Welcome to the Design Section!

The category column to the right is arranged with projects done for various clients, course work and conceptual exercises. Each thumbnail is aranged from the most recent to the oldest in a left-to-right top-to-bottom format.

Board Game eXchange

About the work: The site is themed after the most classic of board games. The chess board. The website was originally created as a board game themed demo site, and has only been slightly altered from its initial form to accomodate a three column layout, their logo, and an added log in module.

About the client: Board Game eXchange is an online board games rental site through which gamers can try out as many games as they have time for. The risk of buying an expesive board game and ending up not liking it is not a problem as your subscription is the only fee and the games available keep growing and changing.

TJ Collectibles

About the work: Sleek rounded edges with sleek gradients in dark red and blue with silver trim was the desired look as described by the client. The work was focused solely on the store.tjcollect.com side while still maintaining continuity with the rest fo the site's current style. The overall layout is a classic 3 column ecommerce set up with spaces left purposefully open for use with client determined banners.

About the client: TJ Collectibles is an online gaming retailer with a brick and mortar presence in Millford, Massachusetts, holding regular premier gaming events for titles such as Magic: The Gathering, YuGiOh!, and Pokemon.

Super Games Inc

About the work: The key distinction made by the client for building this site was that the width be dynamic with the browser window. The site palette is limited to the achromatic which lends more emphasis to the colored content wich would be the games sold. The header bar uses supporting graphics from each gaming title's existing imagery to emphasize each product's unique landing page as the customer browses.

About the client: Super Games Inc is a gaming collectibles retailer in Roswell, Georgia. They deal in popular titles such as Magic: The Gathering, YuGiOh!, Star Wars Miniatures, D&D Miniatures, and HeroClix and host frequent gaming events at their store.

Hobby Goblins

About the work: A natural bright, warm and soft stone appearance was the aim for the website. Wood panels and rock tablets made for the site's defining content areas and played towards the primitive theme set off by the goblins that were placed throughout the site's pages and in the logo itself.

About the client: Hobby Goblins is based in Minneapolis, Minnesota with its online store focused specifically on the sales of singles for the collectible card game, Magic: The Gathering. The site has since changed ecommerce providers and has been altered in appearance to accomodate the new webmaster's re-tooling.

Video Games Demo

About the work: This site was created to provide viewers direct links to the available array of consoles and console games with the use of an expanding category tree and a featured consoles area with appropriate sub-links for their respective peripherals. The color choices were silver-grey, satin black and vibrant orange for a sporty effect.

About the client: This particular project was done as a demo peice for the purpose of exemplifying how a retailer might layout their video games retailing website. The layout is not in use by any current clients and is instead used for the purpose of live demonstrations for use of the CrystalCommerce ecommerce system.

CrystalCommerce

About the work: This new version of the site uses subtle hues of grey-blue to allow the graphics and text to better stand on their own. Rounded edges and lighter colors gives the site a clean and friendly appearance. Fonts used for the site are limited to lucida for all reading text and only varied in the top navigation tabs' serifed face for their proximity to the logo and the slight differentiation provided by this small contrast.

About the client: CrystalCommerce, Inc., formerly CrystalCommerce, LLC, provides a powerful ecommerce system built to make selling easy for online powersellers and start-ups alike. A hosted website, eBay integration and other tools to channel increasing online sales are all part of the initial set up.

Naked Yeti Games

About the work: The original illustration of the yeti was done in pencil for the client by another party. I took the initial sketch and "inked" the major sketch lines to create the current yeti form and mirrored it for ideal use and placement with the chosen font (SF Junk) and the splash accents. The circular motion created by the elements proved to be the most effective interaction of the text and the character sketch provided by the client. The splash colors are changeable and have, in fact, been changed to a crimson for the live website.

About the client: Naked Yeti Games is located in McAllen, Texas and is an active game store suporting a thriving local player base of avid Magic: The Gathering tournament goers.

Board Game eXchange

About the work: After looking over a few sketches and trying out each proposed text-treatment, the staggered top-stack with the highly accentuated "X" was the preferred solution. The bold sans-serif font face was further handled with a slight 3D extrusion and further gradation and lighting effects for a weighted/believable look.

About the client: Board Game eXchange is an online board games rental site through which gamers can try out as many games as they have time for. The risk of buying an expesive board game and ending up not liking it is not a problem as your subscription is the only fee and the games available keep growing and changing.

