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maisonneuve is one ****** awesome Canadian-made, quarterly magazine. Besides the bajillions of nominations and wins and accolades every year at the National Magazine Awards for their editorial and illustrative content, maisonneuve is run only by a small group of folks on a very small ship (but a ship with taste!).  They always seem to be pushing the limit with every issue they put out. With that said, it’s not too often that I’m asked to take on portraiture for an illustration job, so Anna Minzhulina (the AD) thought she’d put me to task.

Their cover story for the current issue is “The Music We Hate”, so Anna thought it would be “fun” to have me create some unflattering portraits of the bands / musicians at stake. A total of 10 portraits – definitely a bit of a challenge maintaining likeness along with crappiness / ugliness – but not to worry, Anna really knows how to lay that stuff out and make it make sense. You can see a few more on the olde site, but if you really want a “true experience”, I recommend you just pick up the current issue!

above: Sonic Youth. Below: Animal Collective.

Sidenote: This current issue of maissonneuve has a total of THREE (3) illustrators who have contributed to Genevieve and I’s International Beauty Saloon zine-zone. Cool! Nice work Byron, Victor and me.

Toronto was fun, and I met some nice folks. Shortly before I left, I whipped up a large diagram for The Studio Review about some of Disney’s currently held world records. It should come out later on this month, and when it does, I’ll show you the full sha-bang.

You can find this image on last week’s cover of FFWD Weekly. It would be the second cover I’ve made for their annual Summer Guide — and quite frankly, I feel I handled this one better than last year’s edition — a bit more graphic, a bit more rough around the edges, etc.  Something I’ve been working on as of late.

What’s keeping me busy: just finished a batch of images for the upcoming issue of Maisonneuve (hands down one of my fave magazines in Canada), working on a piece for the National Portrait Gallery show here in Edmonton, as well as a commission for the Art Gallery of Alberta. More info coming soon.

Just a little doodad about vinyl fairs / hardcore collectors for FFWD out in Calgary. Keep your eye’s peeled for this week’s upcoming issue as well, as I’ll have illustrated the cover for that one – Summer Guide!

A nice handful of illustrations about meat were completed for EuroMan out in Denmark a while ago for their April Issue, which is out now! I received the issue in the mail a few days ago, and even though I can’t read Danish, this is one good looking magazine. Definitely one of the highest calibre mags to use my images to date, I’d say. If you check out the editorial section on my website, you can see a few more images from the series. MMM mmm meat! This would be my second time working with their ultra nice AD, Sune Ehlers. What a guy!

I was recently asked to whip up a poster for the Improv Boys’ upcoming Canadian tour. I was aiming for the old crest / coat of arms motif that I feel very fond of, with a cartooned twist. I think it conveys the necessary amount of Canadiana to me, and can’t wait to see this one in print! Now off to work on some overdue work for a zine out of Argentina and an art show in Rennes, France.

Just trying to animate some “idle stances” for some pre-made characters in Flash. This guy was made for Eye Weekly’s Renew Guide, sans animation.

As previously mentioned in a past post, this image comes from the same series for Eye Weekly‘s Renew Guide, back in January. This feller was found on the cover, and I really like how it turned out. Maybe it’s the nearly missing background, the undies on the floor, or the fact that the colouring is so simple and straight forward. Surprised that I haven’t posted this yet…