Christian Slade

Korgi Book 2

2008-10-06T19:23:32+00:00

Book 2 of my all-ages graphic novel series, "Korgi" is now hitting stores!

I self published Book 1 as my final thesis project for my M.A. from Syracuse University in 2005. Since then, the book has been picked up by Top Shelf Productions and we republished Book 1 last year with 22 extra pages. Even though each book is a self-contained story, we are also following a larger arc that continues over the entire series. A new Korgi book is scheduled to be released each year. Each book is around 88-112 pages so it takes me about a year to finish one.

To check out more on Korgi click here:

wwww.topshelfcomix.com/catalog.php

Ice Cream!

2008-06-01T02:17:21+00:00

This is what I love about freelance illustration. You never know where the next adventure will take you. These illustrations were for an ice cream container for Publix, a chain of supermarkets down here in the south east. Great fun with excellent art direction from Mike Esker.

Before I started the drawings, they sent me a few containers to sample. I was wondering how they were going to do that, but by the next day I had 3 frozen solid containers sitting on my Florida doorstep in an insulated box with dry ice!

Free Comic Book Day 2008

2008-05-01T02:42:38+00:00

Ann and I are going to Chicago for the first time and will be doing a signing at Chicago Comics this Saturday May 3rd from 12noon until 2pm. Also, it's Free Comic Book Day nationwide! Just visit your local comic shop this Saturday and get a free comic created just for this event.

These are some sample pages from our short story in the Top Shelf offering called "Owly And Friends". If you're in the area, stop on by!

Also, if anyone has any recommendations for a first trip to the windy city, let me know!

Korgi Cantina

2008-03-25T16:11:04+00:00

A few weeks ago I was at Megacon down here in Orlando helping promote my graphic novel series, Korgi. Every show I usually do a few comissioned drawings. Sometimes they request a theme, other times its a drawing of my characters.

This was done for a collector who had amassed an impressive collection of original art over the past decade, all around the theme of Star Wars. I chose one of my favorite sequences, the Cantina!

More Sketchbook

2008-02-25T14:24:09+00:00

Some more sketches I thought I'd post. We've got a plein air watercolor, some drawings of my sister's scottish terrier puppy, Seamus, and an informal portrait of my sister Elizabeth.

4 Hour Stump

2008-02-11T22:02:32+00:00

I spent about 4 hours drawing this tree stump over a period of 3 days. Over Christmas break, we took a minivan, the corgis, the twins, and tons of cargo up to the family cabin at the base of the Appalachian Trail. I couldn't really wander far to explore and paint, but this beautiful fungus-covered tree stump was sitting just outside the front door. With coffee in one hand and a paintbrush in the other, I spent some time getting to know this weathered native of the woods.

"They arrived just before you did..."

2008-02-07T20:46:05+00:00

This was done as a gift last December and to celebrate 30 years of Star Wars. The style was watercolor / goauche as a nod to one of my favorite artists, Ralph McQuarrie.

Latest Sketchbook Action

2008-01-24T16:10:25+00:00

Last month I was able to go up to Detroit to teach a worshop at The College Of Creative Studies. We fit quite a bit into the short time period. In all we had a slideshow, a 5 hour figure drawing session, animal drawing at the zoo, and an illustration demo. These sketchbook pages were done on the spot with pencil and I added watercolor later using color notes I made in the margins. Thanks a bunch to Don Kilpatrick for having me up there!

Bronx Zoo

2008-01-18T16:34:33+00:00

Last summer, I completed hundreds of illustrations over the course of 6 weeks for the Bronx Zoo's website feature called "Build Your Wild Self!" The idea was to create a website in which kids can go build a virtual Mr. Potatohead of themselves and then add on crazy animal parts such as Rhino horns, Monarch wings, Barbirussa snout,...you get the idea.

Below are various roughs and samples I created in trying to get my arms around this project in terms of how it can be done, and still have everything line up correctly and work in a believable way. I also included a few backgrounds I did to stage the character against as a desktop. The website was designed and assembled by the people in charge of the ad campaign, Deutsch. An intense but very rewarding project!

