AIGA INK OFF!

Just rattling off a few new posts on this fine Monday morning. I recently took part in AIGA's Ink Off event, where I took on local comic book artist Matthew Allison in a "battle to the illustrator death." Holy shit guys. I've never done live art before, let alone timed competitive live art. Normally I'm under the impression that an hour isn't enough time to do anything. But when your brain is whirring, and your opponent is flying through some familiar characters, there's nothing left to do but sling some ink, and fast! You can see the final product while I'm talking, got some good shading in just before the buzzer.

Ink Off! Ice Cream Social from AIGA Colorado on Vimeo.

2010 SKETCHBOOK

I finally got around to scanning and putting together the 2010 Sketchbook section of my website this week! Almost forgot to do it, I've been so slammed between working and planning my wedding. Only four months until I never think of napkin patterns again people!!! You have no idea what that means to me.

Maybe I'm not posting enough sketches on this "sketch blog," because most of this stuff never ended up here until now. I'm posting little snippets and thumbnails like these more frequently on my twitter account if you'd like to keep up with that.

Enjoy all 18 pages of my 2010 Sketchbook at josholland.com

STS9 POSTER / TECHNIQUE PROCESS POST

I was asked to create another Conscious Alliance poster for STS9's upcoming winter tour, but unfortunately one of the band's members became ill and the tour was cancelled. This poster will be completed and sold at a later date, but I wanted to document my technique in the meantime for those who have been asking.

STS9 poster (without tour info)

pencil/digital

1. The rough sketch for this piece was done digitally to save time. I begin by pushing and pulling shapes until I've achieved an idea that's polished enough to move forward with. Normally I do a color study at this stage as well. This omission of my process came back to bite me in the ass, as you'll soon see.

2. This is what my final pencils looked like scanned, cleaned up, and isolated on their own layer in photoshop. The drawing is not 100% complete, but will suffice as the base layer of the piece. Time to make with the color.

3. My original idea was to make the space eel radiating rainbow colors, and keep a neutral color palette for the rest of the piece. I begin by isolating sections into shapes below the drawing layer, and painting onto those shape layers. This is tedious work with the pen tool, but necessary for easy changes later.

4. The piece begins to take shape as color is applied to the line layer and additional background shapes. I begin to second guess my rainbow palette at this stage, when the colors aren't allowing bright enough values. I then bang my head into my desk repeatedly, as additional punishment for not doing my color study upfront.

5. Being a winter themed tour, I decided to change the rainbow colors to minty greens and an all cool palette. The omission of rainbow colors is allowing the eel to pop and glow against dark space in the way I originally intended. I plop the STS9 logo into place indiscriminately. That needs to change already...

6. I find a better place for the logo, add lighting effects, and sketch in what will be the final drawing elements digitally. Time to go back into drawing mode.

7. This is the final drawing layer with the included stars, lightning, fire, and transparent figure details. These were not done in the original drawing stage because they overlap the underdrawing, and I wanted them to be transparent.

8. The final image takes shape with subtle halftones and color applied to the remaining elements. My desired level of polish is achieved, and the client calls to say nevermind. Just another day in the life of a professional illustrator.

SKETCH-A-DAY: ARTHUR MITCHELL

Another Dexter sketch. If you haven't seen the show, you should. You'll never look at John Lithgow the same after seeing his role as the "Trinity Killer."

SKETCH-A-DAY: DEXTER MORGAN

I may be crazy for trying to do sketch-a-day this week, but here goes. I'm limiting my time on these, so we might see a frantic scribble post by Friday. This first installment is an homage to someone I'm extremely happy to have back in my life.

I HEART CONAN CONTEST

Watching Conan's last night on The Tonight Show admittedly left me a bit misty eyed. It's funny how seeing something come to an end can teach you just how important it really is to you. I realized I've been watching Conan since I was 13-years-old; that's over half of my life! Feeling inspired by the massive outpouring of love for Conan, I set out to make an epic homage featuring all of my favorite Late Night characters. After countless sketches and a lot of wasted paper, I realized this is a job for a wacom tablet and the forgiveness of photoshop. So here it is, my super sloppy final sketch. Check back in a few days for the finished pencil drawing, and a contest to name as many characters as you can for a prize! Hold your guesses.

