Portraits
The GOAT himself! I used a lot of references for this one! For my design inspiration, I went with the idea of an old baseball card, but with the flair of a movie poster montage.
This illustration is published in the 2023 3x3 Annual. I think I caught the spirit of the man! For the background bridge walk scene, I wanted it to remind the viewer of an old newspaper photo to give it a historical placement and a texture to set it apart. There is much more to my decision making process on this one, feel free to ask me about it!
It is only logical that you should love this portrait. Mr. Spock. The Captain’s right-hand Vulcan. I had to include the raised eyebrow in this one. I used many reference photos, with one as the main pose. I tried pushing the dramatic lighting in this one. Look closely and you will see blues, purples, greens, and more in his flesh tones.
I took a slightly different approach with her. Some of her features are exaggerated. I had a lot of fun exploring the difference in the skin tones between her and Thing.
I’m Batman! No wait…Michael Keaton is Batman. I pondered for a long time on which version of The Batman I wanted to paint and finally settled on Keaton. A combination of movie stills and promo photos helped me put this one together.
After I completed two of the captains’ portraits I decided to keep going and combine them all into one image when I was done. This is the result. On one hand, it took about 30 minutes to make this image, since I had all of the pieces done. On the other hand, it took about a year and a half to do all of the portraits!
Based on the Fade Away Girl illustrations in the early 20th century, I blended Kirk’s uniform with the yellow moon behind him. I have plans for a Spock and McCoy for this series.
Captain Picard of the Enterprise.
Janeway is a fan favorite. I particularly enjoyed her love of coffee. I did another version of her, which will never see the light of day! Not every portrait is a winner, but we can step back, regroup, and have at it again and find a way out of the gamma quadrant.
In the scene where I took my primary inspiration, Grogu never looks directly out at the audience, I guess he respects the 4th wall. However, for this portrait, I felt that he needed to look back at the viewer, which not only makes this a more traditional portrait but also works to pull the viewer in.
I loved this show when it came out, and thought it was clever that she was not a Captain at the very beginning. We were allowed to come ona journey with her on her way to becoming a Captain and flying into the far future. The primary image I used for the portrait had a wonderful blue highlight which I enhanced in my portrait. I made a change to her uniform based on the very brief view of it we had at the end of that particular season .
The best modern Captain in my humble opinion, I captured his strong features and perhaps stronger hair!
Once he grew the goatee he became a much more fun character!
A lot was going on with his one. I painted it after watching the first season of Picard. Hidden in plain sight in the background is a very subtle circuit board pattern, and I used red in the background to reference his old uniform, with some of the insignia delta behind him and helping to frame him.
Captain Kirk from the original series. It is amazing how hard it is to find a good, clear reference from that era.
I like painting people with different skin tones. If one looks closely, one can see greens, blues, and purples in his skin tones. I do this in most of my portraits as I believe it brings life and vibrancy to them.
I think he was wearing a wig in the reference photo. Something never felt quite right in how the hair sat on his head!
I experimented a little bit with shadow in this one they are much more on the purple side of things, reflective of the jumpsuit uniforms they wear.
The Prince of Mischief. I noticed that when he wore the headgear he was always grim and serious, but his smile is what so many people were drawn to. I wanted to combine them together into one image. Getting his teeth right and the wrinkles around his eyes took some time!
It’s Strange, but who am I to judge? I used several photos of him to get things right and spent hours getting his layered clothing to look correct. For the background, I created a version of the window at the top of his Sanctum Sanctorum with a nice green magical glow.
Sabrina with dear old Dad behind her in the shadows. I could not find a good reference of her standing the way I wanted, so I had to do several drawings to get the stance right.
One of my earliest portraits. This is where I first started playing with using different colors in the flesh tones. Check out the horns behind her head.
Getting her armor right was the challenge with this one. I think I nailed it, including the gash that runs across the red part of her armor, hinting at previous battles fought.
“Doors and Corners, Kid. That’s where they get you.” One of the best characters in Sci-Fi, in my opinion. Brought to life by Thomas Jane in The Expanse, he was a futuristic-retro gumshoe detective. Pulling color from the background but still making sure he stood out enough, playing with soft and hard edges, and the different reflectivity of his hat and clothing fabric were my challenges in this portrait.
The grunge musician. I tried to keep in the spirit of grunge, and kept the brushwork loose and maybe a little bit dirty!
The Rock and Roll GOAT!
Design
From the Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan. I took elements from the story that had to do with the characters and events around him and created this crest design.
The Client gave me open reign on this one to generate ideas. We discussed the business, the name, and what he wanted to see, and after a few rough sketches, we settled on a design and color scheme. This is one of my favorite logos that I have designed for a client
The Client had a good idea of some of the elements he wanted, and after a few sketches and input from me, we decided on a direction, followed by a few more tight sketches to refine the fish shapes and typography.
Meet Cody, a Tibetan Spaniel, and an all-around fluff ball! I have an idea for a series of these with different dog breeds and other animals. This was a production sheet figuring out how many I could get to a page for print and cut.
My second proof of concept for the bookmark idea. Chloe the Shi-Tzu begged me to make one of her. Just kidding, she is a Shi-Tzu, she demanded I make one!
I created this character design for my logo for an Etsy shop. Based on the Alien franchise, but you, know, cuter. One version has a paintbrush in his hand.
A fun t-shirt design for a fictitious Sorority
I was experimenting with creating a text that fit a design sense from a specific period, and combining it with an image that evoked a similar feel. This was the result.
Another Sorority t-shirt design sample.
After all of the formal events that the sororities have, they get to let their hair down and have an informal event. This was my submission.
Gouache painting of a Great Blue Heron from my own reference photo.
An illustration for an imaginary magazine article. I showed the life cycle from birth to maturity, the egg laying was in another image. I wanted to dangers of their existence to be evident from the shadowy shark to the gulls preying on the hatchlings.
Crab! Part of a series. I liked this series so much that I am turning them into prints.
No, it’s not Nemo! A clown fish in his anemone. Part of a series.
I think pelicans are cool! THis is another in the ocean wildlife.
Another in the Ocean Wildlife Series. I liked the mouth-open tongue-out screech of this guy.
Part of the imaginary magazine project, this was for a magazine article lead-in image.
This image was designed to be static or animated. The text blocks were created on their own layers so they could be manipulated individually. Note the shadow of the gull in the bottom left corner, meant to represent dangers to one’s financial nest egg.
Can you touch your tongue to your nose? I love animals, and love doing animal-related artwork and portraits.
This pup was pure love and playfulness. She loved lying on her back and watching people. I think this portrait, taken from one of my photos, captured her fluffiness and warmth.
I turned this design into a few things. Stickers, bookmarks, and more!
I turned this design in a multitude of things, bookmarks, t-0shirts, stickers, etc.
