The Pit of Despair

Working on eVille has given me a great opportunity to brainstorm fun ideas for various card art. The Pit of Despair kept coming up while we were trying to think of cards that could protect your buildings, but for the longest time, no one could figure out how to make a pit interesting. We weren't trying to recreate the pit from The Princess Bride, which really was a torture chamber. We really wanted it to feel more like a booby trap. The trouble is, everyone thinks of seeing a pit from the top, rather than the bottom. Jason finally came up with a brilliant sketch. I illustrated it, and must admit that it has become one of my favorites. Unfortunately, this type of card is more downplayed inside the game, and so the artwork cannot be appreciated as often as others that are in the spotlight. Hopefully we'll be able to sell prints of some of the card art soon, allowing fans to take their own favorites home. You can see more art (and have some fun too) by checking out eVille on Facebook.

A Little Post Valentine's Day Round Up

Over the last year, I've been working more in illustration than ever before. I still end up doing lots of User Interface work, because well- it needs to be done, but most of my joy comes from completing an illustration. My current project is eVille, a card and location based Facebook game. Now that the game is live, I hope to share some of the pieces I've contributed to it a little at a time. These are two from our limited edition Valentine pack, The Florist, and Bad Cupid.

It's difficult for me to grasp where exactly I fit in the illustration world. Almost all of the pieces for the game, including the ones above, were originally sketched by Jason English, a extremely talented concept artist. I don't have the right kind of mind for translating an image in my head to paper I suppose, but when it comes to taking the sketch and making it come to life in digital form- that I can do. Both are vector images created in Adobe Photoshop.

You can see these guys in action inside the Facebook game here.

Yackle Snarling?

We just finished this creepy little piece in our moleskin. While we never know what our ink drawings are going to turn out to be, this one makes me think of Yackle from the Wicked series (except that I believe in the books she was described as toothless). We've been so consumed this year with work that we've spent little time on art, and obviously, on the blog– but that may change soon. If all goes as planned, we may have a small show sometime in the winter that we'll be preparing for over the next few months. More details to come, but you can be sure there will be lots of ink and probably lots more creepiness.

July Brings New Things and Old Ones

There are some people in your life that you always expect to be there. You've shared experiences that are irreplaceable and at some point formed a bond that has held tight. It's easy to say that I don't care for talking on the phone and that my trips back home are so short that I rarely see anyone who isn't family. It's easy to say it's a two way street. It is not so easy to accept that someone I consider to be a dear old friend just became a daddy for the second time, and I have yet to meet the first child.
When his first daughter was born, I saw a few pictures on Facebook, most of the child alone and one of the family together, but it was all too surreal to take in. I was, of course, very happy for them. Today, I saw a very different picture with the new daddy next to the hospital bed, peering down at his two daughters and it really hit me how much of this person's life I've actually missed. It seems like too many friends have slipped through the cracks. We've all taken different paths, and while I do not regret mine, I do feel a sadness at the loss of all of these shared joys, all of the birthdays and congratulations that have been passed by. I hope they all feel my love somehow, even when it goes unsaid or unseen.

New Adventures for 2010

It's been a while since my late post. They seem to keep getting further and further apart. The company that I'm now a partner in has been working mostly in stealth mode, which means I haven't been at liberty to show much of my work. Now however, we're getting closer to launch and have started some promotion, so I feel it's time to open up. The name of the game is eVille, a digital card game to be initially released for iPhone, but of course, we hope to carry it to other platforms as well. I'm currently responsible for UI and a good chunk of the illustration work, which I share with two other artists. For SXSW, we released a limited edition Armazilla card concepted by Jason English and illustrated by yours truly which you can see above. A facebook fan page has also been started where I'll be showing sneak peeks of new card art, UI, and game mechanics. Please fan the page if you'd like to stay updated. It should be a pretty fun ride :)

eVille fan page

A Few Words is All it Takes

It recently came to my attention that I've lived on the north side of Atlanta for nearly 10 years. Oddly enough, it still doesn't feel much like home, but every day, Michael and I drive past the Spruill Art Gallery. It is situated on the corner of Ashford Dunwoody Rd and Meadow, very near our apartment. As long as I can remember, they've rotated out colorful mural installations on the side of a shed beside the gallery, the sight of which brightens the intersection and has always filled me with joy.

Earlier this year, the murals were replaced with the words "Everything will be ok" in black paint on a dingy white background. Initially, I disliked the sign. I felt that whoever painted it had taken all of the color and joy of the murals away and dumped this black and white "blah" in their place. But then… it hasn't exactly been an easy year. Bad days have been followed by worse months, and many are in far dire situations than we. There was a particularly bad day that we passed the sign and I read it- perhaps really understood the words for the first time and had to hold back a few tears. The words do not promise that everything is going to be super-duper awesome tomorrow. They don't sugar coat the situation, or pretend that things aren't bad. They simply state that it will be ok. We will manage. We will get by as we always have and there will be a brighter day than today. Not perfect, but ok. There is a lot of comfort in those words and I deeply appreciate the individual that painted them there. In the months since, they have lifted my spirits on many occasions, and I can only imagine how many others they have touched by their sincerity and truth.

Introducing- Tweetery

Illustration Friday- Fly

I'm SO excited to finally be able to share this! For the past several months, Michael and I have been trying to figure out the next steps in our lives and during that process, we started building an iPhone application with some of our former co-workers. The result is Tweetery, a gorgeous little Twitter client designed and illustrated by yours truly. It's packed with plenty of the features you'd expect, and perhaps a few you don't- such as the ability to temporarily mute an overzealous tweeter! No more follow Friday madness! Just turn them off for the day! We're really proud of what has been accomplished and there is much more to come. We have a slew of features waiting in the wings to make the Twitter experience a true pleasure. Please help us out by spreading the word or downloading the app yourself! It will be $0.99 this week only!

See it on iTunes.
Check out the app site.

The Four Elizas

"modify" for IF

Eliza was one of my submissions to The Doodle Off V.3. She was originally drawn in dark blue ink, but this grid of four colors suits her better. I don't normally modify my art this way, but sometimes things just feel right.

It's been a beautiful summer. I never look forward to fall. Fall means winter isn't far behind. We've been slowly cleaning out the apartment, trying to find new homes for things we don't really need. I feel tied down when I'm surrounded by too much clutter. I'm thinking about attempting to organize some box swaps with friends in other states so we can exchange things that the other person may find useful. We've been doing this randomly for the past few years, but never planned. A yard sale is still in order, but how do you do that from an apartment?? It seems strange to me. Some vintage things will likely end up on Etsy. Selections from my letterpress collection will be in that group. Part of me hates to give them up, but I have so many! There is just this itchy feeling in the air telling me it's time for a change.

Flinging Paint

I've been experimenting lately with combinations of paint and ink. The ink is less apparent in these that I finished yesterday, but I have in my mind something that looks almost like a topographic map overlaid on top of the paint. These are very sketchy, which I like. There is less precision and more intuition than I'm used to. I need a good name for the lips. I was thinking of something silly like "Mustard", but if you have any ideas, shout them out! They will both be listed in the shop shortly :)

The Red Coat Prints!!!!

Finally! We have finally managed to turn The Red Coat into a beautiful 5x7 print! For a long time, the delicate stippling in the snow seemed impossible to reproduce, but now I've got it worked out! Only $9 in the shop. :).