaining constant while things evolve around it. (Speaking of... I found out that my Ada Lovelace Day rollover was also accepted into Spectrum 18! Pretty much the same idea-> Image below).
    Having been what some would call "indoorsy" as a child, I had to do a fair amount of research about various sports equipment, uniforms, and heroes that would end up on posters. (Full disclosure: the extent of my baseball experience is signing up for tee ball as a child, going to games, hitting the ball, refusing to run, and sitting back down.)

50s/70's/90's/00's.  None of the above had a part in my own childhood.

Luckily Derick Gonzalez at the Journal was a bit more knowledgable and helped me out. I will take credit for the ever-so-subtle upgrade from old school to new school skateboard in the last two panels.

Again... replace all sports paraphernalia with Batman: The Animated Series/ make the boy chubby and pale.

Lots of fun working this one up.  Looking back, I kinda wish I used hot-press paper to calm the texture down. Still, I'm pretty stoked on how it turned out. Even better, it printed in full color (a gamble at WSJ) and by far the largest piece I've had in their paper.

So, one overnighter follows another now that my time was nearly up for Library Journal. I should say now that I know it's not exactly uncommon for an illustrator to do back to back overnighters, but hey, this was my first.

final approved sketch

Final and in context.

Even though I was dead-man painting at this point, I think it still stands up. Tried a lil something new keeping the headphones and media players unaffected by the darkness of the theater to pop a bit more.


And here is the Ada Lovelace rollover I mentioned that was also accepted to Spectrum 18.

-S

Qaddafi Duck

The American Interest requested the following...

Who wouldn't jump at this opportunity?

They requested a mix of very goofy with menacing danger. A nice challenge to keep both Daffy and Qaddafi's likenesses intact while bending and stretching the face. I'll let everyone else decide if I was successful. 

The approved sketch. 

And the final art.

Lots of interesting challenges in this one. Mimicking the lettering probably took longer than any other part of the image but putting everything together was a blast. Big thanks to the kind folks at The American Interest for coming up with a ridiculous image and thinking of me to help bring it to light.

-S

Common Ground

It seems like I hit a pocket of education-based commissions recently. No complaints there. It is admittedly fun to trick myself into thinking I'm smart enough to have my work in front of scholars. Like I sneaked into the teacher's lounge by proxy.

Then I read the paragraph I just wrote and reality comes crashing down.

Anywho... I was contacted by the American School Board Journal to create a cover for their March issue. The topic was the implementation of common core standards among US public schools. I had to convey the idea of unifying educational standards while raising them higher.

My initial round of sketches was pretty loose, as they've tended to be recently. When the art director leaves the solution very open ended I try to get as many ideas communicated without polishing them too much. My theory is that this will result in a quicker approval and more time to paint. However, after seeing Chris Whetzel's sketches, I think I may just be tricking myself into being lazy.
   The art director chose the obvious best choice. I knew the large grad cap was the best, but I really wanted to paint the tall hat crowd. I knew it didn't really make much sense, I just really liked how ludicrous it was. Sigh.

A big thanks to Carrie Carroll for the opportunity.
-S

Creepin Baba.

Continuing with my infatuation of the Russian hag, I've been compelled to keep playing with the design and feel of Baba herself. This piece was part experimentation in atmosphere and texture, part development of character. Honestly, I wanted to paint a creepy piece.

I had an idea in mind of an image of Baba Yaga, out in the woods in the snow (NYC had quite a bit recently, I was in the mood) in overcast conditions. I wanted to capture the feeling you get when you realize you aren't alone in a room and someone has been looking at you the whole time you've been there.

Some of the more coherent thumbnails I generated.

Rough value study and tightened drawing

The final painting was a blast. I think I did more variations in texture than any previous painting, and had no idea I'd enjoy it that much. Messed up dried brushes, salt, lifts, the works. I'm pretty stoked to do more of its like.

Oh, didn't see you there.

-SB

The Silence of Eggs

A while back I was contacted by Sagoma Editore to do the cover and back cover for their upcoming book "The Silence of Eggs" or "Il Silenzio Dell'uovo" for those of you in Italy.  I received a brief, in awesome broken English, describing a fictional biography of a 19th century poet obsessed with the silence of things. They wanted to push the bizarrely humorous nature of a person stubbornly preoccupied with an egg's silence... as if the egg was holding out on the poet and the poet wasn't buying it. Oh, and another goal was to have the feel of high class literature. But,  you know... with an quiet egg.

I sent a couple ideas to see if I was in the ballpark of what they were looking for and quickly found out they really had no clue what they were looking for. Through a series of some of the most baffling art direction I've ever received, I produced a number of very loose sketches. 

The interrogation chair and the duct tape make me stupidly happy.

Of course they picked the only one I was sure they would not.

Yay.

So... I was to paint an egg for the front cover, with a monochromatic background. Before I could moan about the mind-numbing boredom of such a choice, the client sent a request for the back cover. He wanted the same egg, but now crushed by a frustrated poet's fist. Somehow, without knowing it, they asked me to create a rollover like I'd done many times before.

Of course, just the right flavor of angry/desperate/insane took a couple tries to nail down.

And despite all the struggle I'm pretty satisfied with the final. Maybe it's my narcissism since that poet is basically me with a mustache.

 -S

TMI- Scott Brundage

So I hit the century mark on my Photobooth library and figured I should pay a lil tribute to the beautiful convenience of Mac's built-in webcam application. I recently learned I'm not entirely alone in exploiting this for reference sake, as my buddy, Marc Scheff, recently covered the same topic. And while I don't go to the extremes of posing and lighting as he does, Paolo Rivera dedicates his wednesday blogposts to showing how limber he is in his reference.

So, in the interest of solidarity, here is how I spend a good chunk of my average day... posing spastically, alone in a dark room.





I've learned a couple things about myself in the process.
-I rarely adjust the light for any of these pictures to relate to what I'm painting. This usually is more from deadline constraints than laziness, but I should probably give a little more thought to it.
-when I'm trying to get a single hand just right... I pose my entire torso and face.
-if its over 65 degrees, I tend to forego a shirt.
-my hair is ridiculous