From The Vault: Capt. Kirk - 1995

Yesterday's Simon Pegg portrait for Time Out New York was an example of a practical use for an idea I had for an earlier piece, in this case a portrait of William Shatner aka Captain Kirk, which I did way back in 1995, when I was still doing these entirely with cut paper.

I saw this idea in my head, and after cutting out the likeness, I used a flicked toothbrush covered in White-Out (an old trick I learned in art school), to create a cool-looking universe background, all adding up to a piece that one the closest times I came to getting down on paper what I saw in my head at the beginning of the process. I had this piece in my portfolio for a long time, I was so happy with it.

So when it came time to do a Trek-y shot of Simon Pegg, I simply re-used this idea, substituting Pegg for Shatner, and adding a lens flare effect. I love it when a plan comes together!

Time Out New York: Simon Pegg

This week's "Hot Seat" portrait for Time Out New York was extra fun for me, because it was actor/writer Simon Pegg, who I am a huge fan of.

I've enjoyed Pegg's work in Spaced, Hot Fuzz, Shaun of the Dead, and I think its brilliant, casting him as Scotty in the new Star Trek!

I got so into this that, as you can see, I did two complete portraits, and sent them both into the magazine, letting them decide which one to run. I did the first one, which was me nerding out, putting Simon in a Star Trek-y scenario. I then decided to do a second portrait, this one a little more generic if the interview ended up not being about Star Trek all that much.

I thought they both turned out well, and I was pleased to know TONY liked them both. I even got the opportunity to send these to Simon's manager, so who knows? Maybe he even got to see them himself.

From The Vault: Hold The Date - 2006

When I search for a piece to pull from the vault every week, I think about what's been on my mind the past week, and then look to see if I have anything in my back catalog that is related to it in some way.

Since I've spent the week listening to Bob Dylan's new album, Together Through Life, I originally figured I'd dig up yet another Dylan portrait, since I have so many!

But as I watched TV tonight, I caught wind of some nauseating comments made by a Congresswoman from North Carolina, about how the murder of Matthew Shepard was possibly a "hoax", made on the eve of passage of some new Hate Crime legislation in Shepard's name. Suddenly, the idea of posting another Dylan portrait seemed less important.

So anyway, looking back over a bunch of my old pieces, I saw this--a "Hold the Date" card I was asked to produce for an acquaintance of mine and her partner. I remembered how happy she was with the final result, and how well it came off--the color palate is softer than one I usually use, yet it still looks my like my work.

In the end, I'm very proud of this piece, for a number of reasons. And I can only hope one day the marriage that took place on 11/11/06 is no longer one that can be invalidated by a hateful ballot measure.

Time Out New York: Liev Schreiber

This week's "Hot Seat" subject for Time Out New York actor Liev Schreiber, currently starring in Wolverine as Wolvie's nemesis, Sabretooth.

This was a last minute change--the original interview for this week was bumped to the following week--so I had less than 24 hrs to put this together.

Not knowing all that much about Mr. Schreiber, and not wanting to tie the portrait in too closely to the sinister, grungy look he has as Sabretooth, I went for something fairly generic, but still (hopefully) looking cool and dignified.

Angel On My Shoulder

This is another one of my fake movie posters, for a movie that exists only in my imagination.

It got started the same way an earlier poster, Two Bullets in the Chamber, did. In this case, I watched a DVD of the movie Macao, starring Robert Mitchum and Jane Russell (who has previously starred together in 1951's His Kind of Woman). I enjoyed it a lot, and then I enjoyed it all over again when I started the film over, this time listening to the audio commentary track by my friend Eddie Muller and the film's screenwriter, Stanely Rubin.

So as I was listening to the commentary, I thought, what if Mitchum and Russell--so good together in Macao--did a third film together? That's all it really took for me to start putting together this poster.

The original idea I had from the beginning was that the Mitchum character would be haunted in some way by Russell, and it took a couple of different tries until I hit upon the idea of having Russell in a photograph, which I thought gave the poster a unique bit of visual interest.

After I had that resolved, the title came rather easily, and then the tag line, and then eventually the rest of the poster!

From The Vault: Blink 182 - 2004

My pal and fellow artist Sean Tiffany commissioned me to do this poster, since he is/was such a huge fan of the band Blink 182.

I tried my damndest to do right by the band and their punk-y sound and look by stripping away all my usual design tics. I wanted this to be raw and sloppy, like it was done by some rabid fan in their basement somewhere.

In the end, while I think this is a good piece, its probably still too "neat" to really make it work the way I wanted (probably using professional fonts at all was my first misstep). Some habits are hard to break!

Time Out New York: Bret Easton Ellis

This week's "Hot Seat" subject for Time Out New York novelist Bret Easton Ellis, who has a new book out.

