Cartoon Retro!!!

So on my reference hunt today, I stumbled across a terrific, terrific site: Cartoon Retro!!! It was created by Shane Glines (Spumco, Warner Bros. Batman, Superman, Batman Beyond) as the world's largest archive of vintage illustrations, animations, comics, and cartoons. It may be true, the collection is great! It's only $5 a month, so instead of taking a trip to the BK lounge (Burger King for non-Dane Cooke fans) you can get access to a pile of great images. It has goodies from Bernie Fuchs, Robert McGinnis, and plenty of great artist's, some I'm just discovering. Recommended!

A lot has been happening lately, as far as collections of images are concerned. Conceptart.org just launched a huge initiative to fight the Orphan Works Bill here.

And Google recently received acces to the legendary LIFE photo collection. Whoah!

I guess while I'm on the subject probably the greatest collection of classical illustration outside of the library is Leif Peng's. Daily visit for me.

I put all my online discoveries at the links at the bottom of this blog. They're consistently updated so check back every once in a while for some fun stuff.

take care,

-francis

unfinished illustrations

**edit: added the top image....mock up for a wine label that never went anywhere...**

In between posts, I thought I would put up this unfinished illustration I worked on a couple of months ago. It was an early image I created for the musician Tony Williams whom I have been working with. I've been planning to add quite a bit to the image, but it never happened. Variations of this image can be found floating around the 'net. I have a few other illustrations I worked on that met a similar fate back on my hard drive at my studio. I'll post those up when I get back.

best,

-francis

Dean Cornwell download!

Hey folks. I just landed in Michigan a couple of hours ago. I'm inside and I still think I can see my breath, but it's great to see my family again!

In the spirit of giving I thought I would post a .zip download of 118 Dean Cornwell illustrations. From my knowledge, these can not be accessed elsewhere. These are all scans from actual magazine reproductions. I was fortunate to track down a fellow that was getting rid of a folder of all these great Cornwell illos that he clipped out of the original magazines. I've been drawing (bad pun) a ton of inspiration from these, so now hopefully everyone can too!!

DOWNLOAD DEAN "the lean mean illustrating machine" CORNWELL .ZIP!!!!

In many of them, there is a blank strip in the center of them. This is because I received the originals in separate pieces so I did my best to stitch the scans back together as Cornwell would have painted it.

Up above are a few examples of the files contained in the download.

When I get back to my studio I'll elaborate on this post. I have a .zip of all the hi-res scans that I'll put up, in case anyone wants to print them out. I'd also like to compare some of the original paintings to the repros. If you really digg Cornwell's work, I suggest checking out the book "Dean Cornwell: The Dean of Illustrators, by Partricia Broder." Good book, but unfortunately much of it is in black and white!?!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!
-francis

"I consider myself a businessman with a brush. I paint a picture and sell a one-time use only, sometimes for use on a toy, a deck of cards, calendars and greetings cards, then I sell the painting. I sell it six times, while other artists paint a picture and sell it once."

-Maxfield Parrish



Interesting.

-fv

Portrait

Season's greetings! So this is a 7 hr. portrait study from life that just dried. I've been looking at a lot of Euan Uglow lately, and I think that way of thinking has helped my paintings.

best,

-francis

Twitter!

So I just jumped onto Twitter.

I'll be using it to give updates on my current projects, artist's I'm scoping at that moment, and music that I'm jammin to.

If you would like to follow me head over to:

http://twitter.com/francisvallejo

self portrizzle

Man, Christmas is almost here. It's east to forget that it's that time of year in Florida. Yesterday I was walking around outside in shorts. Back when I was growing up in Detroit, we would have had a few snow days by now..ha.

But here is a self portrait. A lot of experimentation, but it was fun. I wanted an excuse to do some custom type, since I'll be doing a significant amount in a large project I am about to begin.

Happy Holidays,

-francis

"If you don't make mistakes, you're not working on hard enough problems. And thats a big mistake."

quote stolen from Andre Barnwell's blog.

Dolor now available!!!

Cover by the mind blowing Min Yum aka Bumskee.

My story!

A story by the illustrious Jens Claessens.

Story by the indomitable Dustin d'Arnault.

Back cover by the supreme Lisa Roper.

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As well as illustrations by Michael Meier, Nic Klein, and Rita Furstenau.

So I just receieved the Dolor issue in the mail!! It turned out great. Michael and Nic, again, did a terrific job putting it together. Check out the pics!!

If you are interested in purchasing a copy head over to the Rotopol store. They are selling for $4.50. Also while you're there, check out the first 2 issues!! Perfect Christmas gift for family and friends, yes?

I also have the exciting news that my story was accepted into the upcoming Society of Illustrators show!! Thanks to the judges at the Society that saw fit to include my work!

all the best,

-francis

Hustle

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So I'm working on inking the 7th page of my Popgun story. That's eating the majority of my time, thus the thin posting. The second image is an in-progress shot of some of the pages.

I remember growing up my dad always talked about the "side hustles" that him and other workers at his job would have. My main focus right now is illustration and comics. But when you got the bills coming in you have to do something. So over the past couple of months I've done a few projects with the great folks at Push LLC studio. I usually draw up quick illustrations to get one of their ideas across to a potential client, or I do basic story boards for the same purpose. It's not exactly what I want to be doing, but I try to go into it with an open mind and I usually end up enjoying myself. The first image is a set of the "storyboards" I did yesterday (I use quotations since they only need a limited number of boards, so they jump around a little ) for one of their pitches. It's also good practice, since the turnarounds are very tight...i.e. one day or one night. So you have to make decisions and not dance around camera angles, composition etc. Just go for it.

In my early years in illustration I used to gripe about boring projects. But then I realized that the best illustrators take boring subjects and make them extremely interesting. I love how Sam Weber constantly uses beasts and fantasy elements in his illustrations for business magazines. We as artists are so lucky to be making pictures, anything is at our fingertips. I really don't think there can be a boring project. It's all what you make out of it!!

take care,
-francis