Poseidon Illustration

This was another one in a series of 3 images. Mercury, Poseidon, and Atlas. Done for Overnite shipping through Wilson West Livesay Advertising. This one was also done with Acrylic, Airbrush, and Colored Pencil.

Hubbell Lighting Inc. Architectural Line Illustrations

During the Pencil Pushers days, we would tackle some projects together. In this case, Pep Freeman and I worked on a large grouping of lighting illustrations for Hubbell Lighting Inc. This is a cover from a brochure folder that showed a collage of a few of the illustrations. At first we established a sort of assembly line process. Pep would start the pencil line drawings and I would add forming color with airbrush acrylic paints. We both worked on refining the illustrations with colored pencil, brushed acrylic paints, custom rub on transfers and additional airbrushing if needed. Challenges included pre-mixing paints that would match the across all products, maintaining a similar style, and time frame. This series also led to some additional work involving lighting products.

Richmond Braves Multi Game Ticket Stub Illustration

I found this digging around for some printed samples of my earlier illustration work. This was another quick baseball illustration I knocked out for the 1996 Richmond Braves through Taylor Weirup Marketing. They had worked up the concept and I finalized it. It was another small size piece in order to make make sure that I didn't spend too much time getting caught up in the details. Acrylic, Colored Pencil, and Airbrush.

Executive Education June 1998 Cover Illustration

This was an illustration for a cover done in May of 1998 for a June Issue. Straightfoward airbrush, colored pencil, and acrylic. I can guarantee that this was pretty much done on a cold press illustration board, frisket and a huge cloud of acrylic from airbrush in the studio.

Club Commons Wyndham Pocket Watch Illustration

This illustration was done sometime in the late 90's. I am not positive who this was through, but I believe it was Taylor Weirup Marketing. The only portion I did was the illustration of the pocket watch. It's use in a marketing brochure is also shown above. Going through my earlier work I often come across examples of the tools that were primarily used during that time. For instance, the pocket watch was primarily done in pencil. The face of the watch was a custom rub on transfer. I also remember the dread of using a bone burnisher to transfer this using enough pressure to transfer the art while not denting the illustration underneath. Then came the moment of pulling back the transfer carrier and hoping that small pieces did not stick or edges did not rip or tear. Still at that time, it was our go to method for adding typographic or logo elements to our illustrations. I used this same method for adding logos to bowling balls for the Dragon Bowling Ball and Warhawk Bowling Ball poster illustrations.

Make-A-Wish Foundation Annual Reports

While working at CommuniQué Marketing I was offered the chance to do some pro bono work for the Make-A-Wish Foundation. Periodically one of the designers would layout the foundation's annual report. For the years 1999 and 2000 I was fortunate to work with the foundation in designing their annual report. The images above are scans of the actual covers. I remember these projects well, as these were the first multi-page layout design projects that I took from start to finish. While it helped the foundation it also helped me gain a better understanding of laying out multi-page documents as well as seeing it all the way through to final press run.

Hampton Jazz Fest Poster

At one point I was called about doing a poster for the Hampton Jazz Fest. At first I was super excited about doing the piece. I was going to be illustrating several jazz greats on one piece. Then reality set in. Keep in mind this was during the days when you couldn't just punch up Google and find 500 pictures of the coliseum at night. For one, I had never been there and the art director sent me a black and white xerox of the place during the day. I wasn't extremely happy with it, but then a change came in. We had to replace the previous trumpeter with Chet Atkins. I can't really remember the reasoning, but it had to be done. Again, no problem current day, but this was paint on board. I ended up taking the top layer of a Strathmore Illustration board and illustrating Chet Atkins' face. I then cut it out and placed it on the painting. Well enough to fix it for reproduction purposes. Years later after I started working on the computer, I decided to pull it in and rough up how I thought it should have been. Of course, then I was able to find reference online. That made a huge difference. The original piece is on the top and the reworked piece is on the bottom. Even now, I still have mixed feelings about it and have the urge to keep tinkering with it.

Bullets Cowboy Drive Thru Concept Illustration

During our down time in the freelance days of Pencil Pushers, we would try to come up with pieces that we could drum up work with. This was right around the time of the burger joint, "Bullets" opening and being kind of big. I wanted to do a tie in with this guy going through the drive-thru. I got this far and was side tracked with actual work. By the time I got back to it, I wasn't to much in to the idea anymore. The piece remains unfinished and lacks enough board to finish it traditionally. Was done with Payne's Grey and White Acrylic. White and Black Colored pencil for some detailing.

SMA Annual Scientific Assembly Pop Up Illustration

Testing out sending from my phone using the Blogger app. I was hired by Wilson West Livesay to produce the Jazz musician.This was pretty early on in my freelance days. All airbrush and colored pencil. The previous jazz trombonist illustration in my portfolio was what helped me get this job. Will post the actual flat piece when I track it down and scan it in. The distortion and lighting in the picture make it harder to see. It was cool to see this piece when it first got made.

