Thumbnails were overly rough. They were drawn in a notoriously tiny sketchbook which was all I had brought with me to an even tinier hotel room in NY.

Those thumbs left too much blur. There was a lot of detail to cover in sketch level.

This became an intensely fascinating experience. Sel and I seemed to be perfectly attuned every step of the way, concerning ourselves only with creating art. Bouncing ideas off of each other became something I really looked forward to every time a piece approached its final stage.

To make matters ever sweeter, just check out this album’s gorgeous design here.

Inspired by their music, this became one of the most personal projects I’ve ever executed. Such an allowance is rarely given by a client and it lead to a surprisingly satisfying experience. I really look forward to collaborating with Sel once more.

Art director Nick Mrozowski from Adweek had this idea to turn a recently conducted poll into a two spread, banner-type illustration that incorporated all poll winners. He called and asked “you think we can pull this off?”. I heard “I dare you to make this”. He sent me a mockup, and we got started with setting up the comp.

Everything in its right place, we started detailing likenesses and such. At this point, my lack of knowledge about sports started to show, not to mention cripple our speed. To meet the deadline, we had to move through research quickly.

My wife, camera in hand, took some of the goofiest pictures I have posed for. You’ll get to see none of that. It all gets better when I call my sports-freak-friend Jorge for some reference consultation and, bless his heart, he attempts to explain basketball to me. I may know more than I care about the sport, but sat through it anyway as I’ve never genuinely given him pointers to me possessing that information.

And then we colored/painted it. I’ve never really felt excited about meeting a deadline. It’s just something you do. It is expected of you. But this time, both Nick and I knew we were pulling something heavy up a hill, and we had little time to do it. So, yeah, we were both pretty excited.

I don’t really know why, but it seems uncommon to see my illos with type over them. Likely that the lack of breathing space may be throwing designers and art directors off. I don’t blame them. I couldn’t wait to see this in print as I knew the layout would really activate it. These are the scanned spreads.

By the way, click on these things, cuz they’re huge.

Thanks for the patience, Nick!

You can also find a FAQ there.

Irene and I decided to take the trippy route with this one.

And then I went seriously overboard with the inks. Painting this was more of an excavation process than anything else.

After hours of lasso tooling this into shape, this is what emerged.

From thumbnails to final, here’s the process for The Activist…

… and the process for Trickle Down Effect.

Marta chose #2 with only one change, switching from a male character to female character. This terrific idea lent itself to create a more interesting character, as the male juggler that I’d drawn looked sort of generic.