My First Illustration Assignment + Other Early Work

Thought I'd post a few early tearsheets. I have a ton more but these are some of my early favorites.

The top left illustration of the 2 punks was my first paid 'official' illustration assignment. It was for the January 2000 Baltimore magazine and I remember the day pretty well. Now this was before everyone and their mother had a cellphone and I was working at my old design studio (we were in the midst of preparing for Y2K!). So I'd call home every so often to see if any art directors had left me a message for work. It was a Friday and I got a message!! I had sent her this sad little promotional postcard that I printed off my inkjet at home.

I called the AD and talked about the assignment. She had a pretty good idea of what she wanted, so it was just me pretty much executing it. I told her I'd get roughs to her on Monday, but in actuality I painted the assignment that weekend, because I was so excited. She like the rough with a few minor additions on Monday, so the painting only needed a minor tweak. I actually mailed the AD artwork for them to scan, which was still pretty common at that time. I think I bought about 20 copies of that issue.

The Binge drinking piece was for the Chicago Tribune and was almost killed. The AD had to convince them to use the artwork, because it sort of scared them. At that time, I was getting a lot of dark stories, suicides, etc. It actually ended up running on the cover as well. This was within a year of the Baltimore piece and was my biggest client at the time.

Next one is a piece for the Baltimore City Paper. Like this one.

The last piece was my first commission in my digital/lineart style. I had been doing regular painted covers for Alibi and approached the AD with new digital samples.