Freedom

Happy July 4th. To the left is an image from one of my illustration idols, Norman Rockwell. This painting was done in 1943 as a part of series entitled The Four Freedoms published by the Saturday Evening Post. According to his publisher, when Rockwell first undertook the project he thought it would take two months. It took seven. Rockwell said, "It should have been tackled by Michelangelo." I think he did fine all by himself. This particular piece is called Freedom of Worship. The others in the series include Freedom of Speech, Freedom from Want, and Freedom from Fear.

I am proud to live in the most free nation in the world. May we never forget the religious ideals that this nation is built upon, ideals which afford us the very liberties we enjoy.

When Night Falls

This page actually precedes the others in order. It is right when night falls on Sactown and Cornelius is explaining the corruption of city. Note the politically friendly graffiti. I'm not completely sold on this page for two reasons:
1) I'm not sure upper right frame is as a contrast to his Cornelius dramatic narration. It's supposed to be humorous, but may just come off confusing. I thought about placing the silhouette of a drug deal or a lady of the night, but I just didn't want to make it so seedy in conjunction with the mattress tag. I know it's hard to process this without the text in place.
2) The visual on the Peck running through the bottom frame. Feels messy right now. I'll sleep on it.

Team Will

Though this isn't necessarily illustration oriented, I thought is was worth mentioning: my buddy, Jonathan Weast (a professional illustrator), just got through cycling from San Francisco to Washington DC; he and his team mates did it in only 10 days! What's more, they did it to raise awareness and funds for children battling cancer. To see photos of they're adventure, surf over to the team's site and team member John Livernois's blog of the trek.

Congrats, Jonathan, on a huge ride for a noble cause.

WALL-E

Took in WALL-E today with the fam. I give it a solid B+/A-. Pixar did a wonderful job telling a story with minimal dialogue. Good imagery and cinematography. They almost jerk a couple of tears out of you near the end. Excellent character development which makes these robots believable and endearing. And they get tons of mileage out of nuanced animation that only reinforces the story and characters. I highly recommend it. I think I would've given it a solid "A" had there not been some minor plot holes, but I won't spoil the movie with pesky details. BTW, the animated short before the film was very tight and clever (a huge step up from the short they did before Nemo). Hats off to the folks in Emeryville.

Cat to Cardboard

Here's the near finished panel, sans lettering. This one was a fun one to see to fruition as I had to manage to tie in the alley cat and get the Peck up on a roof in short order. Hopefully that looks like debris on top of the building he's jumping onto. On the following page he surveys his city, Sactown.

Cough. Cough.

Here is a peek at a Peck page I'm shading right now. Should have it done tonight. Need to work out some linework issues on the lower left panel (as well as shade it) and create more depth in the other two panels.

Smog report: The smoke is heavy right now in the Sac Valley. Something like 800+ wildfires started from a single lightning storm last week. The sunlight looks reddish on the sidewalk outside. Smells like a campfire; looks surreal. (Sigh). Stay in doors, crank the AC and draw.