Squintin' Quentin

Quentin Tarantino is inseparable from his camera. 

Plate House

A Christmas present for my uncle, an illustration of his house in Pennsylvania. 

Tomorrow: Play Ball!

MCC Weekly 4: Master Splinter

Holiday hubbub kept me from contributing to last week's annual sketch of Master Splinter, so I wanted to make up for it this week with a more dynamic composition.

During this drawing I was able to get my hand on a white gel pen that let me draw white lines over top of my blacks. I can't wait to put that to further use!

I also can't tell you how many time I caught myself saying "And four baby turtles..." while drawing this.

Sketch ya' ... Friday!

Calvin's Canadian Cave of Cool Comic Cover

My latest commission for Kal and his blog "Calvin's Canadian Cave of Cool". The cover features a lot of things that he loves; comic book covers from the 70s, outer space adventuring, Lasers, Jetpacks, Selena Gomez and his cat, Admiral Fluffy, all attacking the deadly cephalopod menace!

This was a real joy of a project to take on since it proclaims my own love for old comics, but also gave me a chance to real dig through my archives and find all manner of crazy inspirational images. The works of Wally Wood were particularly influential. Here are a few examples to give you an idea were I was coming from with my thought process.

 

Looking back, it seems like this could be seen as a more refined version of my old college piece, "Dex Deadfall: Astronaut Archeologist". I guess the influence followed me all these years later.

Deficit Debbie

Ordinarily I don't like to be too political with my work, but I just couldn't turn down the opportunity to draw this political cartoon commission about Michigan State Representative Debbie Stabenow and her spending habits.

Fantastic Four: Fashion Forward Final!

Hey Guys! Thank you to everyone who contributed their suggestions towards my entry for Project Rooftop's Fantastic Four: Fashion Forward contest. So low and behold, here is my new look for Marvel's Cosmic Quartet:

A big thank you goes out to Brian Kane for his invaluable suggestion about altering the logo. I was quite proud of my design which used the letter "F" turned on its side to create the number "4" as well, but his  recommendation of intersecting the two, opened all sorts of possibilities with positive and negative space, not to mention made the whole thing more compact. Not to mention it kind of looks like a cross between the Facebook "F" (with the white character in a blue box) and the Apple Logo with a piece removed from the whole and repositioned on top.

This was a lot of fun for me, and hope you enjoy as well.

Yes. I can illustrate for you. I'm a traditional illustrator and can help you achieve your goals through art. Learn how to work with me at www.erikjohnsonillustrator.com 

A Few Famous Faces

Just a little practice thing I did with my ink and brushes earlier this week. I typed "actors" into Google Images on my iPod, and set that up next to my sketchbook at my desk to try and capture some familiar likenesses. The results include Hugh Laurie, Jack Nicholson and Ron Perlman. An odd ensemble, but I am at the mercy of whatever Google picks for me.

KeeKee the Calico Cat

Submissions for a Children's Book Illustration contest featuring the antics of an anthropomorphic feline.

Quarter Crusader Kid

A mascot I designed for Midland Christian School's Upcoming "March of Quarters" Fund Raiser. Inspired by the work of Jack Davis.

New Gods Movie Poster

This is a project thats been keeping me busy lately. So here it is, my entry for Super Punch's DC Comics Movie Poster Contest. http://superpunch.blogspot.com/2012/02/design-dc-comics-movie-poster-win-dc.html

It is based on Jack Kirby's "The New Gods" series, done in the style of Drew Struzan's Star Wars posters.

Equestria Nightly

Princess Celestia plays a little joke on Twilight to make her feel more comfortable about her first night away from home at Unicorn school.

I decided to draw this comic to see if I was still up to the task of drawing panel comics, since It'd been quite a while since I did them. I broke my embargo against fan art that I'd had going since college since the idea itself was original, as well as cute.


Within days this comic was posted up on Equestria Daily to be viewed by a wider auidence. Thanks Brony Community!

Best Face Forward

After designing a new logo for my new business cards I decided to make a new self portrait so that I could have some original art for the cards as well as I felt the previous portrait's full front angle wasn't working out.

So looking for new ideas but drawing myself in front of a mirror. I almost had forgotten how challenging and how rewarding it is to draw something directly from life rather than conform to the structure of a model in a photo.

Its also amusing to see how even drawing the same head, how it can look radically different from one to the next. Its funny how my first impression of my own face was very tall, chiseled and serious. With the hair part and face fuzz, I kinda look like Flynn Rider from Disney's "Tangled".

Later versions showed more squat cheeks as I tried to squeeze out a subtle smile.

Eventually I got this:

SleepCare Seasonal Serial Part 1: Santa Snores

Sleep Care provided me with an interesting challenge to cap off the end of 2011. My editor suggested a series of illustrations that would run weekly through the month of December chronicling Santa Claus overcoming his sleep disorders such as snoring and narcolepsy. I was fed this idea just before Thanksgiving, which also had a tie in illustration that would need to be done in record time. Then I was told these Christmas illustrations would be in full color.

