big ass red tags

Wassup Blog. My sister recently had her huge baby shower and the house was pretty packed. We had about 120 people running around and tons of food. Two BBQ grills were going, and we ordered a ton of Filipino good. It all got eaten too! The next day there was nothing to eat in the house and I was rummaging for cans of tuna, as my eating schedule is insane in-and-of-itself.

Anyway, right before the shin-dig we acquired a large LCD screen along with a couple of Blu-Ray players. My first Blu-Ray dvd was I Am Legend (I know, I know... I hadn't seen it, and I'm a sucker for Will Smith movies. Shut up). The movie itself was ok, but the ending was totally flat and left me disappointed. However, the alternate ending was actually better IMHO, because it backlit the rest of the movie. Also, the screen uses tru-motion technology, so seeing images that big in 1080dpi was like looking out a window. A window full of rabid zombies.

As for work, here's another piece a did for Business Week concerning consumers in search of a cheaper shopping experience. It seems that rising gas and food costs have driven shoppers to dollar stores and Wal-Marts, with grocery stores feeling the effects. I did a couple of things differently with this piece, mostly concerning the use of shadows. I don't usually deal with lighting, but I really wanted the red tag to appear huge and monolithic so I felt almost obligated to do it. I really liked the results tho.


The shadows definitely gave my work a more polished look than I'm used to. We'll see if I continue to use them. Also, here's the sketch that preceded it. I always look at the sketch afterwards like "how'd I go from that to that?"


Anyway, that's about it for right now and this appears in the August 25th issue of Business Week.

Peace Blog.

Apologies and Disorders

Sup Blog, it's been a while. Unfortunately (or fortunately) I've been busy with some ongoing projects like the third Altpick Deck and a startup t-shirt line for a good friend. The deck is still some ways away from hitting press, but the first run of t-shirts are being printed as we speak so I'll have pics when they're all good to go. This has left me a little swamped so I haven't updated in a while, buuut alas I have things to show you my friend!

I'm going to do something different this week and show you a book that I recently discovered because it's way too interesting to not share. It's called Pictorial Manual of Neurological Tests, written by Maurice W. Van Allen, B.A., M.D. It features some amazing illustrations by George Buckley. My edition was published in 1969. In college I minored in Psychology out of pure interest in the subject, and would've double majored if my physiological psych course wasn't so damn hard. Anyway, let's look at the cover first.


First of all, I love the dimensions of the book. It's roughly 9in by 6in, and you just don't see horizontal books that deal with such heavy material. The design is extremely simple (in a great way), and there are illustrations right on the cover, which give the piece movement. It may be 40 years old, but it somehow evokes a very modern sense of irony. Also, you can't tell from my scan but it's a cloth cover, and the blue letters almost have a letterpress effect. Now let's look inside.



Look at George's illustrations, they cut straight to the point without being static or boring. So much medical illustration lacks personality, but look at these! There's so much confidence in his line that he's making me jealous. His facial expressions are something to behold too.



Those three faces feel so modern to me, and also slightly disturbing. Even the infant illustrations somehow 'go past' the subject matter and become something else. Here are two more pages which I like, if anything for the quality of the work.



I love how that laying body has real weight to it. Also, hands are incredibly hard to draw (trust me!), but George does it with great style with and consistency.

Overall, this book was a real find and this was just the tip of the iceberg because it's full of great pages. It's cliche but they just don't make'em like this anymore. I mean, when was the last time a medical textbook made you want to look inside? Was there even a last time? In any case, awesome stuff.

So for next time I haven't decided whether I should show you another great book find, or an illustration. I have a couple illustration gigs in the pipeline so I'll figure it out.

Until next time Blog.