“Meet the Mayfarers” is a webseries that chronicles the story of an estranged, dysfunctional family who is forced to live together for one year in order to get their grandfather’s massive inheritance.

The first thing I did was re-watch the entire series. After that I worked up a couple of quick sketches. The client (writer/director/actor/creator Todd Norwood) approved the sketch and I started drawing. A couple of the characters didn’t work right away, but some adjustments were made and the poster was finished!

I spent more time on patterns and textures this time around and I’m happy with the results. The printed posters arrived the other day and the colors are perfect.

You can check out the webseries here.

You can purchase one from here.

Sawyer reading on the beach.

These limited edition bookmarks are signed, numbered and available at LOSTblog.com for $10 a piece.

WFNX did not explain anything other than they were looking for a Muse concert poster. I didn’t know the size, whether it would be screen or digitally printed. No details. Since I am such a fan of screen prints, I decided to design with that in mind.

After a couple of sketches, I fired up the computer and started working. My initial design didn’t capture the feeling that I was looking for, so I put the project to the side for a little bit. While doing image research for a different project, I was stuck with the inspiration for this poster. After that, the poster came together really quickly.

The music of Muse is powerful and uplifting. I wanted to convey something inspirational. Not because of their band name, but because of brightness of their music.

Most concert posters that I see don’t use the band’s logo. I spent a lot of time coming up with the logo for this poster. My biggest influence for this text was Brad Klausen’s poster work (check it out when you get a chance).

After I sent in my submission to WFNX, they posted it, along with a few others, on their site. Unfortunately this gave other artists the chance to see early submissions. Many of the posters that were submitted looked like the album cover. Lots of photoshop effects. Very glossy. I can understand why these might make a good Muse poster, but not necessarily a good concert poster. My hope was that the powers that be at WFNX would recognize this. And in this world of anonymous internet comments, it was very evident that many WFNX visitors did not see my intent.

But WFNX did because I was selected as one of five finalist. I was told to show up at the TD Garden an hour before the concert with two copies of my poster. The five finalists (plus our guests) were brought into a waiting room. Christopher and Dominic came in and picked the winner. It wasn’t me, but I was fine with this. Just the fact that I got to show people my art was enough for me. All along, I had felt that the eventual winner was my toughest competition.

Afterwards was an amazing concert. To anyone that enjoys concerts, I highly recommend seeing Muse as soon as possible. It’s an experience.

This is another poster that I designed for fun (the first one was my LOST poster). This time I chose to commemorate another of my favorite shows: Mad Men. If you are not watching this show, you really need to start. The season finale of the most recent season showed exactly how TV shows should be made.

For this poster, I kept a type of running diary. I set up a unique Twitter account to discuss the issues that I encountered while drawing this poster. Originally I named this account @JM_MadMen but I have recently changed the name to @JimMacLeod_Art as it will continue to be my “in progress” Twitter account.

I also set up a TweetPhoto account where I could show people the progress of the drawing. It was an interesting exercise to show some of the mistakes that I made and then corrected. There were plenty of times when I would post a picture, but I’d continue to work a smile, or a glance, so people got to see the early drafts of the drawing. Hopefully the final outcome is better than my initial attempts.

For the layout of the poster, I wanted to make sure that Don was big and the first thing that catches your eye. The show is centered on him and the people that revolve around his light and darkness. Almost all of the characters in the poster are looking to Don. Harry is looking in the other direction because he is often on his own page. The second largest character on the poster is Betty because she has become a central part of the show, though this may be changing. The poster is anchored by Sterling and Cooper sitting in Cooper’s office on the couch. While everyone is looking at Don, he isn’t actually looking at anyone, just giving the illusion that he’s involved.

The one thing I wanted to make sure of was that with Twitter and TweetPhoto, I didn’t show too much. I originally worked in black, white and grey tones. Also, I never showed how the characters fit together on the page. I was giving a taste, but I wasn’t showing the whole poster. Once I finished drawing the characters, I stopped updating the pictures on TweetPhoto. I couldn’t show too much without giving away the overall plan.

As for the colors, I originally looked at vintage 50′s and 60′s advertising. (I know that Mad Men takes place in the ’60′s, but it’s the early ’60′s and there is still a strong ’50′s influence in the characters and their work. When you think of ’60′s art, it’s usually the later, psychedelic art. None of this is present in Mad Men yet.) I then turned to ’50′s and ’60′s movie posters. This helped me to nail down the color scheme. My original drawing had three tones. 100% black, 90% black and 80% black. These three colors (Navy, burnt orange and light tan) are further apart than my original grey tones, but I like the final result. There were a couple of areas where I changed the tone from mid-range to light (Betty’s face, Roger’s suit, etc.) and I think it works better.

The dot patterns, floral prints, plaids and other elements help to add dimension to a flat, three color drawing. There are no plans to get this printed up. But if there were, I’d use an off-white, cream colored paper. Hopefully these fine elements are visible in this jpg.

