Okay, here's something from 2010, in fact just this November

It's the face of a Christmas Card for a long standing and good client, Blue Hawaiian Helicopters. I have created many of these for them over the years, featuring a Christmas theme, and this is the latest.

From a technical point of view, the style was chosen because it could be executed in a predictable time frame, which is important when there is a budget. It was done using software as a painting tool, starting with Adobe Illustrator and finishing in Adobe Photoshop. No 3-D software was used.

No attempt was made to imitate traditional tools or paint strokes within the software, like some computer based graphic artists want to do. It would have doubled the time to execute and we would have been unable to meet the print deadline, not to mention that unless you do things like that all the time, the results may have been less than predictable. A "Toy Story" look was approved for the series years ago, and that's what we stick to.

Signature Illustration for Cruise Line

Illustration for High Tech Convention

This was another winner. A contest.

I wasn't going to enter because I fundamentally disagree with the concept of ex post facto compensation. You create something first, then we'll look at it, then we'll decide if we'll pay for it! One has to have an unlimited amount of free time on your hands, or be an idiot to enter these kinds of competitions... but I did.

I do most of my designing in my head. I usually have a clear idea completly framed out in my mind's eye, so I couldn't help but ponder the design specs for this contest while driving around on daily errands for a few weeks. I was working late and remembered the deadline was the next day.

So I asked myself: I wonder how long this would take if I started at 7pm. Answer: All night.