Star Wars: Episode VII/Star Trek mashup movie posters

I’ve made two new Star Wars Episode 7 mashup movie posters, done in the same spirit as my last Star Wars/Little Miss Sunshine mashup poster. This time they’re a riff off this Star Trek: Into Darkness poster, since that director J.J. Abrams has been announced to also direct Episode 7:

One of the fun things about making Episode 7 fan art is sitting back and coming up with scenarios that might theoretically occur in the new sequels. There are many unanswered questions for them to address, such as which principle characters will drive the plot, which locations will be used, and which “wow” moments will be created. I tried illustrating two very different directions for these mashups, both involving the silhouette of the Rebel Alliance logo replacing the Star Fleet insignia from Star Trek.

For this first poster, I went to the Star Wars canon from the novels, where Luke Skywalker, now a Jedi Master, returns to planet Yavin IV with R2D2 to set up the new Jedi order at the Massassi temple. I’m fairly certain the Jedi order will begin to be remade in Episode 7, and will continue to grow throughout the new trilogy.

The second mashup features an unknown Jedi padawan, surveying a battle-ravaged Coruscant, where massive fleets of Mon Calamari and Imperial Star Destroyers wage war above the planet’s smoking skyline. I have faith that Coruscant will play a big role in the new films, since it was the home base for the Empire before expanding to the Outer Rim in the original trilogy, and the Rebel Alliance cannot rule with confidence unless they control the city planet. Time will tell if any of these ideas are proven correct.

See also: Boba Fett Episode VII Facebook cover image

Jury Duty sketching

Thankfully they didn't need me in court. Color done in Photoshop because I need to practice that too.

Summertime Sketching

About to get back into drawing again. Did a 2D piece recently that in no way used a computer, and it was a bit freaky. There's so much out there that inspires, but I don't want to get too wrapped up in appreciating when there's lots more creating to be done. Here are some recent entries from the sketchbook that I colored a bit in Photoshop:

Big Cat Diaries! Because my TV is closer to me than the Zoo or the Wild Animal Park at the ends of town.

Michael Mann and Will Smith's Ali. "The Champ is Here!"

Abandoned idea for a recent Red Dead Redemption piece. For those who know the game, the idea for this was to make a drawing of the night Jack was conceived. Dutch would be glaring at John and Abigail, who share a moment as she fills his glass. Bill Williamson and Javier Escuela are joking around to the side, in their own little stupor. I think the best layout is the one penned out in the bottom left. I liked the concept for this a lot, so maybe I'll come back to it.

Hearts and Minds, from the Bodies exhibit in San Diego last year:

Pedestrians during a Chinese New Year celebration, 1997. Camcorder in the man's hands.:

Self-Portrait from last week, looking busted. 

Normally I look a little more like this (pic via The 8-Bit Cubist):

Looks like the cover of a DJ duo's album...

Kubrick, step by step

I was asked to do a picture of Stanley Kubrick by my friend Paul for his next online film review. Doing portraits of my favorite film directors is a passion of mine, and I have already drawn Kubrick's face before. After drawing it out, I brought it into the computer for a little digital coloring. Here's the phases, from raw drawing, to coloring the "flats" to the final colored portrait:

What I enjoyed the most about this one was trying to make it my own drawing, and not a copy of an existing photo.

Iron Giant Project submission: Class of '66

This week my side project has been a piece for the excellent fan art blog The Iron Giant Project. I'm titling my piece "Class of '66," since it is an imagining of Hogarth's high school graduation in Rockwell, ME.

The original idea was of Hogarth walking along the lake where he swam in the movie and holding the Polaroid photo first taken of the Iron Giant. It evolved to a piece that contained the two other main characters, as well as the Iron Giant statue, which is showing some signs of age by this point (notably in the form of "visits" from birds). In the sky is the recycled glowing star of when the Giant exploded with the nuclear missle at the end of the movie. I thought about framing the piece as a Polaroid picture at first, but I wanted the full Iron Giant statue with the glowing star, and the aspect ratio was too rectangular this way. The background started with screenshots I took of paused YouTube clips, combined with a lot of Photoshop painting to establish the trees and grassy hill.

Here are my "model sheets" for the reconceptualized characters, which were made by digitally painting over the existing ones from the movie (thanks to the amazing Ultimate Iron Giant site):

It was very enjoyable making the clothing and style choices for the reimagined Annie, Dean, and Hogarth characters, and I did a lot of research into 60s clothing to help the accuracy. Dean's look was heavily inspired by the Beatles, who I think he would be listening to in '66--jean jacket, bell bottoms, round John Lennon glasses, and shaggier hair that's greying at the temples. Annie has a Jackie Onassis haircut and a fairly straightforward bright '60s outfit with a color palette similar to the waitress uniform she wore early on in the movie. Hogarth is in his high school graduation cap and gown--his ears remain big, but his jawline was reworked to be a bit more square like Dean's. Line quality is always crucial to making animated drawings like this successful, and it was tricky to accomplish it on a tablet.

Big thanks to Dan at the Iron Giant Project for continuing to allow submissions after the original deadline.

Camus Drawing/Photoshop retouch

Albert Camus. 2005 (touched up 2009). Graphite on paper with Digital Touchup. 7"x8.5"

One of my wife's favorite writers is existential philosopher Albert Camus. I drew the cover of her copy of Notebooks and touched it up in Photoshop. Normally I just draw and scan, but lately I like to add some selective gaussian blurring, and for this I also copied/pasted/rubberstamped certain areas to get his overall proportions a bit closer to the cover of the book (like pushing the volume of his hair more and matching the tones of his face better). Here's the original picture so you can judge for yourself:

TV Turnoff Week Promo

TV Turnoff Promo #2. 2002. Digital.

This image was originally done for the Adbusters.org submission contest for their "TV Turnoff Week." As someone who liked the idea I submitted several styles, one of which was a person turning off the television and raising the blinds to let the bright sun fill his room. This was the one they chose to put in their magazine that year. My goal is to keep submitting each year, noticeably raising the bar on the images I put forward.

Draft Wes Clark Political Cartoon

Wes Clark Cartoon. 2003. Digital painting.

In 2003 I was recruited to do some political cartoons. This relay race handoff scenario signified the possibility of General Wesley Clark being drafted into the race that Governor Howard Dean was then leading. It angered some Howard Dean fans, but at the time Clark looked like the stronger candidate to many. Eventually Senator John Kerry won the primary race, and lost in the general re-election of George Bush (seen casually walking on the track in the background). I really enjoy doing political cartoons because of the way they challenge an artist to communicate complicated issues and ideas with simple and often funny imagery. I hope to do many more.

Weezer vs. Radiohead

Weezer versus Radiohead. 2002. Pencil with digital color pass. 11"x17"

This piece came from the random observation I had one day that the two bands had a high number of parallels between the appearances of their members. Both had slight-looking frontmen, lanky and shaggy haired guitar players, and drummers of similar shape. The rest I pushed where I could to make the similarities pop. Colin Greenwood was made a referee in the "fight" to balance out the number of people on each side, and song lists were made for both bands to fit in the background. The slogan "as commercial as alternative gets...as alternative as commercial gets" doesn't have much meaning to it, other than to summarize the parallel universe theme.

Ben Kenobi and Claude Monet

Ben Kenobi. 1995. Graphite on paper with digital color tint. 4"x7".



Claude Monet. 1995. Graphite on paper with digital color tint. 8.5"x11"

Portraits will always be a central aspect to my work. I started exploring abstract work in college, but before that I spent most of my time practicing realism and accurately replicating pictures in magazines and books without a grid (to better test proportions). These two came out pretty well for being somewhat quick, and the Monet got me a bit closer to getting fabric textures down. Although my portfolio doesn't have much diversity in it for these years in my life, I'm glad I focused on graphite and realism because of the solid foundation of 2D skills they gave me once I branched out to color and other mediums.

Greener Guy: Issue 1 Cover

Greener Guy: Issue 1. 2000 (colored 2009). Multimedia. 11"x17".

Time to add some color in this blog! This was done during my time at the Evergreen State College, a very liberal arts school that had its share of dreadlock'd folk. I loved the culture there, and did this as an homage to the conflicting nature of so many people I'd met: outraged and motivated on one hand, and hedonistic and free of responsibilities on the other. It originally debuted on the college newspaper's art page, and I revisited it years later with a digital color pass in Photoshop. As I colored it, I tried to convey the gray and desaturated campus (as it was most days).