URBN Center Photomanipulation

About a year ago I did this photomanip for the dean of Drexel's College of Arts and Media Sciences. The couple are the Westphals, donors to the school. They wanted a fun picture that showcased their latest donation to the school to put in a rich person's yearbook (as far as I could follow anyway). I was lucky enough to have some friends (Simon, Nicole D, Sonia, and Dan Bode) pose for photographs for me.

Dream Journal: Rowers of the Night 2

These two are the remaining characters of the Rowers dream journal:

Dream Journal: Rowers of the Night

The other day I had a crazy dream involving all of the "House of Nick." (Nicklepuff?) I was thinking about doing a quick sketch like I've done for the last couple but this dream stuck with me a lot more than the last couple. I have tentative plans to expand this one into a full fledged production... a comic, an animation, or both. Preliminary sketches for for of the characters:

Dream Journal 4

I've been sitting on these lines for a while now.

Dream Journal 3

Another dream journal I painted up for a wedding present for my friends Amin and Megan.

The Iron Feather: Infinite Canvas Comic

Back in June I finished up the comic I had been working on for roughly six months. The idea was to create a comic that couldn't be translated to print and to present a story that pushed the boundaries storytelling. When I was developing the story for the project, my committee member Matt Kaufhold, a scriptwriter told me that my story needed a beginning, middle, and end. This advice got me thinking, what if I didn't have the three basic parts of a story? I made a comic that was structured as circles (thus defying normal page logic) There is no page, just an unlimited canvas. Obviously I was heavily influenced by Scott McCloud's writings on the future of comics. This unlimited space allowed the story to take on a format that moves a story in ways we are not used to. For example, the comic is technically linear but you can enter into the comic at any point. At several points the story branches in two directions, not in the way a choose your own adventure novel branches, the story actually continues both paths (regardless the path the reader chooses), the reader can choose which character he or she would like to follow. Since the essential story is circular, the reader will eventually come back to that point in the story and can choose the other direction to get a wider understanding of the story.

To drive the comic I used a flash based presentation software called Prezi. To use it you click on a piece of art and the screen will zoom and rotate to focus on what you selected. This software was what made the comic possible but, at the same time, makes the comic difficult to read. You have to have a lot of patience to work with Prezi on this scale. I pushed the app to its limits. I invite you to read the comic and feel free to comment on it. Does it make sense? What do you get out of it?

The project was the product of my Master's thesis at Drexel University. If you are so inclined, you can read my thesis document on Drexel library's website.

Dream Journal 2

The other day I had a dream that the general populace was being menaced by giant spiders. It wasn't all that scary of a dream but I remember we had to be very careful when opening up doors. I worked on this sketch during my lunch break in between rendering battleships.

Dream Journal 1

My good friend and long time college roommate, Chris Hendricks was married last weekend. I decided I wanted to give them something a little more personal so I decided I would make them a water color painting. Having some trouble coming up with an idea, I laid down to take a nap and had some vivid dreams. This rather crazy dream sequence ended in something like this: