Location: Richmond, Virginia
behind his actions. While the historical facts are thin, this story will try to tie in some of the loose ends combinig fiction and non fiction. ( in the tradition of Alan Moore's From Hell and Watchmen). The image in the tope left is a Cover mock up which was inspired by comics that were popular in Bosnia when I was little such as : Zagor, Alan Ford, Blek, TinTin, and many others. The other drawings are studies of both Gavrilo and Franz Ferdinand, in addition to a environmental image where I tried to set the mood/time period/of the comic.
In other News: I am about to start my sketches for "Motherfucking Time machine", a short story written by fellow artist/writer Jed Alexander. A more humorous story line with a gritty dialogue similar to the works of Quentin Tarantino. More on that soon, so keep an eye out. Feedback, comments and suggestions on the sketches for The Spark are more than welcome. Thanks Everyone!
A conference for illustrators by illustrators(As posted by Charles Hively) Learn what it’s like out in the real world from some of the world’s most respected illustrators. Join us in an intense two-day event that will explore the ins-and-outs of promotion, provide self-defense tips on how to protect your work, give you direction on building a stronger web presence and share with you the three things every successful illustrator knows as well as talking about the do’s and don’ts of being a young illustrator.
We’ll offer studio tours, a complimentary online portfolio review as well as a Premium Subscription to 3x3 Magazine that includes our illustration annual. You’ll also receive a free copy of A Blueprint for a Successful Illustration Career.
We’ll encourage you to interact with our speakers and ask questions before, during and after the conference. We’ll top the conference off with a cocktail reception with all our speakers on our final day.
Everyone starts where you are today but by attending this conference you’ll have a better understanding of what it takes to be successful. Register today
One of the reasons I want to do this conference is that I don’t believe young illustrators get off on the right foot. No school has time to adequately prepare a student illustrator—or designer or fine artist for that matter—for the real world and as a result the illustration industry remains static. Fees haven’t changed in forty years. Illustration has lost much of the respect it once had among art directors, editors and advertisers. But I feel that can change if we provide young illustrators with a better set of tools and that’s why this conference is so important.
What I’ve discovered is that successful illustrators are all very astute business people as well as being talented illustrators. At our conference you’ll benefit from their trial and errors to help you avoid some of the pitfalls of starting your career as an illustrator. That’s good for your career. And ultimately that’s good for the industry.
And you can download the order form here.
And a few more sketches as well:
Hey Guys. So, just as promised, there will be more regular updates. Here are some more Illustrations that I've worked on recently, some of which I am re posting from the last blog in order to show the final layout withing the magazine.
The Image on the left was done for Boy's Life Magazine. It was done for a story about a group of boy scouts finding a woman suffering from Alzheimer's, disoriented and lost in Puget Sound, Blake Island.
I had to keep the woman's face somewhat ambiguous while still reflecting her age and disoriented expression. The Boy Scout were not wearing uniforms at that time it seems as I was told to keep their clothing nothing but simple shirts and cargo pants.
You can also view the attached video below that describes the event in a bit more detail.
The next illustration was done for Military Officer Magazine. It was done as a spot illustration for an article that talks about the sale of used stocks and how it is comparable to selling used cars.
My original submission depicted Warren Buffet selling a used vehicle, but then needed to redraw it and make the concept a bit clearer for the readers and show used stocks instead.
Here is the brief write up that I worked with provided by the client: Attitude has a huge influence over our decision-making. Whether we are trusting or dubious, optimistic, or pessimistic determines the matters we judge to be important in the process. A good example is buying a car. We have different attitudes when considering a new car than we do when looking at used cars. With new cars we are distracted by the, well, newness — the shiny and fresh intrigue of that new car smell. With used cars we notice the scratches, road dings, and that funny odor from the air conditioner.With used cars, we wonder why the owner wants to sell. Is he hiding something that is wrong with the car? We are, in a word, skeptical.
Buying a stock is very much like buying a used car. In virtually all cases (except for initial public offerings) the stock you buy is being sold by someone else. You are buying a used stock.
So it pays to be just as skeptical when buying a used stock as when buying a used car. In fact, you should ask the same questions: “Why does the owner want to sell? Is something wrong with this stock?”
If you find this advice silly, how would you feel if you knew you were buying the same stock Warren Buffett was selling?
This is another Illustration for MOAA. A full page illustration continuing the Super Hero theme accompanying tax related articles.
I have posted this image earlier, in my old blog, but now that I have the illustration with the final text layout, I thought I'd share the piece in its final form.
From now on, I will be doing the title text myself, giving it more of a comic book feel and giving this section of the magazine are more individual look. Below are some of the older page layouts from the same Super Hero Series.
Ellow dudes and dudettes!
I think this was the first time in about 2 years that my blog was down for more than a day. I've been redesigning my website and getting some html help from my lovely Ameenah. I tried to make the navigation of my blog more organized and also tried to free up some space, so I had to go back and delete all the old posts. However, I have re-uploaded some of my favorites from the past and organized them with tags so they can be easier accessed through the navigation bar on the right.
If you click on my logo cylinder on the left, you can view my new site. Let me know what you guys think. I have also started working on Website design, so you can view some of my first designs for the USB-04 Software company (I am still designing the site, so the link takes you to the old page) in the news section on my site (located on the far right).
In other News: This was my last semester teaching at VCU. I realized that I have been at VCU for almost eight years straight. (both as student and faculty member combined). The illustration business has really picked up over the past few years, so I decided to take some time off to focus on some personal projects and take some time to figure out what I want to do in the future.
Illustration Update:
I have not updated any new illustration work in a really long time, mainly because I barely had time to finish each deadline, much less to actually post things and write about them. Now that I can finally breathe again, it's time to share some recent illustration work. The image on the right was done for Sterling Publishing. It was actually done about a year ago, but I completely forgot to upload it. It was done for a Crossword Book Cover. I also have a version with text laid out (by me as an example) on my website, so you can view that as well. The title of the book is The Wrath Of Klahn, which is a reference to the old Star Trek Movie (The Wrath of Khan.) The publisher decided to go with a different version for the cover and used my image for this year's edition of the publication. The client wanted me to simply depict a person frustrated at the puzzle (This is the highest level of Crosswords btw), but I wanted something a little more ambiguous, so the image that you see is the result after a bit of back and forth/editing.
MASH BOX: The following images are a start of a new series for RIDES Magazine. Each month, I will be given two Hip Hop Artists whose names sound similar to various car models and I will be personifying these vehicles according to the musician's personalities. Now, those of you that know me are fully aware of my obsession with drawing cars, so this is really a dream job. 
Not only that, but the art director is really great to work with, allowing me to be as creative as I want and enabling me to work on the page design as well. And to put even more icing on the cake, I get to do graffiti for the typography of the names. So my two scent with this particular assignment are: Don't set you limits before you test them. All the small graffiti doodles in my sketchbook pages that the "art" professors looked down upon have actually just presented me with the opportunity to expand my contribution to this editorial piece. Meh! However, I still believe that the graffiti scene is absurdly abused with vandals giving the art a bad name and developing a really terrible reputation for such creative form of visual expression.
SKETCHBOOK WORK: These are some recent pages from my sketchbook. They are a combination of Life drawings, sketches from movie stills and other non-commercial ,experimental work. If you would like to view my sketchbook gallery, I have a huge selection of sketchbook pages here. This gallery will be updated regularly, so don't forget to check back every once in a while.