I didn't know much about the man's work--my only interaction with him at all has been through the movie adaptations of some of his novels, which to me have featured the most loathsome, despicable protagonists possible, so that's generally kept me away from ever reading any of the source material (which isn't really fair, I guess, but there you go).

So for the portrait I wanted to go kinda ghostly and empty, ending up with this very minimalist shot. I kept adding little elements to the background, but finally decided just to have the man himself in front of a field of white.

From The Vault: Robert Rubin - 2004

Last weekend, Tracy and I were watching the documentary I.O.U.S.A., which is all about the United States' massive deficits (a very good movie, btw).

Anyway, one of the talking heads in it is former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, and when I first saw him in the movie, I thought "Hey, I did a portrait of that guy!"

Usually, the portrait in question is from Time Out New York, but not in this case--no, I did the above piece for another magazine, MBA Jungle, which I believe ceased publication a few years ago (I had nothing to do with it, honest!).

I ended up doing quite a few jobs for MBAJ, and I thought this one came out pretty well. I like the angle and the colors (most of them, at least). The magazine laid some text over this, but I can't seem to find the printed version...

Time Out New York: Bernie Williams

This week's "Hot Seat" subject for Time Out New York was former Baseball player and now singer/songwriter Bernie Williams.

This is one of those times when I know absolutely nothing about the subject (I had to look up the name once TONY told me who it was), so I try and go as generic as possible for the background.

Williams has a new CD out, called Moving Forward, so I used the CD's cover art colors for the background, to help tie it together, at least on a very low-key level.

Capital G Ad Campaign, Part 12

The final two Capital G portraits--the first one was fairly straightforward, but the woman's hair color in the last portrait was a project in and of itself!

These were, of course, a huge load of work, but overall I'm very proud of the work I did for Capital G, via the Concept Farm agency, who were nothing but a pleasure to work with. I'm delighted that right after finishing these portraits, they asked me to work on a different project for a different client, which is going on right now.

Capital G Ad Campaign, Part 11

Three Capital G portraits, featuring my favorite portrait (the middle one) of all the ones I've done during this campaign.

More tomorrow!

Capital G Ad Campaign, Part 10

Between the ups and downs of my personal life and working on a lot of client jobs that haven't seen print yet, I haven't had much time to work on (as if you couldn't tell that, from the dearth of posts in the last couple of weeks).

So even though I haven't seen any of the print versions of these yet, I thought I'd post all the new portraits I did for Capital G.

I was asked to do these new portraits using realistic colors, not Cap G's corporate ones, which of course led these to looking significantly different.

More tomorrow!

From The Vault: Berry - 2003

Even though I've already mentioned this on a couple of my blogs (here and here), I felt like I couldn't let this week's From The Vault segment pass without one last word about our cat, my little pal, Berry, who passed away last week.

This was my first attempt at doing a portrait of him, and I knew it would be a huge challenge, trying to convey all of the myriad colors that made up his beautifully detailed coat using cut paper.

But I gave it a shot, and while I was happy with it at the time, I can see now that it doesn't look that much like him. The pose and the look on his face are right, but its just too simple in terms of color to really do him justice.

Later, I did another piece, this time digitally, called Attack Cat, which to me is the definitive portrait of our little guy.

We miss him very, very much.

Time Out New York: Neko Case

This week's "Hot Seat" subject for Time Out New York was singer/songwriter Neko Case, who was promoting a series of live shows in NYC.

I'm not that familiar with Case's work, so I was flying a bit blind here. Originally, I was going to have her on a totally black background, so with her black t-shirt her face and arms would pop off the background.

But then I thought, ahh, I've done that kind of thing before, why not try something different, so I just started playing around with bright colored shapes behind her, and I ended up with this--after showing it to Darlin' Tracy, she said "They look like butterfly wings."

I realized she was correct, even though that was totally accidental. I ended up liking how that looked, so I added those little black squiggly lines and then called it a day.

This ended up being one of my personal favorites from the last couple months worth of TONY portraits.

From The Vault: Bob & Joan - 1995

I've been listening to the first cut, "Beyond Here Lies Nothin'", off of Bob Dylan's new album Together Through Life (out on 4/28) over and over (and over!) this week, trying to learn all the words and whatnot, so Bob's been on my mind...I mean, even more than usual.

Most of the Bob portraits that I think are really good are already on the site, but this one--of Bob and Joan Baez--isn't too bad, either. I maybe think I could've added a background element to represent a stage or something, but...

A few years ago, someone saw this piece when I had it on my site, and they actually wanted to buy the original. I don't remember actually selling it to them, but I don't have the piece in my files, so I guess I did. I hope I got a decent price for it...

Time Out New York: John Rhys-Meyers

This week's "Hot Seat" subject for Time Out New York was actor John Rhys-Meyers, who currently stars in HBO's The Tudors.

