Update to the Austin Skyline

 

When I finished the Austin skyline back in 2011, the U.S. Courthouse on 5th St. was not yet complete. I had to leave a little hole there, knowing that I'd come back to it in the future. Well, the future is now. The courthouse is complete, and I've dropped it into the illustration.

Before

After

New York City Skyline: Update #12

New York City Skyline

Hey. Sup. Long time no post. Here's the current status of the NYC Skyline. Looks pretty close to done, but there is a lot of detail in there that still needs to be filled in. New buildings since last update include 375 Pearl St. (AKA The Verizon Building) and the Thurgood Marshall U.S. Courthouse. Zoom below.

New York City Skyline: Update #11

New York City skyline vector

I started working on the right side a little more. Particularly the area underneath the Brooklyn Bridge. You can see a little of the Manhattan Bridge under there. The midtown skyline, including the Empire State Building, above the bridge has filled out a little more. Here's a closer look at that area:

New York City Skyline: Update #10

New York City skyline vector

The most prominent new addition this week is 8 Spruce Street. (aka New York by Gehry). The Woolworth Building is peaks its (unfinished) head out from behind One Seaport Plaza, as does Barclay Tower from behind 175 Water Street. Here's a close-up:

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 #8

New York City Skyline vector

Only new building this week is 180 Maiden Lane. I spent most of my time since the last update on the waterfront. This week's big addition is the South Street Seaport. It has only just been added, so it's not complete. The two tall ships (see zoom below) are part of the South Street Seaport Museum. They are (left to right) the Wavertree and the Peking.

New York City Skyline: Update #7

The last couple of weeks I've been focusing on filling in a lot of areas that I glossed over earlier because they were too difficult to figure out. Hence no update since September. But I do have some new interesting things to show now. Including the Empire State Building, which is behind the Brooklyn Bridge in this view. I've also started filling in some of the Midtown skyline. Here's a close-up:

Also of note; the not-yet-completed 1 World Trade Center (or as it's commonly called: The Freedom Tower). The building has actually topped out, but is still under construction. So perhaps by the time I finish this thing, I'll be able to put the spire on top. That unfinished spire-topped tower is 70 Pine St. Behind that is One Chase Manhattan Plaza. Also new this week: 100 Wall St. and 120 Wall St. 

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 #5

I know I said I was going to work left to right, but I couldn't really resist jumping ahead to the Brooklyn Bridge. It's way too interesting. But now you have an idea of how wide the final image will be. The final skyline will incorporate everything between those ferry terminals on the left and easternmost pillar of the Brooklyn Bridge on the right. Here are some zooms of the two pieces as they are now (click to get a larger image):

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.

New York City Skyline: Update #2

A little more detail on the ferry terminals. The Downtown Manhattan Heliport and 55 Water St. are new additions.

New York City Skyline: It begins!

I've received a lot of positive feedback about the Austin Skyline project that I finished last year. So I've decided to expand the idea to other cities. First up: New York! As you can probably tell, this is going to take a while. New York has a huge skyline. So huge you can't really get it all from one vantage point (see the picture at the bottom). The vantage that I've chosen is from the Brooklyn Heights Promenade and stretches from the very southern tip of Manhattan (Battery Park) to the Brooklyn Bridge. Obviously, this gives some preferential treatment to Lower Manhattan, but the Empire State Building and the Chrysler building will still be visible in the background. I'll be posting updates frequently, so people who are interested can watch the progress. I started a few days ago and here is the progress so far:

I'm working left to right (south to north). So what you've got here is the southern tip of Lower Manhattan with the Staten Island and Governor's Island ferry terminals (incomplete, obviously), One New York Plaza and 125 Broad Street. As I said, this is just the very beginning, this thing is huge and is going to take a long time. But I like big detailed things, and hopefully other people out there do too and you'll stay tuned for more.

This is what I'm dealing with. Freakin' huge.

Mt. Whitney to Badwater Basin: A Topographic Profile

Recently, while spiraling down a Wikipedia wormhole, I discovered that the highest peak in the lower 48 (Mt. Whitney) is really close to the lowest point in all of North America (Badwater Basin). Only 86 miles! I thought to myself, "That's a hell of a drop over a short distance. I wonder what that looks like in profile?" Unable to find a good topographic profile of that data, I decided to just make one. Using good ol' Google Maps (terrain view), I stitched together a bunch of images and interpreted the data into this infographic (click for a larger view):

Mt. Whitney to Badwater Basin: A Topographic Profile

Over a distance of 84.6 miles, the land in California climbs 14,787 feet. Which makes this guy a complete badass:

JJ On the Couch #3

 

Third in the series in which the contortionist greyhound makes himself at home on the living room furniture. His comfort knows no obstacles.

New Self Portrait (Plus a Retrospective)

self portrait vector

Just completed this self-portrait over the weekend and I thought it would be a fun opportunity to take a look back at many of the self-portraits I've done.

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.]

David Foster Wallace

David Foster Wallace vector portrait

I've been reading Infinite Jest and obsessing over David Foster Wallace recently.

John Muir

John Muir portrait vector

For the past couple days I've been watching the Ken Burns documentary "The National Parks: America's Best Idea." A lot of time is spent on 19th Century naturalist John Muir, who lived an absolutely fascinating life. He also had a pretty interesting look, so I got inspired to do a portrait, continuing the hairy/brush tool trend.