The “Untold” Series: Story 1

This marks the first illustration in a series of anonymously submitted stories as part of a visual storytelling experiment.

The experiment: “Tell me a story from your life you’ve never told anyone about. Make it funny, make it sad, make it scandalous or scary, but I don’t want to know who you are. Unless it’s part of the story, I wouldn’t even like to know your age, what you look like, or even if you’re male or female. It is from your stories that I will develop a series of illustrations.”

Story 1

Submitted by: Anonymous

To this day I have no idea if this was imagined or true.  I awoke one morning as usual, did the morning routine and left my apartment.  As I was in the vestibule about to leave the building, I felt a sensation of weightlessness.   I suddenly felt my hand slowly brush against the wall in an upward motion.  “what is happening to me?” I thought in astonishment and terror.  Before I knew it I was holding my hands over my head to prevent from hitting my head on the ceiling.  I then felt the front door open and said to myself that I can control it and see if I can go outside.  As I passed the doorway, I felt a sudden rush of energy pulling me out.  Suddenly I was floating higher and higher almost uncontrollably but I felt like as long as I could keep my mind on where I was going I would travel in that direction.

Unfortunately that is all I remember about that event, but I somehow know that it was only possible because no one was around.  I found it incredibly strange.

Johnny Rooster Style Guide

Johnny Rooster is a superstitious baseball player with a lot on his mind.  Johnny, originally created for a clothing line, became a character I used for a number of comic strips.  This body of work includes style guide sheets and some examples of the comics, ranging from single image, daily strips, and a sunday strip.

Daily Series: The Wrong Halloween

After watching Nightmare before Christmas when it first came on to Netflix, I started thinking about who these characters could “dress-up” as for Halloween. I found that quite a bit of them go well with Batman’s rogues gallery, and so the fun ensued.

Dark Side Over The Rainbow

This piece was once a quick daily sketch that I had done for the blog I started at PC with some students in the illustration department.

The story behind it comes from Pink Floyd’s album, Dark Side of the Moon, and the theory that it syncs with the Wizard of Oz.  I wanted to capture that idea in a single image without relying on sound or text, so I found that incorporating the album cover’s prism and rainbow would coincide perfectly with the scene where the film turns from black and white into color.

I wanted there to be a distinct look between the two worlds, yet show that they can exist together, so the black and white part of the image is done with line-work and digital shading while Oz is created from colored shapes that make up Munchkin land.

The title of this is again a combo of the album and the movie. The scene that is referenced in my image is just before Dorothy sings “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” which speaks to the transition to color and the rainbow coming from the prism in her hand.

Mariachi Party

The characters and matter of creating a mariachi band were sprung from ideas for a birthday party with hot pepper invites, armadillo cake, featuring a mariachi band.  Those were ideas being tossed around for a birthday party that I was asked to help develop an invitation for. This poster became that project instead and was featured at the event.

Vesper

Capt. John’s Hops Cannon

The illustration was developed for a beer label for a gentleman named Steve Witt. Steve creates his own batches of brew, and for this one in particular he wanted the likeness of someone he knows (John). Although this illustration is what Steve used for his own labeling system (sans type), I wanted to create a version of my own for a can.

Rhythm & Bass

This is the cover art of the album Rhythm & Bass by an R&B artist located in Queens who goes by the name of GQ Da Prince.

I wanted to try something new, so it was fun to experiment. This direction spoke to me most in terms
of what his work is about, and what it means as not only a musician but an artist to pour your heart into
everything and allow someone in to experience what has been created.

Feel free to check out some of his music that inspired this piece.

https://soundcloud.com/gqdaprince

BlindSided

This was my take on an article I found in GQ magazine about a young man who’s identity came into question after becoming a high school basketball star.  I modified the page design slightly, but I wanted to try and create this editorial illustration within the confines of the magazine’s current design.

Killebrew Rootbeer

Character development project based on Twins player Harmon Killebrew.  These were used to present a new direction for Killebrew Rootbeer, a top seller at Target Stadium.