Outside Magazine

jthomasillustration — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 14:11:55 +0000

It’s been awhile since I posted something. Holidays, work, excuses. Anyhow here’s one that I recently worked on that I had a lot of fun with. The story is about Colton Harris-Moore, an 18 year old “bare foot bandit” who among many things has stolen 3 airplanes, crash landed them and lived! So far he’s been elusive to the police and this has brought him to cult hero status or Colt Hero status . . . . .

This is the final art and layout

Here’s some sketches.

My first idea went to him ducking behind a tree and disappearing.

Then the AD wanted more of a portrait so I steered it towards this direction. Initially I was just going to have some trees outside the windows but they allowed me to smash the windows in so I took it as far as I could at that point.

Here’s the final version without the crop

They liked my original idea so much that they decided to use it as a quarter page. So I finished it. Then it was later killed because they wanted to use photography. Regardless I like the finished result.

Boston Globe

jthomasillustration — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 05:09:01 +0000

Here’s something I finished today. A fun story on the Census Bureau creeping people out because they are for the first time using these hand held gps devices to collect information.

I had a blast with all the details and the art direction brought this piece to a whole different level.

I was a few hours in when I got the call that the date had been pushed up, basically leaving me with a day. I could tell they were nervous but luckily I was almost done by the time I got that call. These were the sketches I sent so they knew where I was at. Normally I hash out the idea with roughs but since the idea was already figured out it seemed pretty clear what needed to happen.

This version I mimicked a Census Bureau ID badge but they decided on an eagle instead which I was totally on board with and honestly thought “Why didn’t I think of that?” They also wanted me to tone down the badge, make it a different color,

Newsweek Cover

jthomasillustration — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 13:25:39 +0000

Ok so I am officially blogging. It was really only a matter of time I suppose.

SOoooo what to blog about. I guess if you’re here then you’re probably wanting to see what’s been on my plate illustration wise. That said . . .

Here is a Newsweek Cover I just did. It’s the first of 6 attempts to make it to the end. And by 6 attempts I mean 6 different covers that each had 20 or so sketches each. Surprisingly this one was pretty close to the very first version I did.

The story was about the Chinese communist party, how there have been 2 distinct factions forming inside the party and for the first time we are seeing the emergence of these 2 coalitions that are equally powerful in the one political system.

Here are some other sketches. They had an idea of 2 hats so it was pretty clear where to take it but the AD and I decided to explore a bunch of options

Sometimes I like to make a super quick 2 second sketch just to see if the AD is on board with exploring this idea. Earlier in my career I used to get shy about showing really bad sketches and still do to a degree, but if turn around is tight then I try and save time by getting the direction nailed down first. With these quick sketches I generally try and get the overall composition but focus mainly on the idea being clear, or at least having a solid understanding of will happen. Like this one doesn’t exactly show something highly conceptual but it does get across the idea that there will be men wearing the hats.

Which then turned into this