Book Recommendation: Framed Ink

I’m two days into Doodle-a-Day May. If you haven’t sent me a request yet, feel free to do so here, on Twitter, Facebook, or in person.

What I love most about art is how big it is. How there’s always something more to learn and improve on. To that end, I’m always on the lookout for new art books. I’ve been reading one recently that I’m sure will have an influence on how I approach my daily doodles (actually, it already has).

Framed Ink by Marcos Mateu-Mestre is a phenomenal book about visual storytelling. A few years ago I had my portfolio critiqued by an art director at a SCBWI conference. He told me too many of the images in my portfolio looked like standalone pictures. It would be better, he said, to have pictures that looked as if they were part of a scene. They should make the viewer wonder what would happen next. They should be part of a story, and tell a small story on their own.

Framed Ink is all about the story. Marcos Mateu-Mestre is clearly a talented and thoughtful artist. Just read the text in these examples.

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Amazing right? I never would have thought of things like eye level of the characters, or the subtle acknowledgement of power. The book is packed with neat stuff like that. Framed Ink is available on Amazon if you’re interested. I highly recommend it.

Iron Man 3 postered!

I successfully got Bioshock Infinite out of my brain by making the posters. Unfortunately I replaced it with making posters. So I made one for Iron Man 3. This time, instead of the Saul Bass and Olly Moss style minimalism, I went with my own style--cartoony. I like it. I wanted to do something that fit the trailers, which all seem to fixate on a pretty bummed out Tony Stark. Cheer up Tony!​

Bioshocked [UPDATE: More Posters!]

I finished Bioshock Infinite the other day and it's still rattling around in my head. Because I can't stop thinking about the game, I made some posters. I'm wondering if I can make them cryptic enough to not spoil anything.

Flying Together

I tried a lot of new things with this latest piece. I think it might be the first time I've created a picture with the video in mind. Check it out:

The goal of the picture and video was to capture some of the joy that comes from playing with my son and getting to facilitate his imagination. I hope some of that came through.

I tried to mix up my style a bit by using a brush with a fixed width when doing the lines. I feel like that gives the picture an animation-like look, as if you paused a movie at this frame. I think I might toy around with the style some more in other pictures. This one was a lot of fun to work on. Any feedback is appreciated. Thanks!

Happy Holidays from the Lights!

Happy holidays! Due to a printer break down at Wal-Mart, my Christmas cards weren't ready in time to be mailed out. So if you aren't here in Charlotte, that's why you didn't get a physical copy. Feel free to print this one out and stick it on your fridge, or wherever you put these things. This is the third year in a row I've illustrated the cards. Here's the card from 2010, and the one from 2011. Happy holidays! 

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