Christmas Bear

This is my favorite design for this years Christmas. I believe you can find this card at American Greetings Walmart Stores.

As for the design: I used a different method for creating the fur for the bear and the fur for the Santa Hat then I usually do. I love experimenting with different approaches when it come to technique. I also like to pushing myself to finding quicker ways to achieve this highly rendered look. This piece was created using Photoshop CS5.

Nativity Stickers

Last year, I created a Nativity Card with this technique. It was created for Target. This year they asked me to create stickers in the same style. They are out in store right now!

Christmas Panda Bear

This card was created as a Christmas concept. I wanted to play around in Photoshop to mimic a 3d like image. You can purchase this card online at cardstore.com.

Baby Greeting Card Promo

I was asked to create this baby card theme for American Greetings. I had a lot of fun experimenting with different color combinations and textures. I usually work on more highly rendered or animated styles so, this was a nice change.



Enjoy!

Swamp Creature

Final Design:

Original Design:

This is my favorite Halloween Design for this year.
As part of my job, I get the opportunity to created what American Greetings calls "innovation" or "up front art." What this means is, that I can create greeting card illustrations with little to no direction. Yeah! Artistic Freedom!!!
However, sometime the coolest stuff never gets used. And everyone outside of American Greetings will never get to see it. There are many of these pieces, I would love to post but, until they are used in product, they will not see the light of day.
This design however, is not one of those.
My idea was to create a kids design that used one of my favorite monsters, The Creature from the Black Lagoon. It is a monster that is rarely illustrated here at American Greetings and I have been dying to have the opportunity to work on it. I chose my highly rendered technique. It takes a lot longer to create the artwork using this technique but, I love it. I have been trying to get better at understanding of dramatic lighting in my work and this was the perfect opportunity. Overall, I am really happy with how everything turned out. I used Adobe Photoshop CS5 to create this piece but, did not use any of 3d features. I have been working with the 3d capabilities in Photoshop but, because of their limitations I haven't created anything with it yet.
Happy Halloween!

Halloween Series

Being a Senior Designer/Illustrator at American Greetings is so much fun. I have worked there full time for 8 years now. I have had the chance to work with every department on some type of project.
The season I look for most as an illustration stand point is Halloween. The color palettes we are assigned, work so well together, unlike many of the other Hollidays.
For this series, I was asked to create these 6 designs. Some had rolly eyes, others crystaline/glitter, and so on. I had fun creating each one and look forward to using this technique further down the road.

Haunted House

This is a 3d lenticular card I created for American Greetings. I had blast playing with textures, patterns and lighting. I used Adobe Photoshop CS5 to created the illustration. I did not use any 3d software to create this piece. I hope all of youlike it as much as I do.

All Aboard

I was contacted by Cardstore.com to create a cartoon train invitation. Cardstore.com is a site were you can personalize your own greeting card, stationary or invitation. You can upload pictures of yourself or others to be printed on their designs. Here is the link to my design.

Secret Agent Hamster

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Briefcase Detail:

This is a Grandparent's Day card I created for Target. It is currently out in stores.

Many of you who have checked out my work in the past may recognize this character. This is the third time I have used this hamster character for American Greetings. To see previous versions of this character, just click back in my history and you'll find other designs using him in different situations. I did however, update the hair on this version. I have made leaps and bounds with this technique since the first hamster character was created.

As for the design itself, I also had a lot of fun playing with the dramatic lighting on the character and his environment. I also liked having to figure out the the lights reflection coming off of the briefcases computer screen and reflecting on the keys and ground. You can really see this on the detail images bellow. I also hid a few personal things in the art. One is the numbers in the lower right. Yep, it's my birthday. The 2nd is, I included the American Greetings Rose icon on the buttons next to the space bar. I know it is minor but, I love adding those little details.

3D Bug Card

This is a card I created a while ago. I never had a chance to see the printed version. Which would explain why I haven't posted it until now. This was to be a 3D card that included its own glasses that you could punch out and wear. The 3D glasses were placed on the top third of the card (which would explain the space above the characters.) I had a lot of fun creating the characters, especially the ones in movement. Anything that artistically challenges me is a bonus. It is the only way we get better as artist and learn new ways to approach things.

Target Back To School Promo

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This is one of my favorite greeting card promos. It all developed from the racoon card bellow. I was asked to create this as a single card but, because American Greetings liked it so well they pitched it to Target as an endcap theme. Abviously, they went with it. When I began the project it was clear that I would not be able to finish all of the designs myself. I was asked to select another illustrator that I thought could work with me to mimic the look and style. I suggested Jason Miskimins. He is a very good friend of mine who also works full time at American Greetings. He is a fantastic illustrator who can mimic just about anything. Above, you will see the original design with the racoon along with the rest of the designs I created. Go check them out the next time you are in Target!

Animal Cards With Fabric Ear Headbands

This promo is currently out at Target and Walmart. I created these illustrations for American Greetings Invention Lab. Each card has fabric wrapped headband with the ears of the character on them. The ear headband is placed right over the characters ears, which means the cards are bigger in size. I love this idea and my 3 children have a blast with each of the designs.

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Close Up Of Characters:

These images are from a Birthday Card that I created for American Greetings. It is for a pop up card. Most of the characters are very small on the card but, I created them at a much bigger size. I created all of the characters in Photoshop. The first image is the cover of the card without the lettering. I do not have the file with the completed letting. That is why there is space to the left of the monkey. I also did not include an image of the inside background art because it was made for the pop up and looked strange in it's flattened state. I hope you all like how they turned out.

Boy With Dog

This piece was created as a promotional piece for my rep.

Like I mentioned bellow in the Hermie piece. I do not like using photo textures in my illustrations unless I have too. I only used one on the wood floor in this piece, everything else was created using my custom Photoshop brushes.

“Hermie the Crab Needs a Home”

These illustrations are from my first children’s book “Hermie the Crab Needs a Home.” I was asked to illustrate 16 pages including the cover. It was given to me by a company called Wireless Generation, Inc.
A somewhat newer company that specializes in educational material.

I had a lot of fun working on this book. It had a lot of new challenges, artistically and physically. That being said, I love new challenges.

With this book, I did not use any photography in texturing the characters or in the background. I find that it is too much of a disconnect visually. That meant that I had to figure out how to create different techniques of creating textures.
I made most if not all of them by creating custom Photoshop brushes. I am really happy with how all of the illustrations turned out. I hope you all do too.

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