The Mayflower

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Another spread from Two Bad Pilgrims.  This is the big splashy first glimpse of the Mayflower. Here is the thumbnail sketch: Everything's there that needs to be, but I was concerned that the direction of the drawing didn't show the Billingtons…

Bring me the head of Johann Sebastian Bach

Awhile back, Ann Mason—then-exec-director of the Renaissance & Baroque Society of Pittsburgh—and I thought it would be screamingly funny to create a promotional bobblehead of the august Baroque composer Johann Sebastian Bach.  And,…

Five not-too-bad cover ideas

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People do judge a book by its cover.  Or at least, it's the cover that gets people to pick up the book in the bookstore and see whether they like it.  Here are rough cover ideas for Two Bad Pilgrims. Art Director Jim Hoover liked…

Samoset

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The costume color indication for Samoset, for Two Bad Pilgrims.  Not that there's much costume.  Samoset walked into Plymouth Plantation in the middle of March wearing hardly anything at all.  He was showing the pilgrims he had no concealed…

Master of the Mayflower

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Here's my costume color indication for Master Jones for Two Bad Pilgrims.  'Master' was what they called the ship's captain back in the 1600s. I couldn't find a contemporary picture of him, like an engraving—so I made him up.  I tried to…

Plymouth Plantation

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It's November—time to start thinking about Thanksgiving and pilgrims!  Here's another scene from Two Bad Pilgrims.  This one shows the pilgrims beginning construction of Plymouth Plantation.  The first thing they built was the common house/fort. …

How do I know when I’m plagiarizing?

This is a question I got all the time when I taught graphic design, and it is a big issue in this digital world where images are seemingly there for the taking. Shepard Fairey's case seems to me to be a no-brainer—there's hardly any difference…

What do I paint first?

Joanie asks: I work in gouache also and I would like to ask a question if you don't mind. I have trouble working the background and characters at the same time. I usually end up painting the characters/foreground first and then paint the background…

It’s October…

UPDATE! If you live in the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania area and like to hear really old classical music, mark your calendar Oct 24 to attend The Medieval Beasts concert. I'm told it's a costume event, but didn't see any info about that on the…

Westward, ho!

UPDATE!  Ilene, Jerry & Drake discuss digital vs traditional illustration in the comments section below. I get quite a few historical projects to illustrate, and that suits me fine.  I enjoy doing the research—which is crucial to…