City Guide 2013

Here's a new piece I did for the Philadelphia City Paper's City Guide 2013. The City Guide is the City Paper's annual publication for introducing residents both old and new to a potentially richer experience in the City of Brotherly Love with venues, restaurants, neighborhoods, and events. You can peruse the entire issue at http://issuu.com/phillycp/docs/cityguide_2013
Art director Reseca Peskin contacted me with the idea of drawing Philadelphia's Benjamin Franklin Bridge along with the city skyline behind it.
I sketched up a couple of ideas that would fit the bridge and skyline into the cover's layout. Right from the start, I wanted to do my first sketch. Luckily, Reseca and the folks at the City Paper agreed and let me go for it.

Sketches

With the go-ahead, I started gathering a whole lot of reference images. Since this piece was specifically for people in Philadelphia, I was determined to get all of the details just right. I know I'd be peeved if someone got my hometown wrong, so I really didn't want to disappoint.

Detail - Skyline

Although I was initially a bit intimidated by the architectural aspects of the drawing (despite the genetic predisposition possibly passed on to me by my dad the architect) I ended up really enjoying inking this piece. I especially enjoyed it because I got through a whole bunch of episodes of This American Life.
In order to get that detail I wanted, I did the piece as two separate drawings. One was just the foreground with the bridge and its base and the other drawing was of the skyline, which I then shrunk down to the appropriate size in Photoshop. 
The issue just came out and I'm incredible happy with how it turned out.

Thanks to Reseca and the folks at the City Paper for a great gig!

--CKL--

Star Wars Sale!

So I'm in the process of moving from my apartment and wanted to clear out some of my old Star Wars ink drawings I did back in 2011.
Here are all of the pieces that are currently available.
Email me for details!

"Artoo" - 5x7" Framed - $40

"Threepio" - 5x7" Matted & Framed - $50

"Sidious" - 5x7" Framed - $40

"Shut Down All the Garbage Mashers on the Detention Level!" - 5x7" Framed - $40 

May the Force be with you!

--CKL--

Miami Mercenaries

Here are a set of three spot illustrations I did for the Miami New Times (they also appear in New Times Broward-Palm Beach) They accompanied a fascinating article (which I highly recommend that you read HERE) about the prevalence of private security companies in Florida. So many of these companies set up in the Sunshine State because of it's proximity to dangerous (aka profitable) countries like Mexico, Central America, Colombia, and Venezuela.
Art director Miche Ratto contacted me about the pieces, wanting three spots of specific "scenes" described in the article. Instead of full color spots, she suggested black and white line drawings, referencing the drawings that I did for Alex Fine's awesome Hairy Baltimore book back in 2011.

The first scene is of a training exercise that former British soldier and Miami-based mercenary Andrew "Orlando" Wilson ran with the Mexican military. Soldiers were submitted to simulated torture, being hung over a makeshift latrine and waterboarded.

The second references the expereiences of John Walbridge Jr, a Vietnam veteran. As a member of the Green Berets in Vietnam, his unit was known for ambushing POW camps and escorting rescued POWs across borders. Walbridge went on to found OSSI, a very successful private security company based in Miami.

The last image is of a mercenary soldier from Hamed Wardak's very controversial private security company NCL Holdings guarding a cargo truck in Afghanistan.
Although researching all of the weapons made me nervous that the NSA was going to crack down on me, I had a blast working on these drawings. Without having to think about color, I really let myself get invested in the drawing.

Thanks again for a great gig, Miche!

--CKL--