The Plundering

Sad Day

Nathan — Wed, 23 May 2007 11:50:00 +0000

You may have noticed that things have been rather quiet (dead) here for the last month. Well, this three-man blogging collective has decided that it's time to bring The Plundering to a close. Don't fret, as I'm sure the blog will be reincarnated one day, but for now, you can catch both Josh and Frank at their respective blogs, which happen to be on their websites: www.joshcochran.net and www.frankstockton.com.

As for me (Nathan), I have something different in the works which will hopefully be the spiritual successor to The Plundering. It's name? Ahem...

...The Blundering.

For our last post, we decided to take a fond look at a few of our favorite comments from the past year and a half:

(a quick note to those perusing the dusty archives, apologies for all the missing image links. My website files were accidently deleted and I was unable to recover some images.)

******

"Frank came out in Commarts? I admire your courage." - James, 2/21/06

"it would have been cool to see other art on the wall instead, its so typical of you to put your own drawing." - Soon Yi Kang, 2/26/06
To Josh about an illustration of a room with art on the wall

"Your work has more insight than the other two hacks who share this site." - Anonymous, 3/24/06
to Frank

"drop the buddy-system already." - Anonymous, 4/14/06
to Nathan and Frank about blogging with Josh

"...just cant wait to see what he does if he ever has to paint something. haha" - Anonymous, 4/20/06
to Josh

"Your drawings make me drink. Excellent." - Pasto, 9/13/06
to Frank

"Nathan posts on this site too??" - Ken, 2/21/06
sadly, there were a few of these...

******

Well folks, it's been emotional. Thanks for sticking with us.

Will Hung Lives On!

josh — Mon, 23 Apr 2007 19:59:00 +0000

These are two posters I finished a while back. This first one is for a travel insurance company. The concept that they wanted to convey is sort of vague....but basically they wanted to show the cycle of a problem resolution. I had a couple of sketches that showed a "cycle". In the end, the client ended up picking the easier solution. I drew myself in here somewhere with Nathan's patented Will Hung pose :)

I should also mention that this image was originally an idea for a personal piece which I sold recently at a group show here in LA. I'm not sure if that's considered cheating...but oh well.

This is for a "No Smoking" campaign. I'm not sure if anyone has seen the film "Thank You For Smoking"...but this is a similar idea, to stop smoking product placements in Hollywood films. I sent the agency that first idea and they sort of changed the colors around to come up with the blue (faux printed) version at the bottom.

Death in the Parks

Frank — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 01:16:00 +0000

I've been working on an awesome project for Outside Magazine the last couple of weeks.

The assignment was about different ways in which people have lost their lives in our National Parks over the years.

I worked closely with the art director and the editors to make the pieces upbeat in order to contrast dark subject-matter.

The art director I worked with had a "comic" theme in mind for the pieces, which immediately made me think of the old EC Comics stuff from the 50's like Tales from the Crypt.

These three images are from the first story which will print on three separate spreads. Two more single-page stories will run when the article comes out as well. I'll keep you posted when the issue is on newsstands.

Speaking of which, the 6 pieces I did for Esquire a couple of months ago have finally hit the stands. If you get a chance, pick up the magazine--they really look fantastic thanks to the designers totally kicking ass on it.

thanks!

Frank

Bug

Frank — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 20:44:00 +0000

Happy Monday,

Over the last couple of weeks I've been fortunate enough to get some tonally varied assignments. I love the challenge of switching gears from piece to piece once in a while.

Last week I got a call from Colin Tunstall at Esquire asking if I was available to do an illustration for a review of William Friedkin's Bug. The review was about the up-and-coming actor Michael Shannon's intense and frightening performance.

I tried to communicate this in the sketch and then on the final, implementing more texture than I usually do and compositionally trying to create the sense of anxiety that I got from watching the trailer, which you can view here.

