Characters and Patterns

Well firstly, I hope everyone had a lovely Valentine's day and for those of you in the Northeast, I hope the nor'easter didn't get y'all too badly! Frankly, it dropped way too much snow on us here in Baltimore for my taste. Hopefully I'll be escaping this climate soon enough though, haha. The cold has certainly made it easier to keep inside and keep working though, so I thought I'd share the patterns from the air travel series so far with you guys as well as some of my work for my character design course.

So for my Character Design class we were all split up into two "gangs" and were given random names and a random weapon to create a character for which we will be battling with throughout the semester aside from our regular homework. I got "Apollo" and his weapon is a machete.

Keeping with the Greek names, I also whipped something up for Sketch Dailies' Valentine's Day theme "Aphrodite" 

There is a lot more work on the way, so stay tuned guys! Until next time, best wishes!

Joshua

Air Travel Fun!

Hi everyone! It's busy busy busy around here in the race to the finish as the date of my thesis exhibition (March 28th) draws near! I don't like to go too long without updating the blog though, so I thought I would share some of the imagery for the prints and patterns I'm currently working on alongside my dummy for The Little Merprince. I'll also have some work from my character design class to share within the next couple of days.

Anyway, the series I'm currently working on is under the theme of travel and exploration, and I'd love to hear what you think! I was planning to do land, sea and sky, although I may just stick to air at this point and move on, but we shall see!

Until next time, best wishes!

Joshua

Collaborations

So I've taken a part in a couple of collabs in the time before revving up for school. The first was a Hayao Miyazaki twitter collaboration put together by @Jmieldesigns. For those who aren't familiar with the character, I illustrated Honey Hatter. She is Sophie's mother in Howl's Moving Castle. The second batch is for an elf zine put together by a fellow illustrator at MICA, Jabari Weathers. The artists were all given randomized prompts and these are the result. Both were a fun little break from thesis work, but now let the madness of my final semester begin! Happy Hunger Games...

Joshua

Happy New Year

Hi everyone! I hope y'all are all enjoying the year 2014 so far! There are so many exciting things ahead and lots of new work on the way. For now I'm happy to share some doodles with y'all that I've been doing as I get back into the swing of things post holiday. The latter is for a joint blog I mentioned in an earlier post of doodles of animals in clothing that some of my peers and I have started, be sure to check out Animals Outfitted and follow us to see some talented artists' work! Until next time, best wishes!

Joshua

Wrapping up the semester

I feel like I have no idea where the last four months went? This semester has absolutely flown by! And if the spring semester is anything like my last one, it will to! I can't believe I am now three-fourths of the way finished with grad school. It's been absolutely insane and there is still a long way to go! I'm really looking forward to moving forward with my thesis next semester as well as exploring a new medium: screenprinting! I think it will be really interesting to see how the thought process behind that informs my work. 

In the mean time I have a couple images to share with all of you! Mostly thus far, my retelling of The Little Mermaid has lived within the numerous filled pages of my sketchbooks. I decided I needed to stop floundering around with sketches and figuring out what I want this world to look like and just bite the bullet and create an image! So I created a spread where the little merprince is making his deal with the sea witch for the magic to turn him into a human. There is space for the text on both pages, hence the large open spaces. I have my final critique on Thursday and this could go over horribly and the imagery of next semester may look nothing like this, but I'd love opinions regardless. =)

Also I have a couple more patterns to share within my under the sea collection. Designing imagery for prints and patterns is something I have definitely really come to enjoy in my time here at school, and it is an avenue I will continue to explore both next semester and upon graduation.

I hope you are all having safe travels during this holiday season, and if I don't post before then, have a merry Christmas y'all! Best wishes!

Joshua

Almost there!

The semester is coming to a close y'all and I'm busy busy busy! I just wanted to share these with you to remind you all that I am alive, haha. There will be more to come soon, and in the mean time I hope everyone is enjoying the holiday season! Best wishes!

Joshua

Hello all! I hope you are all keeping warm as the winter months set in. I know I'm having trouble with that haha. Well, the fall semester of my final year in graduate school is coming quickly to a close, and while I am slammed with work, I wanted to share some snippets of what I'm working on. 

Firstly, in my Markets for Children class I am wrapping up the details on the circus pattern series and working on a new undersea themed series. You can definitely expect to see some mermaids with these! And speaking of mermaids... I'm really excited about my thesis story I have settled upon. I will be retelling The Little Mermaid in the era of the Vikings and the story will actually be retold about a little mer prince. Below are some studies of the mer prince as well as the son of the Viking chieftain.

Lastly! The lovely Sarah Jacoby and I have started a new tumblr with some of our fellow grad school friends featuring fun, quick little illustrations of animals in clothing. So be sure to go follow Animals Outfitted! It's still very new, but there are some really talented folks involved and there will be plenty of adorable imagery to keep up with. 

So now I must return to the onslaught of work that awaits, but I look forward to sharing more with all of you guys very soon! Until then, best wishes!

Joshua