The New Yorker: Doctor Who

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.

Washington Post: GSD

May Medical Mystery illustration for today's Washington Post. Art Director Brad Walters.

Grantland: Hagler v. Leonard

 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.

Brush + Ink: May

Some new excerpts from the daily drawing exercise.

Mother Jones: Nuclear Truckers

I got a call from Tim Luddy at Mother Jones to illustrate an article by Adam Wienstein about nuclear trucking routes through major cities and across the US. The security safeguards and trainings were interesting to learn about, but for the sketches I tried to come up with some scenes that conveyed the ominousness of these unmarked trucks and their radioactive cargo against the roads and cities we use every day. The issue is on newsstands now, much thanks again to Tim Luddy for the assignment.

Süddeutsche Zeitung Magazin: Destinations

A few months ago I had the opportunity to work on a series of illustrations for Birthe Steinbeck at the German Newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung. It was a travel feature on extreme destinations around the globe (the deepest cave, the flattest place, and the steepest stone wall) and an interesting challenge to work primarily without figures.

The New Yorker: John Carter

Last week I got a call to illustrate the John Carter film review for this week's New Yorker. Not having seen the film at the time, I pored over the (surprisingly) great selection of early teaser previews and clips from the movie while working on the sketches below. Ultimately we went with the giant monster attack scene, which was (not surprisingly) super fun to work on. Much thanks to Jordan Awan for the call.
 

Brush + Ink

Brush and ink sketches from the past week.

Washington Post: PBA

The February Medical Mystery is out in today's Washington Post. The piece is about a man who was struck by a drunk driver, sustaining a severe brain injury that left him with aphasia, and suffering from random, uncontrollable emotional outbursts.

Below are the quick thumbnail idea sketches, where I was trying to think through different scenes and explore how to connect the elements of the story clearly. The tricky part, I discovered, was how to illustrate the context of the severe crying episodes, which were inexplicable, and often unrelated to the surrounding circumstances. I submitted the two refined sketches below, and ultimately we went with the elevator direction, which was drawn up on paper with ink and then painted digitally using Corel Painter and Photoshop. Art Direction by Brad Walters.

The New Yorker: Chronicle

I got my first call from The New Yorker last week to work on a quick turnaround illustration for a review of the new film Chronicle which opened this weekend. The films found-footage style seemed like an interesting and grounded take on the superpower origin story, so I tried to play off the 'character' of the camera lens' in the sketches below. After the first round of sketches, I refined a couple of them, adding in more characters in the fourth sketch, which was then chosen for the finish. Ultimately, the piece didn't see print, but it was a blast to work on.