Here’s a spot illustration I did for the August issue of 435 Magazine. It was for an article about the new Verrückt water slide at the Schlitterbahn water park. The slide’s billed as the world’s tallest waterslide and the name means insane. They had to do a lot of testing and redesigning before they FINALLY got it so it worked right and could open it.

Unfortunately my illustration didn’t end up running. The bit in the article that mentioned this slide was cut. So, they didn’t need the illustration.

Just as well, because there are some problems with this illustration. It was drawn when they were still testing the slide and it wasn’t opened yet. When it opened, the rafts were different than all the reference materials I could find showed them. Originally, the rafts were supposed to hold four people, have lower seat backs, and lap belts only. The rafts they had when it opened had shoulder belts, higher backs, and only held three people. So… *sigh* it didn’t turn out as accurate as I wanted it.

Since it’s digital, it’ll be pretty easy to change, though. Just take out the derpy guy at the back and change a few details… I retained the copyright, so I might just correct it and put it up on iStock.

Drawing the splash was particularly fun.

Happy City Illustration

August 2, 2014July 28, 2014Leave a comment

This is an illustration of several happy skyscrapers from the Kansas City skyline. It’s an illustration for the August issue of 435 Magazine. The buildings are cartoon versions of real buildings downtown. If you’re on the Liberty Memorial hill looking towards Union Station, you can see this view over Union Station’s roof. I needed tall, skinny towers grouped tightly together, which is why I chose this group of buildings. 435 - August '14 - page 73

Plaza Art Fair Illustration

August 1, 2014August 1, 2014Leave a comment

Here’s a spot illustration I did for the August issue of 435 Magazine. It goes with an article about an art fair at the Country Club Plaza in Kansas City. The image in the frame is one of the iconic plaza buildings.
Actually, I made two versions of this image. The one that they ran (above) was a version of this larger image (below).

Plaza Art v1 500
Here’s the tear sheet:

435 - August '14 - page 68

Sly James Illustration

July 31, 2014July 28, 2014Leave a comment

Here’s an illustration of Kansas City Mayor Sly James that I did for the August issue of 435 Magazine.

435 - August '14 - page 60

Dinosaur Bones

February 11, 2014February 11, 2014Leave a comment

Here’s an illustration I made for a workbook for Hart McLeod.

Dino Bones

I am somewhat concerned by the blatant workplace safety violations depicted in this illustration. 😉

Illustration Friday: Children

June 13, 2013June 15, 20132 Comments

I realized I’ve never posted any realistic portraits of people to this blog. So, I created this just to show I can. It’s a portrait of my daughter Katie. It’s drawn in Photoshop using a photo I took a few weeks ago as reference. This is an actual digital drawing, not a Photoshop filter trick.

It also counts for this week’s Illustration Friday prompt of Children. Well, child, anyway.

Katie