Boca Raton Library Poster

I just wrapped up a promotional package for the Boca Raton Public Library. The Friends of the Library are putting on their first of what is to become an annual Book Fair and they asked me to illustrate and design a poster that would be used as mailers, fliers and advertisements.

Some initial sketches

The only directions they gave me were to involve "books and Florida," the latter to include things like beaches, palm trees, etc. While my initial idea was more of a pulling behind or lifting up a library card to reveal the swirls/magic scene, the Friends asked that it be changed to an opening book. As with any print project, I'm looking forward to seeing all of the materials in print. If you live in the Boca Raton area, you can visit the book fair February 5th and 6th at the Spanish River library branch.

Early color comp with initial copy

Teddy Scares Holiday Card

Joe DiDomenico from Applehead Factory asked me to work with fellow Ape Entertainment artsist Lawrence Hugh Burns in creating this year's Teddy Scares holiday card. Lawrence and I have both worked together with the Teddy Scares characters before so it was easy to slip into that mode again. He has a great ability to not only animate his characters but to fill an image with lots of background elements. It's sometimes a challenge working colors with a dense image like this, but the unique look he brings to the setting is always a great payoff.

Copies of the holiday card will be going out to Applehead Factory's fan club and friends, and I'm excited to be a part of the circulation this year. If you want a copy of the card, I think you can find them on Facebook or join their memership club on their website.

Sketch by Lawrence & Approved color comp.

Jay Z and the Illuminati

I got an email from Ioana Veleanu at the Philadelphia Weekly to do this week's cover image. The blurb for their main article was about how some hip hop fans believe that the success of artists like Jay Z and Kanye West is linked to their memberships in the Illuminati- a cabal of the wealthiest people in the world who, according to some, uses the force of their shadowy hand to steer the course of world events. This is actually a thing people believe? This was news to me so naturally I went to the internet for some info. My favorite refute to the theory is that, obviously, Kanye West has too big a mouth for the Illuminati and that if he was a member, the Illuminati-Freemasons-Satanists would have had him killed like Tupac and Michael Jackson. Seriously. Read it here, 9th comment.

I worked up the following sketches, trying to incorporate Masonic imagery and Renaissance mysticism.

Sketches done digitally from pencil thumbnails

We went with Sketch 3, but the article had grown to incorporate black politicians and celebrities, so the art director asked me to remove Kanye West and insert Barack Obama and Oprah.

I've mentioned before that I don't have much experience with celebrity likenesses, so this was kind of a struggle to get the faces to the magazine's approval. It's now available in Philadelphia until next Wednesday. Enjoy!