In other news, the new issue of Swallow just hit stores (finally). Be sure to look both ways before running across the street to get it.
thanks for reading,

Frank Stockton

Red Envelopes

Nathan — Tue, 13 Mar 2007 17:54:00 +0000

[click image to enlarge]

It's always nice to buckle down and write some comics, especially since it's hard to make time for it these days. Much thanks to Brian Rea and Sam Weber at the New York Times OpEd for providing a financial reason to put aside illustration for a bit and make some comics (twice!).

Oddly enough, this month looks like the month of comics for me. I'm currently writing a comic for an Italian magazine, the upcoming Meathaus publication (which will feature comics by Frank Stockton as well) and possibly another anthology if I have enough time. I hope somebody somewhere enjoys these stories.

******

Here's an illustration of performer Allen Johnson that I did for The Stranger over the weekend.

Speaking of The Stranger and live performances, Josh and I both got to see editor Dan Savage perform along with Sarah Vowell, John Hodgman, and Ira Glass at the LA stop of the This American Life tour. It was awesome. If anyone has Showtime and can record the premiere of This American Life next week, I want to be your friend.

Made in China

josh — Fri, 09 Mar 2007 02:26:00 +0000

Hello! I just got these new tote bags in from China. Mark Miller and I were both asked to created seperate series for The Outfit. (Mark is a genius. We went to school together) I actually had one more design but it was sort of weak and didn't make the cut.

I approached this project really in the same way I do my silkscreens. Everything was mostly hand-drawn. Layers were created in Photoshop and the files were sent off along with specific Pantone colors to the silkscreeners overseas. We went back and forth a bit....initially they had a hard time matching the transparency of my colors but eventually, everything got worked out. The Outfit took the samples and went to various tradeshows here in the States...including a really big one in Las Vegas where a lot of different boutiques, and larger stores (including Urban Outfitters and various MOMA's) placed orders.

Patterned lining as well as pockets on the inside...

These will probably retail for around $28 or so...I heard the first run of 1500 are already sold out. But those of you here in LA can catch the launch party March 17th. Might be fun. More info here

p.s.
Those of you wondering what a tote IS..

It can carry:

1. Groceries
2. Books
3. Paintbrush
4. Sandwich

Esquire

Frank — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 06:43:00 +0000

Here is one of the pieces I was really excited about doing that got canned. The AD never got to see it at this level of finish, I regret. Anyhow, I still plan on coloring this big fight scene because it's such a fun image. Hope you like it...

* * * * *

I just finished doing six pieces for Esquire Magazine earlier this week, look for them in an upcoming issue. These are two of my favorites from the series. Originally I was going to do nine but the article got trimmed down and a couple of potentially really great pieces got canned.

.

thanks!

Canadian Business

Nathan — Fri, 16 Feb 2007 15:31:00 +0000

Here's a piece I did for Canadian Business that I struggled with for a long time. It came out well in the end (thankfully), but while I was working on it, I was convinced I was the worst illustrator in the world.

The sketch stage was fine. I made a couple changes that the art director requested and then tightened up the drawing.

It wasn't until I started coloring the illustration that it went to hell. Here are two (of maybe six) miserably failed attempts to make the illustration understandable to myself. The red/pink version was a step in the right direction, but a bit too radioactive to work for the article.

Finally, after much cursing and red bull, the piece came around.

*******

And just for kicks, here's a commisioned book cover I finished up this past week.

NOLA

josh — Tue, 06 Feb 2007 22:29:00 +0000

A while back I was asked to illustration a new tribute album by jazz singer/performer, Harry Connick Jr. This job was especially interesting to me because most of the tracks on this CD are remakes of classic New Orlean songs. The vision was to make the artwork reminiscent to the glory days. I created a map of the city that folded into the actual album cover.

I've never actually been to New Orleans and spent quite a bit of time researching various landmarks and some of the history and music there. Ended up buying a bunch of tourist pop-up maps as well as "insider guides".