Here's the link:

http://buildyourwildself.com

And many drawings were done...

2007-12-13T20:00:50+00:00

...50 in fact, for this young adult novel that was released this fall from Knopf. I have gotten quite a bit of anthromorphic work over the last year, and I'm not complaining. It's always a blast drawing snipy ferrets in armour and foxes sword fighting evil cats. A sequel is in the works.

San Diego

2007-08-07T16:27:33+00:00

Two weeks ago I landed in San Diego to promote my graphic novel series Korgi at the one and only ComicCon, the world's largest comic/multimedia, total geek out fest! Before I got to the festivities of the convention center, I was lucky to have two half days to draw at the world's greatest zoo, the San Diego Zoo. I was even luckier to have my good friend, animal expert Brad Tabar, fly down from San Francisco to join me in the hunt for solid animal drawings! So here's how a few pages turned out in the sketchbook. Crowds were tough being in the summer, and a few animals were pretty well hidden, but the biggest hurdle was getting acquainted with drawing outside in public again. Like riding a bike, I was able to shake off the rust after a couple of hours. Some highlights were the polar bears mauling each other up close against the viewing glass, an adorable red panda and sun bear cub, and my favorite of the trip, the honey badger (Vernay's Ratel). I missed the twins and wife something terrible and I really missed my corgis(especially at the zoo), but the trip was successful and Korgi was well-received at ComicCon were I met many excellent people in the industry. The last painting was from the hotel room at the Embassy Suites across from the bay.

New Picture Book

2007-07-01T03:34:59+00:00

This is the cover for a picture book I illustrated for Mitten Press called "The Decoy", scheduled to be hitting stores now. The story takes place on Lake Michigan (early 20th century) and is about a lighthouse keeper named Edison who passes time by carving wooden decoys of his favorite water birds.

The style of the book was based on a few samples I have on my online portfolio. The book has an overall monochromatic feel of cool blues, purples, and grays, with bursts of warmer color accents around the focal points of the composition. In this cover piece, you'll notice that color drops out of the picture areas, including the background, as your eye moves away from the main subject.

When I was completing the art for this book late last year, I was fortunate to have hooded mergansers migrate to a pond in my neighborhood. I saw them every day and it was like fate helped me out with some live models.

I'm A Dad.....of Twins!!

2007-05-31T09:50:35+00:00

Well, it has happened. At the time of this post, they are 5 weeks old. Nathaniel and Katherine, or Nate and Kate. Nate was 6.3lbs. and Kate was 5.14lbs. It has taken me the better part of a month to be able to get a handle on things and put this post together.
Twins.
Wow.
That means two babies and two of everything.
It still hasn't really settled in yet.
The funny thing around this time illustration wise, was that I took a job after being home for only 4 days. For 2 weeks, I had fun multi-tasking the night shift. Diapers, bottles, picturemaking...sometimes holding a baby with one arm and painting with the other.
I included scans from my recent sketchbook in sequence of events, starting with Ann pregnant , gettng NST tests done, to drawings of the twins themselves at the hospital and later at home. The Corgis are doing great with the whole thing too!

Bunnies!

2007-04-14T16:03:50+00:00

Drew these last weekend while watching TV on the cardboard backing of a pad. I based them off a stuffed animal, I'm not really too concerned with anatomy here, just a fun approach to discovering a character. Though cute, bunnies are not nearly as adorable as my two Welsh Corgis.

Illustrations For A Young Adult Novel

2007-04-04T20:59:17+00:00

My first book project for Henry Holt was released this week. I was commissioned to do the color cover, and 15 black and white interior pieces for Joni Sensel's "Reality Leak". This is my first time illustrating a young adult novel. It was quite a treat. The story was unique, imaginative, and offbeat; especially Mr. Keen, the Colonel Sanders/Uncle Sam-looking dude. He was described as having these unaturally long and gangly fingers. I was reminded of those facehuggers that launched out of the eggs in the "Alien" movie.

Doodling?

