Thatched

I was a little tired of all of my work having golden hour light. So, a quick night piece, for the longest night of the year.

Christmasgirl

Did a quick invite for our Christmas party at work.

Speaking of work, I started a Reel FX Art Department blog, where we'll be posting up stuff we're working on, and stuff from around the studio. Add it to your reader and enjoy.

Hope all are well and enjoying the holidays.

bee-eff-effs

Some Rejects ;]

This was an early round of character designs for a big project that has taken up most of my time lately. Can't say much more until it's done. These girls ended up being too old for the subject matter, and we went with a slightly different style, so they're off the hook. Sometimes it's nice when that happens because I can show something a month after I did it, and not a year after.

Busy times lately. Trying to fit baking, reading, and a variety of wintertime soups into my schedule without going nuts. Hope all are well.

Porter

Winding down after a long crazy week of work.

together like towers

I've updated emcguire.net with new work, and new sketchbook work.

A few items of note-

Writers House finished their new site for all the artists they represent, here's my page.

Also, Steve Dilley interviewed me for his blog, about the few pieces of concept work I did on Radium's "Magic Chairs" AMC spot.

It is getting to be good tea weather. Also good baking weather. In general, weather has more impact on me than it should, and I love having lazy autumn evenings to open my windows and not look at photoshop. I look at Photoshop for too many consecutive hours in too many consecutive days. Some people have asked me about my inspiration, and sometimes taking an evening off is just as inspiring as looking at artwork. Times like this I wish I had a bike.

Or at least a treehouse.

Quick

An exercise in simplicity.

I like October. We get along well.

Stomp

These illustrations were completed for a project at work, which unfortunately was cancelled. We spent a whirlwind Sunday doing a pitch for a new client, and after the agency saw all the boards we'd done, it seemed like these were what they had in mind.

Alas, after much excitement, our client's client decided to go a safer, established route. I was excited about the possibility of working on a commercial with real moving ErinGirls, but no doubt the possibility will exist in the future. It was pretty cool to do more work that feels like my personal work, and not having to feel like a trained wrist.

Not to give away what the campaign is, but it's about a chain of events, and how little acts have big results.

Other than that, exciting things happening and not enough time in my days. Hope all are well.

Violet and Benny

Development piece for an old project at work. One of the more memorable ones since I got to stay in my normal illustration style.

Dallas sure is rainy these days. I wonder if this means fall is coming early.

Newsworthy

My piece for the Traveling Man Robot was used for the printed promotions of the project, and distributed at the unveiling last week. The Traveling man was also featured in Envy Magazine this month, so the project has been getting lots of good press.

Glad Dallas is getting some cool stuff to line its streets.

Also, my piece for Terrible Yellow Eyes got into the upcoming Gallery Nucleus show, along with my buddies Adam Volker and Sarah Caterisano. Gallery Nucleus shows some pretty heavy hitters, so this is super exciting to me :] The show opens September 19th, so if you live in the LA area, you should go and see some great work.

And, finally, I just got back from Colorado, where I ran around and hiked and saw foxes and was completely overwhelmed at how big and beautiful all of the nature was there. I've avoided oil paint for 2 years now but being there made me want to landscape paint again.

A few pictures





Til next time.

Dr. Wizard

Saltflats

Speedpaintin and trying new things.

And a few sketchbook gals.

I wish I had more time and energy for sketching. Lately I find the same peace and zen like focus through cooking, and that has been a worthwhile and delicious substitute for my evenings. The parallels between cooking and art are obvious to me, and I'm sure if I ever become a teacher my students will have to endure lots of cooking metaphors and call me Crazy Ol' McGuire.

I've been at Reel FX over a year now, it's kind of crazy to realize that amount of time has flown by so quickly. I'm running off to visit folks in Colorado for Labor Day, since no summer is complete without a mountain adventure. Hope all are well.

Travelin' Man

You know your job is pretty cool when your boss designs giant robots.

I created a few promotional images to go along with the upcoming Traveling Man Robots that my friend Mr. Brandon Oldenburg designed for the city of Dallas. The official site can be found here. I'm excited to have these guys just a few blocks from Reel FX. 

You can also be a friend of the traveling man, on Facebook.

all horns and thorns

A Boy and a Girl.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I assure you I support equal opportunity awkward adolescent portraiture. Awkward boys in suits are just as welcome as librarians, girls sitting by windows, walking through fields, or doing other wistful things with their gangly knees and elbows. I hope I'm not becoming too formulaic. Let's call it personal iconography.

