Tennis – My Better Self

Anyways, in an effort to showcase my ELITE taste in music (because I vowed to last year), I have to take a moment to publicly acknowledge the newish single from The Shins, Simple Song, because it is gorgeous:

Simple Song by The Shins

I’ve been praying for The Shins to reunite for years. James Mercer can still write the shit out of a love song.

So, I promised myself that I’d make a top-ten list this year commemorating my favorite things of 2010. I’m a little behind. Let’s start off the list (counting down) with an obvious favorite, the ultra-sundae:

Me in 2012.

Me, again, in 2012.

I had been mulling over the idea of actually producing a (gasp) printed holiday card this year — inspired by Brendan’s annual postcard, which I am always jealous of. Still, I’m not sure I’m ready to commit even though I have like four business days to make a concrete decision. Also, it’s still November.

As a start, though, I’ve made a single-sheet holiday craft project that facilitates kissing: Make Your own Mistletoe. Preview here:

Download the pdf!

Okay, so the question is: do I make this into a card? Also, what is your mailing address so I can send you one if this all works out?

It really is going to be incredible! My good friend and amazing artist, Maria Berrio, is going to be helping out with the sets, ensuring that the aspect of whimsy is thoroughly covered. In addition to the poster, I made some functional collateral to support the show. You can download them right here if you are so inclined!

Cinderella desktop background (1920 x 1200)

Cinderella iPhone background (640 x 960)

Cinderella iPad background (768 x 946)

Walt Disney has made the story of Cinderella anchored by certain elements such as that blue dress that she wears and the huge castle that is literally one of Disney’s defining icons:

Also, Disney’s Prince Charming is basically a metaphorical mandard (man-standard) for any misguided young girl. P.S., I saw Melancholia last Friday (good movie, GREAT art direction), and now have my own ideas for how a real-life Cinderella would be dressed. Basically, she would be wearing Kirsten Dunst’s wedding dress (apparently designed by Danish costume designer, Manon Rasmussen):

And probably these shoes (P.P.S. Christmas is right around the corner, hint, hint):

I’ve blogged (ugh) about my recent Les Miserables project in collaboration with the wonderful Miami Childrens Theater. Not gonna lie: whenever you’re tasked with reinterpreting an iconic image such as the quasi-relevant, but much-adored illustration of young Cosette, you have a lot of things working against you from the get-go.

Here’s the image most associated with the musical production of Les Miserables (I’m sure you’ve seen it at some point in your life):

My goal was to veer away from the above and focus on depicting something that would resonate just as much with diehard Les Miz fans, but also capture the ‘spirit of the revolution’ and embody the quote by Enjorlas, “It is a time for us to all decide who we are…”

Here’s the end result:

I also worked on a slightly larger series of posters for this production – they’ll soon be available as postcards:

The bottom left poster depicts the Death of Valjean scene (largely relying on symbolism here, guys) and the bottom right poster represents the widely popular character of Éponine, a true, original emo girl.

Overall, a hugely fun project! Next up are additional marketing pieces which will be available via MCT’s website.

I’m currently scrounging around old hard drives for work to add to my design portfolio site (a.k.a: NOT this one) and naturally, things took an existential turn.

Files “last modified” in the year 2007 are bound to result in some quiet whimpers of horror, but on the other hand, they really put things in perspective (I might have gotten worse, actually). That said, I present to you a brief sampling of the work I produced during my last semester in art school. Note that I was very much into old-school editorial illustration, cats, ‘childrens’ illustration and being really self-referential:

This one is called “Depression” – the subject looks a lot like me…hmmm…:

This one is from a children’s story called “Five Little Birdies” which actually isn’t terrible and might be resurrected at some point:

This one is about failing to live up to high expectations. Again, that looks a lot like mini-me:

Here’s an example of the ridiculous amount of time you have to work on stuff in art school, naturally, I’m featured (I used to ONLY wear jeans and Converse, by the way). Click for detail:

Here’s the piece that I thought would define the start of my career (false):

THIS is actually the piece that still defines the start of my career (and, not surprisingly, is autobiographical):

And this is the illo (called “Fitting In”) that forced me to use an effect in Photoshop, thus unexpectedly shaping my current style:

~*~The rest is recent history.~*~

I did another poster for the Miami Childrens Theater’s upcoming production of Les Misérables. I’ll be executing four unique posters inspired by the storyline when all is said and done.

This particular poster’s theme? Whores!

Despite the fact that I strictly work digitally, the success (or failure) of my illustrations is really dictated by the original sketch. This time around, my initial sketch was a dud. Soldiering on in denial, I attempted to save it through the magic of Photoshop without much luck. What I ended up with was something that really didn’t give me the closure that I needed on this particular image.

C’est la vie!

Frustrated, I did what any quasi-perfectionist would do – resketch and reillustrate! Fortunately, this time around was much more successful. Here, I shall share now:

Sketch (duh)

Final (duh?)

In Design (not the Adobe shitshow program)

Seymour Chwast edition

Noir edition

And because you’re all dying to know, here’s the original FAIL version:

More Les Miz stuff soon!

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