Illostop members actually exist in reality! (continued)

Our interactions are not limited (as evidenced by an abundance of questionable tweets), but we don't get to see each other very often. Other than the folks that live in New York, some of us only attend one or two NY events a year, making these little encounters all the more exciting.

I've met, known, and been a fan of these guys for quite a while, but this was, I think, the first time I get to really hang out with them. They're awesome, and pretty tolerant, considering I had just come in from some infamous Workbook carnival craziness.



So these are Sam, Victo, and Raul on this first pic.



Chris, Scott and I on this second one. Victo says she apologizes for the blurry pic. In her defense, the cardinals had just beaten the Texas Rangers and she could barely contain her excitement.

By the way, here's also a couple of sketches that Raul and I worked on. You can tell the guy can really life draw. You can also tell which ones belong to Raul and which ones belong to me.











Intimidating as it was, I attempted to repay him with a sketch as well, only to realize I should leave this to him and stick to my guns. He draw one of the best portraits I've ever seen of me!

Illustration Now! 4, I'm in there!

I'm in Illustration Now! 4 published by Taschen that just came out this year. It's a collection of top illustrators from around the globe, so i don't know how I got in there. I've see the first 3 incarnations of this book and it's cool to be included in this one and have two spreads.



Left: art for Saatchi and Saatchi (NY). Middle: Hartford Courant Ella Fitzgerald. Right: Yahoo! Singapore

Left: Personal piece inspired by a "Wish-Tree" that I saw in Shanghai. Middle: Tiger Beer. Right: Yahoo! Singapore.

FF vs RE

This illo is still warm!! I just finished it yesterday and it's going to be in tomorrow's New York Times paper (Sunday Nov 6). You can read the article here online. This is my first color illustration for the CRAZY PACE letter page and it's a very fun (and no sleep) challenge.

The topic is about the tension and debates between fossil fuel and renewal energies.

I gave up going to Conan O'Brien 's for this...but it's worth it, right?

Big thanks to AD Alexandra and Aviva! Always a pleasure to work with.

Run moneyhorse run!

This is a recent piece for the New York Times travel section, it's online now and was published in the past Sunday (Oct 30) paper.

I had tons of fun with this piece but the story isn't necessarily a good news for most people including myself. Major airlines continue to cut flights this holiday season while the number of passengers increase. So traveling will be quite hectic -expensive tickets, packed planes and long lines will be expected.

Many airlines also launched some new policies- basically if you pay more, you can skip the security check line, check in more languages, board the plane before others and even enjoy more legroom....Unless you are one of those who can afford the moneyhorse, this kinda sucks.

Great thanks to AD Corinne and the editors at the Times for letting me run wild with such a practical story.

Cover for Diplomat magazine

This is a cover I did for the latest UK Diplomat mag Ukraine issue cover.

It's quite an interesting story how I get under the radar of AD Jeannie Saba. I participated in the Pick Me Up show in London earlier this year and Jeannie's boyfriend bought one of my prints for her as a gift. She really liked it and decided to hire me to do a cover! I guess one can never predict how fate unfolds.

The theme of the cover is Ukraine's growth and her blooming agriculture. I want to celebrate Ukraine's fertile black soil which provides for and nourishes everything in the country. To me, growth is energetic and festive, then the idea of integrating the famous Ukrainian ballet came to mind: why not humanize the black soil into ballerinasdancing around the blooming sunflower? I chose sunflower to symbolize Ukraine as it's a very popular flower in the country and it's the flower that always grow upward facing the sun. The large anther of the flower also allows me to be playful and sneak in a few unique Ukrainian architecture there!

The cover went through a few different stages, you can see the evolution here.

I went with the red palette at first because I like its explosive energy.

Jeannie suggested that it would be nice to use Ukraine's national flag colors instead.