Things on my mind lately include sourdough bread, ducks of the french variety, my much neglected sketchbook, Ireland, harpists, and just how loud I can play this on my morning drive to work without blowing out my speakers. 

Coke AMC

Radium, the commercial group at Reel FX, updated the site with some stuff I worked on. This Coke/AMC job was pretty fun. If you go to an AMC theater this summer, keep an eye out for our work before your feature presentation. I worked on the concept stuff for the pitch, and some matte painting in the final shot. 

Click here to see the final piece.

Hope all are well and keeping cool. :)

Palindromes

Monster friends

I like the few hours after I first get a new sketchbook. There's always a sense of "I should probably draw something cool" and a little bit of pressure with that first page to not be something dumb. Or should be Miyazaki monsters. 

Also, emcguire.net is updated with the two new pieces finished recently. I also redesigned and updated Drew's Website with a ton of his new work. Check them out!

If you're like me and have an insatiable need for new stuff on your google reader, here are some of the more interesting blogs I've come across lately.

Journey Round my Skull

Junk Camp

Grain Edit

The Intern

Heidschoetter

This is going to be a busy summer. I hope to fit in some reading though (recommendations?), and trips to the Dallas farmer's market. Hope all are well and busy!

Terrible Yellow Eyes

I was invited by Cory Godbey to participate in the Terrible Yellow Eyes project. Today is Maurice Sendak's birthday, and this project is a tribute to him and Where the Wild Things Are. Do you remember reading the book when you were little? I remember Max's bedroom transforming and thinking it was the coolest thing ever. 

Glad more Ringling crew got in on the fun, check out Sarah's, Eric's, and Adam's pieces as well. 

The day you burst

click to enlarge

Betsy

I miss the banyan tree at school.

So, I guess now that some things are official, I can officially talk about them. I've had some really exciting things happen in the past six months.

Candlewick Press approached me to do children's book, I'll be illustrating French Ducks in Venice by Garret Freymann-Weyr, and I'm psyched. The subject matter is so attuned to my aesthetic that it really feels like it was written for me. Seriously. It mentions cats and tea in the same sentence. It's going to be a fun year working on the book.

Also, in a separate and equally exciting turn of events, I am now being represented by Writers House for all literary related artwork, children's books and book covers. Being that they represent a handful of my heroes, I am really humbled by the whole thing.

I feel like books have always been an important part of my life, and if you'd asked me 3 years ago what I wanted to do after school, I wouldn't have said anything about concept art or working at a big animation studio, but definitely something about children's books or book covers. Maybe the whole teacher's daughter librarian thing is paying off. Thanks to everyone who has helped me on my way, and the folks at Writers House and Candlewick.

Invitation

Siobahn

This is up on my site now, but I figured I'd give it some blog love too. Trying out new brushes.

My sister (artist rendition) is getting married soon, and my wedding gift to her was designing her invitations. It's on the beach but she didn't want it to be too cliche "beachy" so I focused more on the cool beach houses in Seaside Fl, where her and her fiancee often went on vacation.

It also meant I got to draw cool little houses. She took the lineart from one of these and made it into a stamp that went on the envelope.

Also, wedding invitations these days are too involved. Instead of just letting you know you're invited, the invitation also suggests hotels and includes maps and compasses and probably a foot massage. I drew a map to help all the guests get to the reception and not end up in the Gulf of Mexico.

Also, I've put Heirloom and Ghost Cat prints up for sale in the print shop.

Hope everyone is doing well. Take care!

of having had and lost some infinite thing

I've updated my website. It is a joyous day indeed! There are new illustrations and even new sketches. 

Here's one, for to tempt you...


All can be seen at www.emcguire.net 

I'm driving 1000 miles tonight. See you when I see you.

Of fuzzy hats, and also muffs.

Quick character study. I like to pretend her hat is biting her head.

I head down to Florida next week for a very whirlwind visit. Luckily I'm splitting the drive with Adam and Dustin, so it should be an adventure. I look forward to seeing what this year's illustration seniors at Ringling have been doing. Hope to see you there!

g-g-g-ghost cat

Little is known about the proper protocol for approaching the ghost cat, though many experts suggest a laser pointer and/or a profound sense of humility. The ghost cat, whence perturbed, has been known to cause thunderstorms, forgetfulness, and the occasional sneezing fit.

Approach with caution.

centenary

See, here's the thing- I unapologetically mostly draw girls. Here are some new sketchbook ladies.

This one is about half photoshop, half sketchbookins.

A couple of sketches I did while at the workshop, I think I was in a "drawing hoodies" mood.

