Vintage NYC Suicides

Here are two more illustrations I did for The Onion. They wanted to go for a vintage 1880s look for this piece. My first stab at it looked too contemporary (probably because it was done entirely in Photoshop) so the final was done in ballpoint pen and aged with a texture overlay.
You can see the pieces in the video at 1:46


Scopes Trial: Teacher Indicted After Monkey Called To Testify Fails To Turn Into A Human

Here are the final pieces:

And here are the rejects:

Amerigo Vespucci

Just did this piece for The onion. 18" x 24" oil on board. You can view it here at 00:40
Originally he had an "oh shit" expression, but they thought it looked like he was terrified, so I painted over it in Photoshop to give him a more exhausted look.

Breakthrough Contest

Earlier this summer I entered Richard Solomon's Breakthrough contest. Although I didn't win, I was chosen as a staff pick. You can read the spotlight on their blog here. Congratulations to the winner, the runner ups, and the other staff picks. The caliber of work is truly astounding.

Iron John

Did this for the Grimm fairy tales challenge on theartorder.com. Iron John is one of the stranger fairy tales that I've read. Part of it involves a hairy wildman being extracted from the bottom of a lake in a forrest...yeah.

Zombie Tourist

This was a quick job that I did over winter break of 2010. The art director wanted a zombified tourist in NYC who wasn't overly decomposed, but rather freshly turned.

Elie Wiesel

Another one from the Ringling Library Town Hall Lecture Series. This is a portrait for one of the greatest humans to ever live, Elie Wiesel.

18" x 22", Charcoal

Jay-Z: Decoded

This past summer I received my first freelance book illustration job, and it was quite a doozy. I was hired by Rodrigo Corral Design to illustrate Jay-Z's memoir Decoded which just hit bookshelves on 11/16/10. Here are some of the originals next to their respective pages in the book. All of these were done in graphite. More to follow soon.