Bunny car

quick drawing on yellow paper

YETI!!

New Threadless submission - Baggage

I'm determined to get somewhere on threadless.com. Here is my latest design, for the "Threadless loves - True Stories" challenge.

Stop in and vote for me... I would really appreciate it.

ethnic variety

I recently was asked to provide illustration samples of different ethnic groups, or at least some ethnic variety, so I dug around in my old illustration folders to see what I could find. I hadn't seen these illustrations in a while- I did most of them 2 or more years ago.

Threadless...

well I submitted this design on threadless.com. click on the picture to vote for my design.

:-)

j.

Illustration Friday - Punchline

I don't know what these guys are, or what they're laughing at, but it must have had a pretty funny punchline.
j.

Illustration Friday - Forgotten

True story:
My family took a trip to Taiwan when I was 10 years old (in 1981). I saw some awesome toy stores there, with some amazing toys straight from Japan. One time, when we were walking down the street in some small town, I stopped to look at some toys, then I looked up, and my family had moved on. I can't even begin to explain the panic feeling of being lost in a foreign country where no one speaks English (and I only know a few small phrases in Taiwanese- none of which would help in this situation). I think it was like 10-20 minutes before they found me again.
illustration done in ball point pen and photoshop

Illustration Friday - Baby

baby alien... Adobe Illustrator/Photoshop. I'm experimenting with texture brushes.

Illustration Friday - Wide

Here is my Illustration Friday dealy. This was truly the first thing to pop into my head when I read this week's topic. ;-) (Thanks to Alina Chau for helping me with the correct Chinese character usage.)

Illustration Friday - Electricity

UPDATED!

I FINALLY redesigned my website. I decided to go with html, instead of flashy flash animation, because I found out that Art Directors like to be able to print samples, and Flash is dicey with printing images... well if I was an actionscript wizard, maybe I would know how to make flash images printable, but that's beside the point.
There needs to be a few tweaks here and there (the bio section isn't finished, but I figure I can let that one slide for now).
so check it out:

www.jameselston.com

Illustration Friday - Seed

Here is my Illustration friday for this week - Seed.

j.

Silly Paper Mario Movie

This is yet another silly flash movie I made with my 6 year old son.

Illustration Friday - Wrinkles

Been a while... Here's my Illustration Friday dealy for today, Wrinkles.

Animation portfolio

I updated my Animation page.

click here to see.

I still have a little ways to go on my web page update... I am a bit rusty on web design. soon...

j.

3 Bible time guys

Here's an illustration of 3 Bible Times guys, sent by Cornelius, on their way to Simon Peter's house. (Acts 10). For LifeWay Christian Resources. Boy I seem to draw lots of people in groups of threes walking together... ;-)

Big Kid, Little Kid

Here's a silly little flash movie I made with my 6 year old son. Big kid is trying to steal Little kid's Nintendo DS. My son did the drawing and the voices, I just animated it.
:-)
j.

3 girls at camp

Here's an illo I did for Oxford University Press, in the UK. This was for a French workbook. I'm pretty sure the final was around the size of a postage stamp.
Three girls at camp, all dressed the same.
I'm sure in context it makes perfect sense. ;-)

Illustration Friday - homage

I tried to do this in a 50s "Toot Whistle Plunk Boom" style, (wikipedia entry, on youtube)but I don't know how successful it is in that regard,
but my homage to Ward Kimball, nonetheless.
j.

Herogirl

self promo piece

Early illustrations

Here's an illustration I did in 2002, I think. I believe this was one of the first pieces I did as a freelance illustrator. I remember it took me forever to finish. My style has evolved quite a bit in the last 6 years. I used to use photoshop a lot more. Nowadays I'm about 95% Adobe Illustrator. I'm planning on using more photoshop in the future.


here's an early Illustrator piece that I did for TV Guide, around the same time (2002 or 2003).

photoshop Lego spaceship

I took a picture of my son's Lego spaceship that he made, and added a background just for fun. He was pretty psyched.

Illustration Friday - stitch

Stitch!

Christmas is sometimes a silly one...

Merry Christmas everyone.

bride

This is from a big huge pile of work I did for Oxford University Press - English as a Second Language program of some sort.
This will end up being super tiny on the page in the final product, but I thought I'd post a much larger version to my blog.
I dunno, I kinda like the way this one turned out. I cut the groom out because he looked sort of dorky.

My LIttle Monster Children's book

I just wanted to announce that the book I illustrated recently is now available.
It's a customizable children's book, where you upload your picture, and you become the character in the book.
It's called "--your name-- and My Little Monster". There are 4 different books available, but I only illustrated this one.
Creative, interesting idea.
I thought I should let people know, just in case they are looking for some kind of Christmas present idea. This particular book is being marketed to parents and pet owners.

check it out...

Flattenme.com - My Little Monster

The site allows you to flip through the whole book.
As far as illustration jobs go, it was probably the most enjoyable job I have done this year.

So if you wanted to order one of these from flattenme.com, there's 8 days left in order to get it on time (for Christmas).

- j. elston

Illustration Friday - superstition

Black cat...

Chimp

Here's a chimpanzee.
... from the project I'm working on right now. Book 7 in a 10 book series from Scholastic.
j.

paintings

Here are some paintings I did at a conference in Orlando this past weekend. Please excuse the crappy photo quality, I only had my cell phone camera with me.

Wakeboarding photos

wow... these are pictures of me circa 2000 or 2001 or so...
I was at Shaun Murray and Gerry Nunn's house, and a girl on the boat had a real nice camera with a super tele-photo zoom lens. I look back at those days and they almost seem like a dream. Nowadays, I live in PA, I am in my late 30s and I am in the throes of parenthood. There isn't a lake anywhere around Johnstown. Well there are a few reservoirs and whatever, mostly used for fishing. No watersports scene at all in this region.

I miss those days.

I went wakeboarding on the Delaware river earlier this summer, but now I'm all sluggish and out of shape, and I can't do half of what I used to be able to do.



btw, I did the illustration on the board I'm riding in the picture
j.

Goliath

I just finished a huge pile of illustrations for Lifeway Christian Resources. Here's Goliath, and a measuring tape to show how tall he was (9 feet I think).

Taiwan in the 70s

These are my siblings (all except my younger brother who wasn't born yet) and my Grandma and Grandpa Chen somewhere in Taiwan, in 1971 or '72, I'm not sure...

I'm the littlest one in the picture (with Grandma)

I restored the heck out of this photo in Photoshop.


j.

more cyberbullying

Another illustration for the Plugged in Article.

Jesus Teaching on a hillside

Apostle Paul

cyberbully

here's a magazine cover I did for Plugged In magazine. The article is about the ever-growing problem of cyber-bullying.

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