Tickle Monsters

Here's a Sneak-Peek at Vanessa Trien's new stickers which will debut at her big Coolidge Corner Theatre show in Brookline, MA on December 11.

I designed Vanessa's logo, and her most recent CD, Carnival Day, a few years back and she's now recording a new CD. One of the most popular of her new songs is without a doubt Tickle Monster. In fact, after going to one of her shows, a friend asked me if I had a way of getting an advanced recording of that song since I have an 'in' with Vanessa!

Vanessa asked me to design some stickers (and tattoos later!) for her show and this is what I came up with in a very, very short amount of time. The text is all hand lettered to have a fun, organic feel to it.

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I’ve been doing a lot of character development lately and from time to time I show off new characters on my blog. Sometimes they’re black and white and sketchy and other times full color and finished. If you want to see more from this series, just click this “characters” tag. You can also see a collection of characters in my Behance portfolio or on my website.

Recent Book Illustrations

I recently completed illustrations for a new book by a local (to Boston) author, Nancy Finn. The name of the book is e-Patients Live Longer and it is a book that describes how to be an e-Patient who uses the tools available in today's wired world to become empowered and knowledgeable about your health issues and take the proper actions and precautions that protect you from making critical mistakes. Yes, that's a long sentence but it describes the book so well!

I really enjoyed working directly with the author to work out what images would best describe the chapter and we went through a few rounds of sketches so I could refine the details before I created the final art.

Leo Monster

My son started Kindergarten last week and a few nights ago we had curriculum night. The teacher left out paper and crayons for parents to leave their child a note and this is what I left Leo in his cubby.

Tan Lines

I feel a little awkward telling you I went on vacation after I've already returned, but I guess it's better than announcing to the world that our home is unoccupied and available for plundering. We had a wonderful time and I was actually able to do some work between visits to the pool, the beach and, most importantly, the bed.

I did a number of sketches while away but I really wanted to show off the tan lines from my thongs first:

That's hot. I know.

And below is a drawing I did in my sketchbook (in a sketchier style than my usual) and then colored in Adobe Illustrator and finished in Photoshop.

It's good to be back!

Plaid Boy

Plaid Boy! Able to match his shirt to the background!

Actually, this is me playing with some of the new tools in Adobe Illustrator CS5.

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I’ve been doing a lot of character development lately and from time to time I show off new characters on my blog. Sometimes they’re black and white and sketchy and other times full color and finished. If you want to see more from this series, just click this “characters” tag. You can also see a collection of characters in my Behance portfolio or on my website.

Float Around

From the sketchbook.

Changing the World- Tikkun Olam

This is a t-shirt design I created for a summer camp in New York. The concept is based on Tikkun Olam which means 'repairing the world' in Hebrew. The idea behind Tikkun Olam is that we are all responsible for the world and society and must work to improve the lives of everyone around us.

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Some other designs before the client chose the final version:

I like this one because it's very straight-forward. There's the Israeli flag with the bottom (stylized) stripe doubling as the soil which is giving way to seedlings.

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 This is a fun one and might make a nice poster with additional colors.

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Maybe too straight-forward? I like the figurative meaning of the earlier designs and this one requires no interpretation- it's a little too obvious. I included this concept because I like the symmetry of the design.

Icarus/Octopus

My homage to Matisse's Icarus paper cut. A poster, print or postcard is available at DeviantArt.

Characters: Doodle Roll

I received a call from Jan at Big Blue Dot (a branding company for kids I've wanted to work with for years) to create characters for a new product called Doodle Roll. I was given a lot of room to be creative with these characters and I hope you agree that they turned out fun and friendly! In fact, if you go to the Doodle Roll website (see below) you can watch them move (a bit)!

 

Below is a page of second round sketches from which the client chose the top 6 characters for me to create a final illustration.

Final illustrations were created in Adobe Freehand and Adobe Illustrator (I was in the middle of completing a switch to Illustrator at the time of this project).

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I’ve been doing a lot of character development lately and from time to time I show off new characters on my blog. Sometimes they’re black and white and sketchy and other times full color and finished. If you want to see more from this series, just click this “characters” tag. You can also see a collection of characters in my Behance portfolio or on my website.

French Fries

Supersized fries may be gone from McDonalds but there's still an expanding (pun intended!) need for supersized pants.

(And for a funny extra-large anecdote, check out this article on how a pair of over-sized pant(ie)s actually prevented a house fire. I guess there's some good in the bad.)

Buff's Pub's New Shirt

Buff's Pub in Newton, MA is selling a new t-shirt I designed. For those not from the area, the font is the same one used by the Boston Red Sox baseball team. The Pub is something of a mini sports bar so it just made sense to connect the two images (and in the interest of full disclosure, Dave M. from Buff's came up with the concept).

Now, I'm not suggesting you should go to Buff's just to buy the t-shirt, but considering Buff's has (in my humble opinion) THE BEST buffalo wings, it's certainly worth a trip.

And here are some long-sleeved shirts I designed late last year. Most of these shirts have sold out.

Update: The day after I posted this blog update, I got a call from Buff's to reorder the Sox shirts- the shirts are hot!

Business of Art

Header illustration and modified design for an event I helped produce for the Boston Chapter of the Graphic Artists Guild. I was highly influenced by Bob Staake who I mentioned before as an influence on my Eddie Spaghetti illustration. If you click Bob's link, turn off your sound. (People- please don't force visitors to your website to listen to music!)

The idea here is that creative people in general don't like to deal with the 'business' part of their business and that will only hurt them. So here's a guy deeply entrenched in being creative, who is worried about having to do the business stuff...

Character: 3-eyed Purple Jumping Monster

Adobe Illustrator CS5 has some great new tools and I thought I'd try them out with this monster dude. While this guy's body looks painted, all of the color is actually vector! If you know the difference between vector and raster art, you'll realize just how cool this really is. To watch a tutorial on 5 of the new features, click here.

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I’ve been doing a lot of character development lately and from time to time I show off new characters on my blog. Sometimes they’re black and white and sketchy and other times full color and finished. If you want to see more from this series, just click this “characters” tag. You can also see a collection of characters in my Behance portfolio or on my website.

Step Carefully

When walking behind a slimy monster, be sure to carefully step over the tail. Don't do what Han Solo did to Jabba (54 second mark).

Groundhog Day 2011

It's that time of the year again when the Groundhog comes out of his den and looks for his shadow. That is, unless he can't get out of his home because the exit is plugged with icicles and covered with 4 feet of snow...

I live in Boston and we've been inundated with snow to the point where I'm running out of places to put the white (and sometimes yellow) stuff. And that's why I created this particular Groundhog Day cartoon this year. Enjoy!

*You can check out a bunch more Groundhog Day illustrations on this blog by clicking HERE.

By the way, you can check out the official website of the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club here.

Characters: Monster with Top Hat

Here's a charming fellow I sketched up the other day. I was interested in creating a bit of texture on his skin which I continued when I added color.

I picture him saying: "Thank you for inviting me over. Your cat was delicious..."

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I’ve been doing a lot of character development lately and from time to time I show off new characters on my blog. Sometimes they’re black and white and sketchy and other times full color and finished. If you want to see more from this series, just click this “characters” tag. You can also see a collection of characters in my Behance portfolio or on my website.

Dr. Brown's Cream Soda

Mmmmm...

Monster Coffee

Pieces of my new promo postcard highlighting 

the character development and kid's book sections of my website. 

You have to look closely, but there's a tiny little monster 

licking up the spilled sugar in the last drawing.

And here's the final postcard.