Mario Gomez

Three pieces I did recently for the July issue of Men's Health Germany on an article about German soccer star Mario Gomez and his workouts and training regimen. They wanted the images to depict Gomez being tackled and pulled by six defenders from other teams. Those defenders are Rafael Marquez of Mexico, Rio Ferdinand of England, Fabio Cannavaro of Italy, Lucio of Brazil, Pepe of Portugal, and Carles Puyol of Spain. To anyone from those aforementioned countries who read this blog, please don't hate me!

I felt that painting the defenders' skin red would keep their presence in these images from being too literal. I wanted it to imply that he's sort of fighting through his inner demons and interacting with figments of his imagination as he trains.

Joanna Silvestri

Here is a piece I did for the July issue of Playboy magazine. It's for the short fiction "Joanna Silvestri." The story had very soft imagery, with an almost nostalgic feel to it, following an aging porn star as she revisits her past. This was a lot of fun to do, and probably the most pleasant art direction I've ever experienced.

I am super excited to be a part of this magazine. It seems nearly all of my illustration heroes have been supported by Playboy at some point in their career. Artists like Frank Frazetta, Yuko Shimizu, Phil Hale, James Jean, Sam Weber, Tomer Hanuka, Marcos Chin, Gary Kelley, Kent Williams, Robert Mcginnis ... all artists I attribute to greatly influencing my artistic development. It kind of feels like joining a club. The big boys club (plus Yuko)

detail

A few of the preliminary sketches

A Mute of Hounds

A small piece I did for a show at Gallery Meltdown in L.A. to benefit the dogs of Downtown Dog Rescue. A majority of the dogs they rescue are pitbulls or pit mixes, so needless to say, I jumped at the opportunity to help out. The markings on this dog are modeled after my own pitbull.

Acrylic and colored pencil on watercolor paper

Uglies

Thought I'd put these up on the blog today. While the rest of my fellow man was watching LOST, I was working on a piece for the show "A Mute of Hounds" at Gallery Meltdown in LA. Busted out the acrylics, completely skipping the watercolors. I decided to mess around in my sketchbook while waiting for paint to dry (I really need a blow dryer). I think they look funny.

Real updates coming soon.

More celeb portraits

So I promised I'd be doing more of these, but never got around to it. Here are a couple more for now. Next up, I'm definitely thinking Brad Pitt because he is just too undeniably cool. Maybe Bea Arthur as well.

Grace Jones
My favorite eccentric from the 80's. Super model, actress, singer, artist, muse.

Carl Sagan
Who doesn't love this gentle spirit? I first learned about him years ago in science class, yet he's been popping up a lot lately.

Curiouser and Curiouser

This is the piece I did for the Curiouser and Curiouser show at the Gallery Nucleus back in February. I chose to illustrate Alice eating the two sides of the mushroom, as prescribed by the hookah-smoking caterpillar. I wanted to model Alice off of Alice Liddell, the little girl Lewis Carroll wrote the book for. Done in watercolor and acrylics.

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A close up of the caterpillar's face.I couldn't find my pallets...

Men's Health

I've been meaning to put these up on my blog for a while now but somehow have not gotten around to it. They were done for the January 2010 issue of Men's Health Germany. The article was called "Volle Power Aus Dem Verstärker" which translates into full power from the amplifiers. It was about motivation for exercise, and the power of different types of music for different work outs. The first one was a double page spread, and the other two were single page spreads. Photographs from Dietrich Halemeyer.

These three images will also be in an upcoming issue of Men's Health Korea.

On an unrelated note, if you'd like to ask me questions anonymously, feel free to leave them on my formspring and I will try and answer all of them. Started it a while back, but have recently regained interest in it. Go wild!