New Book Cover Illustration

Cover for  The Guardian Herd: Starfire by Jennifer Lynn Alvarez

Book Covers

I wanted to get one last post in before the end of the year because somehow three posts in 2013 seem better than two, which is what I've done to this point. So here are a couple of covers that I did for books that came out this year.

 

Cover for the last book Michael Grant's Magnificent 12 series. Link

 

This has been a fun series to work on. The books are humorous action/adventure stories, and I liked the challenge of coming up with a dynamic and adventurous composition that fits the tone of the book. Like with the previous cover, I went with a crazy perspective, this time with the kids climbing on the top of the Golden Gate Bridge.

 

 

A full wrap cover for Apache Portal, by Carl Grimsman. Link

 

I never imagined that I'd ever get a chance to paint a cover for a Western/historical fiction/teen romance/fantasy adventure novel, going for an updated take on the old Western movie poster look, but that's what happened here. This cover was designed by the author who self-published it, so he gets credit for the composition. But he did let me tweak a few things to make it all flow together better, and we both like how it turned out. 



Musically inspired image

I did this almost a year ago but didn't post it because it felt like the time for posting fall colored  pictures had passed. But it's fall again so I'll post it now. So last year in the digital painting class I teach we did the assignment where you illustrate a piece of music. I told them they could do a narrative of the lyrics or just try to capture the feeling of the music itself. I decided I wanted to do the assignment too, so I did this based on the song "Landed" by Ben Folds. That song has elements of sadness, hope, excitement and emptiness all rolled into one, and it's in the music, not just the lyrics. I wanted to try and capture the way that music makes me feel in an image.  I don't know if it really worked, and for that matter, I don't know if visual imagery can ever move people as powerfully as music can, but music can certainly paint a picture in my head. And my class came up with some really good stuff on this assignment so it must have been a good exercise.

Pacific Rim Lighting

class demo on warm and cool

 

Here's a portrait study of an imaginary person that I did as a demo for the digital painting class that I'm teaching. The focus was on color saturation and how that relates to color temperature. The excercise was to do a head study using just one hue and to vary the saturation of that hue to produce warm and cool colors. From that point, it's not much of a jump to go to full color with varied hues. The image above started out as the top left version in the image below.

 

I still remember the day I had the realization that the key to being able to paint was understanding the relativity of warm and cool. Once I started to figure that out, I started to feel like I knew what I was doing when painting. Well, sort of. So that's what I try to teach in my class: values, then warm\cool, then full color.

Another book cover and a plug for Unicorn City

 

This is a cover illustration that I did for a book that was recently released. It's the third in a series of action adventure books for pre-teen readers. Here is the website for the book with more information: LINK

Looking at it several months later I feel like the perspective is a little inconsistant between the Eiffel Tower and the kids, but if I'd made it match, the kids would probably be really fish-eye distorted with big backsides. It also looks to me like the smoke monster thing is about to tap the kid on the shoulder...not very threatening. Just a tough composition overall...but I do like the colors.

I also want to call attention to an independant film that I did some artwork for-- Unicorn City--about some loveable nerds who are into the live-action role-playing thing. It's directed by my friend and coworker, Bryan Lefler. It's kind of quirky (by design) and a little like Napoleon Dynamite, which Bryan worked on. But it's really quite original with a great story and fun characters. And the best part is that it's finally available in pretty much all formats. Check out their site for the trailer and details on how to get it: LINK

I was going to post the unicorn image that I made for this movie, but I'd rather have people just see it in the movie first. Then you'll know why I'm reluctant to post it! ;) But here's the story behind it: They had filmed a scene with a really kitchy poster of some unicorns on the wall but hadn't secured the rights to use that poster art in the film. They contacted the artist who refused to let them use his art. So they needed to replace it with something else. So Bryan comissioned me to make the most intentionally cheesey, purple-and-pink-unicorns-in-love poster that we could imagine. Mission accomplished. Just see the film. You will see.

50s woman

An interpretation of an old 50s fashion photograph done just for fun.

Scarecrow

Book Cover

Here is a book cover image that I did a while back for this book.

12 iPad Sunsets

A bunch of quick iPad sketches of sunsets looking out my back window. None of them is that great by itself but I kind of like comparing them all and seeing how much the colors vary from day to day and even moment to moment.

The Hated Heat

I know most people who check out this blog probably don't like basketball. But that's ok because most people who do like basketball don't like these guys in this image either. When I was working on this I figured they would be the eventual champs. But that was before I realized that the aliens from Space Jam stole their super powers and gave them to Jason Terry. How else do you explain LeBron airballing layups and Wade dribbling it off his foot? Anyway, it was a really fun series to watch.

Dirk Nowitzki

The NBA finals start tonight, and I might actually watch this time since the Lakers aren't in it. And since Dirk and the Mavericks were the ones to dispatch the Lakers, I hope they win. Unfortunately, I don't think they will because as I was working on this portrait of Dirk, my wife said, "Oh, are you drawing Jon Heder?" And although that was probably just because of some drawing errors on my part, I realized that no one who could ever be mistaken for Napoleon Dynamite is going to beat LeBron and Wade.

From this morning's life drawing session

Done on the iPad, using the Brushes app, two hours. I like this one much better than my last few of attempts on the iPad. Painting on the iPad is fun, but it's a fight. I remember watching the documentary "It Might Get Loud" a while back and hearing guitarist Jack White talk about how he feels like playing his guitar should feel like a battle, and he's trying to conquer it. That's kind of what painting on the iPad feels like to me, and maybe that's why I haven't given up on it yet.

Clouds

Sometimes, just for practice, I will paint the clouds that I see outside my office window. I painted these yesterday, which was an exceptionally good day for clouds.

Angels

More Illustrations

These are some images that I did for the website for the book mentioned in the previous post, The Magnificent 12. I did a lot more, but these are the ones I like the best.

The Magnificent 12

This is a book cover illustration that I did for a book that just hit the stores last week. It's a fantasy adventure story with a lot of humor in it, which is my kind of book. It's for pre-teens so it's probably about my reading level, too. I really enjoyed reading it with my kids.

I also did a lot of character spot illustations for the book's website: themag12.com. If you are nine or ten years old, or know someone that age, it's worth checking out.

More iPad Paintings

The sunset one I painted last night out my back door. That effect with the red sunlight hitting the rain from behind was awesome, but lasted only about five minutes. So I tried to just get the colors and then did the rest from memory. It was done in Sketchbook Pro, but when I got it to the computer it looked too purple compared to what I remembered so I touched it up in Photoshop.

The other one was done near Memory Grove in Salt Lake City. I started that one in Brushes then switched to Sketchbook Pro because Sketchbook has a smudge tool for softening edges.

iPaint en iPlein air with an iPad

Here are a few of my first attempts at sketching some of the scenery around here on my new iPad. These were done using the Sketchbook Pro App.


I have never been a trendy gadget guy, but I have been waiting years for someone to come out with something like this. It's not quite fulfilling all my dreams yet, since it lacks the pressure sensitivity of a Cintiq, but it is close. Now I can quickly capture (or try to capture)the fleeting golden hour lighting effects that would be gone by the time I went and got out my oil paints. And I can now do digital painting anywhere I want to, even if it's a little more primitive than what I'm used to. The reviewers said that the iPad is a much better media consumption tool than a media creation tool, and they are absolutely right, but it is still a lot of fun. And all that other stuff it can do is pretty cool too.

Tree

This started as a demo for my digital painting class on how to start a painting. It wasn't a very good start. So I felt compelled to finish it to hide the fact that it wasn't a good start.