Hotsauce Games

About the work: The client stated a desire to take the old logo and re-envision it using the same elements already present. The original logo was illegible bright red text placed over bright yellow sauce/flame abstracts of a very similar weight in stroke to the text used. The old text was replaced with a font that posessed a much more appealing character width and simple, yet meaningful terminal flourishes that tied in well with the new fire background element taken from a photo and readjusted/distorted in photoshop.

About the client: Hotsauce Games is based in Des Plaines, Illinois, and specializes in Magic: The Gathering sealed product and singles retail online and can be found running vendor booths at large-scale tournaments across the nation.

Everett Comics

About the work: The original logo was pixelated red type over a noise-infused grey action/explosion cloud. Without being asked, the opportunity was taken to enhance their existing logo to better represent their store and the quality of product they carry. In the place of the grey-noise cloud a comic-esque action line zoom of yellow body and orange/red lines was applied. Continuing with the "shooting forward" momentum created by the background set-up, and based on the idea behind the old logo, the lettering was given a very subtle motion blur behind its still-crisp edges. The lettering itself, which was maintained from the original, was treated with the gloss and shine deserving of an iconic superhero. The look was meant to come off as slick, bold, and richly red with almost a semi-translucent appearance when viewed up close on a business card or on a larger format surface.

About the client: The Everett Comics shop is located in downtown Everett, Washington, and has a healthy supply of comics, new and old, in addition to any number of art books, posters, figures, cards, patches and other collectibles from the Marvel Universe to wherever Pokemon come from.

Interesting fact: This comic shop was established in 1983 (Daniel Patten, born 1983).

Hobby Goblins

About the work: Consulting with the client revealed the want for a stone carved logo slab with custom illustrated goblins loitering around/on it engaged in games and dice. The lettering was accomplished through the use of a set of donor fonts which were then edited to appear stone-like for placement over the slab background. Another "dot com" version was created to include the ".com" for outside purposes.

About the client: Hobby Goblins is based in Minneapolis, Minnesota with its online store focused specifically on the sales of singles for the collectible card game, Magic: The Gathering. The site has since changed ecommerce providers and has been altered in appearance to accomodate the new webmaster's re-tooling.

Northwest Magic

About the work: Although there is not a direct client, as the forum is sponsored by Magic Arsenal but not directly controlled or maintained by any particular individual, the fact is that the forums desreved a respectable identifying mark. A placeholder logo was created to hold the space while a new version was planned. This new version incorporates a single star with eight rays, the four primary rays are longer than the secondary set and points distinctly west with its longest ray, conveniently balancing out over the text. The coloration was chosen to be steel-grey with a very delicate blue tint giving the logo a cool feeling.

About the client: Northwest Magic simply is a community forum for the people of the northwest to gather thoughts and plans for gaming, trading, and just chatting about an entertaining game (Magic: The Gathering).

CrystalCommerce

About the work: The previous logo was a simple text line encased in a grey oblong shape in the font "Impact." The change to a serif face for the "Crystal" and to a similarly weighted sans serif face for the "Commerce" was to convey the elegance and functionality of the software's performance in simple text. The addition of the crystal mark was only natural. The color choices were made specificaly by the client, with each color having a theme of different peices working together. This is a reflection of how the software works through multiple facets of online retail for the ecommerce entrepreneur.

About the client: CrystalCommerce, Inc., formerly CrystalCommerce, LLC, provides a powerful ecommerce system built to make selling easy for online powersellers and start-ups alike. A hosted website, eBay integration and other tools to channel increasing online sales are all part of the initial set up.

Digit (Demo)

About the work: The project was to redesign an existing magazine's layout and cover. The original masthead was a simple stright sans serif font, it was changed to a more striking rounded and broadened face to hint towards resembling a digital display while not appearing to be too much like one. An alternate approach for handling the pagination appearance in the magazine was then introduced to make locating the featured articles easier. In essence the margin strokes and angles help guide the reader where as the original magazine had no apparent order/unity to it which made reading less enjoyable and more frustrating.

About the client: This project was undertaken with the guidance of instructors of the Design & Illustration program at Seattle Central.

Hagakure (Demo)

About the work: Creating the cover was working with nature patterns of wood grain and leaves, but simple photography didn't fit the age of the book's content. A simplified leaf pattern based on a photo was used instead along with a wood grain pattern produced similarly in Illustrator. The colors selected were based on a complementary scheme with the oranges reduced to lines with high saturation and the blue muted way back for the background. The title translates roughly as "hidden by leaves" or "hidden leaves," while the book itself is an insight of the life of samurai for the period. The mon, or crest, shown throughout the chapters is the family crest of the Nabeshima.

