Busy Bumblebee - Process

Gotta new documented process of my traditional paintings. It was a quick demo I did this Fall quarter at SCAD. The students have to do some sort of "manimal" (part human part animal) This is what you get when Yaritza Burgos (AKA "Bumblebee Man" from the Simpsons) gets a "Bee Movie" body and finds a job.

Prismacolor Pencil transfer to Strathmore Illustration Board. 10" x 7.5" image area. Taped off with Blue Safe Release tape.

Acrylic and Ink base colors. Watercolor was used for the clouds that I don't have a picture for.

Oil wash made with Dioxane Purple and Permanent Green Light thinned with Gamsol.

Dried oil wash removed with kneaded eraser revealing highlights and unifying shadows.

Prismacolor pencil details. and color shifts in certain areas.

Final flatbed scan color corrected with touched off with digital signature.

Details reveal lots of great texture and variations in colors.

Whole process took about 8 hours, but not all at once.

Before Yours and Her Very Eyes

Before yours and her very eyes
Originally uploaded by jaymontgomery

Made this little video of one of my many painting methods. Painting was created with acrylic, watercolors, an oil wash, Prismacolor pencils, and gesso in about that order.

Video was created with iPhoto 11' slideshow. Limiting options but works OK. Real easy once you do it once right. This was my first time doing the slideshow.

New Process video!

Just created this process video for my Materials and Techniques II class at SCAD. Enjoy!

Aqua Teen Hunger Force background!

After working on 6 movie backgrounds for Cartoon Network's "Aqua Teen Hunger Force colon Movie Film for Theaters" (yes, this is the full title exactly). They called on my pixel pushing skills again for the TV show. Just this past Sunday the new episode of the Adult Swim TV show Aqua Teen Hunger Force "Rabbot Redux" aired and it had about 2 min of air time using a background I did! Took about 2-3 weeks to do back in December
2009. A bit about the creation process.

1. This is what the Art Director, Bob Pettitt, sent me as a starting point. This was used as a "holder" for the animation build of the scene. After talking with me about the scenes needs and he sending me a few texture files, food items for the salad bar I got started.

2. I established eye an level horizon line using one point perspective. Then I created most of the base mechanical/architectural shapes in Illustrator CS4 then by copying and pasting into Photoshop CS4 I created several smart object layers.

3. I sent progress to the AD a couple of times. I did not do the Ferrari. They already that done, I just had to make sure the perspective matched the rest and fit in between the bed and fountain. I had to make sure that the layers of objects were set up in such a way that the characters could go behind all the elements. So each object was on it's own layer with transparent backgrounds.

4. After creating in smart objects in Photoshop, I used them as clipping masks to add textures mainly. On some smart object layers I added shadows and highlights as clipping masks. This is the final background low res version. The original is 12000 x 3240 pixels (40in x 10.8in at 300 dpi) with 411 layers! High Def Baby!

Some details - indoor horse stable!


fancy luxury bed! I used the Vanishing Point filter and the Liquify filter to apply the bed spread pattern.

Some screen shots of how they used them in the end. It was about 2 min of airtime. Pretty funny little scene.

If you want to see the whole episode you can go to this direct link on the Adult Swim website, but I must warn you that it's NSFW, but not R rated. It's not the type of crude humor that everyone can appreciate. (If there is such a humor.) It's only a 15 min show, but to skip right to the scene go to the end of the first video clip and the next clip will load and it's toward the beginning of that video file.

Ya Ya Kids T-Shirt Illustration

Recently finished a new Ya Ya Kids shirt for Manic Mommies Podcast. I had done 4 other traditionally with watercolor then touch up in Photoshop. This one was done in Photoshop after an creating a tight pencil with graphite.

Here is video I created about my process.

Illustration Friday - Germs

This was for an editorial illustration for Texas Journey Magazine that I did a while back about children going overseas on vacations and trips. The article discussed ways to prevent and keep your children safe from all travel health issues. It was fun designing fake the stickers. I first created all the stickers flat in Illustrator and then applied them to the luggage painting using Photoshop's distort and liquify tools, then I brought that into Painter to add a uniform painted texture overall.

Just now did this different collection of all the stickers on skin just for the Germs entry to Illustration Friday. Speaking of which the creator of IF, Penelope Dullaghan, was just recently interviewed on Escape From Illustration Island. Check it out on iTunes!



Comments are appreciated!

The Night After Christmas - sketches

I have been working on a new picture book of sorts for marketed towards adults for Winepress Publishing since early March 2009. It's called Night After Christmas - A Holiday Paradigm Revisited. by Jim Chapman. It's a take on the poem The Night Before Christmas by an anonymous author first published in 1823. It deals with a modern families struggle of materialism and lost sight of what Christmas was really all about. I did 10 full page illustrations plus a cover in a stylized realism manner. I had lots of fun coming up with the scenery which is loosely based off my own home and family. I had about 3 months to do 11 full blown, full page illustrations with repeating characters and scenes all while teaching 2 classes, taking 1 MFA class and many other freelance jobs. I thought I was done in June and then the author had lots of little revisions to some of the illustrations starting a few weeks ago. I got final approval on all the illustrations just last week! It's due to be printed and in the stores hopefully in a couple of months just in time for Christmas.

I wanted to give you first a taste of the process of some of the illustrations. I always start with pencil and here are some sketches I sent the publisher. The author had some very specific art direction from a Word doc and the story obviously gave some clues to set the scene. I had already done a fair amount of research and photo reference.




So from these I digitally painted the scenes in Photoshop and Painter. The finals are coming in a later post.

Spiritual Connections

It's been a while since I was an official student of the arts. Since 2000 I have been a teacher of the arts. Well I started the journey of getting my MFA so that I could have the opportunity to teach full-time at a college level. The logical and most practical choice was to get my MFA from the place I teach, SCAD-Atlanta. I could teach and take classes at the same time all in the same place. Well this past quarter I did just that. I taught 2 classes (Getting Published, and Self Promotion for Illustrators) and took my first class with Illustration professor Julie Mueller-Brown. It was grueling financially, physically, and mentally! During the middle of the quarter I found a more flexible and faster way to get my MFA at Hartford Art School, Limited Residency MFA in Illustration. So I won't be continuing with SCAD for my MFA in Illustration. More on that later.

ILLU 714 Drawing for Illustrators was a great course to start off with and therapeutic in many ways. For the first time in a long time I had allotted time to draw for me. Well, I was drawing for my professor but it was much more wide open than any other paying freelance gig I have done in over 16 years. The 7 other students and I did TONS of drawing inside and outside of class. Part of it was to create 5 personal graphite drawings outside of class. Julie wanted us to just start scribbling on nice drawing paper and see what happened. Below is my journey of those drawings. She is going to use my series of drawings as an example of the process for when she gives this assignment again. I went from literal symbols and words to almost abstract expressionism. Very different from what I am used to and a breath of fresh air.

I would love to get any feedback on these good or bad.

Resort Map

A while back in the beginning of November I was contacted by the owner of Chestnut Bay Resort in Northeast Alabama. He needed an illustrative map of his resort on Lake Weiss. He tried to get done through a relative and disaster stuck with this rejected map.


So he sought out a professional. He invited me to come up and take some photos and walk around the place. I can't remember the last time I was in Alabama, but before this trip I had never been to Centre, Alabama. The resort was unexpectedly nice and new and still expanding. Great for family retreats and lots of outdoor activities. So got the photos in Winter time and had to make the birds eye map for Spring or Summer time. I was quite swamped with SCAD and other freelance so I brought on board my good buddy John Nelson to help me out.

I met with John and talked about the basic layout and details and without him actually going to the Resort he sketched out in Photoshop a fairly accurate rendition of the place.

After a couple of rounds of over the phone revisions we had a final drawing.

Then I colored it in Photoshop.


They are going to use it on brochures, a large poster and a homepage clickable map showing photos of the different areas. See it on the ChestnutBayResort.com.

Orangutans in watercolor and colored pencil

I can't believe I have not posted this yet. This was an illustration I did in Fall of 2007 as demo for my Materials and Techniques I class. The assignment was to pick and endangered species to be used for an existing Chocolate bar that features endangered animals and raises money to help support the species habitat and humanity. See more at www.chocolatebar.com. I, of course,
choose the Sumatran Orangutan, located in Southeast Asia. This layering process of watercolor and colored pencils lends it self well to renderings of animal textures and landscapes. 15" x 9"




Detail:


Comments welcome.

Paperless Office Editorial Illustration

Assignment for a Mortgage Servicing News. Art director's brief description is pretty much all I got: "man in small office building throwing papers out of window.
Pile of paper on the street..." I took it a bit further adding too many details.
This is the concept that the AD asked for and eventually went with.

This is another concept that the AD did not ask for but liked better. The editor liked the other requested concept so the AD had to comply. This has happened over and over again with editorial clients. I thought it was the AD's job to pick the artist and the art. Isn't that what they went to school for?

I had originally painted the colors as a normal blue sky day. I liked the way a changed it. After some thumbnail sketches it was totally created on the Mac using Illustrator CS3 most 85% of the shapes and Photoshop for the painted looking parts. Total time: about 10 hours on and off for a week.

A cropped detail that surprisingly and most frustratingly communicates exactly the same thing as the un-cropped version. I could have done half the work and got paid the same! Arggh!!

Comments good and bad are welcome!

