NCAA Preview for LA Times

I was very excited to created this year's NCAA Preview cover for  The Los Angeles Times! This was a large scale project for me, and I enjoyed putting a lot of hours into it. My wife? Not so much :)

The premise of the image is about how LA's "local" teams of Arizona and Gonzaga will have to face powerful teams from the Big East conference during March Madness. The big teams this year are Kentucky, Virginia, Duke, Wisconsin, and Villanova.

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Roughs (the AD actually considered these as sketches and sent back a layout with his favorite)

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Final sketch from selected rough (went a little nuts with this one)

I'm SO happy they liked the idea of using the mascots (Kentucky Wildcats, Virginia Cavaliers, Duke Blue Devils, Villanova Wildcats, Wisconsin Badgers). A requested alternate version with the smaller teams as mascots (Arizona's Wildcat wears a hat and that bulldog just looks so silly):

You may notice that the small figures changed in the final art; it was a requested revision that the reader be able to see the team names on the players' backs. I much prefer the twisting figures in the sketch, but I totally understand and was happy to do the revision. Also both team numbers are "2" as a way to reflect the teams' seeds (college basketball jargon :)

(detail)

Thanks for reading!

Enjoy the Day,
Chris

Houston's best!

Last month I worked on a great project for Houston Press; it was great to work with them again after a very long time (they were one of first freelance clients waaaaaaay back in 2008!) This assignment was a blast as they wanted to go with a gambling theme for their annual "Best of" issue, and they wanted full-page section images of playing-card royalty living it up!

After some discussion about how to keep a consistency and overall theme within the four images, I sent over these roughs from which the AD picked her favorites:

I have to admit I was a little bummed the cucumber-eyed queen and b-ball dribbling jack weren't selected, but I was still super happy to be drawing any of these! Refined Sketches:

And here are the final images; it was requested that they all be in monochromatic palettes, but upon seeing these versions, the AD was swayed into the dual-color variations. I had also planned to work with line from the get -go as a way to allude to playing card artwork as well as to handle the complexity of the images. The boxes at the bottoms were for the section tittles (placed by the AD)

Food and Drink

Shopping & Services

 Sports & Recreation

Arts & Entertainment

Thanks for reading!

Enjoy the Day,

Chris

Baseball will be BIG in Los Angeles this year!

Here is another rundown of a recent LA Times cover. This was a full-page cover to a section about California baseball, and much of the writing had to do with how much money was spent to build huge teams of the biggest names in the sport. Of course, that would lead one to assume that baseball will be a hot topic and a great source of entertainment for southern Cali folks in 2013. The section seemed to be pushing more towards the "awesome entertainment" aspect and not so much the finances involved, so I sketched to echo that sentiment.

(Click all images to view larger)

Because this was a pretty big project (about 11x17), I added some "mood images" to my sketches in order to give the folks at the paper a closer idea of how I would approach the images:

 #1: "Big name" players coming into the LA/Anaheim area via the ocean (I was looking forward to drawing the little detailed beach scene at their feet and possibly the title in the sand).

#2: The (baseball) stars aligning for a hit baseball season. Not only would it have been a player as the constellation, but I would have made the stars li'l tiny baseballs. The building along the bottom is a major LA icon, the Observatory at Griffith Park. This one was ALMOST selected for final.

#3: Baseball as the sun over LA. This one is very similar to a pitching image I did a while back for Major League Baseball; I wasn't crazy about re-drawing a similar image, but I felt it was a good fit for the article. I'm starting to realize how many hand-images I have in my portfolio; I may take a break from any hand-based concepts for a while...

After a lot of debate, the paper decided to go with #3 with a landscape revision that would include the Hollywood sign and Anaheim's Matterhorn icon in order to allude to both city's teams.

Here is the final art; the AD requested some palm trees and banners to nail home the location/teams. In a previous version, that area had been filled with John Woo-esque flying seagulls (which I loved), but they had to go to make room for the other elements. My buddy in LA said the image looked great as a full-page in the paper, and I was thrilled to think about the possibility of the Kardashians seeing my work (Pshhh, they don't read the paper. But I can dream).

Thanks to Derek for a great assignment, and thanks to you for reading!

Enjoy the Day,

Chris

Materials of the Future

I was recently quite fortunate to create two images for Popular Science's "Materials of the Future" article. I enjoy the magazine, and it was great to hear Todd the AD ask for mock propaganda/WPA posters with a contemporary feel. Working from short descriptive blurbs, I let my mind turn to the future...

We'll start off with the smaller image sketches for shoes that will produce electricity:

I really enjoyed this sketch of the shoes powering the mp3 player. Granted, the runner wouldn't literally have wires running over him, but they would have been transparent. Hmmm, maybe that should have been noted in the sketch, Whetzel.

Also, I should note that I was in charge of the taglines, so don't be too harsh on me for such unclever phrases. Gimme a break; I'm not on Mad Men.

I also liked this idea of the shoes showing their charge capacity, but again the wires may have been a deciding factor. Curse you, bluetooth and wireless technology; you make for difficult or absent visuals! 

This sketch is a bit more surreal in that tis probably doesn't actually happen (although I would totally wear them if it did). It is a more simplified concept focusing on producing power rather than using it.

And here are sketches for the larger image about how human ligaments and tendons will be replaced with spider-silk when injured or faulty:

So for the idea of this replacement material, I wanted to find a way to show its strength correcting a weakness. I also wanted to stay away from "x-ray" type images that you are always seeing when something internal to the body is discussed. After a bit of doodle-thinking, I found myself wanting to chop up the figure's limbs. What can I say? Concepting can be frustrating. But then I re-connected them with replacement ligaments, and this became the core concept of two sketches while focusing on silk properties. This sketch focused on spider-silk ligaments being 100x stronger than human versions.

Sketch #2 focused more on the healing aspect of the materials and less on its properties. It didn't really  fit my theme of invisible joints, but I was not sure what the article's focus would be so I figured I better include something more realistic and focused on recovery.

With this sketch, I was trying to find a situation to emphasize the "stretchiness" of the replacement materials (20x more stretchy!). I thought a soccer player contorting for a kick made for an interesting poster, and the blurb I worked from mentioned the probable use of these silks to correct sports injuries.

Here are the final images. There was an addition of the spider in the corner of the full-page opener, and I believe it was used elsewhere in the article as a little spot-illo of sorts. 

Full-page opening image

Half-page image

It was ablast to see this published in a magazine of which I am a reader. Thanks to Todd for a great assignment. Also, thanks to Li'l Petey Wonsowski for helping me get this project completed during a time-crunch!

Thanks for reading and happy holidays!

Enjoy the Day,

Chris

Healthy Food Fight Poster

Over the summer I was very pleased to work with a NY design firm on a really fun project. They had been picked to provide art and design for a nationwide cooking event; I was lucky enough to be chosen as the artist for the project!!! Even though this was a quick turnaround, everyone was really easy to work with, and I'm so happy to finally feature this artwork.

A special thanks to Cozette and Tybre for helping me out by being photo-shoot models!

Initial sketches (three poster-type images and logo treatments):

Revised sketches (the client requested the cooks look like backyard chefs as opposed to professionals. This was so obvious after they pointed it out, I literally slapped my forehead):

Final artwork (the color palette was used to fit the client's branding. I think it really made the artwork much better and I'm now trying more color substitutions for shadows):

Enjoy the Day,
Chris

Boba Fett

I was very fortunate to be included among some awesome artists to submit artwork for a Star Wars "coffee table" book. From what I gather, it is just a really cool book of Star Wars art by all your favorite illustrators including Greg Manchess, Donato Giancola, Alex Ross, and others. While my artwork made it to the final round, it was not chosen for inclusion in the book. I had very little time to complete the artwork, and from what the AD said via email, it seems it was not included as Mr. Lucas had enough artwork for the book. I beat the deadline, but I guess I submitted after too many all-stars :) Oh well, it was nice to be included in the process!

Here are some kind words from the AD:
"I just heard that for whatever reason it was not accepted for the book. I am sorry as you know this was a personal choice by George himself and he does not give reasons. He did say that he would consider it for future possibilities and for possible limited editions...Sorry man - I know it does not help but I really loved your piece and was shocked about the news. I would love to work together on future projects..."

Sketch:

Final Art:

Enjoy the Day,
Chris

"Answer the Call" Posters

Over the summer, I was very lucky to be chosen for a poster campaign. It is for Sidedoor Productions, a film studio that accepts submissions/scripts for movie ideas (think Project: Greenlight). They are teaming up with Mountain Dew to get the word out: you could have your movie made! The design firm handling the promotions was TracyLocke in Connecticut.

The project was originally going to run four posters, but the number was cut down to two due to budget. There may be a third poster in the future if needed. The first two posters were to a pitch/script-themed poster and a generic all occasions poster.

Quick composition layouts that were discussed before sketches: Round one of sketches:
Round two of sketches (face alterations):
Round three of sketches (additional face alteration):

First round of finished art (too green):

Second round of finished art (more facial detail and new figure, background alteration):

Third round of finished art (face alteration and color changes):

Final posters as produced by TracyLocke:

I decided to show the original artwork on my website so that viewers will see exactly what I delivered. So I placed the needed text on the art and produced these versions for my promotions:

The entire process for these posters took around six weeks due to art direction waiting for feedback from folks at both Sidedoor and Mountain Dew, folks on vacation, etc. I do hope we continue with the third poster as I greatly enjoy working in a series. I also think I enjoy poster work so much that I am hoping to do more both for clients as well as self-initiated projects.

Enjoy the Day,
Chris
chris-whetzel.com