HIPSTER FABULOUS

Hey all, it's been a few. Well, life's been crazy on my end, mostly because I finally proposed to my girlfr- er fiance Shannon Bonatakis after 7 plus years. We've come a long way since that fateful day in illustrative drawing class, when I wooed her with my sardonic charm and underwear model good looks. So we're neck deep in wedding planning and it's eating up most of my free time at the moment. BUT I'm making a new year's resolution to blog more frequently so please hit subscribe, snag my RSS feed, bookmark me, follow me on Twitter, do whatever you do and expect some fresh graphite when you come back.

So this new piece is for a PBR show in Denver this Saturday at Illiterate and Indyink. I'm honestly not a huge fan of Pabst, but you can't deny the hipster loyalty PBR has earned over the last decade. I'm much more fond of a hoppy microbrew when I lust for ale, so I guess I'll have to kick out my homage to Stone Brewing Co. soon.

Final illustration

Some sketches and WIP drawing

Transferred on wood and varnished

WTWTA FINAL SKETCH

Close enough. Moving straight into the final pencil drawing from here. I still have a few decisions to make, but my foreground is worked out well enough to move forward.

TERRIBLE YELLOW THUMBNAILS

Surely there should be some sketches on this sketch blog right? Well I've been working on a piece for the Terrible Yellow Eyes blog, perfect opportunity to get some progress pics up. Here's my initial batch of concepts. Working out a final sketch now.

DENVER ZOO

Went to the zoo today to get back in the habit of drawing from life. As you can see, I prefer the animals that don't move around too much. Only had 3 hours, I plan to give myself a whole day next time. Took a while to get warm, I haven't done this in like 6 years. Brutal.

UP

Few can understand the love between a small mailman and a giant flightless tropical bird. What? You haven't seen 'Up' yet? What the hell are you waiting for?

HAIR STUDIES

Just keeping my hand warm, drawing some hair from reference, catching up on MMA podcasts. Why, what do you do on a Wednesday night? ..... Oh. That is much cooler.

KUTA

Trying to get back on the daily sketch bandwagon for a bit. I'm a big fan of Sean "Cheeks" Galloway, who is doing a contest on his site involving his new vinyl toy "Kuta". Seemed like a good excuse to study Sean's shaping a bit, and bang out a sketch in the process. Fun!

PROMO TEASE

I got sooo close to finishing a rather involved drawing tonight. Here's a super closeup. More tomorrow...

NEW PROMO WORK

I'll be kicking out some new promo work in the next few weeks. Here's the first sketch.

BILLY MITCHELL IS GOD

I just watched The King of Kong on Netflix this weekend. It's a documentary about a group of world class gamers from back in the Pacman era, and the controversy surrounding a newcomer claiming a world record Donkey Kong score that hadn't been beaten in 20 years. Great stuff. But the best part to me was this guy named Billy Mitchell, who played a fantastic villain in this world of nerd prestige. I had no choice but to make an illustration of him. Here's the first progress shot, and the trailer for the flick. Go find it.

GUESS THE MUSICIANS

These were all requests by commenters (one is Shannon's). First one to guess them right gets something in the mail. If I didn't mess up the likenesses this should be easy right? I'm scared. Get it right.

OFF THE WALL

Off The Wall MJ, as requested by Jack Gregory. I'm not sure if he knew it or not, but this is my favorite incarnation of Michael Jackson by far. Yes, better than Thriller. Did anyone see him make his big "comeback" today? I think a true comeback for the king of pop might require a time machine at this point. It's been a bad couple of decades for Michael Jackson fans, hopefully he can finally get some help soon.

Keep the requests coming!

KAREN O

She told her "no no no".

SPANK ROCK

No it's not Urkel. But if you must make the comparison he's more like Stephan Urkell. These music sketches are just going to be quick face studies of varied musicians I think. Likenesses are definitely not my strong suit, but I need to draw out of my head a bit less.

I'm beat. Just finished helping Shannon ship out the last pieces, and we got our first night off in a looong time. Sleep...