Happy Holidays

Wash-board abs

Piece for todays Washington Post that actually ended up going through a lot of changes after this point, but i felt this stage was quite nice / worth posting.

BrokenBehindback Mountain

  New piece for Government Executive about a new Government health care plan that keeps you covered but with some disadvantages - playing with having the patient having one hand tied behind their back - in this case shown as sling behind their back - seemed to boil down a complex article in a clear image.  Below are some roughs:

I also tried a few different compositions of the final before i started to paint - here are those:

Blind science

New piece for Canadian Wildlife, about the weird, blind science behind conservation.

The end of winners and losers

New piece for The Progressive about leftist / activist soccer players who share their views (apposing tyranny and selfish top down politics) by playing a unique approach to the game where there are no winners. The game isnt about whos ahead, its about the way the game is played.  An icon on top of a soccer trophy being pulled down like overthrown dictator ( i referenced the infamous Saddam statue) was a perfect visual overlap.

Workload

New personal piece about the heavy workload i've been juggling since i started teaching in September. My priority is freelancing, so it sometimes feels like its all just really piling up. Had this idea in the vault from a previous project - felt like a great fit.

mother trucker

For Pro-Sales magazine about Canadian lumber shipping

Snow Job

For Cottage Life about buying the right snowmobile. this one went through stage after stage of getting messier and messier. nice, subtle concept. Some ideas that didnt make the cut:

see no evil

 Piece in todays LA Times "LA Affairs" section, about a woman whos fiance keeps cheating on her. He even cheats on the girls he's cheating with. To get married she's going to have to really ignore a lot of her instincts. Tried to come up with a cool way of showing the wedding aspect - but have the visual pun still revolve around her putting up "blinders".
Thanks to Wes for the great assignment - hes always the best to work with.

Getting Hammered

For the Mortgage Observer, part of the NY Observer about the need for cash / equity before building / development can begin. Breaking a piggy bank and hammering a nail worked perfectly together as one idea, a happy visual overlap. 

Unicorns on Wheels

 That, my friends, was the outstanding title I was able to illustrate. Vehicular Unicorn. (later changed to Unicorns on Wheels) WOW. Of course, there are a million approached to such a challenge, but this one fit almost perfectly. Fun to collaborate with the wonderful people at Orange Coast magazine which has really become an favorite for illustrators to work with.

your kiss, YOUR KISS, is on my list

couple of new ones for my friend Steve Balaban and his beautiful magazine about showing some affection and a little love to invertebrates. Obviously, there are millions of creatures to choose from - so concepting was both a joy and a nightmare - when to stop!?
This crab idea is one of my favorite visual overlaps in a while - i kept obsessing over ways to show affection and love etc. - kisses just kept popping back into mind - then finally stumbled over this solution.

 the snail one seemed like a great pairing, totally different species and fun to show the trail creating a solid object - in this case, and arrow through a heart.

which witch is which?

Happy Autumn!

Skip to my lou

New piece in todays Sunday edition for Alabama Live, about outsourcing justice, and the various impacts of that decision, at different stages along the way. Big thanks to Tim, for being so open to my ideas - and shout out to my buddy Dan Hertzberg for recommending me for the gig.

EVOL

New one for Worth about deceptive executives who offer bad financial advice under the guise that its helpful - all along benefiting themselves. fun concepting for this one

We decided to go with this one (below) - but they wanted his face more smug, not so happy and simply rendered - so i went to the best place for that kind of character - Disney movies!

Inspired by Gaston, I moved forward.

and the final image below :)