May 29, 2012

The New Yorker: Doctor Who

New Yorker: Doctor Who Illustration
Getting assignments to work on something you're a fan of is always fun, but getting to work on something that you become a fan of while working is especially cool. I got a call from The New Yorker to illustrate a Doctor Who piece by Emily Nussbaum for the Sci-Fi issue and immediately regretted having put off watching the series. However, there's a lot to be said for being immersed in an entirely new subject while sketching and, in the case of the Doctor Who series, the only real visual struggle was editing down the wealth of great locations and monsters. Below are some of the unused rough sketches and the four sketches I cleaned up to submit. Thanks again to Chris Curry for the consistently fun assignments, and to the BBC for an exceptionally smart show.
New Yorker: Doctor Who roughs + sketchesNew Yorker: Doctor Who iPad

May 16, 2012

Grantland: Hagler v. Leonard

Grantland: Hagler/Leonard Illustration
 The new issue of Grantland, McSweeney's sports quarterly is on stands now with a huge amount of really nice artwork and essays. I had the good fortune to get to work with Juliet Litman on an illustration for a piece by Eric Raskin recounting the hotly debated oral history of the 1987 Hagler vs. Leonard fight. The crux of the piece being how subjective the calls were depending on perspectives and tastes of the judges, and how far from clean-cut the final decision was. Below are a few of the steps of the process, beginning with thumbnails done while reading the article, followed by sketches on the idea of conflicting viewpoints, and then the ink drawing layers. Grantland: Hagler/Leonard process