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

The end of the world

I love to illustrate the dark passages, the mysterious and the strange. And lately I have been pretty lucky about that.
The first is the cover for the Spanish edition of Love Medicine by Louise Erdrich for Siruela Editorial. I love drawing and painting landscapes and it is rarely that working on Editorial you get to do a pure landscape piece so I was jumped at the opportunity with out thinking. The novel deals with tradition and heritage through the voices of a family of Native American from North Dakota.


I had a clear idea of what I wanted to do so I only presented sketches with variations on the same theme. I also had a back up sketch that I might actually do when I get some free time.






I wanted the piece to be moody so I emphasized that in the sketch, my sketches are usually less developed, altough for covers I aim for a very clear reading of what type of cover it will be even with rough art.

The piece is a combination of ink, liquid pencil (which is pretty fantastic) and digital.


This second piece was a full page spread for an article on School Library Journal about today's dystopian novels. Only thing I can say about this is that I had a total blast doing it.





This is the kind of sketches I scare AD with these days. A simple outlay of the composition and some hints on color, but that is basically it. Nobody has outspoken yet but I can tell they are afraid...

So I am looking forward to more of these in the future, but now back to making comics and books...

WARMUP OF THE DAY #1: CATWOMAN + SUPERGIRL PROGRESS

Hey guys,

I decided to do a fully colored warmup drawing every single day before jumping into my commercial work. I hope that this will help me get into the right mindset for the day and allow me to loosen up before getting into the fine tuning of my commissioned illustrations.

I'm giving myself only a few guidelines to follow, such as switching up the gender of the figure each day and also varying the body type with each drawing. Everything else will depend on the time I have left but they will all be very loose.

So, round one - CATWOMAN:

And here is a progress piece of a Supergirl drawing that I'm working on in between projects. I'm just experimenting with various Photoshop brush settings, trying to bring my inking to a satisfying look. 

thanks for viewing, 

Tin

PSYCHEDELIC UNICORN ROBOT

Birthday gift for my friend Alia. Mainly painted with Alchemy and a few touch ups in Photoshop! :)

(Reference for this piece)
thanks for visiting!
-Tin

SUPERBIKE-CONCEPT ART

Here is a rendered concept of a futuristic motorcycle that I was messing around with. I used Photoshop and a newly discovered program called ALCHEMY. The program is free and is great for creating random shapes and pulling out various representational objects.

The abstract shape that you see below was used as basis for this bike. Everything else was created and rendered in photoshop. I'm still experimenting with abstract shapes and futuristic concepts, so this is my first shot at a more complete design. It took about 8-10 hours to complete.

thanks for visiting, 

-Tin

0-60 Magazine- Tin Salamunic (Tutorial!)

Editorial illustration for {0-60} Magazine.

:: shot of the color study/sketch that I submit to the client ::

:: Here is the other sketch that I submitted + color study ::