Emergency Day Drill

A recent illustration for The Friend Magazine.

The Book Of Why

I recently illustrated these spot cartoons for a new book that Deseret Book is publishing. I'm not quite sure who the author is but it looks like it should be a great book!

Pig Tales Title Cards

For the past few months at Feature Films for Families we've been finishing up the first season of "Pig Tales." Heather Dixon and I recently finished doing the title cards. These are some of them. Heather made my work easy by sketching out most of the layouts so I could illustrate them. Working with Heather is always fun because she has so many great ideas and is a wonderful artist!

Tracking Down Online Patents

The latest illustration I did for an article in Utah Business Magazine. This was fun.

Across the Pond

I've recently had the good fortune to work with a great agency, Advocate Art, in London who have given me the opportunity to do some work for Pearson, an education company also based in the UK. This is a scene pitch for a new program they are currently working on.

Batmen

Adrian Ropp and I collaborated on some character designs for a Circles & Squares Animation project. Here are the turnarounds I recently did

Maria's Mettle

A story I recently illustrated for The Friend Magazine.

And The Winners Are...

...A little hard to read. Brent and Cambry and Nathan Lindsay! Fair and square, there you go! Thanks to everyone for their comments and interest. I will send out the winners their copies of the game right away. Sorry to those of you who didn't win a free copy, but if you really would like one, they're available for only $10! Thanks ya'll!

The Book Of Mormon Card Deck

Earlier this year, I had the opportunity to publish another product through Deseret Book. The Book of Mormon Card Deck is now available for purchase in stores and at deseretbook.com! The deck includes instructions for 6 classic card games with a Book of Mormon twist: Ol' Korihor (Old Maid), War, Rook of Mormon (Rook), Crazy 8s, Mormon Match (Memory) & Go Fish. It was really fun to create all of these characters from the Book of Mormon and it's exciting to have the product out for Christmas!



To celebrate, I'd like to have a drawing for a free copy of the deck. If you're interested, please leave a comment saying so and I will put your name into a hat (yes, an actual hat! - perhaps a fedora) and do a random drawing on November 1st. Deadline to submit your name is by Halloween 2008 (two weeks). I will email the winner for an address and send it by mail. The games are fun and it's a fun way (especially for kids) to place a face with some of the people and prophets in the Book of Mormon. If you don't read the Book of Mormon much - you can still enjoy the games. If you don't like games much - you can still enjoy the artwork. If you don't like any of those things, then hey - it's FREE - give it away for Christmas or something!

If I have a significant response, perhaps I'll give away multiple copies. If you really want a copy but don't win, just buy the dang thing at Deseret Book, Seagull Book, or perhaps the religious section of Walmart. You can purchase my other game, Righteous! there too.

Thanks to everyone for stopping by from time to time and for all of your great and encouraging comments!

Scripture Scouts

Deseret Book had me create this illustration for one of their latest products. I prefer the retro color, they preferred the traditional.

Backgrounds

More Backgrounds for the latest Faux Paw Animation.

Reading Rangers

I recently designed a few characters for a Davis School District program/logo called "Reading Rangers."

At our house - we like Batman

Toon Club's topic this week is Batman. This is great because I've been on a real Justice League kick lately. Here's some more Timm influenced art with a bit of personal flavor:



Also a photo of Liam's 3rd Birthday in March - it was Batman themed. I always get compliments on my quilted Batman t-shirt that Pam made.

Club FHE

Recently I had the opportunity to work on a cool product for a friend called Club FHE. Here's the logo, hopefully the product continues to develop and I get to work on a few more things for him.

Thunder, Thunder, Thundercats - Ho!

I loved the Thundercats as a kid and have been looking for a good excuse to draw them lately. Toon Club's topic for this last week is "Tigers." This is the reason I needed, so here they are. I redesigned them a bit with more of a Bruce Timm approach.

Attack of the Computers

Utah Business Magazine recently had me illustrate an article about computers that devour our money. Apparently the poor computer operator is rather down-trodden and can't afford to keep up with his money-grubbing work station. Here's a nice little illustration of that. Scary. I suppose it's the truth and now you know it.

The Third Dimension!