This assignment proved to be rather difficult just due to the fact that there were so many different people editing and art directing... I kept on thinking it reminds me of those Disneyland maps you get when you enter the theme park. Probably one of the most difficult jobs I've had to do in a long time.

Quick Turnarounds

Frank — Mon, 29 Jan 2007 17:43:00 +0000

Congratulations to Josh for picking up a silver medal from the Society of Illustrators last night! Anyone in the New York area should go by the Society to check out the Sequential/series show, it's pretty awesome.

* * * * *

I had two quick-turnaround assignments keeping me busy last week. The first assignment was seven illustrations for Nick Rhodes at Radar Magazine about prank phone calling military recruiters. You can view the full articles here.

Here are my working sketch and final inks that lead to this illustration.

In addition to deciding on a unifying color scheme for all the illustrations, one of the first things I did was to draw my version of the camoflauge in use by American soldiers in Iraq. The same pattern is used in all the pieces in the series.

Some of my favorite pieces didn't run, such as the one below, but you can see them on my updated website.

* * * * *

At the end of the week I got a call from Lou Vega at ESPN magazine for a small piece about Chinese basketball players. You can see the changes made from my initial sketch to final piece. It's scheduled to run in next month's issue.

Thanks for viewing!

Bears and Beasts!

Nathan — Thu, 18 Jan 2007 14:38:00 +0000

Welcome to my first post of 2007. Now, don't get overly excited or anything...

*******

First of all, for those of you in Los Angeles tomorrow night, Josh and I will be joining a slew of estimable artists (Jordan Crane, James Jean, Souther Salazar, Ron Kurniawan, etc...) at Thinkspace Gallery for a BEASTS! booksigning. Come talk to us so we don't feel neglected and unpopular. We'll probably be sulking somewhere in the shadow of James Jean's crowded table.

*******

Not too long ago, I received a job illustrating a book review about the overcrowded prison system here in California. I decided to go with the imagery of the California flag, making use of the grizzly as my main subject.

The deadline for this one was a bit tight, so the sketch phase was delightfully short (it's usually excruciating for me). Basically I just had to make a rough doodle to give them an idea of where I was going. Once it was sent off, I went to work beatifying it.

After simplifying the drawing and bringing it closer to the imagery on the California flag, I figured it would be smooth sailing from there on out. Of course, it wasn't. In mid painting, I was asked to extend the border of the illustration to fit the column of text on the right and have the landscape trail off the page. Unfortunately, at that point I had already finished painting the slant of the ground going the opposite way.

Thank God for Photoshop.

Cut out the old background, painted a new one, digital cut and paste, and BAM! Like magic.

Here’s a detail of the massive bundle of prisoners. Because I’m such a self-absorbed egomaniac, I try to sneak a self-portrait in whenever I drawing large crowds. This one was no exception (I'm hanging upside down on the far right).

2007 Comics Anthologies

Frank — Thu, 11 Jan 2007 06:00:00 +0000

Happy 2007 everyone,

I'm going to be a part of some really cool anthologies this year, one of which is for the next meathaus.

Here are two pages from a comic I drew a while back called Hamburgers for One.

For the colors I'm working with a limited palette and trying to see how far they can be pushed. So far it's been a really exciting and worthwhile challenge. The coloring of the title was inspired by the work of one of my favorite artists, Chris Ware.

One of the challenges I enjoy about comics is how not only does each panel have to look good on its own, but also work with the page as a whole, and the entire story as one composition.

When I design a story I try to keep a steady rhythm of panels. For Hamburgers, the entire story is built on the grid of 12 square panels.

Also I'm sure to include a place for the eye to rest on every page--staring at 12 equal-size panels for 24 straight pages would be visually strenuous and would make for over-all boring compositions.

I try to keep all these things in mind as well as emotional impact with the natural beats of the story, and I always try to set up page-turns to have some kind of story event with them. Thanks for looking!

The Year That Was

josh — Tue, 02 Jan 2007 17:38:00 +0000

Happy New Year! A look back into the year of 2006. Entertainment Weekly asked me to create 3 spreads as openers to sections in the magazine. I had an idea to draw a race that would link the spreads together, but ultimately I was asked to stick a little closer to the initial concepts. Some of my earlier doodles...

After a bunch of frustrated drawings, I found some old children's books and I re-watched Tron that really inspired me in a way. I'm not really sure how it helped directly, but it really jolted me out of a rut I felt like I was in earlier.

+++The Year That Was+++

+++The Entertainers+++

+++The Best And The Worst+++

p.s. I think the actual print versions of these are slightly different colors...more pink to tie in with the magazine format. Might still be on newsstands this week. And I still like the looser sketch on this last one better than the final. I think maybe I lost a little energy when I went to finish this.

Nathan — Wed, 20 Dec 2006 03:34:00 +0000

(photo courtesy of JKC)

Everyone's a critic.

Nathan — Fri, 08 Dec 2006 09:20:00 +0000

Right before Thanksgiving, I was asked to do some illustrations for Time Out NY's "Critics" issue. Being something of a judgmental, critical snob myself (ask anyone who knows me), I was more than happy to accept the job. There wasn't a lot of time to crank the illustrations out with the holidays and all, but I figured the stash of Red Bulls in the studio would remedy that. Here are a few that I liked:

Rock Critic.

Book Critic.

Dance Critic.

Food Critic.

Film Critic.

Experimentationalism pt. 1

Frank — Fri, 01 Dec 2006 08:12:00 +0000

Experimentation is my favorite part of making art and illustration. I love to surprise myself and make pieces that fit the solution in the best way possible. Today I have two very different pieces, both done for different Russian magazines. At a glance I think they’re quite different from each other, but at the drawing level and in relation to all my work to this point, I think they fall right in line.

The Monday before last month’s American Illustration party I got an email from a swell fellow named Grigory at the Russian Travel & Leisure magazine asking if I could do an illustration for them by Friday. I accepted. The piece was a portrait of the famed writer Umberto Eco. It was a Russian translation of a humorous rant he wrote about how messy airplane food is.

I sent these two sketches to them, one playing with the format (they hadn’t specified an exact size—rather they said it would be about a square, more than half a page.

Anyway, the art directors didn’t really like them, felt that they were too “arty” and requested another quick thumbnail of one that would be more like the first concept, with just tons of food on his lap. So I did this:

The art director dropped this final one into a template of the layout they had in mind and we were on our way. I did a tight sketch, inked it, and proceeded to color it digitally. At first I wanted to make it duotone, or a false duotone, like several of the last illustration pieces I’ve one were. But I couldn’t get this complicated image to work that way—I knew the piece was about the food, and while the duotone might look neat, I wasn’t getting a good enough read on the subject of the article. I did several variations on the coloring before settling on one I liked the best.

And here is the final, I’m pretty happy with it, and they were, too. Got it done in time for the AI party, too!

***********

I was going to post another piece instead of this next one, but this just turned out so good and was such a good contrast to the last one that I had to put it up.
My old friend Katya at Russian Esquire emailed me on Tuesday and asked if I could do two illustrations by Friday. I asked if I could show sketches on Wednesday but she insisted that I just go straight to final. When that happens I have to be extra sure to art direct myself in the way that will be most appropriate to the publication and their needs. Sometimes I think when we’re closely art directed we act a little more liberally with our ideas and suggest stuff that we would like that aren’t necessarily the best things for the client. But to quote Spider-Man, “With great power comes great responsibility.”

Katya, like Grigory at Travel & Leisure also gave me the layout they were thinking of using. I've noticed this is a huge help in developing the composition because I can really make sure that what I do will complement the rest of the layout.