I was originally drawn to Mad Men because I work in a marketing/advertising agency. While my agency has next to no resemblance of Sterling Cooper (Draper and Pryce) I was drawn to the line “They can’t do what we do, and they hate us for it.” It was a line that Don said to Peggy while he was trying to sum up advertising and motivate her to create better, more meaningful, more effective work.

Google introduced me to Standard Deluxe down in Alabama. They were able to take me through the process of getting the poster printed. After nailing down the pricing, I sent them an Illustrator file with the three colors in separate layers. I also told them the PMS colors that I was looking for.

A couple of weeks later I received my shipment. Unfortunately, there was an issue with the printing that Standard Deluxe quickly fixed. The reprint enabled us to correct a color issue, as well as getting the right type of paper stock.

I was very pleased with the final piece. Reviews of the poster have been somewhat mixed online, but I expected that. I don’t take it personal because everyone is an anonymous art critic online. Many LOST fans have been very nice in their reviews of this poster. And I am very appreciative of their kind words.

This project was originally done out of love for the show. A positive reception to my art has inspired me to work on other, similar projects. But for now, you can purchase the poster in my store.

First off, this obviously has nothing to do with the Lost posters that are currently coming out to promote the final season.

This was something that I started while the fifth season was still going on. I’ve been spending a lot of time admiring poster art, and I wanted to design something that might be cool enough that I would consider hanging in my own house.

I started off with a quick sketch of how I wanted the characters to be collaged together (if I can find that sketch, I’ll update this post with a scan). After spending a lot of time scouring Lost fan sites, I found the right photos and Photoshopped them together. I then brought it into Illustrator and started drawing over the photos. Some photos had to be swapped out while I was in the drawing phase (low contrast, not enough details, etc.) This art style is a combination of a style I developed while designed some MLB Player Caps a few years back, and my original love of comic book art.

For the most part, I used the pen tool. There are certain areas, like the hair on the women, where I used my Wacom Tablet. Unfortunately, there was no easy way to get Hurley’s hair right. There were areas where I took liberties, especially with some of the characters’ gazes.
Once I finally finished getting the blacks right, I started adding color. Originally I was working with red, but it started to look to violent. I switched it over to green and continued adding texture, patterns and general schmutz all over the poster.

After that, I started experimenting with different color combinations. After a lot of trial and error, I found that the best option was three different shades of green on white.
As for the characters, I tried to capture their essence. From Farraday looking at his watch, to Jin looking at Sun, to quite a few characters literally looking over their shoulders (and Ben overseeing everyone) I think this poster would appeal to any fan of the show.

Eventually I would like to get this screen printed. If I do, I’ll post actual photos.

Since we last saw our heroes and villian, a lot of work has been done. The first step was adding in the background color. I kept with the red gradient that was established in the original color. I wanted it to be white in the middle of the page because I know that this is where Cyclops’ optic beam hits Magneto’s shield. This is actually achieved with two layers. A red to white radial gradient. This was covered by a darker red to transparent radial gradient. The next step was laying down the flat color. This sounds easy, but it was a time consuming process.

After this, I started working on Magneto’s shield. Though his powers are usually represented by purple “energy” someone in 1981 determined that this image would show green light. Probably to separate it from the red background. You can’t have a red and purple figure on a red background surrounded by purple light.

I drew in some of the green energy effect, but I thought that it was missing something. I created a new folder for layers that would sit on top of the ink lines. For this I used a white brush and drew scribbled lines. I duplicated this layer and added a green outline filter. I then added a gausian blur to this layer. This gave the effect that the white lines have a green glow.

Though this part isn’t finished yet, I moved over to start work on Cyclops’ optic beam. This is going to be the primary source of light for the entire image. After a couple of failed attempts, I determined that the main part of the beam should be white and have a red glow. There were two other effects that I hoped to include. I wanted to show the energy of the beam exploding out of his visor. Plus I really wanted to show the impact and reflection of the beam off of Magneto’s shield. Getting these three effects to work well together has been a difficult feat.

This drawing is nowhere near finished, but working on the special effects is a lot more interesting than adding the flat color.

After spending 2 1/2 years working at Twins Enterprise (now Twins ’47) as a sports headwear designer, I had the great advantage of spending a lot of time working with sports logos, especially those of Major League Baseball teams. 

The Lowell Spinners is a little different than the MLB teams, in that their primary target are families and young children. Our task was to replace the current cap logo (seen here) with something that would appeal to everyone and tie in a little closer to their wordmark seen here). 

Myself and another designer were let loose to see what we could come up with.  I initially went in a direction that I thought would increase merchandise sales.  Years ago I realized that the best selling baseball caps feature logos that not only represent a team, but they also represent the city in which the team plays.  The Boston “B”, the Yankees “NY”, the Cubs “C”, the Cardinals “StL”, the Dodgers “LA”, etc, etc. You don’t necessarily have to be a Dodgers fan to wear the familiar royal blue cap with the white interlocking “LA”, you might just like Los Angeles the city.  So, I started working with a logo that featured the letter “L” for Lowell.  

