Shoe (Undead Illustration #1)

A dead sketch for a piece commissioned over the summer about "the running shoe of the future"... though sacrificed on the altar of budget negotiations and misunderstood emails, i really loved this drawing. The idea was that you know, it being post-2012 and all, Quetzalcoatl is back and tearing things up with an army of various horrifying monsters and mankind's only real choice in foot wear, let alone running shoes, is a viscous black paste that congeals on the sole of the foot, shielding it temporarily from the jagged and unpredictable volcanic surface of the earth of the future. Somewhat unbelievably, the client was on board with all that, but shot the whole thing down when i attempted to renegotiate the $$$. These things happen.

Three Aztec Warriors/Saturday Afternoon Free Timez

Killing time in the studio with Kim on Saturday afternoon with collaborative collages... "Three Aztec Warriors."

Vans On The Run

In the last week of September I got a call from Alexandra Zsigmond from the New York Times Op-Ed desk with a (dare i say it) exciting job regarding the rise of semi-legal private transit services in the face of public transit cut backs across the city. As per usual with Op-Ed gigs, time was tight but thanks to the marvels of modern technology i was able to get most of the sketches done in a pocket sketchbook while waiting for Pavement to come on stage at Central Park.

Once i had a rough idea of how the piece was going to sit in the blissfully unconventional shape...


... it was then just a matter of populating it with buildings and vehicles...






...which were kept pretty clear and tame in the sketch phase. Once the sketch was approved however, the vehicles had room to get a little more interesting in terms of line and mark making.







I really, really used get bummed out when i had to draw cars or trucks. I lived in fear of having to draw machinery, a total drag... now however, i crave this stuff... Anyway, a slight tweak of the layout later and voila:



...one of my favorite pieces of 2010. The final piece is available in more detail here.