New York City Skyline: Update #9

I'm getting excited as the two sides of this come together and I get a little glimpse of what the final finished piece will look like. It's hard to put a percentage on how complete it is at this point, but I think it's safe to say I'm past 50%. New buildings this week: 175 and 180 Water St., and 160 Front St. I've started filling in Pier 17 and the South Street Seaport, but I'll talk more about that next update when it will be more complete. Here's a closer look at some of the newer stuff:

New York City Skyline: Update #6

Call this one the Wall Street Update. Buildings added in this installment: 20 Exchange Place, The Trump Building (40 Wall St.), Deutsche Bank Headquarters (60 Wall St.), and  75 Wall St. Here's a zoom-in on what I've worked in the last week.

New York City Skyline: Update #4

Some of the buildings added in this update: The William Beaver House, 3 Hanover Square, and 32 Old Slip.

New York City Skyline: Update #3

Mostly background buildings added. The waterline is taking shape a little more, including FDR Drive. The New York City Police Museum just got added in the lower right of the frame.

Constellation Explorer: A Compass to the Southern Sky has arrived!

Do you prefer Corona Australis to Corona Borealis? Is "Southern Cross" more to you than just a great Crosby, Stills, & Nash song? When you saw Constellation Explorer: A Compass to the Northern Sky, were you all like "Yeah, but where's Alpha Centauri?" Fear not, friends. Constellation Explorer: A Compass to the Southern Sky is here! Marvel at the majesty of the Magellanic Clouds! Wonder at the counter-clockwise progression of the days! Rejoice in the discovery that there's a whole other sky down there! Head over to the Municipal Prints site and order yours before the Earth's axial precession makes the whole thing inaccurate!* And oh yeah, I made it.

*Don't worry, this will take a few thousand years. You'll be long dead.

Andrew Low House

Andrew Low House

The Andrew Low House is a historic house in Savannah, GA. You can read a little history here. They recently asked me to do an illustration of the house. What made this one a particular challenge is the abundance of foliage that surrounds the house. The illustration had to be created using several reference photos from several different angles.

Hey, look at that! I won something!

A few weeks ago I came across a site called Create My Tattoo, which essentially crowd-sources tattoo designs. Normally, I'm very wary of crowd-sourcing sites like this, but one of the contests drew my eye. Someone wanted a family crest/coat-of-arms representing various aspects of his life. The iconography and design of heraldry has always piqued my interest, so I gave it a shot. Turns out I won! Here's the winning design:

crest tattoo vector

The Austonian

Austonian vector illustration

I've hung around photographers enough to know that the tops of parking garages (or buildings) are the best spots for getting cityscape angles. Downtown Austin has an abundance of good spots. When I found a spot where I could get an unobstructed shot of Austin's tallest building, The Austonian, I knew I had to do an illustration. Most of the illustrations that I've done in this series, however, have been relatively small. I was a little concerned that with such a tall building, I wouldn't be able to get a very detailed photograph. But using Photoshop's lens correction filter and photomerge functions, I was able to stitch together a really good reference photo that was detailed and undistorted. Took me a few weeks to complete this one. [Click to zoom.]

Keeping Busy

Yesterday I took a drive out to Austin's Pennybacker Bridge to take photos because I knew it would make a great illustration. People often ask me how long it takes to do one of these. Usually I don't know what to say because I work on them in shifts, shelving them for weeks and coming back to them when the mood strikes me. Well what you're looking at here took me exactly five hours. I know that because I literally did nothing else when I got home from taking the pictures (no internet at home makes Jeff a bored boy). Here's a zoom: