Some Recent Projects

I did these illustrations for Costume Designer Jacqueline West as representations of her designs for "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button". Some of them were used in a promotional piece about the costumes for the Paramount film. I did them last year, but couldn't show them until after the film was released.

Iron Man

I spent a couple of weeks doing costume illustrations on Iron Man for designers Laura Jean Shannon and Rebecca Bentjen. No, I did NOT work on the Iron Man suit. I sketched and painted gowns mostly, for Pepper Potts, Gwyneth Paltrow's character. I haven't seen the film yet, but will soon. So I don't know if any of these designs made it onto the screen (all the gowns were for one scene). Often they don't, they get changed somewhere down the line. The sketches are used to present ideas to the director and the actors, sometimes, and then if they don't change, they are given to 'the workroom' to build. I am sure I don't have a credit on the film either, because it is really difficult to get an on screen credit for costume illustration. Producers often only allow each department on a film a certain number of credits, and costume designers and other dept heads have to choose who to cut from the list (a lousy job!). Since the illustrator often will only work a few weeks (as was the case for me on Iron Man) compared to other crew members that work dawn to midnight for months dragging costumes around, we usually get cut. It is a shame, since the work of the illustrator can play a big role in the costume design process. I have managed to get a few screen credits for costume illustration due to the perseverance of designer Joanna Johnston. Storyboarding credits are more common for me.

Other news with me: I did some boards for "Jennifer's Body" directed by Karyn Kusama (Aeon Flux, Girl Fight) and written by Diablo Cody (Juno), and for another film "Peacock" directed and written by Michael Lander (a newbie). They are both really interesting projects, in production now, and I look forward to seeing them. Currently I am doing some more boarding and prop work for "MadMen" on Showtime.

The Real Santa

Here is the sketch I did of Santa for Joanna Johnston on the Polar Express, and also a photo of a bunch of the crew (I am in the red skirt) posing with Tom Hanks, in full costume, as Santa. He looked beautiful! It almost made you cry. The design was based on the same research that we did for the reindeer stuff (Santa was designed first, in fact), and we started in the sketch to keep him a little chubby. Joanna knew that the 'American' Santa is usually sort of round, and was afraid to scare people off by deviating from that (she is British, and they don't think of him as necessarily fat), but we were all glad when they decided to go with a Santa in the proportions of Chris Van Allsburg's Santa from the book. He is a noble, grand, figure, very fatherly, with a deep voice. Larger than life. My favorite in the film.

Family Photo

This was a sketch done as a bit of "background" for character in an animated film that I worked on during the summer of 2005. This film was shut down indefinitely, but I met and worked with a lot of nice people, and it was a good chance to get my feet wet in the world of animation boards. (Although this is not part of a scene).

Beloved Costume Illustration

This was done with Collen Atwood, designer on "Beloved". It is watercolor, with a little bit of prismacolor pencil.

Harold's Room 1

This production illustration was for a film called "Harold and The Purple Crayon." It was at Sony, and got shut down. This was years ago, and Spike Jonze was directing, Rick Heinrichs was production designer, and Maurice Sendak was one of the producers. It was a great project, and it is sad it never made it. It was to be part live action, and part animated. Many of those involved have gone on to work on great projects, like Shrek and Sky High, Sleepy Hollow and Lemony Snicket.

This piece was started in gouache, and finished in cel vinyl (acrylic).

Costume Illustration from "The Polar Express"

I did this with Joanna Johnston, the costume designer on the film (The Polar Express).