Election 2012: The Oz Express

Here we go folks! All aboard the Oz Express - that's what the Weekly is dubbing this coming issue which will feature the very green cover image to the left.
This issue is all about the upcoming August elections in the beautiful state of Hawaii and, of course, Rail is the big issue on everyone's mind (hence the "Express").
I seem to be the rail artist of choice for the Weekly - not that I'm complaining. I got to draw a giant Kirk Caldwell with an equally giant spritz bottle polishing a hypothetical Rail; Ben Cayetano as sheriff chasing down the banditos stealing taxpayer dollars to fund Rail; and now my favorite: Sen. Inouye (the Great and Powerful Dan) and Grabauskas (head of HART) as the wicked witch of the Rail plus four of the most dynamic challengers to Rail (and development in general) as Dorothy, the Lion, the Woodsman and the Scarecrow.
Best of all for me personally, I finally got to do a layout that is essentially a comic book cover and as an extra special super bad-ass bonus, I got to try out Corel Painter 12 as my new tool of choice. A late birthday gift from the best parents in the world.  Look for the hard copy this coming Wednesday the 1st of August. I may also post some images from the  intermediate stages of this process too, just for fun. Stay tuned!

"Unusual weather we're having, ain't it?"



(As always, right click to open the image in it's own window - this will allow you to zoom in and check out those awesome oil brush strokes - love this program!)

Will's TwentyWhat? Artwork in an iPad Magazine

Well it's official; TwentyWhat Magazine knows its design. Sleek, streamlined, sexy. Simple.
This iPad and PDF magazine is "a young woman's guide to defining her decade," according to its Facebook page.
And the coolest part in my opinion is that the whole thing was created in the graduate Spring 2012 magazine management course for the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications. Entirely student created , student run and student driven. Impressive.
About a month ago or so my friend Gerilyn, who graduated from High School with me, asked me if I could provide some illustrations for a couple stories she and the rest of the staff of TwentyWhat were preparing for their September issue (bravo on being a month-and-a-half early on deadline) - the original artwork was already posted after I completed it.
Here we have a few samples of the actual page design for their upcoming issue that incorporate my artwork.
The first is a compare and contrast piece on Obama and Romney as young men: who their first loves were, where they lived in college, where they traveled in their twenties.
The second is an advice piece on how to successfully network in this tech-savvy and fast-paced age. Tips include, using twitter and not wearing distracting name-brand items to interviews.
Although the magazine is geared toward young women, I think that some of it can certainly apply to men as well, and besides - it just looks so good!


If you have an iPad, I recommend getting a copy of their September issue once it hits the "stands."
Their first (I believe) issue came out in May of this year and can be viewed online at issuu.com/twentywhatmagazine/ docs/may2012.
Give them a "like" on Facebook and read through some of their articles. The design is great, the message clear:
"When life hands you lemons, start a lemonade franchise and retire young."
Keep up the great work TwentyWhat.

As always, right click on an image to view it individually and increase it's viewing size.

Cayetano Rides Again!

Voila! My second cover for the Honolulu Weekly is about Ben Cayetano's bid for Honolulu Mayor. He promises to kill Rail if elected, and claims that would be justice served as Rail is allegedly highway robbery on the part of the city at the expense of we taxpayers. Whether that's true or not, I'm not sure, but with this city's track record on public projects and using the ends to justify the means, I wouldn't be that surprised. Another thing Cayetano says in the Weekly interview is that the city is using taxpayer money to pay for pro-Rail advertisements, which are inherently anti-Cayetano, which could be seen as the city buying the election, or at least trying to. Interesting stuff. And it'll probably only get juicier as we get closer to the election.

Kirk gets his hands dirty

My first freelance cover, published by Honolulu Weekly on Wednesday, June 20 (also the summer solstice, if you care about that sort of natural thing) depicts Honolulu mayoral candidate, Kirk Caldwell, as a roll-up-the-sleeves, "hands-on" kind of guy who will work closely with people on the ground to spritz up the city and make it shiny and nice looking. At least that's what he said in the Weekly's interview with him. 

I'm not sure how many people in the state consider Caldwell a lightweight, but I think that will be his main problem to overcome in this election: making people believe he has the chops for the job. He was promoted to acting mayor after former mayor Mufi Hannemann resigned to run for governor (he then lost to Neil Abercrombie, whom I can't wait to draw in some capacity), but was quickly booted out himself during the special election by Peter Carlisle, who is the current mayor of Honolulu. Now Caldwell is trying to recapture his seat, by vote this time, but he's up against Carlisle as well as former Hawaii governor Ben Cayetano, who has come out of retirement to run for mayor on an anti-rail platform. Cayetano has the best shot, I think, at winning. He stands out from the other two in a number of ways besides his anti-rail stance. He was governor. Boom. That means a crap-load to a lot of people. And even though he was a giant bully while he was in charge, there are a lot of people, especially among lower wage earners, who support him outright. Caldwell is lucky that he has union endorsements because that's the only defense he has against Cayetano stealing more lower income voters from him.

Second cover for the Weekly is currently in production and will be posted next week sometime after it is officially published on the 27th. It is, incidentally, about Cayetano and his anti-rail stance. The Weekly interviewed Cayetano who is claiming that HART is building rail against the best interests of Hawaii's people and in a dishonest, non-transparent way. He also claims that the city is buying the election away from him by using tax-payer money to fund pro-rail/anti-Cayetano advertisements. He's calling the whole business Railgate. We shall see if that is accurate or not. 

Drawings: Business B-roll

More commissioned work for Twenty What magazine (the Obama vs Romney image was also for Twenty What). These images will be paired with career tips.