Wanting to reference--but not too directly--his role on the show (King Henry VIII), I liked the straightforward, direct positioning of the figure, contrasted with the royal-ish looking background.

The background was originally a different color, but after messing with it for a while, I realized that purple--the color of royalty--was the perfect way to go. Done and done!

From The Vault: Purina Cat - 2001

I was commissioned to do this piece for an ad agency back in 2001; I don't even remember what it was for except it had some connection to Purina. The job eventually fell apart for reasons not having to do with me, so I got paid a kill fee for this and that was the end of it.

I'm posting this today because kitty cats are on my mind--there's a pack of about 15 feral cats living by a creek behind a 7-11 that Darlin' Tracy and I pass by every Thursday, and we've gotten into the habit of buying several cans of cat food and dumping them out so the cats can get to them.

We're not the only ones feeding them, since we see bowls of water and other traces of food around. Tonight was especially hard to see them all, since its still very cold (even though Spring is a week old), and it rained all day--seeing all those poor, cold kitty cats brave the elements to scarf up the food we dumped made us both sad.

We've thought about trying to capture some of them and getting them spayed, so at least they won't keep creating more homeless kitties, but since we already have a cat at home (and a very barky dog) we'd have no place to keep them, at least overnight.

Plus, how do you trap more than one feral cat at a time?

I know none of this has nothing to do with my artwork. Its just on my mind tonight.

Time Out New York: Bill Hader

This week's "Hot Seat" subject for Time Out New York was actor/comedian Bill Hader, who currently stars on Saturday Night Live.

He's also quite quite the movie career going, have appeared in Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Superbad, and now Adventureland, out this week.

Adventureland's color scheme and design approach for its posters and such seemed a little 70s to me, so I went with those kinds of colors and a design element that felt similar to that.

Capital G Ad Campaign, Part 9

These are the last three of the Capital G portraits--at least the ones done in this color scheme.

Not too long after turning these in, I went to work on another batch, but with more realistic colors. And while I generally think the second batch came out a little better, these initial ones was an interesting challenge, having to use these day-glo colors in what are supposed to be photo-realistic portraits.

From The Vault: New Horizons - 1996

This was another piece I did for the Daily Record newspaper, which ran in the first 1997 Sunday edition of the paper.

For these Daily Record assignments, I almost always got the chance to conceive the piece, as well as execute it. From what I remember, this was the first idea I came up with, and it was approved almost immediately.

Looking back on it, I wish I had used a little more photo reference for the woman and the cliff, but overall I think it came out pretty well. And the painterly sky effect came off better than I hoped, considering we're talking about newsprint!

I didn't add the type, but I thought it was well done, both with the font and placement. It ended up being one of my favorite pieces I did for the paper.

Time Out New York: Keira Knightley

This week's "Hot Seat" subject for Time Out New York was big-time movie star Keira Knightley!

Knightley was promoting her new film, End of Love, which is a period piece. They sent me a bunch of shots of her in period clothing, and I liked doing a portrait in Old Hollywood glamour style.

So I stuck with an all-black and white color scheme, and even went further with it, by framing it as if you're looking at an old-timey lobby card. Without being able to add text, there's only so far that I think that idea comes across, but overall I liked how it came out.

Capital G Ad Campaign, Part 8

Three more Capital G portraits!

I already ran the ad that featured the woman in the second portrait, but it only showed a tiny portion of here--from just the neck up. If I'm going to do all that work of drawing her whole body, I want someone to see it!

When I saw the picture of the woman in the glasses, and saw all that detail on the sweater, I cringed--was I really going to have to draw all that?

I tried putting just some of the pattern in there, but it looked odd, so I just hunkered down and did the whole thing in stages, and now that I look at I think it it really only could have been done that way.

Still more to come!

Capital G Ad Campaign, Part 7

Three more Capital G portraits!

I have to admit, when I saw the photo of the first guy, holding his saxophone, I groaned--would I really have to draw all that? Did he really need to bring that thing with him to the photo shoot?

The answer to my first question was yes, so one night I hunkered down and committed myself to drawing out the whole thing. By the end, I felt like Donald Pleasance in The Great Escape--blind and in a stupor, I wandered out of my chair and began bumping into things.

Luckily, I recovered by the next morning and went back to work...

Still more to come!

Capital G Ad Campaign, Part 6

Three more Capital G portraits--the pattern on the first guy's shirt nearly drove me nuts; but there were even more complex illustrations to work out, which we'll see tomorrow...

From The Vault: Move Over, FDR - 1996

This was another piece I did for the Daily Record newspaper, part of a two-part job: the previous week, I had done a portrait of Republican nominee Bob Dole, and the second week it was President Clinton's turn.

I was really excited to get a chance to do the illustrations for such a timely, relatively major series of articles. I've always been interested in politics, so getting to combine that with my art was rewarding.

