Pyramid Hunters - Bones of the Sun God

Had a great time doing cover #2 for the Pyramid Hunters series, published by Simon & Schuster's Aladdin imprint.

The series is like a kid version of Indiana Jones and I love getting to research and illustrate these ancient locations, this one set in the Mayan Temples of Belize.

Thanks to the people at Aladdin for being so great to work with, as usual!

Whatever Floats Your Boat...

Personal piece for fun...

Red Moon Rising

A cover for Red Moon Rising, a new middle grade cover coming out from Simon & Schuster. It was so cool to have the chance to get into the epic Sci-Fi Western inspired world that author K.A. Holt has created. The Art Director really wanted to capture how bad ass the main character Rae is and to show her rugged, frontier world on a far away space colony. Of course it needed to showcase the huge, blood red moon that inspires the book's title as well.

This was a breakthrough project for me... Not only because I had the chance to work in the Sci-Fi genre, but also because of the scope of the image - the character, horse, environment and bold colour scheme. It was a fantastic opportunity and a really, really rewarding project.

Pyramid Hunters: The Iron Tomb

Here's a cover for "Pyramid Hunters: The Iron Tomb" by Peter Vegas.  I grew up a huge, huge fan of Indiana Jones - and the movies piqued an interest in archeology that would continue to this day. Although I never did become the heroic archeologist/adventurer I wanted to as a kid... becoming an illustrator is a close second - and still requires a lot of research and taking the odd risk! I had an absolute blast on this one. Thanks to the fine people at Simon & Schuster's Aladdin imprint for being amazing to work with, as usual.

Hollow Earth: Book of Beasts Cover

Here's a cover for the fantastic "Hollow Earth" series  by John and Carol Barrowman, published by Simon and Schuster's Aladdin imprint. This is for the epic final "Book of Beasts".

The books are about two twins with the inherited ability to make their artwork come to life. Art and historic paintings play a big role in the books as well - how cool is that! For an epic finish to the series, I was inspired by the peak moment where the portal to "Hollow Earth" the subterranean realm where all the creatures of myth and fantasy are imprisoned, has been opened. The book's heroes are beset by the villain riding a black, winged stag with Hollow Earth's creatures emerging behind them.

Thanks to everyone at Aladdin for another amazing project!

Dead City: Dark Days Cover

The Dead City books by James Ponti, published by Simon and Schuster's Aladdin imprint, have been amazing to work on. Here's the cover for the final book in the series, Dead City: Dark Days. My first cover for this series was way back in 2011 and it was my first series for a major publisher, so it's a little bitter sweet to be wrapping up.

The story revolves around Molly, the teen girl protagonist who gets wrapped up in the Omegas, a team of Zombie fighters battling the hordes of Undead that live in an under Manhattan. The books are high action and bring the Zombie genre to a young reader audience in a really fun and smart way while weaving in New York City history and culture. Working with so much great material was an absolute blast. Wrapping up the series with the big finale on top of the iconic Chrysler building was a fantastic way to cap it off!

Thanks to everyone at Aladdin for being so great to work with!

Eremos

Here are the first images from a new series of works titled “Eremos”

“Eremos” envisions the mythological archetypes of tribal cultures living ages after the fall of civilization.  These Mask designs are early explorations into gods, spirits and motifs for this world.

I’ll be continuing to work on these masks along with more narrative images based on classical mythological archetypes and will post more as they come.

For future news and art, please follow me on twitter and tumblr as well.

Some New Covers

Haven't had a chance to update this thing in a while... between personal work and freelance somethings gotta give.

Here are two sequel covers for the series I've been doing for Simon and Schuster's Alladin imprint, Dead City and Hollow Earth.

These were really great projects, coming back to something I'd done previously and being able to build on what I'd established for the look already but being able to make the images of their own as well. As usual the publisher was awesome to work with and I had a lot of freedom to run with ideas on these.

Dead City: Blue Moon

Hollow Earth: The Bone Quill

Bear Rider

Worked up a old sketch for fun...

Seer

Not a lot of time for personal work these days, pretty busy with work and freelance. I did manage to have some more fun with another mask though...

Thanks for visiting...I hope to have some new illustration up soon!

Hollow Earth

I'm happy to post my latest cover for Simon & Schuster, a full wraparound for the novel Hollow Earth, by John and Carol E. Barrowman.

The book is about the adventures of two twins who possess the ability to draw things from their imagination into life. It was a really inspiring concept that provided plenty of opportunities for great visuals and was a really fun read.

It was really nice to have quite a bit of creative input on this cover and I always love working with wraparound compositions. The long aspect ratio is so great for storytelling and I love the challenge of crafting an image that holds up on it's own yet still acts as a strong foundation for the jacket design.

Jessica Handelmann at S&S was so great to work with and designed an excellent jacket with a very elegant and modern feel. A big thank you goes out to her and all the good people at Simon and Schuster.

Storm God Mask

Just something fun and mellow in between some bigger projects...

Dead City Cover

Last year, Simon & Schuster asked me if I was available to do a cover for this really fun middle grade novel called Dead City by James Ponti. As I read through the email and saw "Zombies" and "New York City" I got really excited and I jumped at the chance to work with them.
The designer suggested a couple of concepts to start with and I sketched up a few really quick thumbnails...

They really liked dark alley idea with the zombie hand coming up through the manhole, which was one of my favorites too. The book has an element of humour to it and I thought it was kind of a witty way to integrate the zombie and New York themes nicely. I also really liked how the low angle makes the main character, a 13 year old girl by the name of Molly, look more powerful than her size would otherwise suggest. From here I got some direction on a lighting style and colour palette and set to work on the final.