My process

Here is a demo I did for my Electronic Illustration class. The link to the web page not only describes my process of painting and modifying the same Photoshop image for 3 different looks of the same image. The web page itself was an actual assignment as well. The style was something really different for me and I had lots of fun illustrating it. Let me know what you think.



The students created 3 different tarot cards of their choice in a style of their choice using Photoshop and Painter and then they created a web page based on those cards talking about their process. They all worked very hard on these and a great job overall. Here are some links to the students web pages.

Mary Wall
Matt Kelly
Sarah Pettis
Fiona Handshin
Min Choi
Tanya Rodes-Colee
Alan Hawley
Jacob Smith

...more student links to come soon.

Art Fairy - Hidden Pictures

This was a ink drawing I did mid in September 2007 as a demo for my Materials & Techniques I class. I was also influenced by my 6 year old daughter who loves art and fairies. So I decided to do double duty and created a picture for her to color and hang in her bedroom as well as find the art objects in the scene. I might even submit it to Highlights for publication. See if you can find all the art supplies.



Here is a terribly low res video of my process.


If you would like a printable version for your child to do just drop my an email and I'll email you a PDF to print.

22 Q&A interview

I get asked almost 2-3 times a month these days for an interview from an illustration or design student. I recently filled out a 22 question email interview and thought I would share it here.

1. Where are you from? The surrounding suburbs of Atlanta, GA.
2. How long have you done illustration for? All my life, but professionally for 12+ years.
3. How did you find out that illustration was something you wanted to pursue? After I graduated from LaGrange College with a BA in Drawing a Painting and Graphic Design I did not really know how to go about making a living as a freelance illustrator until I went to Portfolio Center (PC) in 1992 and saw all the illustration sourcebooks and trade magazine and talked with my professors. I wanted to do art but I thought gallery work was too unstable and I did not mind illustrating other peoples ideas so Illustration was more stable and appealing to me. Some would say I “sold out” by going into commercial art, but everyone got to make a living and I make a living doing what I love.
4. What was your first job as an illustrator? I had small rinky dink jobs in high school and college, but my first big break as an educated illustrator came while I was in my 5th of 8 quarters at PC. A teacher at PC who taught advertising by the name of Mike Weed of Henderson Advertising saw an illustration I did on the walls of PC that won best of show and thought I could take on an two illustrations he needed for Flowers Bread Company. They were two billboard illustrations. http://www.jaymontgomery.com/portnaturesown.html I did them for a total of $2500 (I think), so I was thrilled and that job and illustrations lead to so many other freelance opportunities.
5. What college did you attend? LaGrange College and Portfolio Center
6. What illustration did you enjoy doing the most? The ones with the most freedom and money of course. Editorial jobs have a little of both.
7. Which project are you most proud of? I guess the one that I got the most money for which was $13,600 for a Roadway illustration. This is not a normal pricing that most illustrators expect, but it sure is nice.
8. Did you ever have any doubts about being an illustrator? Of course, but I really did not know what else made me happy and challenged so I stuck it out through the tough times. The head of the illustration department at PC told me that I would not make it as an illustrator, which definitely gave me doubts, but I wanted to turn that negative comment into a positive and prove him wrong. I think I did. Also, I had doubts right after 9/11 when I had a 2 year old and a baby and I was the sole income provider doing full-time freelance. Man that was tough!
9. Is this a job you would consider to be very time consuming? Is it hard balancing a family and a job as an illustrator? Absolutely! If you want to be your own boss in any market it will take more time than a full-time cubicle job, mainly because your are every part of the business; customer service, marketer, creator, president, maid, accounts payable, purchaser, manager, etc.
10. How did you go about selling your ideas to a client? Most of the time a basic idea is already formed by a doodle, text or verbal description before the client even contacts me. If they want me to come up with an idea, I’m more than happy to do that by talking with them and getting all the pertinent info, then I do 3-4 inch numbered thumbnails sometimes with a text description beside them. I do anywhere from 2-6 different ideas I send this to them usually via email attachment. Then I get feedback and go tighter.
11. Do you do anything else besides illustration? What are some hobbies that you enjoy doing? With freelance illustration, teaching 3 illustration classes, my family time with my 5-6 year olds, cleaning, eating, taking care of my house and getting an average of 6 hours of sleep 7 days a week there is little time for hobbies. Art IS my hobby I would create art even if I won the lottery.
12. Owning your own business, do you suggest people going into the graphic design field to also pursue a business degree? Or does it just come to you? Is does not just come to you. There is a right and wrong way of doing things and you could go years of doing business tasks a certain way that could be done way more efficient and right if you had at least taken some sort of business class. I business degree might be too much for an illustrator, I would at least take a very concentrated business class or to while still in college. If you want to start your own design firm a business degree would definitely be worth while.
13. Who is your inspiration? Did your parents always approve of your career choice? Actually, early on my older brother was the start of my inspiration by wanting to finally be better than him at just one thing. My parents from the get go always supported me and encouraged me to follow my dreams even though they did not understand completely what my passion was all about. They are not visual artist’s but they can appreciate what I do.
14. What is something you would suggest to a graphic designer graduating straight from college? Build up a network of other graphic designers, illustrators, photographers, writers, etc. of who you can call upon for advice, work, and general support. These maybe other students in you classes or contacts outside of class. You can also do this by joining a trade org like GAG or AIGA.
15. How many illustrations do you do a year? It varies between 50-80 a year. I also do a fair amount of graphic design, production work, and stock art sales.
16. How long does it take to illustrate something for a top client? As quick as 3 days and as longs as 1 month. Most of the time it’s about 2 weeks.
17. What is a subject you enjoy illustrating the most just for fun? Posters for bands, musicians, and lately I have been wanting to do a painting of an octopus lady.
18. Have you accomplished everything you have ever wanted to do? If not, what are some goals you want to accomplish? Absolutely not, I’m always striving for more. I Strive to get 3 $10K jobs a year. Has not happened yet, but I’m thinking long term. I would like to teach full-time a get descent health insurance for me and my family.
19. Do you have any regrets? I wish I would have gotten my Masters in Fine Art or Illustration.
20. What medium do you use the most? Photoshop, Illustrator and Painter. I’m getting back to the traditional stuff from the classes I teach at SCAD.
21. What theme occurs the most in your work? Usually some sort of business concept that’s politically correct. Mainly due to the client’s needs.
22. How would you describe your style of work? Stylized realism or Tradigital.