Anyway, it was a close call, but I managed to finish them. I just wish that SleepCare had taken the same approach as the Salvation Army with their Christmas illustrations and asked me draw Christmas over the summer so I would have had more time, but what can you do? Heres hoping for an extra little stocking stuffer along with my next paycheck.

Anyway, here's part one:

I knew that somewhere along the line I'd have to do an illustration of distruptive snoring, so I had a file of reference photos ready. Problem was I didn't expect the party in question to be such a large iconic figure, so it took some tinkering with the composition to make sure Santa was identifiable. 

It appears Santa's holly jolly snoring has caused Mrs. Claus to break out the tarmac earmuffs.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Tryptophan Thanksgiving

SleepCare gave me quite the challenge with a series of holiday related illustrations just  shy of two weeks before Thanksgiving. I cranked this one out quickly so that it could be on the site and have a least a weeks worth of relevance, and hopefully buy me some time to work on the Christmas illustrations.

I don't know why this woman is so thankful for Tryptophan. It this means is that she'll be the one doing all the dishes while everyone else is snoozing. I've been told that the man in the foreground bears a slight resemblance to myself. There might not have been so much similarity if not for the glasses, which I only added because of a Robert McGinnis painting that stuck in my mind while I was searching through my inspirational swipe files for people asleep in chairs.

Have a great Thanksgiving and if you can, use the time off to catch up on some sleep.

Sunday Sketches

Earlier this week I started work on a new illustration for SleepCare involving people sitting at a dinner table and I spent most of the weekend sketching how make a sitting scene look dynamic, or at the very least... interesting.

So when I was asked by some friends if I wanted to have lunch with them at the mall food court this afternoon, I just couldn't help but observe how people sat casually in chairs and just how different it was from the reference photos I was looking at over the weekend were people were posed in chairs.

Gesture drawings are something I've kind of slumped on the past year now that I'm out of school so spontaneous sketches like these taken from outside the home, especially fast and with a pen felt like a breath of fresh air and quite a rewarding experience. I wondered why I didn't do this more often, and then I had to get gas for my car and one glimpse of those prices reminded me why I don't get out much.

Self Portrait

I drew a new self portrait to replace the old photo I used to use which didn't feature my face fuzz. Also, I've been making a lot of changes to my web site recently and wanted to have my picture be on the first page. Lacking any quality photos, I drew myself at my best. I don't smile that often, so I had my webcam take pictures of me while I was watching cartoons on YouTube. Even when cracking up, my mouth really doesn't open that wide, and my teeth seem to serve as sentry, guarding my tongue and tonsils from any outside influence.

Amy

In my last entry I said I was thankful to finally have back to back projects. Well, the projects just keep coming so I don't have much time in between to post so I thought I'd show you a preview of one of my more recent projects.

This is part of a series of portraits I'm doing for the Salvation Army, sort of a follow up to my Angel Tree Illustrations. Hopefully I'll be uploading so more sometime soon.

Well, I'd better get back to work.

Music to Draw By!

Egyptian Exhibit

During the doldrums of the "waiting for phone or e-mail reply" stage of freelance illustration, I drove down the local museum's new exhibit on Egyptian artifacts, or rather replica's of Egyptian artifacts from King Tut's tomb.

Operating Room

First the Straw Farmer, now this? It was surprising for me since I rarely get two different projects finished in under a week, though thats because I rarely have more than one project to work on at a time, but lately I've had a bunch of work heading my way. Thank God, its about time!

Anyway, I'm back to drawing illustrations for SleepCare. After the Sleepwalking Zombie and Dr Jekyll and Mr High, I decided I wanted to back off from the horror themed, because I felt the concept were starting to conceal what they were trying to convey, both were very crowded compositions, and I could tell that my editor was hesitant with such ideas. While I understand his reluctance to go fourth with my parody of "Alien" idea  ("Apnea", starring Sigourney Weezer) , I still protest that my idea of a vampire in his coffin scurrying away from shafts of light coming through a broken window would have been an absolutely perfect accompaniment to an article about the dangers of light in the bedroom when you're trying to sleep. Ah well.

So this is my attempt at getting back to basics, well as basic as I can get, since I seem to have once again gone overboard on excess details. Originally there was going to be an X-Ray machine in the on the left hand side, but I thought made the room look too cluttered and distracted from the snoozing surgeon and the perplexed patient.

The idea isn't too complex. Sleep Care says twelve hours hospital shifts are a bad idea, and the caption sums it up easily. Not much of punchline, but then again my editors typically long for something short and sweet, so there you have it.

Straw Farmer

My latest entry for Dow Goarden's card contest (much like last year's Waterfall and Piggy)

This card depicts a sculpture made of straw of a farmer raking straw.