About the client: This project was undertaken with the guidance of instructors of the Design & Illustration program at Seattle Central.

Collateral

About the work: The newsletter project is a regular publication for alumni of the Seattle Central Design & Illustration program. The task was to layout a 6 page newsletter with all the provided content in a sensible and aesthetically appealing way. My solution provided a strong break gap capped by the pagination which lead through the entire newsletter giving a clear sense of unity and structure, yet also allowed nearly all of the student art to also be showcased whereas a number of variations could not do this successfully.

About the client: This project was undertaken with the guidance of instructors of the Design & Illustration program at Seattle Central.

Champloo Minizine

About the work: The minizine was designed as a bi-monthly publication covering games, music, and activities for the Japanese culture enthusiast. The color of the magazine's masthead matches with the interior contents and credits pages but is made to be easily changed for alternate hues. The cover features an illustration done earlier and separate of the project but works nicely with the minizine's theme.

About the client: This project was undertaken with the guidance of instructors of the Design & Illustration program at Seattle Central.

Animale Full Page

About the work: The project was to design a full page magazine ad spot feturing the chosen wine label from a previous project. The play off the cat is the obvious feature and its comparison in qualities to the wine it is associated with. The relaxed feeling given by the cat comes across in the photography as well as, if not better than the illustrated version does.

Thanks goes out to Jim Burke and his cat for the location and the talent.

About the client: This project was undertaken with the guidance of instructors of the Design & Illustration program at Seattle Central.

Animale Label

About the work: Animale is an existing Wine label in Washington and this particular label was produced as a project alternative. The idea was to feature the cat illustration based on the original cat as a wrap from the front label to the back in mirror of the created letterform cat on the logo. A dark and rich red was used to emphasize the wine and a leaf abstract was placed at either end of the cat for emphasis.

About the client: This project was undertaken with the guidance of instructors of the Design & Illustration program at Seattle Central.

Rambler Label

About the work: The goal was to create a visually striking soda brand logo for a fictional soda company. The Rambler logo is bold in lettering supported by a solid diagonal with the craft brewed tag all of whic is stroked with a heavy white that sets it off from the vertical pinstriping in the background. The golden warm radial gradient lends a brightness to the label making it appear more welcoming to passing consumers. The circular form and the strong diagonal successfully jump from the shelf even from a distance.

About the client: This project was undertaken with the guidance of instructors of the Design & Illustration program at Seattle Central.

Welcome to the Illustration Section!

Again, the category column to the right is arranged with projects done for clients, course work and conceptual exercises. Each thumbnail is aranged from the most recent to the oldest in a left-to-right top-to-bottom format.

New illustrations for the year 2010 will be posted just as soon as they are prepped for upload and once the details behind them have been taken down. And when time presents itself for me to do so.

Welcome to Grixis

The opportunity to illustrate something for a possible mention online is something, given reasonable time available, is something I find difficult to pass up. This is especially so for a contest involving a good read based on my favorite game since grade-school. When I heard about the "Agents of Artifice" fan art contest I had to do something for it as it sounded like too much fun to not be a part of.

I immediately started by running through the chapters I'd enjoyed most from the book and decided the initial 'walk to Grixis was the part I felt I wanted to represent, fearing that most of the other chapters were probably already being well covered by that point in the month. Turthfully, zombies are fun and once I had a reasonable sketch to show some zombie/jace goodness, I went straight to the computer as deadlines wait for no one.

The scene of the Grixis encounter, as I envisioned it in my head looked like a wash of dark putrid vapors that could sap life away at a touch with little true light and plenty of life-seeking zombies. The feeling was dark and putrid so I went with what my brain saw, and it saw low saturation purple-grey. I knew then that the brightest light source would come from Jace if I decided to give him some flashy colored magic for his battle against these undead, which I obviously did. Jace lights up the place as the only visible living entity and the focal point of the whole scene.

I did not win but got a spot on the Wizards website as I'd hoped I would. It's just awesome being able to tell friends, "I got on the Wizards site for a drawing I did and it was fun!"

Ah, and Jace Beleren and Agents of Arifice are not mine, they belong to Wizards of the Coast. So if you find them somewhere, return to Wizards, not me.

