Crowd Surfer Game Illustration

Here is a new concept illustration for a mobile game app idea I developed for my graduate MFA in Illustration at Hartford Art School. In 'Crowd Surfer,' players bounce their phone or tablet to the rhythm of their own music library to keep the crowd riled up and avatar afloat, moving slowly toward the stage during the course of a song. Meanwhile, players tilt the phone left or right to keep their avatar level, lest they fall on their head or getting caught on fire by raised lighters in the crowd.

Anybody know a good developer?

(Traditional pen combined with Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, and Corel Painter programs. Class by Zina Saunders and Nancy Stahl for Hartford Art School's low-residency Graduate Illustration MFA.)

Louis CK Celebrity Caricature Portrait

I'm a huge fan of the brilliant and multitalented Louis CK - stand-up comedian and writer/director/actor of the FX series Louie.  This portrait is an amalgam of my own cartoon style with inspiration from the painting method of master caricature artist and illustrator CF 'Chris' Payne (who I've just had the pleasure of studying with at Hartford Art School's low residency MFA in Illustration program).  

Using colored pencil, acrylic wash, oil paint wash, and watercolor to build layers of value over an caricature sketch, Payne's method allows you to work in both additive and reductive ways, by laying down base tones and shadow color with the flexibility of pulling out highlights with watercolor brushes and erasers.  

Here's a shot of the base sketch.  Who knows, I may find myself starting a series of comedian portraits in this style.

Here's a link to the official Louis site if you're curious.  Prints of the above portrait are available in my Etsy shop, and help to fund my art supplies.  Yay!

Triceratops Brush Pen Drawing & Time-Lapse Demo

Tried something new this morning and took a time-lapse video of the above Triceratops ink drawing in process.  I thought it might be fun to share the actual process of laying in different line weights and shading the form, set to some classic Ren & Stimpy music.  The color was later added digitally with a wacom intuos tablet.  Take a look below!

Metal Band T-Shirt Illustration

So long as I'm beating a dead cow, I thought I'd design a mockup of my turkey vulture illustration as a metal band T-shirt.  My thinly veiled metal influence seems to be coming out more and more these days, so I might as well present my illustrations as such.  I'd wear it!

Tornadoes and Turkey Vultures

I was compelled to take my fascination with scary looking birds to the next level on my Fort Worth reaction project for The University of Hartford's Illustration MFA program. A native Dallas / Fort Worth artist myself, I took this opportunity to collect some exhaustive reference material from the Fort Worth zoo and do a fun pen & ink piece in LP dimensions with just a hint more color than usual.

12x12, pen & ink on scratchboard.

Oh! and here's a 3D anaglyph version for red/blue glasses!

 

Lastly, 2D and 3D prints with glasses are both available in my store

Portrait of David Bowie as Tesla in 'The Prestige'

I was invited to contribute to a David Bowie themed art show in Dallas, and admitting a cursory knowledge of his catalogue (highlighted by I'm Afraid of Americans with NIN mastermind Trent Reznor), I felt most compelled to pay homage to his portrayal of Nikola Tesla in The Prestige.  Having seen and loved most everything by director Christopher Nolan, I felt this was a concept I could run with and keep within my typical aesthetic.  Drawing electrocuted cat = fun!

Challenging myself to work a little larger, and with less comfortable tools, I worked on a sheet of 11x14 bristol board using a Pentel pocket brush pen.  I'm enjoying the line quality you can get with a brush vs a fixed width technical pen, and working a little larger seems to be helping as well.  Hatching with a brush is a little awkward at first, but it's starting to make sense to me.

Posters are available here, and for those of you in Dallas, check out the show page!

Asteroid Field in 3D

A really fun 3D anaglyph for those of you with Red/Blue glasses!  Kinda makes you want to fire up the plasma blasters, doesn't it?

Very soon I'm going to be making up some custom 3D glasses to give out as business cards, with a QR code and url linking to my 3D portfolio (more can be see at AlbrightIllustration.com/3D)

And here's a shot of the 9x12 ink drawing... brush pen on bristol board with white ink detailing.  For the time being, the original is available in my store.

