Here’s an assortment of some recent drawings from my sketchbooks. A few figure models from the Society of Illustrators sketch night… and some other doodles.

A few weeks ago I was called up by the Washington Post to do the opening illustration for an article about beauty and discrimination. The writer maintains that throughout the US there is an overall phenomenon of discrimination against people who are unattractive. You will have more chances to be hired and get a better position if your are an attractive individual, while overweight or unattractive folks might be assessed negatively due to their looks and not their qualifications. The author thinks that the law should address this problem and there should be ways to protect against discrimination based on looks. I personally do not agree with the author’s idea, I think that a law of this sort would be kind of silly – its human nature to prefer more attractive looks and you can’t fight it with the law, there is already too many laws correcting ‘discrimination’ that are bordering silliness but this one would really be down right senseless. but that’s just my opinion. Anyhow, personal opinions can’t play a part when doing a job and regardless – the article provided a really fun subject to work with.

We ended up going with an image that shows a workers discontent with her workplace’s beauty biased choices. I decided to contrast sharp square shapes with the rounds curves of the observing figures and also to contrast the colors. I usually prefer not to use text in my images but I think in this case it helped bring the concept into light.

‘Hector Is a Robot’ was a story that’s I’ve worked on about a year ago with my friend Ray Sohn. I wrote a rough draft and gave it to Ray who in turn interpreted it according to his own fancy. I thought the story would fit Ray’s sensibilities, and I’ve been wanting to do a collaboration with him for awhile. I didn’t see pencils, just finished art, which was surprising because his visual and narrative interpretation of the story is so radically different than what I would have done if I were to draw it. We did some editing following that, with a few additional panels and pages drawn. I wanted Ray to go the extra mile and do another set of revisions, with a new ending in mind, but alas, that never happened. Even though, I am happy with the result – a very strange yet striking story with some unique visuals. This is very very NSFW, so please be advised.

Without further ado, I present you with Hector:
Download the story (6.1mb pdf)

I came up with this concept a few months ago, while staying in Gig Harbor, Washington. During my stay I got really interested in the abundance of life that kept washing up on the shore; mussels, oysters and barnacles, small crabs laying under rocks and so on. My initial thought was to draw two embracing figures coming out of the waters covered with various sea life to the point where they are unrecognizable. I held off though, feeling that something was missing from the rough sketch I made. Other projects kept coming in and I had to put this idea in my mental drawer. A few months later, I came up with the solution, only one of the figures will be obscured by sea remnants, the other will be bare – a contrast to the first. I also changed the angle, putting the girl high above and the other figure coming from below adding more tension to the composition.

The drawing and even more so the colors, were inspired by the japanese wooblock print artist – Kawase Hasui. In his prints there is often an impression of nature and man’s mark in it, at a certain time of a day or season of the year, I feel like if there was such a thing as visual haikus – he’d be the undisputed master.

A print of Ebb & Flow is available in the printstore!

There’s a new print available in the print store. The drawing was inspired by an old pulp novel cover and was a personal un-commissioned project which I worked on during some off time. The final art was inked with a japanese nib (I usually use a #3 brush) – it’s a great tool for getting a more detailed and controlled look.

The first 10 people to order the print will get an additional ’surprise’ signed mini print for free! so get her while she’s hot…