The Hobby Goblins

Once in a while I get to do something really fun at work, and this was one of those things.

The client specifically requested goblins for his logo first and then subsequently for his shipping, contact and grading pages. The goblins were to look happy, mischievous, and above all else, friendly. I'm no Pete Venters when it comes to goblins, but I gave it a reasonable go with the time available for the work.

This was, by no means, done as a large composition, and was, in fact, a series of single goblins done individually but collaged together here for the purpose of a quick view (the desaturation and scaled are for the benefit of a slight cue/hint at perspective depth. I kept the bodys sparsely clothed to keep them distinguishable from a distance and at small sizes. I did, however, have to make certain that a large scale banner could be printed from the finished psd file at a size of eight feet across. Thems there was some big goblins.

Loxothopter

If you play Magic: The Gathering, you may recognize two artifacts in this illustration. If you don't play Magic, no sweat. I'm talking about the big hammer and the ornithipter. Both of those are cards Tristian was often known to have on his person or out in play on any given Monday or Friday at Phoenix Games in Mukilteo, Washington. It was common enought that those cards, especially the ornithopter, came to be identified with Tristian so much that we just had to do a Magic card of him with 'em.

The big guy balancing along the narrow braces of the ornithopter, and wielding the shiny Loxodon Warhammer, is a modest rendering of Trisitan. And yes, that is a kilt. And yes, he has been known to wear them, on occasion, in public, like any other pair of shorts or trousers.

I stayed pretty true to each artifact's known appearance and found that the ornithopter was much more open to interpretation as only a blueprint-looking picture had been made of it before (and that's the one we'll stick to). I'm satisfied with the picture as it was mostly about having fun doing it, but I may consider a higher vantage point from the subject next time, as keeping the kilt contents under deep shadow was a recurring concern.

Khasman Ape

First, let me say that Khasma is not a real place and this is not a real red/green ape, or is it? Nah, don't bother googling it, as it really is a fictional place. However, it seems there may be a temple in India that bears the name "Khasman" and it might be a not-too-uncommon name for some people. Needless to say, I found this out after I grew to like the name. I'm keeping it!

This bit was done as an exercise in fur and a low star-gazer vantage, for lack of a better term. I wanted to show this guy falling out of the high canopy just about to meet some unlucky off-camera creature trudging along the forest floor. It's always fun to leave something to imagine about, such as what sort of victim could be just below the monkey.

Jhoira of the Ghitu

I've enjoyed playing magic for a good long time and Jhoira was an intersting character I first came to know from the Urza's Block of Magic: The Gathering cards, but even more so from the novels covering the story of Urza Plansewalker and his work at the Tolarian Academy.

I was drawn to show her off somehow causing and manipulating a worm hole. I don't know how it is that she can do this, as it's never disclosed in the novels, but her card for the Futuresight expansion has her ability to be like this. The card, however doesn't show her in action, so I took it upon myself to imagine what it might look like to see her meddling with time.

I kept the focus on her and her worm hole and dropped the background in dark rough shapes. The way she interacts with the worm hole, and how it swirls past her fingers is the part I enjoy most. Thankfully that was also the part I was aiming to be satisfied with when I started the picture. Isn't that just great when you get what you wanted in the end?

As with Jace from the "Welcome to Grixis" pic, Jhoira doesn't belong to me. That would be slavery. No, really, she's with Wizards and I hear it's a pretty solid commitment. Okay, simply put, the Jhoira character is property of Wizards of the Coast. My rear end is now covered.

Wydian Naturalist

I'm not a real fan of anthropomorphized creature art, but I didn't really think of this one in that way. I guess it's because I'm used to the idea of satyrs and fauns from all sorts of mythology and stories I've read since I was little. So, this deer/gazelle-lady isn't so unnatural to me as a bright pink bunny-person would be.

The character was placed on the near mountains with a backgdrop of far mountains across from the forest valley belowand topped with a golden sky. I really liked warm colors this year.

I do plan on opening up the rock a bit and putting her legs in later when I can revisit this picture and perhaps do it again from another perspective to tell more about the character and her job up there in the mountains far above the rest of her people in the valley below. Making stories is fun!

Rhyolitic Usher

Have you ever sat down and drew something just to exercise drawing whatever came out without backing up? This was a single sitting exercise and this guy popped out right in front of my volcano alley. I was really sick and nauseated that day and couldn't go out or do anything else so I exercised my computer while my visiting relatives played ball in the back yard. This one was wrapped up before they came in to eat lunch.

