Introducing QiWi

What is a QiWi you may ask? Well, he's not a fruit… or rather, he insists that he is not (I beg to differ, on occasion)

QiWi is a type of chimaera, a blend of several animals that make one magical critter (like griffins, mermaids and enfields). His particular type is called a Tirsu (Tier-soo).

*He’s also my new mascot & studio helper. He doesn’t have an artistic bone in his body, but with that handy gripping tail of his, he’s always ready to hand me what I need while I work. QiWi, where’s that cup of coffee I asked for?!

QiWi does think himself rather handsome, so he wanted me to share a bit of the process of how he came to be. It all started seven years ago…

Pt 1When I initially started designing a brand for myself there were a few important elements I wanted to include: I wanted it to be something unreal (I wanted to make it up) and having elements that were drawn and designed (after all, I do illustration and design). I sketched a horse-like critter in my notebook, scanned him, created vector artwork from the sketch, and blended the two. I kept things black & white because I wanted to highlight the color in my artwork… plus I was tired of seeing white backgrounds everywhere. Whatever, I’m over it - I need color now.

Pt 2I decided I needed an update, I didn’t want to start from scratch. So I took the old icon and started tinkering. I’d never drawn that original critter any other way, so I started playing with showing him in different positions, and even facial expressions.

Pt 3Then I started getting down to the details, okay he’s still very horse-like (what can I say, I like horses and I’m really good at drawing them). But he’s also got a very long neck like a giraffe and a curved back like a dragon or a dog. I’m not sure about the mouth feature yet - but he does have a bit of a cow nose. I spent quite some time trying to work out his feet - it was one of the features I wasn't particularly not happy with from the initial concept. I didn’t want him to have hooves, and I didn’t want them to be just paws - I eventually landed somewhere in between creating a kind of toed hoof (which is somewhat ironic given that a hoof is a toe, that’s right, for those of you that didn’t know, horses have four single toes). I was going to have a tufted tail (as you can see from the rough sketches), but I went back to the flowy horse-tail when I decided he would have movement control of each hail - like a million extra arms that work together to grip like hands.

Pt 4Now that I had a good sense of his overall structure and details, I just started sketching poses again and I landed on a unique one I thought would work well to compliment my new logotype (hand lettered - I’ll share that in another post soon) and my branding overall. It’s a unique position (horses and giraffes don’t sit, but dogs and dragons do). After the initial rough idea, I added the elements that help him identify with me (as my mascot & helper - he’s holding some of my tools). I also liked the tilt of his head, it’s almost inquisitive.

Pt 5Next… color. Always tough when you’re making things up as you go. I never had to think about this in the initial design, but luckily I’d already decided on a color palette for my new website, so I had something to start with. I did several of color studies, but ended up sharing these four with some of my trusted advisors (i.e. my crit group) and the consensus was V4. I had to agree, it’s unique, has an exotic feel to it, and it’s the least real-horse-like of the group. And there are aspects of this coloring that are reminiscent of a horse character I designed back in the 5th grade for a class picture book project. I kinda of liked the nostalgia of it.

Pt 6Then, I admit, I felt a bit rushed. I was anxious to get something done that I could share and get up on my new website & blog. Working digitally allows for extra editablility in the developmental process - so I decided to go vector first. It allowed me to work out a couple problem areas without redrawing 50 million times, plus is gave me wild freedoms in developing design elements for the website and branding I need him for. It’s a good place to start. I will use this finalized vector art to help create a finished version in graphite (which will be colored digitally) and a colored pencil version (which everyone is going to like the best - they always do).

Pt 7And so, here we have it… final vector line art and color. With a couple silhouettes for fun. I like silos, but since he’s a critter I made up and people aren’t familiar with him yet, it’s a bit confusing so I probably won’t be using them any time soon.

I just love making things up, and it’s been a lot of fun figuring out QiWi’s look. I can’t wait to share more versions of him and more poses… and perhaps, one day - a QiWi adventure!

New Work: NESCBWI Conference 2011 Illustration & Promo Material

This year I had the honor of being asked to create an illustration and promo material design for the New England Region of the Society of Children's Books Writers and Illustrator's annual conference. The theme of the conference this year is "Celebrating Milestones" because both the SCBWI and the NESCBWI are celebrating big anniversaries.