The team stated that they were commonly known as “The Spinners.”  Hardly anyone actually referred to them as the Lowell Spinners.  So, I was to focus on using an “S” if I was looking to incorporate a letter into the logo.

The other goal I had for my designs were that I wanted something cool enough for a Red Sox fan to trade in his “B” cap and pick up a Spinners cap.  I’m sure most of you are aware that in New England, everyone is a die-hard Red Sox fan.  And since Lowell is not that far from Boston, a lot of the people go to Spinners games simply due to the fact that they’re seeing future Red Sox players (that, plus Spinners tickets are A LOT cheaper than Red Sox tickets.)  

My attempts at a “cool” logo weren’t well received, so I went about simplifying the current spindle and trying to incorporate the letter “S”.  The spindle, as well as the team name originates from the fact that Lowell was best known as a textile mill town.

At the top of the page, you can see the logo that they chose for the cap. I opted to use a really strong shadow along the right side of the spindle and bat to give the illusion of depth. Shadows under the areas where the “S” crosses the spindle, as well as the little twist lines also help to re-enforce the depth.

Their secondary goal of the Spinners was to have a new patch that would go on the sleeve of the players’ uniforms. This logo to the left is based on a logo that my coworker came up with.  I just cleaned up and reworked the design. 

One design that was rejected for the cap logo was the smiley-face logo (or, as I called it, the “Spinney the Spinning Spinner” logo.) This wouldn’t have worked on the caps of professional baseball players.  But, it is something that kids could potentially gravitate towards.  It was decided that not only could this be used in other merchandise, but it would eventually be made into a new mascot.  Hopefully they come up with a better name.

The last part of the process was to update the jersey script.  Since most baseball teams follow the pattern of home jersey has the team name, and the road jersey has the city name, I ended up creating two different scripts.  For the home jersey, I kept the existing letters and updated the “I” using the spindle. Also, since the team is commonly known as the Spinners, we were able to remove the “Lowell” from the script. 

The road jersey used the previously established elements from the new home jersey. On both of these scripts, I put little triangles along the tail to give it a little more depth. Also, you’ll notice that as the thread comes out towards the viewer, the line on the bottom gets thicker. Another element used to create the illusion of depth.

Overall, this was a really fun project.  It allowed me to play in my old backyard of baseball logos.  I don’t think I’ll trade in my Red Sox cap, but it will be cool to see the future members of the Boston Red Sox wearing a design that I crafted.

Edit: Here’s the link to the story on MiLB.com

So far I finished inking all four characters, plus the head shots in the spotlight box. My next step was to place the text and logos on the cover.  I ended up recreating the X-Men logo from scratch using Illustrator because the logo that I previously used was from the mid-90′s.  It’s a slight difference, but there is a noticeable difference.  I then reset the type.  Even though the text directly above the logo, “Special Double-Sized 150th Issue!” was hand-lettered, I opted to use a font.  For the “vs. Magneto! ‘Nuff Said” part, I redrew that in Photoshop. It was fun doing a little of that classic horror ’60′s lettering style.

As of now, I have the drawing inked and lettered and ready for coloring.  The only part of the original pencil image that didn’t make it to the inking stage is the special effects.  Since I’m doing everything myself from start to finish, I’m going to tackle the effects in the color stage. 

To see the pencilled piece and the inked piece, you can click on the image to the right.

So far I’ve recreated an X-Men cover using a pencil in my sketchbook. Then I scanned it in and started recreating the drawing digitally while still getting comfortable with my Wacom Tablet. On the computer, I redrew Cyclops, Storm and Kitty Pryde, and then it was time for Magneto. The original impetus for the recreation.

Originally, I knew that I had to redraw Magneto’s leg.  As I was redrawing his helmet, I realized that the light from Cyclops’ optic beams wouldn’t reflect off of his helmet as I had originally pencilled it.

Once I fixed this problem, I started inking the rest of Magneto.  After inking the hands, I realized that hands don’t look like that.  I have read a lot of comic books over the years, and one thing that always catches my eye is an artist that can draw good, realistic looking hands.  Tom Raney is someone who I have always admired.  Though his art is constantly evolving and getting better, his hands have always been top-notch. Carlos Pacheco, while I haven’t read much of his recent work, he is someone who had a unique, but good approach to drawing hands. 

Anyway, one of the advantages of this project is having the time to take a step back and re-evaluate parts of the drawing.  And Magneto’s hands are one area that really needed work.  In the next illustration, you’ll be able to see the original pencils, then the rough layer of the new hands, and finally the inked hand (without line weight or shading).  This was a good example of drawing how things look, as opposed to how you think they look, makes a drawing much better.

Next time I hope to tackle inking the rest of Magneto’s body, including re-drawing his leg, the inspiration for this whole, long project.