Sometimes, every so often, I can get Drew to collaborate with me. It usually ends up looking like this though.

Lately I've been splitting my time between Dallas and Shreveport Louisiana, where I eat gumbo and po' boys with a few fine gentlemen while drawing children's books. By strange coincidence, Joe Bluhm has relocated to Shreveport as well, and it is nice to meet new art friends. What if Shreveport is the new artist community? 

Being semi-nomadic is oddly inspiring, and I really feel like making some new work. We live in exciting times.

Strange, really

Life is a little strange.

I think being in the right place at the right time means you get some surreal experiences.

Like helping the head puppet wrangler from Laika frantically assemble original puppets from Coraline to be in one of our gallery shows (as the show was happening) and getting to see these incredible works of art up close and hold them and glue their eyelids on.

The past 4 days or so have been crazy. I'm super jazzed up from the Concept Art workshop, and excited to do some new work.

AFI Film Festival

I was asked to create a lot of our promotional material for the AFI Dallas Film Festival, which starts today. Limbert Fabian art directed, and simply asked me to make something that "makes the studio look awesome." This illustration is going in the program for the Festival to be seen by real cool people, so it made me real nervous.

I knew that my normal stuff doesn't really scream AWESOME FILM FESTIVAL, so I did a weird Shaun-Tan-esque robot with cowboy boots and cacti and it is probably a friendly robot. I figured Reel FX is a real rag tag crazy contraption. Either way, it's powered by studio love and coffee. Dustin and Yashar helped me think up doodads and gadgets to put on top.



In conjunction with the Festival, Reel FX also hosts the Tex Avery award, so I did another page for the program to advertise the event, and we decided to keep it in the same style as the robot ad.




And then, ALSO in conjunction with the festival is the Animation award, so I did the certificate that the winner will receive, along with whatever supersweet computer system.

Crazy times for me lately. Life is pretty exciting and work is satisfying. I have a lot of projects on my plate right now, and as usual the coolest stuff has to stay secret for a long time. Either way, I'm settling into life in Dallas, and looking forward to things to come. I'll be attending Concept Art's Reverie Workshop this weekend, hope to see some of you there. Take care.

real horrorshow

I was approached to do a piece for a Kubrick Anthology being put out by a European publisher, and immediately wanted to do something for A Clockwork Orange. 

Last year, I'd intended to do a book cover for Clockwork Orange as part of my thesis, but I felt like it would be almost impossible to compete with the movie. Also, I've seen some other neat book covers for Clockwork Orange, (here and here) and it was too overwhelming to try and compete with all that. The movie is so engrained in our culture that no other depiction of Alex really felt right (even though he's like 14 in the book and is played by a 28 year old actor).

When I decided to do a piece about the movie, rather than the book, I wanted to do something other than the few famous scenes everyone knows. I didn't want this thing to be a Hot Topic poster, after all. One of the funniest scenes to me is Alex picking up the two oblivious girls in the record shop, and all the ridiculous sexual imagery and sillyness that ensues. Not my usual fare, but I had fun all the same. Enjoy.

err'body matte paint

Someone asked me what a typical workday is like, so hopefully this is an interesting post. I get to work on a really wide range of stuff so there's no short answer.

I work on whatever they throw at us, and in this case, it was matte painting. I didn't particularly like doing matte painting, but it was a learning experience at least, and it never hurts to have another thing in your skillset. It's more photoshop trickery than illustration, but I sure honed my stamp brush skills.

So, it begins with this commercial for Home Depot and Nascar. Pretty standard feel good whatever.

Get it? FANS.

That last 7 seconds when the two people are looking at the ENDLESS HALL OF FANS really looked something like this though

The people were going to be composited in later, so I just had to make it extend 5 times further back in space, fill the shelves with products, lower the ceiling, fix the lights, repaint the floor, add an endcap, and whatever else would make it believable. So we end up with this.

Now, since the people and "Fans" sign aren't even showing, you can see some of the areas I kinda dismissed (check out the extra row of reflected lights, yeeeah). The hardest part was the shelves, as Home Depot doesn't really have a standard way of shelving anything, and having a really limited amount of product photography to work with didn't help. 

Here's everything kinda fake comped together

During this project, we'd have daily meetings where I'd meet with the art director, producers, and inferno artist and we'd nitpick the crap out of this thing until it felt believable. Commercial projects are pretty fast, and it's rare that I spend longer than a week or two on one.

Now that they've figured out that they can use me to do matte painting, I've been painting mountains for a beer ad all week. But, that's been a bit more fun.

Actual art stuffs soon :)