"The Spider Man"

For this month's issue of FACES magazine the assignment called for two spreads featuring a character named Anansi, a plucky spider from Caribbean folklore whose message in a nutshell is to never give up, even if you think you are small and insignificant. It's a suuuper trippy story that jumps from abstract scene to abstract scene so the concept for the illustration was very open ended. The only guideline I set for myself was to make sure to give it a hint of Caribbean characteristics in terms of character designs and palette. Below are the finals of the two spreads, plus a detail. I took a little inspiration for the ghost fight spread from Disney's Haunted Mansion in Orlando, which being a native Floridian I have ridden many many in my life. I always remembered that part in the ride where a swirl of transparent ghostly figures flies through the air in a big arch...if I remember correctly it's right before the ride car heads down into the cemetery? (AD and Layout: Joshua Banks)

Google "Tough Mudder" T-Shirts

In a fun little side project, a good friend of mine who is a Music Partner Manager at Google in Mountain View asked me if I could help them out with a little something for their upcoming Tough Mudder outing. If you're not familiar Tough Mudder is one of those obstacle-laden, guaranteed-to-get-you-muddy races held out in the countryside that tests your physical and mental abilities.

So they wanted to go with an Android theme based on a little image of the standard, frontal mascot icon dressed in running gear that another Google designer had done. My task was pretty open ended, so I decided to make it my goal to take that and "bring it to life" somehow in the spirit of the race using only three colors and white.

We ended up going with what we referred to as the "roaring guy" which we felt captured the "Yeahhh! Bring it on!!!!" feeling that people usually have when they first start these races before they find out how challenging "it" actually is. This is an actual photo of the printed product even though it kinda looks like it's photoshopped onto a random T.

The big day has arrived! Here's a contingent of NorCal Google employees sporting the shirts this past weekend. Man, those bright, yellow ochre mountains of California seem like a whole world away from the fall forests of New England...

Here's a great shot of the front and backs of the shirts. From what I heard, a good time was had by all and everyone returned home safe and sound in one very muddy piece.

Euro 2012 Spain Sketches

Did some quick sketches of some of Spain's football/soccer players while watching the Euro 2012 game today vs. France. These are some of the more high profile guys (Xabi Alonso, Andres Iniesta, Gerard Pique, Cesc Fabregas, Iker Casillas, Fernando Torres) but it'd be fun to draw out the rest of the team and complete the set.

By the strangest and coolest coincidence ever, we saw these guys when they were staying in Providence in Spring 2011 while staying in the same hotel as them during RISD's graduation weekend. Of course they obliterated the US team in an exhibition in Foxboro, but we got all kinds of good pictures with the players in and around the Providence Mall during that week.

Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox

Here's my imagining of the folk legend Paul Bunyan, who to me is the symbol of hearty strength and hard work.

In designing my rendition of Babe the Blue Ox, I imagine him to be generally playful and docile being Bunyan's loyal wilderness companion. But because it is the wilderness, I also imagine Babe can be fierce when necessary.