Website update

Just did a big update to my portfolio website, updating it with 2015 work.  LINK

Kickstarter is funded!

 

The Kickstarter campaign became fully funded as of 8:10 PM on December 4, taking 20 days to reach the goal!

As I write this, there's still eight days left in the campaign, so there's still time to pledge to get your book, poster and print!  Thanks!  Kickstarter link

"When I Grow Up, I Want To Be a Jayhawk" Kickstarter campaign

I'm very excited to post about this project--this is the first children's book project that I have ever initiated and done on my own.  I'm funding the printing through a Kickstarter campaign that I hope you'll check out!  It's an officially licensed children's book for my alma mater, The University of Kansas, and it's something I've wanted to do for almost 20 years now.  Yes it's a children's book, but I made it so that adults would want to put it on their coffee table too.

At the link you'll find additional things you can pledge, like this 18x24" poster:

And this 20x16" signed art print:

This whole project has been a giant learning experience, from getting it officially licensed, to learning about Kickstarter, to sourcing printing and shipping prices, to learning iMovie in only a few days to make the video, to learning about what does and does not work in doing social media promotion.  Writing the story and making the art was the easy part!

I've been so busy that the project has already been up on Kickstarter for two weeks now and we are currently 64% funded.  There's two weeks left to get the final 36%.  Here's the Kickstarter link again.  Thank you for your pledges!

12/2/15 update: This project has been profiled on a couple of places on the web.

•The University Daily Kansan

•Rock Chalk Blog

Dave Ramsey - "Junior" books

 

At the start of 2015 I took on a monumental project, to illustrate six books in six months for financial guru Dave Ramsey.  There was no way I could do it totally on my own, so I teamed up with John Trent and Kenny Yamada for the flats and rendering.  It took down to the last day to get these done!

The whole product came out last month.  Here's the link if you'd like to explore further.

   

VeggieTales Noah's Ark book

A project I can actually put up!  Here's a book I illustrated in December that is on sale in March.

Also, a sketch for a page that wasn't used.  This would have been fun to paint.

Licensed ornaments

I found these at Target today, probably the last batch of stuff I designed while at Hallmark. 

Parris toy catalog cover

 I've spent practically the entire year working on projects covered by non-disclosure agreements, so it's nice to be allowed to post a project online for once.  I've been doing a lot of illustration styles lately that de-emphasize linework, so it was almost a new experience going back to comic-style lines and color.

Dumbo baby shower invitation

Something I made for fun.  Names and dates reflect the creators and animators of the Dumbo book and movie.

Some of the last Hallmark cards

Here's some of the last Hallmark cards I did before leaving the company, that are now or have been on sale.   I'm particularly happy with the NFL card below, one of the few cards I got to illustrate from start to finish.

When you open the card up, the scoreboard pops out, the lights start to flash, and Queen's "We Will Rock You" starts to play.

That's about it for the Hallmark cards.  There might be one or two more yet to come out, I'm not sure.  And I've got some ornament product coming out at Christmas that I'll photograph once it's in stores.

Albert Einswine pics

I can't put online almost any of the work I'm doing nowadays due to NDAs, but I can put up photos I took this weekend of the work I did for the Alburnt Einswine barbecue team.  They ended up taking 18th place out of 184 teams in the famous Great Lenexa BBQ Battle.   I got to eat their food, it was excellent!

Lion King print

 I was out at the mall today and finally saw my Lion King illustration on sale at the Hallmark store.  My phone's camera isn't very good, so the original illustration is below.  I have a Peter Pan one out there too somewhere that I haven't seen yet.

Alburnt Einswine BBQ logo

Another barbecue logo I just finished for a local team.  I thought they had a funny concept and it was fun to do.  They chose two color options.

Spider-man and Batman masks

While I was out today I picked up these card/mask combo cards I created at Hallmark last year.  The arms on the masks wrap around the cards and then you take them apart when you open them.  The masks also have sound buttons.  I illustrated the cover art of the Batman & Spidey heads from scratch.  The interior hero poses are from style guides.

Girl party

Hawaiian t-shirt design

 Improved one of my old designs-created a new girl and updated the typography.

Valentine's Day Hallmark cards

 Picked these up today while I was at Walmart--these are cards I designed last year while still full-time at Hallmark.

Dragon color

Decoupage ornaments

Well, my time at Hallmark is over but the projects I worked on should still be showing up on the shelves throughout the the coming year.  This afternoon I saw these decoupage ornaments on sale at Target, which I had done the turnaround drawings for.