This was a super fun project to work on and I really like how the piece ended up. It was a great experience working with Lisa Vega at Simon & Schuster and I love what she did with the cover design. The book is scheduled for an October 2012 release and I can't wait to see it in print.

Guide Of Souls

This character is a Psychopomp or "Guide of Souls" - a mythic figure responsible for providing souls with safe passage to the afterlife. In Jungian terms, the psychopomp acts as a mediator between the conscious and unconscious realms. I thought developing a character based on that idea would be a great way to start visualizing a new world that I'm developing.

The basic idea of this project is to re-interpret the archetypes of the Monomyth from the mythic imagination of a people that have survived ages after our current civilization has collapsed. If humanity reverted to primal levels of culture and reason and mythology regained it's necessity to the human psyche, what would the myths be? How would a neo-primal culture interpret mythical archetypes in a post-collapse world? What would their creation myths be? What would their heroic myths be? What mysteries of existence would their myths express? What stories would they tell to explain the remnants of our decaying civilization?

These are the things floating around in my head to inspire me going forward with this and this Guide of Souls will hopefully help lead me to the unconscious realms where the creativity for this new project lies.

Pretty heady talk for what's basically a proof of concept.

Fox & Phoenix Released

Just a quick post to mention that Fox & Phoenix was released today! The cover illustration was a pleasure to do. Beth Bernobich crafted a richly detailed and inspiring world with compelling, complex characters and a unique vision of magic powered technology that hooked me from the beginning. The fine folks at Viking Press did an amazing job on the jacket design and it presents the illustration very nicely. It's a brilliant book all around and I'm proud to have been a part of it!



I'd hate to post without some art, so here's a little sketch from the other night. I'm still following random inspirations and procrastinating settling in to long term projects!

New Life

Whoa, Fall already?!

I've been working on a few projects over the summer...some graphics, a picture book and sketching/conceptualizing for a new body of personal work. It's about time for an update so I dusted off an old sketch and spent a few nights on it.



Before I get too dug in to some of the long term projects I'll be working on over the winter, there may be a few more of these fun pieces coming...

Wereworld Cover

Here’s my latest book cover for the North American hardcover release of “Wereworld”, an awesome novel written by Curtis Jobling and published by Viking Press. I’ve been anxious to post this for a while and since it’s now available on Amazon and cropping up here and there, I thought I’d put it up!

I really enjoyed the creative process on this, particularly since the Art Director wanted to develop a new look for the North American release. He wanted something more graphic and atmospheric. I also really enjoyed the wide composition the wraparound allowed for and there’s few things I enjoy painting more than a dark, foggy forest with a shadowy mythic creature and a hero thrown in for good measure!

The book will be on shelves in September and I enjoyed it cover to cover. Plenty of action, a richly detailed world, interesting characters and a story that hooked me from the beginning!

* Edit, August 10th, 2011 - Well, it looks like this won't be the published cover for the NA release of Wereworld after all. The AD let me know the publisher went with a different approach for the cover. This was still a great experience and the AD was happy with my work, so that's good...I'm just a bit disappointed that my work won't be out there on the shelves.

Mixed Bag Mythography III

I’ve finally managed to update after a few months... been busy on some projects that I can’t release just yet. What I can show is this piece I did for fun during the down-time in between jobs.

I love African masks and thought they'd be great inspiration for a Mixed Bag Mythography piece. This mask is mostly inspired by the styles of the Igbo culture from Nigeria. The character is a kind of priestess or shaman inspired by Obeah, a form of folk magic and sorcery practiced in the West Indies of Igbo origin. What exactly she’s doing with the mask I’m not sure of, I'll leave that for you to decide.

As far as updates go... I'll have a piece published in Spectrum 18 due out in November. I always feel honoured to have any work selected to be shown amongst so many talented artists and this year is certainly no exception.

I'm a little late on posting this news, but I've also got a few pieces in the "Gorilla Artbook" published by the fine folks at CFSL Ink. Gorilla Artfare is an online community of artists that I've been a part of for over 5 years now. It's an incredibly talented group and I've made many great friends there. Last year, the talented Aurelie Neyret spearheaded a book project with work submitted from all the GA artists and the Gorillas went all out on making it happen. Thanks in particular to Aurelie, Victoria Maderna, Federico Piatti and the folks at CFSL. The book is beautifully designed and laid out and filled with awesome work from start to finish. You can check out a preview and order it online at cfsl-ink.com

That's it for now, thanks for looking, I’ll be posting some more work and projects soon...

Chromag Bikes- Bear Rider

Chromag Bikes is a Whistler B.C. based manufacturer of high end mountain bike frames and components. I was recently inquiring about some parts for a new bike I'm building and ended up talking with Ian Ritz, the owner. He saw some of my work and thought I might be able to bring an idea of his to life and this graphic is the result.





I did the graphic based on Ian's idea and then worked his existing branding in to ground the image. This version has been printed on 24"x36" posters and a simpler 2 colour variant of it using halftones for the shading was screen printed on T-shirts.

I've been a lifelong mountain biker and it was great to have my obsessions of art and biking come together like this. Ian was great to work with and it was a fun project all around.

Isis

Here’s a new personal piece that I’ve been working on sporadically over the last few months. I started it way back in June and although I initially put it down, after getting swamped with work and life it ended up being my go-to piece for the shorts breaks I’ve had in between projects when I was too burned out or uninspired to start something new.

Although I kept the working title of Isis, it’s not too firmly based in Egyptian mythology. The figure takes some inspiration from the classic depiction of Isis but from there I mixed up the symbolism a bit and tried to evoke a visceral sense of the cycle of life, death and rebirth.