My Little Monster Children's book

here's a spread from a children's book I illustrated for Flattenme, a new company that makes customized children's books-- by inserting your photo into a character in the book. It's cool. Check it out.
The book I illustrated is called "(your name) and My LIttle Monster".
I think it's due out in the fall sometime.

j.

bunny

illustration

here's an illustration from book #3 of a book series I'm illustrating for Scholastic.
I'm sure they'll change the colors around and stuff to fit with the color scheme of the book when it gets printed.
whatever.

Pink

Here's a drawing I did in church.

Mr. Liang animation

silly flash animation I did. Based on an old Chinese man we met about 20 years ago at a Taiwanese baseball game. My brother Ed did the voice.
j.

Illustration Friday - Suit

This is a different kind of image than I usually do.

Running Ninja flash animation

here's a ninja I did in flash.

experimenting...

j.

Bubblegirl

self-promo thing

mother's day flash dealeo

for my wife...

j.

Can't Stop Dancing

tshirt design for a local dance studio.
j.

Flying Bunnies

cinco de mayo giraffe

here's a giraffe with a sombrero.
j.

Ladybug Flash Animation

here's something me and my kids did for fun, sort of as a homeschooling thing, and also to help me learn how to do character animation in flash.
I've been meaning to animate something forEVER, but I was either too busy, or couldn't come up with something to animate.
so ...whew... here it is. Feels good to have broken the ice.

imo, my kids have the best cartoon voices. But I'm not biased or anything.
;-)

Elephant dude

elephant guy...
just experimenting with textures in illustrator.
j.

Illustration Friday - snap

Snap!

Illustration Friday - I Spy

Here are some images from the book series I have been illustrating for Scholastic. The whole series is a spy series, so I thought I'd post several images.


from spy book 9 - Spies surveying area. 3 of them are spies.


from spy book 8 - Spies playing some kind of game in the dark with night vision goggles.



from spy book 9 - spying on people over a magazine.



from spy book 9 - setting up a decoy.
j.

The Haitian

Here's another illustration from Heroes.
This is the Haitian, and he's gonna make you forget.
j.

Nathan Petrelli

I did this for the Sugar Frosted Goodness art blog. It's Nathan Petrelli from Heroes. I am absolutely obsessed with that show.

Ward Kimball

I was digging through my old photos and I found this one of me meeting the late, great Ward Kimball. Since I worked at Disney Animation, famous and semi-famous people would come by for different reasons.
Ward was part of the "9 old men", the original nine guys that developed Disney Animation.
I had met Frank and Ollie, who are usually considered the big superstars of the nine, and that was cool, but Ward Kimball was by far my favorite. In addition the the classic Disney characters he brought to life, he did some of that crazy 50's modern super styly animation that I just LOVE.



here's an image from Toot, Whistle, Plunk, and Boom

my Jedi kids

I made these because I was trying to explain to my son about editing and fx.
I used Mirage and imovie.
fun.

Figure Drawing

From a figure drawing session I attended in Pittsburgh the other day, hosted by the Pittsburgh Society of Illustrators, of which I am a member.


Man... I haven't done life drawing in forever.
This is the only image out of the bunch that I liked.
j.

Pirate

AAAARRRGH!
a pirate.

j.

Batman...

a goofy batman I did for Sugar Frosted Goodness

Girl with the red hat

out of my sketchbook... random character sketch

Illustration Friday - Ghost

Here's my IF for today. Experimenting with photoshop brushes and textures.

Guitar guy

Another image from my sketchbook.

Blue beans

Here's a page from my sketchbook. Colored pencil and a dying Chartpak marker.
...had kind of a crappy day yesterday.

Laughing Critters

Here are some laughing critters for an upcoming Scholastic book series about animals.

From my sketchbook

design inspiration interview

check out my interview on the Design Inspiration blog.
click here
j.

painting with kids

This is a painting done by my 3 year old daughter, Annabeth. She loves to make a mess, and it's tons of fun to paint with her. The brushes stink, the paper's super cheap, and the paint is nasty. Tons of fun.



and these are some drawings done by my 5 year old son Mark. Mark has autism, so I'm always really interested in what kind of thing comes out of his head. I taught him how to draw himself, so now he draws pictures of himself all the time.
This outfit with the button down shirt, the red boots and the belt is his favorite "uniform"- he'd wear it every day if we let him. It's sort of a comfort thing I think. I'm just thrilled to see my kids drawing and painting. For a long time, they had no interest in coloring or drawing, much to my chagrin, but recently they have become totally interested. yay. My 7 year old son isn't interested though. He digs the Nintendo DS and Legos. That's ok, as long as I have at least one mini me I'm happy.

Here's a fish I did while painting with Annabeth

On a personal note...

Sunday, September 17 2006, our new baby girl was born. The labor and delivery went really well. Mommy is recovering nicely.
We named her Olivia Joy Elston. For those keeping track, this is baby #4 for us. Now it's 2 boys and 2 girls. She's a cute little bugaboo.




Here's a picture of our second born son holding Olivia.

Illustration Friday - Farm

A farmer... 50s style.

j.

Day job

here's a piece from the project that has been taking up all my time. I am illustrating a 10 book series for Scholastic. This one is an interior illustration from book 4.

j.

Illustration Friday - Safe

Oh robot maids are the best...
j.

Illustration Friday - Run

A runner...
j.

skate shop logo

Here are 2 graffiti-inspired logos for the local skateboard shop here in Johnstown PA. I don't know yet whether he'll use them, but I had fun doing them nonetheless. I still skateboard, at age 35 (mostly at the local skate park), although I have salt and pepper colored hair, a wife, 3 kids and a minivan, and I know all the words to most of the Wiggles' music. Kids less than half my age are ripping it up, while I throw down the slow motion old school... well, my skateboarding heyday was in the early 90s, so I guess I skate more "middle school".
One thing is for sure, I'm not 18 any more.

I don't bounce back as quickly as these little guys do.

Illustration Friday - Match

I thought I'd try something a little different.

Bubbley

I've been busy busy busy. Deadlines and revisions and crap... Here's a new illustration that I cranked out for the heck of it.

redhead

doodle of a redhead.
Just looking for an excuse to use my markers.
j.

trumpet guy

a drawing from my sketchbook colored in photoshop

Illustration Friday - Sticky

heh.

Illustration Friday - Rain

Here's my Illustration friday entry for the topic, "Rain".

I had fun with Bubble last time, that I thought I'd follow the same thread.
I've been super mega busy with my freelance career lately, that I haven't been able to post very much.

j.

Bubble Girl

Here's my homage to bubble tea. I did another illustration a few years ago, after I went to the Chinese section of Philadelphia and had some very tasty Bubble tea. At the time, I was barely acquainted with Illustrator, so it took me forever to do it. I liked the character, and I thought it would be fun to go back and do another illo with the Bubble girl.

here's the original: