Beasts

This has always been a warts & all blog, so I may as well post this here: this was a drawing I did with the idea that I would submit it to Jacob Covey's Beasts volume 2, but ultimately I'm not really happy enough with it.



It's meant to be a Chuchunaa (or "Tjutjuna"), the so-called "Siberian Bigfoot," notable for its penchant (unique among yeti-type creatures) for wearing animal skins as rudimentary clothing. (I was aiming for "deerskin" in the drawing, but I think I just wound up with "lumpy deer carcass draped over shoulders"). Also, according to the Crypto-Zoology book generously lent to me by my librarian friend Melissa, Chuchunaa have a been known to "throw dogs" when angered. (Please note that no dogs were harmed in the making of this drawing. Particularly not any beagles.)

It was only a matter of time before I found a subject that this style couldn't handle, and it's possible this is it. I was trying to really go all out and make this a little more detailed than previous drawings, but I think that was a mistake—it works against the strengths of this style, which is strongest when it's simplest and most iconic. I think. Anyway, it's not so embarrassing that I'm ashamed to blog about it, but it's not up to the standard I was aiming for.

If you haven't seen it, the first Beasts book was great, (check out the Beasts blog if you don't believe me), and I'm still hoping I might be able to work up something worth sending over, but given the world-class artists involved, I'm not getting my hopes up. Still, it's a good opportunity to practice my new favorite drawing style, and that can't be bad, right?

Media blitz!

So... I got interviewed by Wizard magazine. Which is a little surreal, frankly, but it was fun to do. Plus, it taught me something about myself: apparently I speak entirely in run-on sentences. I guess those kinds of harsh truths are just the nature of these things...

The interview is up as of today, here.

Thanks again to David Paggi for contacting me!

Obama '08 Update

After the Obama post, a couple people pointed me towards Shepard Fairey's Obama "Progress" poster, which is pretty fun. (You may remember Fairey from that omnipresent "Andre the Giant has a Posse" graphic a few years back.) One thing I liked that he did is that he put up a high res version of the image for people to download and use as they like. So I figured I'd offer a similar thing: if anyone wants to spread the pro-Obama message, (particularly in the yet-to-vote states), and would like to use my drawing to illustrate your flyers, t-shirts, whatever, go ahead. (Please note that "pro-Obama" should not be taken to mean intimating that Hillary Clinton eats babies or anything like that. Keep it positive.) All I ask is that you send me a quick email at "design [at] ericskillman.com" with a picture or something, just for my own curiosity.

Below are links to highres color and black & white versions.



Since India has got me thinking about creative commons licensing and such, I'll note that this is not to be used for any for-profit enterprise and the copyright remains with me.

Supertrash update

I just noticed that all the posters for the Supertrash show are up on their MySpace page—you have to register with MySpace to see them (a fate I had heretofore avoided), but they're worth checking out. The full selection is here. The ones by Angie Wang, Dekore, Andre Greppi, and David King are particularly good, I think.

(Does registering with MySpace mean I have a MySpace page now? I'm not sure how I feel about that...)

Obama '08

I promise I'm not going to turn this into a political blog, but here's a quick drawing I did this afternoon of Barack Obama—a good exercise in trying to capture a likeness of someone who is (or, hopefully, soon will be) immediately recognizable to everyone. I'm not sure I quite captured him (there's a little hint of Reinhold in there that's kind of strange), but for a 20-minute sketch it's not half bad...

Anyway, far be it from me to tell anyone how to vote, I'm just excited to finally have a candidate I want to vote for instead of always voting against the opposing candidate. And what the hell, I've gone this far, I may as well throw in the video of Obama's South Carolina speech, on the off chance someone out there may not have seen it yet, because it's one hell of a speech and well worth watching, especially if you're on the fence.



Does it help bring this back on topic if I point out that, regardless of your political beliefs, the Obama campaign sure does have some surprisingly nice graphic design for a political campaign? That "O" sunrise logo (apparently put together by a designer from Chicago named Sol Sender) is ingenious. A little too fond of the "glow" effect, maybe, but still, very effective...



Okay, that's enough politics for tonight—next post, back to nonpartisan design talk...