I was asked to provide a polished version based on a new logo sketch that a member of the Univ Michigan's Women's ultimate team emailed to me. I designed a vector version in illustrator. Apparently the Michigan "M" is copyrighted. The dimensions of this M are approximated, and I assume are off, so hopefully I don't have to worry about copyright. Anyways, the sketch included wings with smaller feathers too, but I thought that looked a bit cluttered, so took those out in the 2nd version.

I've been compiling my image library for the Birch Aquarium education department. It's been over a year since I last updated it. I've started with the easy groups of animals, like Birds, of which I only have a few drawings. I had to resize convert everything to jpeg form; some were photoshop, others illustrator, but jpeg is the easiest for teachers to handle.
It gets more complicated with say, Sharks, when there are: B&W outline drawings, Color images, Stippled images, B&W cartoon images, Color images, B&W stylized profiles, encompassing some 20 different sharks etc etc. Then I have to figure out an organization system that will make sense to a person searching for a shark image.

I'm not sure how much to blog on the comic I'm working on. I don't want to give the story away, before we (hopefully) publish it. But I figure posting a rough draft of the first page won't hurt, especially if I don't elaborate on the story.

I did a pencil sketch full size on bristol board. I can only get so far with thumbnail sketches. Then I scanned it and filled in the black spaces with black in photoshop. I'd been referring to Sin City comics a lot recently, and the stark black and whites are really striking in Frank Miller's artwork. This comic, being a rather dark story so far, I thought was similarly suited to high contrast images.

This image was sent to my collaborators, the writers, who emailed back their suggestions. So actually, the actual page will look different from what you see here.

Yesterday I practiced taking head shots of a friend. It took at least 50 photos before she relaxed in natural poses, and we wound up with about 300 photos in the end. I used my 100mm Macro lens for the photos, which makes for much crisper photos than my 17-55mm kit lens. Of course the slight inconvenience with 100mm telephoto is having to scoot way back just to fit her head in the shot. We used natural light as well as flash, bounced off the ceiling.

This kelp forest scene is not to scale at all. The purpose is to show kids approximately where in the kelp forest different organisms prefer to hang out. I had all the individual animals colored already (for prior projects) and ready to go, except for the sea otter. We don't have sea otters in San Diego (we used to!) so I'm not sure why they're included in this program, aside from the obvious fact that they're cute and charismatic, and swim around kelp forests in northern California.

Basic (bar and pizza place) in the East Village side of down town San Diego has an artsy, bohemian vibe. At least it did for the APA fashion show last night, featuring the clothing and accessories of several local boutiques and designers.

It took maybe 2 dozen shots before I figured out good camera settings and the best place to stand to capture the models, who moved in and out of the spot lights.

See the guy in the background? Well hopefully you didn't notice him at first. I burned him out (darkened him) in photoshop because his presence was distracting to the composition.

Yet another set of logos and signage for the Explore It series of public programs at the Birch Aquarium. I'd done a number of sets of graphics for Explore It, and I finally got some feedback: simplify the signs. So instead of a color per sign, I used the same green throughout, and the font size is the same throughout as well. Previously I'd made some words larger or smaller depending on what I thought needed emphasis, and to make the signs look graphically interesting. In the case of kids though, straight forward is better.

These photos of microscopic phytoplankton were donated ti the Birch Education department. We wanted to incorporate them in a informative sign. However, the circular images arrived as a visually confusing low resolution mosaic consisting of overlapping circles accompanied by a key. I cut out circles the best I could, sometimes adding the background color around the edges where a section had been overlapped by another circle.

I like the multi-colored backgrounds. It makes me think I'm viewing different varieties of candy.

I heard about it on 94.9FM - a skateboarding / photography event ("phoSKATEto") in Oceanside. The sponsoring photo store would be lending out pro equipment for us aspiring amateurs to try out, for free. The subject matter was provided - a host of mostly teenaged skateboarding experts and one bike guy, featured above. There were three 90 degree arc ramps and smaller benches and ramps and beams, which I'm sure have specific names. It took a while to get a sense of rhythm for the movement, to learn the timing for the best shots. Also took a plucking of courage to stake out a spot right next to the ramps, or in the case of this photo, between ramps. The skaters were pretty skilled, and there were no collisions, with each other, photographers or onlookers.

On a side note, I'd always wondered why the soles of some sneaker-like shoes have designs on them. I mean, what's the point? Well, now I know! The majority of my shots of airborne skaters included a clear view of the bottoms of shoes.

