Year of the Goat —or Sheep

A bit of levity for the snow day: This isn't a tradition I adhere to religiously, but when Chinese New Year rolls around, I get into doodling rats, dragons and other animals of the Chinese zodiac. This year we say goodbye to the year of the horse and hello to the sheep/goat/ram. 

Chinese New Year coincides with the beginning of Lent this year, so an Ash Wednesday goat seemed apropos.

Illustrations for "Bubbles" audio drama

After submitting the original illustration for "Bubbles" -- a science fiction audio drama that will premiere January 5 on Earbud Theater -- I was asked by the author to do an alternate version featuring the titular time bubbles in the story.

As you can see in my original sketch, I had envisioned using the time bubbles, but the further I rendered the first piece, the more I realized the time bubbles would just clutter things up. For the revised version, I decided to put all the elements into various time bubbles, and have them floating along in a quantum foam.

Some New Stuff

So, it's been awhile. I moved and don't live near enough to Pam to get to anywhere easily. I'll see about bringing my girlfriend to a lunch group soon. I'm also working on my license, which, when reestablished, will allow me more freedom to join you all. In the mean time, here's some new stuff. All of this is digital, save the obvious graphite piece.

Hope you're all doing well. I'll hopefully be adding more soon.

1st Cover - 'The Hobbit'

Hey, guys, here is the in-prog work for my first portfolio cover piece. I am doing 11 covers to various books. I have supplied the first sketch, sans reference (I still need to shoot pics for this whole thing), along with a colour study featuring where I would like the text to be placed. Any feedback would be much appreciated. The cover will be in oils, but I am doing most of my process work in the computer. Thanks, folks!

J.D.R.

P.S. As I worked with this image, I was very unsure of how to proceed. There are some images I don't mind filling the whole cover. Others just don't seem to fit the bill. I also kept thinking, 'Even if I liked this painting, I would not pick this book up off the shelf. I started thinking of all the books I like and what is aesthetically pleasing to me. This final cover layout will change, somewhat, but this is pretty much it. I'll likely do my own text, probably based off of the writing on the map inside the book. Or I may just do something based off of this type-face. I really enjoy it. As for the back cover, I knew I wanted something designy, but related to the front cover in some way. Smaug likely won't break the frame in the final, but this is what I was thinking, in a nut shell. Smaug curled around his pile of gold, his smoke and tail (or maybe just the smoke) curling around the border. Either way, the back image will be bound by the same border as the front. Also, not too keen on the black I used for the text and border around the front cover image. I'll probably choose something more subtle.

Dude, where have I been?

I finally got some internets, so I'm going to be around more :P Just thought I'd come over, throw something up, and see what happens :P This is the cover for my brother's Christmas present. I made him a role-playing game. This is sans text, pencil drawing with digital overlay, and eventually printed.

Hope you're all doing well :)

J.