It's a very red pic and the dude is on fire, which should probably hurt, but he's so focused on something he doesn't look to be in pain. I guess I was just trying to push past being sick that day by drawing. It's not one of my better bits, but it means something anyway.

Rhyolite: a pale fine-grained volcanic rock of granite composition, typically porphoritic in texture.
Usher: a person who shows people to their seats.

Errant Libitus

I needed to do an angel picture, but I wasn't looking to do light or dark variations. I love warm colors for this year and the wild outdoors was what I was missing most due to my condition at the time. So, I went ahead and tried to do an angel with a wild theme rather than a holy or evil theme. Like some feral distant relative of Cupid or something.

The wings are not exactly feathered but actually kind of furry and a burnt sort of orange/red, similar to her hair color. what with her hair and skin being so warm she needed some green to tie back in to the forests that might be below her. Her positioning relative to the landscape isn't natural but I like to think I was on a freefall fasion shoot.

The angle fo the horizon and the landscape itself was a lot of fun to do too. I tried doing a valley bordered by mountains steepd up and away from the low point like they were swept back by some long-spent force. Yes the sky is increadibly red with golden clouds. I like it that way especially because I've never seen a sky like it. All in all I'm pretty pleased with this one and hope to revisit the character in some new incarnation later.

Momir Vig

Momir Vig is not a goblin. Yes he's kinda dirty-green looking and has a mean complexion, but that, a goblin, does not make. He's actually been described as an ancient elf, the last of his species, and sustained largely through his life-support suit. He's a cold and calculating fellow with eyes only for his grand experiments.

I drew him specifically by request for an article entitled "Momir Magic" in an issue of the "Knowledge Arcana." A Wizard's Online Community run web-magazine that covers all sorts of wizards games. Wizo_Scion was my art director for the work and it was for him that I threw in Psychatog, rather than any other magic monstrosity, for the spot in Momir's protean sphere. The article was about Vig as a vanguard magic online option and he makes random creatures show up. The floor of the lab should be a good indicator of how many protean cuties could be popped open in any given game.

I put him in his lab as I don't recall him being anywhere else in his entire written history in the Magic multiverse. So in a lab, in his expansive Simic guild sanctuary, he stands. I had fun loghting his face as his wrinkles made it fun.

Momir Vig is property of Wizards of the Coast, Inc. and he cannot do any future appearances as he is dead. Until someone raises him from the dead. But he's lived so so long he deserves a good long break for now. So "do not disturb."

Vesuvan Doppelganger

I really liked the original art by Quinton Hoover for this card. Yes, this is a fan art done purely because I liked the original. The card was one of my first rares that I opened in a pack of Revised Edition Magic cards. I had to do a tribute to this huge icon of the early game days. I did not duplicate the style because I'm not Quint, and I wouldn't want to mimic his lines because I know I wouldn't do it justice that way.

I ended up re-positioning the characters for an asymetrical composition to help distinguish the doppelganger from the original, as in the card art I could never really tell which was which for certain, due to the symmetry. I kept the real elf close to the classic posturing while moving the doppelganger beside/behind her in the picture space. It's grabbing her wrist. Or maybe the doppelganger is the one pretending to be the elf and the elf is the one grabbing it's wrist to stop it from doing whatever magical spell thingy it's doing? Nah, I intended it the first way around.

Vesuvan Doppelganger is property of Wizards of the Coast, Inc. It is awesome, forever. Whoever got the original should consider themself envied.

Fool on the Planet

I watch anime. Mostly U.C. Gundam, and titles like Cowboy Bebop, Furi Kuri and Michiko to Hatchin. So I doodle anime-esque things once in a while and this happens to be one of those doodles that made it to the scanner and then photoshop.

The girl's name is Shizu and the stuffed animal is sentient and its name is Boro. I have it in my head that she acts out through the bunny-doll and they share a single consciousness. She's quiet and it's obnoxious. The title is no coincidence with my domain name. I like the words in that order and it's explained elsewhere on this site, I'm pretty sure. So yeah she's riding the planet like a bronco through space with the bunny slung along for the trip to who knows where for who knows what reason.

Did I mention I did the plaid pattern after a tartan for a particular Scottish clan? Yeah, that was some time wrapping those lines with the direction of the pants.