Unlike Umberto’s story, Esquire Russia didn’t have an English translation of the piece. Rather, they described the piece to me and told me what elements they would like to be in the illustrations. The story was basically about a guy who claimed that
Thomas Edison was a Cyclops who never came up with any of his own ideas, but rather swindled them from other inventors and enlisted the help of his tiny wife to help him do his dirty work (I know it sounds crazy). So I was told what elements they wanted in each illustration—and just to check I made two quick doodles and emailed to make sure that we were on the same page. They said “ok” and I went ahead with the finals.
Images
My inspiration for these pieces were sepia-toned old time photographs, and technical drawings of a phonograph that I found on wikipedia.

...a world without Science

josh — Tue, 21 Nov 2006 19:27:00 +0000

Hello and Happy Thanksgiving! I just finished working with Interspectacular on some animated television bumper spots for the Discovery Channel. This whole job took maybe on and off 3 months to finish. I think four of these are going to be aired on TV ("Moon Or Bust 2" and "The Wright Bros" are extras that we did for fun). I've done a little work in motion graphics but this was the first time that I could have my own work animated. Basically, I did the storyboards and the key frames for all of these spots. You can kind of see the evolution of my process where I tried to get really complicated with the first "Caveman" spot to the last "Wright Bros" spot which is extremely simple. It was a learning experience for myself in the way I had to think more about the readability of a 16 second spot versus what would read for a print illustration. Many thanks to the two Creative Directors at Interspectacular who wrote and directed all the spots, Michael Uman and Luis Blanco, the two hardworking animators Ben Lee(animated "Caveman" and "Columbus") and Efrain Cintron (animated everything else). Oh, and my favorite designer Ara Devejian who did a lot of the type.

Here's a sample of the first storyboard I did for "Caveman" that went through a few revisions..

A sample of the changes and tweaks that went on through this process. This was a scene in "Moon Or Bust" that went through several evolutions. First one looked too much like the surface of the moon, we added telephone wires and changed some colors. Which wasn't enough, I made a small sign pointing up with the word "MOON" on it, which wasn't quite enough. Finally the creatives at Discovery Channel insisted on a background that was set in New England. I think the final grassy version is what's going to be aired on the Discovery Channel.

Some of the key scenes that I worked on. The bright pink parrot unfortunately got cut.

This is the last spot that is still being animated as I type this. Should be finished after Thanksgiving. I'll post it somewhere.

Out of all the spots, this one's my favorite:
Moon or Bust|Quicktime (9MB)

See the rest HERE

p.s.
I updated my site

Good Times

Nathan — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 06:25:00 +0000

The Times have been good to me. Got a call a couple weeks back from the estimable Sam Weber to do a spot for the NY Times OpEd about food choices. I had been a little sleep deprived, so some of my ideas may have been questionable... like the giant burger boxing the giant apple.

While I was in the middle of sketching that, I got a call from the LA Times Book Review. The review was about a cabbie who, after being barred from seeing his son by his ex-wife, writes a hate-filled book and buries it in her yard... only to have it resurface 500 years later and turned into a religion.

Celebrity

Frank — Wed, 08 Nov 2006 03:11:00 +0000

Those of you who know me know that I love the ladies.

Wait, that's not how I meant to start this out. Actually, I felt like trying to do some likenesses. I started with Natalie Portman, who I used to like in high school (a lot), and then I did a musician I admire named Bert Jansch. I realized that no one was going to be able to give me feedback on the quality/accuracy of my likenesses if they didn't know who the person being depicted was, so I moved on...to other girls I used to like in high school. Pattern I've noticed: they're all kind of "troubled" in movies I remembered them from. Life imitates art in my case, it seems.

Anyhow, the ladies depicted are Natalie Portman, Thora Birch, Winona Rider, and Bea Arthur of the Golden Girls (for comic relief).

And in other news, I'm going to be one of the artists featured in the third issue of Ashley Wood's Swallow

Originally I was trying to keep this on the down-low, but then I came across this rad promo poster image thingy with my name on it and so I thought "wow he must be serious." So here goes. Look the amazing company I'm in!