I felt like I had really not done a great job with the Dole piece (so it won't be showing up here!), but I felt like I really nailed this one--I liked the placement, the balance of blacks and whites, and the likeness.

I remember getting a lot of compliments on this when I turned it in, and it stayed in my portfolio for years.

Time Out New York: Jason Segel

This was a real treat!

This week's "Hot Seat" subject for Time Out New York was actor/writer Jason Segel, who I am a big fan of.

I first saw Segel in the short-lived show Undeclared (playing a hapless, way-too-needy boyfriend), and then enjoyed him in Knocked Up, How I Met Your Mother, and the movie he wrote and starred in, Forgetting Sarah Marshall. I think the guy's a riot, and was thrilled to get the chance to do a portrait of him as he promoted his new film, I Love You, Man.

Capital G Ad Campaign, Part 5

Three more Capital G portraits--the first two were a little simpler, which were a nice balance to some of the others (like the third), which had a complex and detailed pattern on their shirt which needed to replicated.

Lots more to come!

Capital G Ad Campaign, Part 4

These are three more of the pile o' portraits I did for Capital G, via the Concept Farm agency.

Since these portraits were going to be dropped onto different colored backgrounds, for each specific person I was given what one color to stay away from. In the instance of these three, it was a bluish-green, so you don't see that color on any of the above portraits.

Lots more to come!

Jelly of the Month: The Silhouette

This month's subject for the Jelly of the Month blog was, appropriately enough, Watchmen.

I figured everyone would be doing portraits of Rorshach, The Comedian, etc., so I decided to tackle one of the minor characters--the superheroine The Silhouette, who was one of the original Minutemen.

She only has a few scenes in the book, and dies off-panel, but something about her really stuck with me--and it was a treat to see her whole story arc conveyed in the Watchmen movie, which I saw over the weekend.

I'm not particularly adept at illustration action or fight scenes, so I thought it'd be cool to do a static shot of the character in the form of a poster, since the P.R. aspect of being a superhero is one of the themes of the series.

And of course, I can't resist adding old-timey text.

From The Vault: Cut Out Dissection - 1996

This is one of a handful of illustrations I did for the Daily Record newspaper, from 1995-1996, for an article about dissection (as you can tell from the headline).

A teacher of mine from the Kubert School told me that the paper was looking to hire some artists for an occasional article. And since they couldn't pay much, they were willing to hire artists with relatively little experience, which was what I was at the time.

After meeting with the art director, I ended up doing assignment after assignment for a couple of months, and it was a very rewarding relationship--she and the paper got brand-new, eye-catching illustrations (instead of clip art) for very little money, and I gained lots of professional experience and a bunch of printed samples to show off to try and land more work.

This--like all of the pieces I did for the Daily Record--were done entirely in cut paper, no digital effects. And while I could do a lot better now, I do think this holds up fairly well. My time with the paper stands as one of the key moments in my freelance career.

Time Out New York: Bryan Cranston

This week's "Hot Seat" subject for Time Out New York was actor Bryan Cranston, who was promoting his TV series Breaking Bad, which is currently winning all kinds of acclaim.

Usually, TONY doesn't like me to include too-specific elements to the portrait backgrounds, but for this week they asked if I could add some sort of little design thing to reference his character in the show, who produces illicit drugs to make ends meet.

So I added two test tubes and a beaker, and for whatever reason, I saw the opening credits to Rocky & Bullwinkle in my head (no, I'm not on said illicit drugs), during a part where they had some sort of sketchy colors (like how I have the dark blue), and superimposed over the colors were some shapes, but reversed so that they were white outlines.

Why I thought this was the way to go for this, I don't know, but went with it I did, and I actually really like it--it gives the piece a lighter touch (which I think fits the show), and it looks kinda spiffy. I'll have to try that again sometime.

Thanks, Jay Ward!

From The Vault: Hawkeye & B.J. - 1994

I am hip-deep in another set of portraits for Capital G, so I haven't had much time to work on anything new.

But I wanted to put something up, today at least, so I went back into the vaults to find something timely. And since over the weekend I started my newest blogging venture--AfterMASH.Blogspot.com--it seemed like a perfect time to post the one and only portrait I've ever done of someone from the show (thank goodness I already prepared a week's worth of the new blog before now!).

I was still very new at this style in 1994, so I was spinning the dial, doing portraits of all my favorite actors, actresses, and musicians, and seeing what I could bring to each of them with these cut-paper portraits.

This is one the first ones I ever did combining a black and white portrait with a color element, and the very first one where that color element is the actual color seen in the picture--namely, the green fatigues Alan Alda and Mike Farrell wore as their characters.

I was really happy with this piece at the time, but when I look back on it now I see how weak the likeness of Mike Farrell is. Maybe when I get some time I'll give this another spin...