As you can see, I don't really know how to use Maya very well, in fact, this is my first attempt in any 3D program. I've always wanted to learn Maya, so I got some tutorials and the free download version and created a project. I like the way the design of this house turned out, I just wish I knew how to model/render it better. I've really gotta come up with some lighting/texturing skills. I also need to try something a bit more organic. Learning new stuff is hard.

Good News For People Who Like Bad News

Although I am a modest, Modest Mouse fan, this post has nothing to do with them but the title. After pitching a few products to Deseret Book a couple of months ago, the verdict is in - No Righteous! 2. Wha wha. At least not now, perhaps in the future when more sales figures from Righteous! 1 come in and blah blah blah. The actual good news however is that DB IS keen on another product I pitched - The Book of Mormon Card Deck. So after finishing up the artwork over the last few weeks, the art is done and submitted, so the new card game should be on the shelves at Deseret Book by fall. Yay. - Also my wife and I had a new baby this week - Baby Greta. Yay again.

A Sticky Little Project For Sticky Little Folks

The Salt Lake City Weekly recently had me do this cover for them with an illustration of the game board for the inside article. Obviously it's a play on SLC and Candyland. This was a big project that had to be done quickly, but was really fun to do. I felt like it was a lot of color to work with, but that's the nature of Candyland. Hopefully all the color's not too hard on the eyes.

Faux Paw Production Art

Circles & Squares Animation is working on the 4th animated Faux Paw short & book for iKeepSafe. These are some backgrounds & ideas that I've done so far.




This is the Fire Truck design that Dave Thompson has made into a 3D model.


I really liked the original color palette for this record store design, but we felt the actual building needed to "pop" more so I changed the colors a bit, which works much better I think, but I still like the acidity of the first one.

The Sound of Music (Animal Style)

Here's some final character designs for a Sound of Music parody short we're working on at FFFF. Also a background design based on the Matterhorn. And yes, I know the Sound of Music took place in Salzburg, Austria, and the Matterhorn is in Switzerland, but it's The Alps and I think the scenery still works.

Righteous! 2?

Dave and I have pitched a sequel to Righteous! the Book of Mormon DVD game, to Deseret Book. The first incarnation has seemed to do pretty well, so we're hoping to do another, this one with a church history theme. I have already produced a lot of the production art and music. Were not sure when we'll get the thumbs up or down from DB, but if we do get the go ahead we will complete the DVD and questions and hope to have it out within the next year. Here's the box art and some song samples I arranged and recorded. These were really fun hymns to jazz up. (These are m4a files, so you download them and drop them into iTunes to listen.)


1. Come, Come, You Saints

2. Firm Foundation

3. Praise To The Boogie Man

Cute Cuisine

The Friend Magazine asked me to do this illustration for one of their upcoming issues. My first attempt was not quite "cute" enough, so I submitted this second attempt which seemed to pass the "cute" test.

Recent Projects

Here's a background for an upcoming Faux Paw short at Circles & Squares Animation and a poster idea for an animated movie pitch.

Security

Another illustration I recently did for Utah Business Magazine. Something about how technical security can be overwhelming to the business man.

The Killjoy Trio

As well as having been in several garage bands growing up, I've been in a jazz trio for the past few years. We are the Killjoy Trio and have had the opportunity to play a lot of weddings, artsy functions and of course, ward parties around the valley. Although I'm more experienced as a guitarist (although not much of one) I got into piano and jazz music quite heavily several years ago and decided it would be fun to have a small jazz combo. Unfortunately, I play piano the same way I play guitar, untrained, by ear, and as any expert would say - the wrong way. I'm a big faker - chords in the left hand, melody in the right. I can't read music very well and I can't play hymns, but playing in a jazz trio has been a lot of fun. Because I started faking my way through some jazz tunes, I figured I could convince my lifelong friend and drummer Corey to do the same. I also successfully convinced my sister in law's husband Van to join as well. They both have done a very impressive job at learning some jazz chops on the drums and upright bass. They do a really great job at masking all of my crummy mistakes and we always have a great time playing together. We even played on a local tv show a couple of years ago, 15 Minutes - whoo hoo - here's a low-res video of one of the songs we played, The Girl from Ipanema. Here's also a pic from our latest show and some Killjoy artwork.