Shenandoah Shutters Illustration

Marked under "The Things I Never Thought I Would Be Drawing. . ." were a couple of illustrations for Shenandoah Shutters out of Richmond, VA. Shutters were beautiful and they were looking for an artful way of showing the attention to craftsmanship. This was just used at a means for calling out the certain features. I remember drawing the shutter from a couple of views in this technique. They were used in a collateral sales piece. I wish I could find the paperclip I had to illustrate. That was a funny job call.

End of Dinosaurs Comet Illustration

This was a collateral piece, but I never knew what the end product would be. Pretty much the whole scene and concept was predetermined, they just needed an image to go with their idea. The overall reality of the image is pretty unbelievable, but it suited their needs and they were happy with the end product and that was all that was really important in the end. I had a lot of fun with the skin folds on the T-Rex. It was about 14 x 20 inches and pretty much all acrylic by using airbrush or traditional brush. Some colored pencil work too.

AMF Bull Whip Bowling Ball Illustration

Another Bowling Ball Illustration around 1997 I think. The majority of this illustration wasn't seen in most cases. Just a square part for a face of the box. The other parts just wrapped around and were background. It was a fun piece and I had make sure he stayed purple, I kept wanting to go to blue like Babe the Blue Ox. Mainly an airbrush piece, with colored pencil. I felt like I illustrated so many bowling pins during my freelance years. It would be so easy to do them current day with the 3D tool in Illustrator or any 3D program for that matter. This was done for AMF through Wilson West Livesay. Great company, they were instrumental in helping me start my freelance career.

Signet Bank Moving Advertisement

Pep Freeman and I would sometimes work on a piece together to keep each other busy or speed up a piece. This was one where he did the under drawing and some paint work. I mainly worked on the paint work and airbrush and detailing as well. Pep, Pete and myself all posed for the people and Stuart took the photos. The reference photos make for some pretty funny pics when seen out of context. There were some perspective errors we had in here but luckily the crop on the final piece helped hide some of the proportion and perspective problems. The part of the painting I was most happy with were the mountains and the volcano.

Zyrtec Statue of Liberty Advertisement Illustration

This Zyrtec Allergy ad was done back in the Pencil Pushers Illustration days. Ironically current day I am taking Zyrtec on a regular basis. I remember really enjoying working on this one. Especially working on the under drawing of the statue. I don't have copy of the ad. Pretty much the same media. Airbrush, Acrylic and Colored Pencil. This one was a bit larger than usual as it was going to possibly be used on larger formats also.

Bon Secours Banana Slip Billboard Illustration

This was supposed to be for a Bon Secours Billboard. I don't know if it ever got used, as I didn't see it on any billboards. The concept was to have his knee breaking the border of the billboard sign. The banana peel was my favorite part of doing this illustration. This was just straight airbrush and colored pencil. Some acrylic brushwork to finalize it.

Virginia Museum Nocturnes of the Nile Party Poster

This was for an Virginia Museum event called Nocturnes of the Nile and it was one of the earliest freelance assignments I had. It was through Barber Martin when they were located downtown. They used it as small poster as well as for other collateral associated with the event. Pete also did a illustration for this event. Acrylic and Colored Pencil.

Reynolds Metal Website Illustration

This was actually an illustration for a website. The concept was fully laid out, they just wanted it rendered out. Most times in commercial illustration you find that you are rented hands and the creative end is already laid out. Regardless, I had a lot of fun with this piece. The glow was unintentional at first. Once I lifted the frisket after blasting in the dark background, I realized that the globe needed more shading. I blew in darker blue without the frisket and noticed the glow effect happening. Just liked it a lot and kept it going. This was the usual airbrush, acrylic and colored pencil. It was about 10x10 inches.

Oil Coating Chocolate C&T Quincy Ad Illustration

Practicing helps! Did I ever think I would have illustrated oil coating chocolate by itself? No. Luckily for me, my instructor in school gave an assignment to illustrate chocolate. It was surprisingly hard, as slight color shifts make it look unappealing. The practice piece I had from that class helped me land this job. Thank you Alex Bostic for making us illustrate things like chocolate and chrome! The interesting thing was that I think they had a photo of pretty much the same thing, but the photo made the chocolate look dead and not rich. I have included the illustration as well as the ad it ran in. This was pretty much a airbrush piece all the way with acrylic touch ups applied with brushes.

Colonial Downs Racing Mural Illustration

This was one in several illustrations that we (Pencil Pushers) did for Colonial Downs. We split up and tackled several of them. This is one of the ones that I did. The Green border and background were just added today to dress it off. The actual illustration was blown up and displayed in one of the areas of Colonial Downs. It was neat to go and see them all in their different spots when done. This was years ago when they first opened and I have not been in awhile, they may not even be up anymore. Used Acrylic, Airbrush and Colored Pencil.

Mercury Illustration

I can't for the life of me remember what this was for. It was one in a series of 3 images. Mercury, Poseidon, and Atlas. For some reason I am thinking it was for Overnite Trucking Company, but I am not positive. I will have to check and see. This series was done in part due to an illustration that I had done for a Signet Bank Illustration. The look was very angular and stylized and the advertising agency liked the idea of using a similar style for this Mythological campaign series. The actual pieces and were done with Acrylic, Airbrush and Colored Pencil. Rest of series to follow if I can find them all.