This and That

A few bits and pieces from the last while:

After my work illustrating the animated short I finished this past winter, someone who saw the show asked if I would be willing to do an illustration of their house for their husband's birthday. So, um. I did. 

I had a lot of fun with the vegetation. 

My niece had a first birthday and my sister asked if I could do an illustration for her party invitation. The party had a woodland theme running heavy on foxes:

That's about it on the commissioned work. I haven't really done much art stuff at the new job, but I have been starting to work on some of my own stuff which I will hopefully post some of soon.

Where were we?

So, last autumn in Pittsburgh, I applied for an opening with Big Burrito --a restaurant consortium (consortium? Is that what you call it? They own a number of different restaurants.) as a graphic designer. 

Unfortunately (or not--who knows? We can't see around the bends of the paths not taken.), they went with an applicant who had more relevant experience. I can't fault them for that. But the really liked my illustrative style, and they asked if they could hire me to design some new tshirts for their Mexican Fusion chain, Mad Mex. 

It was a challenging job -- I had a difficult time getting on the same wavelength as the art director. I kept having glimmers of great ideas that just never solidified. I made some sketches: 

...and while some of them were heading the right general direction (he liked the skull), in general, they just weren't quite clicking. So we talked about it, discussed design ideas, and finally came up with some stuff we thought would work. Dia de los Muertos Roller Derby girls:

And some hipster magicians: 

And then: 

They chose to use two of the images on tshirts and even sent me a couple: 

Then I learned to do roller derby, and here's me in my derby gear, and my derby girl tshirt: