NEWS

Hey everyone,

I'm on vacation in California until July 1st. In the meantime, here's a black and white illustration of a popular actress. Guess who it is...

ciao

f.

Hello friends,

I did this a couple of weeks ago for National Geographic Adventure's David McKenna. The article was about the type of physiological changes that people undergo in moments of extreme stress. Perception of time, acting purely on instinct, and overly jittery nerves are among the effects many people experience.

The opening story was about an American Diplomat at a party in Columbia that gets taken over by terrorists.

These sketches are a lot tighter than what I usually do. I've been listening to the biography of Walt Disney lately and his tendency to push for perfection from his artists got me inspired to try harder. You'll notice that in this first version, he looks an awful lot like Walt--I swear this was unintentional.

Anyhow, in this particular illustration I was trying to focus on the phenomenon of time slowing down while under extreme stress. To achieve this I wanted to have things like bullets suspended in mid air and lots of pictorial depth. I wanted to show a "moment in time" that I wouldn't normally illustrate. The goal was something that felt like frozen movement instead of action movement. I don't know if I achieved that or if it even makes sense to anyone but me--but that's what I was going for.


Originally I did the lead character on this first illustration as the character described in the story (bearded) The editors at National Geographic Adventure decided that it would be better, though, to go with a more general looking "everyman." And then, an "everyman" with more of a chin. He looks a bit like George Clooney to me in the final version.


Here he is inked. You will note he was put into more casual, cool guy attire before moving on to the color stage.


For colors I felt really clever riffing off the bright red and yellow scheme of the magazine. Later I decided it was stronger without the yellow, and at the advice of superillustrator Nathan Fox, I got rid of the lighting. The piece evolved into being a lot more film noir than I usually do.

Then he got a tie!

Then his sleeves got lengthened!

In the end the one they went with was with both a tie and long sleeves. However, I will keep the original finish as my portfolio piece because it's my favorite.


I'm really happy with the job in the end though because I thought the layout that art director David McKenna came up with was pretty sweet. To see the other images you should pick up the magazine when it comes out next month.

later!



Frank

Labels: National Geographic, terrorists

Hey friends,

Recently I did these illustrations for Seattle Magazine, about a guy who got attacked by a black bear.


I don't do a lot of animal illustration so I spent a lot of time gathering bear reference online. There isn't really a lot of good action shots of bears moving aggressively from multiple or interesting angles so I was still forced to make up a lot of it. During my research I also bought a couple of animal anatomy books and a great animal drawing book by Ken Hultgren that I recommend to anyone who's interested in an inventive approach to animal drawing.



By the way, you will notice an RSS Feed icon beside the "NEWS" link now. I've been struggling trying to figure out how to get an RSS Feed onto my blog for quite some time. Fellow artist Nate Olsen volunteered his expertise and set that up for me earlier today. Thanks Nate!

Thanks for the look!

f.

On Wednesday at the Society of Illustrators in NY an exhibition of J.C. Leyendecker original paintings opened to the public. I was there for the opening and it blew my mind. I all but ignored the people I know because I was busy staring at the work in amazemement. I plan on going back this weekend and probably a couple other times over the next few weeks to see it again because I can't stop thinking about it.

J.C. Leyendecker was Norman Rockwell's idol back in the early part of the 20th century. He's got 100% of the skills PLUS a kick-ass design sense and and a very strong sense of style. He's the GTA 4 of illustrators.

Make time to check it out. The show is up until the 12 of July and is called "Americans Abroad," and features several other good golden age illustrators (but no one in the league of Mr. Leyendecker).

Here's a link to learn more


all the best,

f.

Labels: leyendecker "society of illustrators"

Often I recommend to people who are bored or stuck with what they're doing to start an "ugly sketchbook" where they experiment and do whatever they want, and to keep it private.

Well, I haven't been keeping up to that myself lately because I've been so busy... and I'm showing off some of it here, so I guess that makes me a hypocrite... but here are several pages from one of my "ugly" sketchbooks. I usually sketch in these while I'm on the train or at a coffee shop, using whatever materials I can find, including coffee, to make the images.

Anyway I've felt a bit stifled in my sketching in recent months, but after teaching part of an illustration course at MICA in Baltimore last month I found that I picked up a lot of energy from being around the students and really felt like doodling again.

Here is my official plug of the other instructors' sites:
Daniel Krall
Sam Weber
(both are real manly men and more talented than myself)




Next I'm going to start looking for a good life drawing workshop...



f.

It's Springtime!

Several weeks ago I got the call from Rob Wilson at Playboy to illustrate a spread for a short story that would be serialized in four sequential issues of the magazine. Playboy magazine was one of the magazines I've always wanted to work for since I was in school, and I had a subscription for a while because every month they would deliver to me full color illustrations by such illustrators as James Jean, Kent Williams, Phil Hale, and many others.

The story was a Pulp Fiction-like Noir piece about a bunch of incompetent unscrupulous characters.



I did just one initial sketch for this because I wanted to do something as awesome as possible. I was pretty psyched about getting to put tons of cool details and ambiguous drama into it.



The editors thought that this gave away too much of the story, and the story had changed a bit since my first version was sketched up, so I went back to the drawing board to have another go at it. I tried to focus on the quirky lead character for this second one--he's the type of guy no one expects to go crazy--but he's not the type to think things through.

They said to go ahead with the sketch and I started taking it to final...



Unfortunately, the day before the piece was done, Hef decided he wasn't happy with where the story was going and decided to kill the whole project.

Because I was so into the piece, I spent my spare time over the last week finishing it up to post on the blog. Also, it's going to be featured as a large desktop wallpaper on a "secret website" in the near future. I'll keep you posted when that happens.

Thanks for reading,



Frank

Hi,

A few weeks ago I did three half-page illustrations for Best Life Magazine on the topic of "how to be a better dad."

About a week after I turned them in I got a call from the Art Director saying they had expanded the article into more of a feature and wanted a full page illustration on the topic.

We went back and forth on concepts for a while before deciding to do the full page about "Parking Lot Rules," which is a phrase every good father will say to his son or daughter to let them know to stand close by his side.

I drew the car in the background in Adobe Illustrator, my most ambitious foray into using vectors to date. As far as experiments go, I kinda like it and hope to learn more.