Chefs, Teenage Angst and Peeps

josh — Fri, 27 Oct 2006 20:30:00 +0000

**NOTE**
I was reminded to post these links after seeing Andrew featured on Drawn!
Some extremely talented people to go see:

Adrian Johnson
Graham Romieu
Edwin Ushiro
Gabi Beltrán
Andrew Beckmeyer
Phillip Fivel Nessen and Maxwell Holyoke-Hirsch

I'm posting 2 things because I've been lagging on the updates. This first one is a rush job for American Airlines magazine. Just a feature on 9 different world chefs. I found a lot of great reference on this while I was researching for the job.

This illustration is for the Walrus in Toronto. The title of this feature story is, "A Teenage Mind" I was given a vector icon of a child's head and told to integrate it with the piece somehow. I think in retrospect I could have gone way more chaotic with this assignment but I thought an interesting point in the article was about how the brain develops, in crucial stages even up to age 25 and beyond. A lot of the crazy behavior of children can be linked to a slow development of "gray matter".

the Sunday Edition on a Tuesday

Frank — Wed, 11 Oct 2006 02:18:00 +0000

Scribble

Nathan — Thu, 05 Oct 2006 06:52:00 +0000

Back when we were in school, Josh used to laugh at how indeciferable my personal sketches were. Well, laugh now you bastard! Take a look at these beautiful babies!

Those scribbles were for this piece, which I did for Esquire Russia.

Yes, that's a naked inebriated Russian guy with a black eye wearing only socks. I draw what I'm told to draw.

Sorry, I don't have L.A. thug photos to share, but I do have a nice picture I took while roaming in Japan. Everything is just so cute there.

Ahem.

L.A. Boyzz

josh — Sat, 23 Sep 2006 06:39:00 +0000

First off, this is something that I just finished for Wired Magazine. I got a call Wednesday evening for a rush job. Basically sketches due the next day and a finish due the day after that. For some reason I always enjoy the rush jobs way more than the long drawn out assignments. I think there is something nice about finishing an assignment in a short amount of time. The article to accompany this illustration was on the website, sellaband.com .

Basically it's for new bands to get people who visit the site to sponser them. Everyone can chip in 10 dollars and if the band raises $50,000 they get to record an album with a top notch producer with state of the art equipment. If the band makes it big, everyone gets some sort of dividend (though theres some weird catch to this in the contract). I really liked the idea of people contributing to something larger and came up with this concept. The second sketch is something crazy that the art department thought of on the fly, and I also thought might make a good visual but thankfully was rejected.

I had a lot of fun working on this one and I felt like I won a small victory that I didn't have to do the usual cliché that would normally go with a "concept illustration".

This is something totally unrelated. Apparently a couple of nights ago my studiomate Kunche heard these guys chasing another dude down the street. He was attempting to break into their car and I guess they caught him in the act and took a bat to him. Our neighbor said he saw them slam this guy's body into the curb WWF style....Everything in these photos is probably 5 feet in front of our studio door.

anyways, here's a little taste of L.A.

Sketchbook New York

Frank — Wed, 13 Sep 2006 18:31:00 +0000

Hello,

I just switched coasts about a week ago and now am living in Brooklyn, New York. A couple of weeks before that I came out here to look for apartments. While looking around I filled up several sketchbook pages' worth of drawings, even started a new one. I've taken an interest in drawing locations more recently, especially because New York has so many interesting things to look at. many of these drawings were done with a Hunt 101 quill pen nib dipped into Sennelier inda ink, "the blackest" according to the jovial old guy who helped me at New York Central Art Supply. It's a real challenge to draw on location with quill pens, but the drawings are worth it. Expect ink spills.

Tear-Stained Introspective Comics

Nathan — Wed, 06 Sep 2006 20:47:00 +0000

Much thanks to Brian Rea and Sam Weber at the New York Times OpEd for asking me to join the Summerscapes series (which previously showcased comics by Hope Larson and Vanessa Davis). It was definitely nice to put my thoughts into comic form with my experiences in Japan still fresh in my mind. This piece ran on Labor Day.