I was honored to participate in this year’s benefit for the Penfield Children’s Center in Milwaukee WI. I created one of the 3 posters that will be auctioned off to raise funds for the center. Catalina Estrada and Emiliano Ponzi created the other two images.

The event takes place Sept 11 2010.

here is a bit about the Croquet Ball:

For 15 years, the Croquet Ball has raised significant support for over 1,400 children at Penfield Children’s Center.  The event has contributed funds to renovate the Special Care Nursery at Penfield and support children and families through the Family Fund.

here are the sketches i submitted to the great crew at Cramer-Krasselt:

here is the color study i created from the approved sketch.

the final poster.

CLUTCH is a new character that i thought would make an appropriate post this week. Here in Indianapolis, the  MotoGP races are going over at the speedway this weekend.

a bit of backstory:

Clutch has never won a race, he is still looking for that elusive victory, any victory for that matter. He will race anything, a tree, a barn, his shadow, you name it he’ll race it and no matter how hard he tries he still manages to loose.

this is a shot of the 1:9 scale model of the Norton bike that i assembled and ‘modified’ along with an initial sketch of Clutch scaled to the size of the bike.

here is a schematic of Clutch with notes on his costume and gear

the final shot with his ‘mark’

it was a bear getting the image to have speed (that’s where a cordless drill and a hairdryer came in handy)

here is a film of the set in action:

I had the honor of being asked to create a cover illustration for the September Self-Promo issue of HOW magazine. Everyone there is a pleasure to work with, and a special thanks to the art director, Bridgid McCarren for bringing me in on this issue. The editor, Bryn Mooth was kind enough to write  a post about the new cover on the HOW blog.

here are the initial roughs:

the inspiration behind the peacock feathers came from a conversation i had once with the amazing, modern day, god father of illustration, Brad Holland. it was at my first showing at the Society of Illustrators in NY. specifically the now defunct 3-Dimensional Salon. Being Mr Holland was one of the judges for the exhibit he came to the opening and it took me all night to get the courage to walk up and speak to him. After we exchanged hellos, he asked about my studio name Red Nose Studio and how many people i had working for me. i told him it was just me and my dog and he chuckled and said i was using the name like peacock feathers, to sound bigger than i was. i kindly replied that i chose the name because it had more character and branding than ‘Chris Sickels Illustration’ and that i hoped it would allow my work to also expand into other markets beyond what was then, for me, mostly editorial illustration. Thanks to Mr Holland for the chance for me to justify and clarify my career objectives, for being a factor in how i was able to show my first pieces at the Society, for being an inspiration when i saw him speak when i was in school in Cincinnati and for leaving an impression that help me generate this image that ended up on the cover (my forth!) of HOW.

this is the second concept, i like the idea that the character isn’t quite sure how to use the megaphone and the sidekick dog seems to really add a punch line. i am sure this duo will show up again in my sketches.

this one was a bit of a stretch and just didn’t have the quick ‘zing’ that the others had.

this is the chosen concept in the cover template, with an added sidekick, but the sidekick was more of a distraction..

the approved sketch. we decided that the assortment of megaphones showed how he has tried a few other ways to promote himself and that the peacock feathers became the best choice.

these are the fabric swathes and color studies i did for myself prior to the build.

the final cover on newsstands at the end of the month.

the hot point at ICON6 earlier this month in Pasadena, CA was the topic of motion in illustration as the next great thing or not. i wont get into pointing fingers or saying what is right or wrong but i do think the way the topic got people stirred up and talking can only lead to good things. it stemmed from the idea that magazines specifically WIRED magazine is spearheading the way on how magazines can potentially  utilize new devices and programs to allow readers to have a direct interaction with the editorial content by having graphics that can be multi-dimensional and by having illustrations that move. the hot point was that illustrators are illustrators not animators, that the power of a single image that can bring the reader into the text is a skill that shouldn’t be watered down by simply making something move for the sake of eye candy. the high point was that the content should remain the focus. if the content calls for something to move, then by all means move it, the software needed to do that is now becoming more accessible… the point that i see from all of this is that we as illustrators should continue to push our mediums and allow things to grow and expand and with open minds we will continue to ride the flow of up and downs and still continue to move forward in our careers.

with that said i wanted to post an illustration i did last fall and include a little animation that i did as an experiment in seeing how an illustration of mine could potentially come to life. admittedly this animation is not much more than eye candy, i don’t think it adds to the concept of the illustration, but i does allow the viewer to see that the characters are moving along and doing there best to spread the message of their brands which we are all trying to do these days.

the project was the cover for the October 2009 issue of Deliver magazine. the topic was on how direct mail can work in tandem with other methods of marketing.

here are the three roughs submitted for the piece.

here is the clipping from an old history of war book that i have had on my worktable for several years that was the inspiration behind the trumpet mobile contraption.

here is a preliminary shot with the sketch overlayed to check for composition and fit into the layout.

the final shot

and the final cover, thanks to Grayson Cardinell for a fun project.

here is the animation test to see how movement could potential enhance the visual concept. there is no audio in this test, and being that it focuses on trumpets that is an aspect that could take this experiment to the next level of interaction. if you can imagine Devotchka’s Basso Profundo playing over the animation.

It’s only been about 5 years since this many of my pieces have been on display in one place. Jason Franz of Manifest Gallery in Cincinnati Ohio has worked closely with me selecting a body of work from my illustration and personal work for an exhibit called Seeing Red (Nose).

Along with sculptures and framed prints of the work there will be my personal sketch books on hand and animations showing, some Red Nose classics like ForkBoy and The Red Thread Project along with never before seen test scenes of Scout and the new super silent short Bandit Blood.

here is the release form the gallery:

Manifest digs deep, exploring the fringes of visual arts which include design and illustration (not just philosophical conceptualism and nihilism). Adding to its history of such exhibits begun with Transportation Design, the Drawthrough Collection by Scott Roberston, and Funny Men which included works by noted illustrators Ryan Ostrander and Gabriel Utasi, Manifest invites Chris Sickels of Red Nose Studio back to Cincinnati for a full spectrum experience of his intense and highly unique illustrative process. Seeing Red (Nose) will feature a start to finish range of works by Sickels that lead to his stunning photographic images. Like artists such as Sandy Skoglund or the Brothers Quay, Sickels employs a painstaking process of crafting every element within each image as an object, then combining and manipulating them, then lighting and ultimately photographing. Manifest’s exhibit will include original sketchbooks, hand-crafted sculptural models, finished photographic illustrations, and stop-motion animation featuring the compelling characters in haunting moving dramas.

the opening is July 9th 2010 6-9 pm the show runs July 9 – Aug 6th 2010

Manifest Gallery 2727 Woodburn Avenue Cincinnati Ohio 45206

i wanted to post a little bit more behind the scenes info on the book. in particular about the hand lettering that was done for the cover and for all the location names throughout the book. initially everyone wanted to find a way to integrate the visual style of vintage site-seeing postcards of days past.

in the end we went with a solution that complemented the complex illustrations without competing with the body copy of the book or the openness of the images. i hand lettered the location names with a map pen and Higgins ink on vellum to create the line art that was passed onto the designer Emily S. who keenly dropped in color to allow the lettering to fall right onto the page and complement the images and keep things visually appealing. here are a few close ups of the ink work. and i must admit there is something very satisfying feeling and hearing that pen nib drag across the surface of the paper.

Gino Stroffolino is a key character in the book and is the mastermind of the barge scheme of making money by shipping the garbage to be sold and buried somewhere else. In fact he is a fictional character that takes the place of a few of the men behind the scheme. Jonah Winter, the writer of the book, told me he made him up because he didnt want to end up making somebody(s) mad that might just have the ability to make a call and have Jonah’s kneecaps shattered. after a few bad sketches i stumbled across this one that seemed to fit Gino’s personality.

and here are a few shots of Gino from the book:

i was delighted with the greenish, fluorescent lighting for his office. hopefully the viewer will here the ceiling lights buzzing the way old fluorescent lights do so annoyingly.

last september i was one of a handfull of artists commissioned to create a desktop image for the new Windows 7 software. being that Windows 7 launched this week, i am finally able to make a post about it.

if you watch the following video at about 2:24 you’ll see my image on the touch screen demo.

the objective as far as i can remember was to create an image that conveyed adventure, delight, lightheartedness, and something fun to look at, and it needed to be able to appeal to a wide audience…

with his homemade cloud suit and a pair of feathers he takes a leap of faith at the center fountain where all wishes are made.

so for any rednose fans out there, you’ll be happy to find a little ‘freebie’ in your next Windows upgrade. i just hope ‘the launch’ goes over well…

here are the approved sketch and colorstudy. it honestly was a blast to work on and even the rejected sketches ended up being created for my own work later on. thanks to everyone at 72&Sunny for the adventure.

some details

after the landfill research, i dove into trying to figure out the color scheme for the book. keeping in mind that the story spans an entire summer and travels to several places, i wanted the color to help convey various times of day , attitudes, conflicts and most importantly to use color to show how the garbage gets worse and wears more heavily on the captain over time.

here is the colorstudy sheet with each spread being about 1.5″ tall. i like to keep all of them on the same page so i can see how the color flows thru the book as a whole as opposed to just working on each individual spread. i used watercolors and the small scale to help me work quickly and to hopefully not to overthink the color.

here are a few details of the colorstudy. with scribbles and notes in the margins. looking back at this i see that it was merely a starting point for the colors that as i worked on the finals, evolved into more complex color schemes but this initial study was constantly referred back to and use as the primary direction for the whole book.

this year i have been honored to have the chance to illustrate a majority of the covers for Angie’s list magazine.

the new october issue which addresses with what to do when an elderly parent has passed away or moved and you have to deal with the life time of stuff that they have accumulated.

here are the roughs the art director Tanja Pohl and i deliberated over.

and with the last minute aide of a great working headline ”

They’re dead
You’re buried

How to get out from under the clutter

this is the sketch that came up

a sequence of about 100 shots during the process of setting up the clutter, setting up the lighting, adjusting the lighting and getting the image ‘just right’

the final…