Plankton are fascinating. Plankton are basically organisms that drift; they have little or no means or determining where in the open water they are heading, and are subject to the mercy of water current. Plankton can be zooplankton (those that can't synthesize their own food) and phytoplankton (which synthesize food by photosynthesis). Then there's holoplankton (planktonic lifestyle their whole lives, like jellies) and meroplankton (planktonic lifestyle only for certain life stages).

Above is a worm larva (zooplankton, and hmm, not sure if adult stage is planktonic) and below, a shrimp larva (zooplankton, meroplankton). For intriguing plankton photographs, I refer to the Image Quest Marine Stock Photo Library at http://www.imagequest3d.com

I've embarked on a new comic project with 2 collaborators. I was specifically recruited (recommended by a mutual friend, actually) to be the illustrator for a story that the 2 writers had already largely shaped. We're hoping to pitch it to indie comic publishers - definitely Not intended for the DC/Marvel set.

First things first: character design. The top sketches were loosely based on Franka Potente (Run Lola Run, Bourne movies). In the second set of drawings she becomes more defined, with a sharp jawline, intenser eyes and cheekbones, somewhat inspired by Clea DuVall (the blond insecure cop in Heroes). Next she will have a more Grecian nose, and longer, wavier hair...

I photographed Haunted Birch Aquarium over the weekend. The aquarium takes on a Halloween theme, showcasing jars of pickled deep sea specimens, touch tanks of bat stars and sea cucumbers, slime-making lab and clip-on bat ray craft tables. As a goodwill gesture in the wake of the wildfires, entrance was free, suggesting donations be made to the Red Cross instead.

Kid photography is very fun. The hard part is sometimes getting them to smile; I have several photos of kids giving me suspicious looks, a reaction to my costume, I assume. Some kids are shy and take shelter behind parents' legs, but most love having their photo taken.

This poster is to be used in conjunction with a teacher, so it doesn't quite make sense standing alone. There's a house with several drains leading to a pipe that goes to a sewage treatment center. Now imagine the 7 squares are blank. With the teacher's help, kids need to figure out the 4 main stages of sewage treatment, and to learn about 3 of the many microbes that help break down sewage. Those square images will be printed separately and mounted with velcro on the back, so they can be adhered to the poster as their topic comes up.

I brought my macro lens to Joshua Tree National Park. It is completely the wrong time of year for insects or flowers; instead there were dried (dead? hibernating?) plants. This was a part of a dead joshua tree (hmm, I'm pretty sure that's what it was) with its dried guts spilling out. These delicately dotted, thinner-than-paper folded sheets fascinated me, and I have no idea what the do for the plant. It was extremely windy at JTree (as it was in San Diego; one of the major factors contributing to the wildfires) thus making it hard to hold my camera still. This image could've been crisper, I think.

I was standing at the edge of the red carpet entrance to Red Circle Lounge with a handful of other photographers when I noticed a rhythmic chinking sound. Upon investigation, I found the source to be a cigar roller, at the end of the lounge patio. She was a withered old woman but her hands were smooth and youthful. She expertly rolled the olive green sheets and wielded a large metal blade tool, responsible for the chinking sound.

Competing for attention in the opposite corner of the lounge was the white chocolate fountain. It was like a molten wedding cake, and was pedestaled so high up that most people could only reach the bottom tier. I helped myself to skewered strawberries and rice crispie treats; I usually forget to eat while photographing, but who could resist this?

When I first started producing illustrations for the Birch, one of my first assignments was to draw a crowd scene around a tide pool activity area. Some one instructed me: Be sure not to make everyone blond and blue eyed. I was both amused an slightly insulted; was there really a need to remind an artist of minority ethnic heritage to draw a diversity of people?

Is it better to water your lawn/plants at high noon or sunset? Doing it at sunset conserves water of course! The even better alternative is to plant drought tolerant plants.

I am a finalist for the coyote children's book illustration position. The next step in the application is to provide a color version. The authors also asked me to make my coyotes more cartoonish, in the style of my cartoon sharks with utensils. This involved exaggerating shapes, smoothing out lines and changing the eyes.

Coyotes are not very excitingly colored. From my study of google images, some pups do have a brick reddish hue on their head, and I included that at the risk of making him look foxy, but I liked the touch of color.

An illustration for a game about water usage/ conservation. Little kids will choose between this pic and another where the tub is completely full. Which saves more water? Well sure, easy for us adults to say.

Today I hosted the 4th annual edition of GITDU (Glow In The Dark Ultimate). It doesn't take terribly much organization; just the purchasing of bulk glowing bracelet accessories, finding a field that will be suitably dark, and the recruiting of a good bunch of ultimate friends. I also offered to screen print T-shirts with light blue glow-in-the-dark ink. Here's one of them: