The M-F'n-A Poster

Hello Blog, I hope all is well. This week I finally picked up SVA's unofficial 2009 MFA Illustration as Visual Essay Poster. Its a limited edition print of 100 done in offset press. Its 19x27 and looks AMAZING in person. I love the illustrations featured and can't believe how privileged I was to work on it. Anyway, here it is:


The final was printed on an off white (slightly cream) paper. Somehow it feels like new ink on a old poster, if that makes any sense. Its different from the MFA Postcard in that it features work by Marshall Arisman, David Sandlin, and Nathan Fox, as well an extra piece by my friend Matt Cavanaugh. Of course, the following images are copyrighted to their respective artists.

First off is Nathan Fox by Matt Cavanaugth (Matt also did Edwin's portrait). I asked him to do one of Nathan and he knocked it out of the park. This version has the unadjusted color.

David Sandlin by Marshall Arisman. I'll say something after the next image.

Marshall Arisman by David Sandlin. I was most excited about this pairing, and they totally delivered. To their credit, they're always down for a fresh idea, and it couldn't have gone any better.

Kim Ablondi by Nathan Fox. Nathan graduated from our program in 2002 and was visiting NYC for ComicCon not too long ago. I asked him to do a portrait of Kim Ablondi, who is in charge of our program, and he was so down (who doesn't love Kim?!?). Awesome, awesome stuff.

Anyway, that's about it for now. Many more things to come!

See ya later Blog.

Not Half Bad

Hey Blog. Life is good, as the recent Mos Def single would have us believe. Here is a preview of the MFA Thesis Show postcard that was surprisingly painless to organize. Many of the images are cropped due to the limited size, but that won't be the case for the eventual poster. Asking everyone to submit work in layers was extremely effective, and gave me a lot of choices in terms of layout. If this card is any indication, I feel the thesis show is going to be one of the strongest ever.

For those who don't know, the concept of the postcard and poster is a 'yearbook page', and everyone involved was asked to randomly pick a classmate's name and create a portrait of him/her. Starting from the top left, the roster is:

FIRST ROW
Lisel Ashlock - drawn by Rich Tu (me)
Russ Spitkovsky - drawn by Lisel Ashlock
Y.J. Lee - drawn by Andre Da Loba
Anna Raff - drawn by Joanna Neborsky
Heejin Roh - drawn by Maria Berrio
Sybille Schenker - drawn by Russ Spitkovsky
Youngsun Liu - drawn by Rachel Allison

SECOND ROW
You Byun - drawn by Ray Jones
Joanna Neborsky - drawn by Anna Raff
Edowyn Vazquez - drawn by Matt Cavanaugh
John MacConnell - drawn by Josh Bayer
Nu Ryu - drawn by Sybille Schenker
Matt Cavanaugh - drawn by Heejin Roh
Maria Berrio - drawn by Yuriko Katori

THIRD ROW
Rich Tu - drawn by Youngsun Liu
Josh Bayer - drawn by Edowyn Vazquez
Yuriko Katori - drawn by You Byun
Ray Jones - drawn by John MacConnell
Rachel Allison - drawn by Nu Ryu
Andre da Loba - drawn by Y.J. Lee

So that's it for now Blog. More Soon!

Lisel Ashlock Ish My Clashmate

Hey Blog. No long story tonight, I'm coming off of a cold and still feel slightly terrible. I just wrapped up a couple of jobs and will be putting those up once they get printed, but in the meantime here's my contribution to MFA Thesis Show poster that I'm organizing.


*Update* I changed the image slightly and gave Lisel black hair. I wanted more volume at the top after spending more time with it. Art is never done!

That's the freakishly talented Lisel Ashlock. I wanted her peeking out from behind an animal mask, because her work has a mystical quality that makes it feel appropriate. Her hair's a little longer now, but I gave her a shorter bob haircut because that's what she wore when I first met her and that's how I picture her in my head.

Anyway, the portraits are looking amazing so far, and once its laid out I'll post that too. We're thinking about either silkscreen or offset press. Hopefully we can do offset and send it out, if anything to save ourselves the trouble of spending sleepless nights in the silkscreen lab (not to insult you silkscreen nerds).

So that's it, goodnight Blog. And feel better Me.