Thanks for reading,
Jay

Porsche Is Recycling Now...

...due to the ever important Professor Greenleaf posters created by yours truly. Here is a quick process of what the Porsche saw.

They first gave a very specific description of the Green Squad. You don't have to read all this, but it explains the image below.
Here's what I'm thinking - perhaps we could come up with some sort of an illustrated green mascot who bears the Porsche crest (attached). Maybe the mascot is a friendly-looking green tree with a face and limbs with hands/ fingers -- one of them pointing toward the reader. Perhaps the crest can be on its trunk. One the tree idea -- actually make them a group of three trees -- the tallest in the middle. Make it recognizable that the middle and left one are guys and the one on the right is a woman -- maybe its the way her treetop/branches is styled. In addition to the Porsche crest on their trunks (like a badge on a shirt), put: Porsche Green Squad. Perhaps you even put a green shirt on them with those words -- I don't know. You could also make the one on the left wear glasses, if you like. Have them all pointing to the reader. For the green squad, let's put them on shirts that say Porsche Green Squad with the crest underneath it like a badge. And again, a woman on the right, tallest guy in the middle and another guy maybe with spiked hair/branches or hair/branches in twists, wearing black glasses on the left. This would give them each a personality. Be sure not to put like red lips or anything like that on the woman...not that you would. In both scenarios, mascots are pointing to the reader.


This was way to complicated and too much like Treebeard in my opinion. They scratched this idea and went with this other idea they had.

Professor Greenleaf
Another idea is to make the mascot a green leaf -- a bigger version of the one you have at the top of the poster. Give him a face, as well as legs/feet/arms/hands -- and of course one hand pointing toward the reader. His one concern is making sure the names mascot is stated within the logo so that additional text is not needed. So for the leaf -- perhaps you can give him a suit coat that has the Porsche crest eblem on his top right pocket and put a hat on him that says Professor Greenleaf...and maybe have him pointing with a stick that usually denotes a professor. For the green leaf, in addition to the crest, please have him wear glasses and put his name -- Professor Greenleaf somewhere.

First Sketch

Second sketch with revisions. Mechanical engineer outfit.

Final art created in Photoshop with revisions.
Slimmer leaf, lab coat, no logo on coat, and his right hand pointing.

Prof. Greenleaf telling it to the people of Porsche.

Makes you want to choose green doesn't it!

Thanks Professor Greenleaf!

Whole process from first call to final delivery was 7 days.

Wealth Management Concept Illustration Process

Just a few days ago I finished up 3 illustrations for Suntrust. This is a process of one of them dealing with the abstract concept of Wealth Management. They wanted something beyond the obvious wealth symbols while showing generations in a generic way. I tried to make it as short as possible but it's still about 8 min long. Has music too! Go Home Productions Mash Ups Annie Rush and Ride (Rabbit Hole Mix) Used with permission.

The Mansion Process

In May I completed a new illustration of a hotel/condo that is not built yet called The Mansion. This is a part of my sped up process of how it was done. The final drawing took me about 3 days working 14 hour days. The video is about 5 minutes long. Music By The Postal Service (John Tejada Remix).