Get Abstract and Love It

Every once in a while I get a job that arrives out of the ether of the internet, as opposed to contacts I build through other contacts and conventions and such.  I recently created a book cover for a client who contacted me because his current book title matched with the title of a personal piece I did last year, Tabula Rasa, seen HERE.

While most of my work focuses on the figure, the client really wanted an abstract shape for the cover and I took on the challenge as an opportunity to experiment with various media and Photoshop techniques. These are some of the test designs:

Below is the final cover that the client selected.

The gig went so well that the client asked me to streamline his current logo as well. Below is the original logo that he had been using, my goal was to simplify this logo while keeping similar themes and the essence of what he wanted the logo to say about his company.

Below is the final logo, that we settled on.

And this is the logo without type as it would appear on the spine of the book.

Aaand because I can't do a post without showing off some form of distorted human figure, I have included the last two sketch covers I created for the Alpha Comics Artist Challenge. Alpha Comics is a great local comic store, Chris H. is the owner and is a super nice dude, and the contest itself always has talented, cool contributors.

This Walking Dead cover won me some markers!

Too Cool to Live

I received official word that one comic project I was hoping to pitch is pretty much dead (or undead) in the water. But something good comes out of every endeavour and this project was no exception!

It was a zombie themed book and it was my first collaboration with fellow recent ACAD grad Lyndon Navalta. It was just so damn exhausting trying to compete with the guy that I just gave in and decided to collaborate with him, haha.

Seriously though, with Lyndon's inks and colours on top of my pencils, I don't believe my work ever looked so good. And though this project fell through, I think we created some great visuals and I am dead set on doing a project with him soon. Met a few other cool cats that I hope I will get a chance to reconnect with as well.

These are the initial character designs.

In other comic news, Riley Rossmo and Alex Link just released DRUMHELLAR from Image this week and it is absolutely killing it! I did up this pic below to drum up some word of mouth but, truth be told, they don't need it, because the word is out and the word is: YEEEEAAAAHHHHHH! SHAMONAY!

And last, but certainly not least, the future! With one comic pitch down, the right thing to do is move on to the next one, and this is Dash Bradbury! Something I am cooking up with Tim Daniel (of CURSE for Boom!) and Jesse Young (based on his short comic Here We Go!) I won't spoil any plot details (Jesse's story is a good starting point) but if this goes well I will get a chance to draw everything that ever was.

Plus I'm working on something with the infamous Mr. James Davidge. More on that when I can.

Until then, fingers crossed.

Once more into the breach!

Grouches Bounce (or) Animals Need Wellies, Too!

I am currently in the eye of the hurricane, a moment of calm before the next perfect storm of deadlines rear their ugly heads. So now is the time to update Nick Soup. Update with a vengeance!

All of my spare time this month was spent wrapping up some children's e-books, the most recent being Noah, available soon at Anklebiter Publishing! Written by William Francis, it is a whimsical retelling of the 2013 Calgary flood from the point of view of the animals, awaiting their saviour Noah and being greeted by our own Mayor Nenshi instead. Here are a few choice images!

This book will be available before Christmas aaaaand a portion of the proceeds will be going towards Alberta Flood Relief, which is awesome!

But what if you just can't wait for your all-ages infusion of cartooney fun times!?

You're in luck!

Available now is:

Grouch, also by William Francis, reveals a fun back-and-forth between a father and son and the e-book can be purchased here now. Below are some more samples:

This last image is a fun, little pattern I did that shows up throughout the story on the kid's pajamas. That's it for today's post, but things have been busy so I will be making a few more this week.

Sleep well, my friends.