Tuesday, April 17, 2007

Adding it all up


My ongoing wrestle with the art of illustration continues, folks. I'm constantly trying to hone in on a more complete and consistant style for myself. I want my work to exude 100% Justin: 50% style and 50% substance. BOTH are important. I've seen plenty of work that falls on either end of that spectrum. Hopefully, I'm landing somewhere in the middle.

Lately, I've been dedicating myself to three major endeavors: the kid's TV show, the Betty Boop project, and various illustrations for the gay weekly.

Breaking it all down, I probably spend my time and energy on the various endeavors as follows:
70% kid's TV show
20% Betty Boop project
10% gay weekly illustrations

This seems like a good breakdown, but I find myself wanting to merge the parts into a whole. You see, each slice of the pie fulfills a different need. The kid's show fulfills my quest to do something instructive and inspiring for others, the Betty Boop project fulfills my desire to do something more conceptual and artsy, and the gay weekly illustrations... well... I suppose they fulfill a need to service a community. The plan, my friends, is to eventually merge all of these goals into one focused concentration!

Until then, I decided to post a whole slew of illustrations I've done recently for the gay weekly. While I don't know if I consider these my best pieces, I think most of them do their job while still remaining true to me. The tricky thing about these assignments is that they accompany a column that usually focuses on sex and sexuality (it gets old after a while). While drawing dirty pictures is fun, I find that it doesn't lead to much income as an artist, so I've had to be subtle and delicate with the issues conveyed in these assignments. Hopefully, the following drawings illustrate their point without being too tasteless!


Can you guess what this one is about?


How about this one? That face on the screen looks predatory, yes?


Pull up a chair, because they'll probably get sillier and more suggestive as we go...


This one's gotta' be obvious.


I wonder what kind of personal accessory this one's about?


Are you feeling like a virgin or a whore today? Or both?


Don't you hate size comparisons?


Need I say a word?


Alright, time to clean up.

4 comments:

David DeGrand said...

Wow Justin, your illustrations are really incredible! What medium did you do all of these in? I love the condom character and the bad breath illos, genius!!

JustMe said...

Thanks Dave. You are too kind. I usually do these using an ink brush, but I scan them so the line quality breaks up, then I color them and alter the color of the outlines in the computer.

David DeGrand said...

That's a cool technique, it makes it look like you drew them in markers. I'm trying to get more sketchbook stuff up soon, so stay tuned!

chris chua said...

great illustrations! looks as if you're well on your way to achieving what you want!!