Hand-Printed Skull Scarves

Just printed a batch of some new scarves!  It's a little warm outside for these right now, but I'm putting all three of my scarf designs on 25% off sale through the summer.  Just $18!

Check them out at www.AlbrightIllustration.Etsy.com

The Tar Pits at La Brea

This illustration was inspired by the La Brea Tar Pits in downtown Los Angeles.  

Combined with the Paige Museum, the tar pits left an impression on me at a really young age... right when I was most fascinated by dinosaurs.

They say that for every mammoth who's remains were excavated from the natural asphalt, they found something like 2 saber-tooth cats, 4 dire wolves, and as many birds of prey.  It was a remarkably carnivorous environment during the last ice age, which made for a really fun drawing.

This is a 24x12 pen on claybord, with a bit of greyscale shading added in photoshop.  I've been working to add a bit of limited palette coloring/shading on top of my pen and ink drawings for some added depth and control over the values.  This one is still super monochromatic, but I expect some more color will be leaking into my illustrations very soon.

TentaSkull / Cthulhu Drawing

This is a little more death metal than my typical work, but actually quite in line with my influences.  I listen to a lot of really aggressive, rhythmic metal music in the studio, and also follow a number of artist who work primarily doing band art commissions.  Guys like Grindesign, Godmachine, and Jonathan Bergeron (aka Johnny Crap) are versed in pen and ink, like myself, but either work completely in photoshop or at least do their finishing touches digitally.  This was a fully inked 9x12 drawing which I then finalized in Photoshop.

I'm working on integrating limited color into my line art to give it some extra oomph and accessibility... can I say that about a skull design?

In any case, I'm planning some limited edition screen prints and tee shirts based on the one-color version of this design.  Stay tuned!  Meanwhile, there are digital prints available on my Etsy shop.

Art Prints in Archival Sleeves

I've just stocked up on archival, resealable sleeves and backing boards to better present and distribute art prints through my Etsy Art Shop and fairs/shows.  I'm pretty excited about the slick new presentation, and ready to get them out into the world!  I'm also sneaking a random bonus print on the back of every piece (shhh!).

Jim Moriarty Portrait Illustration

I love the BBC's modern day version of 'Sherlock'... largely due to their brilliant and hilariously menacing version of evil mastermind Jim Moriarty as played by Andrew Scott.  

I thought I'd try my brush-pen hand at a quick caricature, so I looked at dozens of reference photographs and drew my own (it's always better to form your own version of a subject than slave yourself to or infringe on the copyright of a particular photograph).  

I put the original drawing up on Etsy for kicks as well.

Skull on Plaid

In keeping with my effort to stay loose and lively, here's another whimsical skull in brush pen.  Isn't he fashionable on plaid?  I pulled out a gray prismacolor marker to help push the pattern back a little.  This would have taken me a few extra hours if I'd done it with a technical pen, but I'm thinking once I get the hang of this brush stuff it'll be great to blend the tools together... using brush for the fat and flowing outlines and pen for fine detail and hatching.  Lot's to play with there!

On a side note, as a metal fan I'm well aware of how cliche skull art is... yet that allure is always there!  Must be some kind of primal fascination in us.

Pocket Brush Fun

My Pentel Pocket Brush continues to be fun to work with on quick whimsical sketches.  I'm starting to get a feel for what it's capable of and how to control it better.  I'll look forward to coming back to these to compare after I've gotten another 10 or 20 hours under my belt.  Most notably, getting those instant fat outlines that would otherwise have taken me 10 times longer to get with a fine-tip pen... those are really fun.

Mammoth Drawings with Brush Pen

This small set of mammoth drawings had me using a brush pen, ranging from 10 to 20 minutes each.  It's certainly a lot faster than working with technical pen!

 

I've owned a Pentel Pocket Brush Pen for well over a year, but never spent much serious time with it.  Thanks to a nudge from an illustrator friend, I decided it was time I started making a more concerted effort to get comfortable and confident with a brush.  

 

I've been very focused on pencils, technical pens and ballpoints and tend to think of myself as a pen guy deep down.  But with my commitment to black and white illustrations, it's important to be flexible and well-versed with a brush as well.  In the interest of a loose and lively line quality with some really beautiful line weights, these brush pens really are an awesome tool!