Honestly, I really got myself worked up over this one. I mean, the PRESSURE. I was struggling with the deadline, the theme, and what style to go with. But with the help of my crit group pals, I finally landed on a solid concept that fit the theme and would be fun for me and my whimsical-fantasy artwork preferences. The main idea was based on the Gloucester Sea Serpent, a New England local legend, which grew to include a sailing ship to represent a long, on-going journey. I threw in a couple subtle references to the organizations - a feather pen for the writers, a brush for the illustrators and a kite to honor SCBWI National.

This was also a bit of an experimentation for me. I knew I wouldn't have the time for my favored colored pencil work and since I also love line drawings and work with vector art often, I decided to play around with blending both. I arrived at the final stlye by combining a vector color base, layered with several textures to add an organic feel, and finished it off with a layer of hand-drawn line work on top, to bring it all together.

All in all it's been a very fun project and experience. The conference organizers have been wonderful to work with (and so patient with me!). I can't wait to attend the conference myself, this May. :)

New Work: Sticker Monday, "Bakery"

Happy November! Thanksgiving is coming up and I thought I'd share a vector sticker sheet this week, based on FOOD. Sweet, yummy, baked food. I don't know if you all go the the Bakery in preparation for Thanksgiving, I usually don't -- but how tempting it is!

This is a pretty straight forward design, not much changed from sketch to finish. I really enjoy this kind of theme, because I'm not only illustrating yummy goodies, but I get to make up a fake little identity theme for the bakery as well.

New Work: Sticker Sunday - "School Senior"

Still in September, continuing along the school theme… here is an interesting sticker project I worked on a while back. It's a more "designy" illustration style and you can see I put a lot less detail in this sketch - it was more about concepts than beautiful rendering. This is one of the ones that changed the coloring after I had approval and the final art was delivered:The client gave the instructions for a fun graphic style with icons that included words. I also did "freshman", "sophomore", and "junior" - and each one had a dominant color theme. They didn't make many changes to those, but they obviously decided they didn't like the color way I'd chosen for this and changed it at some point. This is part of the production process and really doesn't bother me - they are still really fun stickers!

I had no idea what material they would be producting these stickers in when I completed the designs. Turns out they did layered mylar! Super fun and fancy! I happen to have some samples and snapped a few pics - they really don't do them justice, but you can get an idea of the layering and dimension, as well as the glossy metallic sheen.

New Work: Event Poster

For nine days in October, the New Mexico skies are painted as hundreds of balloons lift off from Albuquerque's Balloon Fiesta Park. The annual Balloon Fiesta, is Albuquerque's biggest public event, by far. It's always an exciting time of year for those of us that live here.

Cottonwood Printing Co. is comfortably situated out by Balloon Fiesta Park and holds a private breakfast one morning during the week, for viewing the Mass Ascension – a launch of all the participating balloons, a major feature of Balloon Fiesta since its earliest days. In honor of this event, each year Cottonwood prints a poster and gives it away to clients and local businesses to promote the event. This year I was given the opportunity to work on this poster. I'm happy to share this new work here now - finally, something I can post in actually time!

As a bonus, it looks like they're going to print the following black & white image as a coloring page give away to children attending the event.

Illustration Friday: INTRICATE

So, it's been a really long time since I posted for Illustration Friday. I've got my friends & colleagues hooked on it so much that we have a weekly 'date' to set aside two hours every Friday afternoon at a local coffee bar with free wifi. But when I get there I realize I have an email to answer, or I have a deadline to meet, and I somehow blink and the our time is up. Of course, this week's theme (so right up my alley) called for a little time to be spent - I thought about it for a couple days and realized I could combine this theme with another project I've been wanting to work on - Custom 52!

So here it is, in progress - my intricate deuce of diamonds. Will post updates as they come!

NEW WORK: Family Crest Design & Illustration

I get some unusally requests from time to time and they usually end up being the most fun to work on. This is a family crest I was asked to design and illustrate. My client came to me with very specific requests that I used to create this detailed, traditional looking crest with some very modern elements. My client is very happy with the results, an so am I!