2007-03-31T08:18:55+00:00

This is an idea that I like to bring up when I discuss drawing. I had a typical instructor in my undergrad studies who used to yell and shout, stamp his foot and scream, " Don't sketch! Draw dammit draw!" I always liked the way that sounded. It was so direct and to the point, and I used it as a guide for not only keeping a fire in my belly for this habit, but also a framework to apply to my illustration assignments. The teacher was Robert Rivers from the University of Central Florida. Years later when I began to teach figure drawing myself in the evenings at a local art school, I used this idea constantly to energize the students. I do believe there is a difference between Drawing and Sketching. For me, it is more about the attitude of the artist and their state of mind. Sometimes when I find myself slumping through a drawing, whatever it's for, I think to myself, am I daintily "sketching" here, or am I "DRAWING"?! To me "drawing" is to dig a bit deeper to that place words can't explain, and grab some of the stuff that makes it REAL. Drawing has more validity than sketching in my book. I bring this up because if there is a "Drawing" and "Sketching" state of mind, then what about "Doodling". Where the hell does "Doodling" fall into the mix? Is it in a stream of conscious place?; Far away in a dreamworld? Or close to the realities of our deadlines and clients? Is it a derilict beast, or a warm blanket of self expression? Or maybe its the turds of our work, done while taking a phone call on scraps of miscut illustration board, or the backs of grocery lists. Or maybe it's just something fun to do. The images I have posted here were done on random surfaces, mostly scrap pads used for paint swatches. Are these images Drawings, Sketches, or Doodles? In the end, the only thing that matters is that I created them, and they were a ball!,..uh, Balls of fun! (Sorry, too easy. Heehee)

Drinks all around!

2007-03-12T22:29:12+00:00

Coming soon to a weekend near you.... Tap a barrel, get the giant corgis from the stables, and get ready for St. Patrick's Day!

Pizza!

2007-03-01T22:18:33+00:00

First I ate the pizza.
Then I painted the pizza.
Then I painted the box of the pizza.

These were done a while back when I was really digging the HBO show, "The Sopranos".

Still dig the show. Still love pizza.

Sharks!

2007-02-23T03:03:37+00:00

Last year I got a very busy project from my agent. It was for Harcourt, doing the roughs for the little reader books they publish every year for schools. They were the small 12-14 page stories with a wide range of subjects. I'm sure there are a few illustrators on here that have worked on these guys. Anyway, when it was said and done, I roughed out 70+ of these things in a 4 month stretch. Quite a batch of drawings. And I also did the final art on a few of them too. These shark drawings were for one of these stories.

Album Art

2007-02-01T03:17:01+00:00

This illustration was commissioned by a musician friend of mine for his upcoming album from Aeria Records. One of the album's tracks, "Sprout and Ivy", was created as the score for a trailer that was just launched promoting my graphic novel series, Korgi from Top Shelf Productions. To check out the trailer and find out more about Korgi, go to:

www.topshelfcomix.com

To find out more about my buddy's music, go to:

www.jpat.info

I have never created artwork for an album cover before so this was a real treat. Lots of fun. I played the preview CD as I worked for inspiration. Also, I posted drawings done in my sketchbook while attending one of my friend's performances. They will be used under the CD tray and in other spots of the booklet.

Robot Designs

2007-01-14T11:36:11+00:00

In 2007 I am launching a new graphic novel series with the excellent folks at Top Shelf Productions. I'll be sure to post more about this exciting project as it gets closer to book one's release this spring. In the second book though, I have to illustrate an army of these critters. Here are a few designs I threw down with pencil and watercolor, just to play with different shapes and forms that might occur within these characters.

QPB cover

2007-01-05T18:59:23+00:00

This was a fun project for Doubleday's paperback book review. It illustrates the subjects within the book "The Omnivore's Dilemma" by Michael Pollan. Coming face-to-face with what you eat. The neat thing about this picture is the setting is was done in.... on a temporary table in my kitchen, the day I moved into my new house. I remember the movers leaning in to offer their two cents as they passed by with boxes and furniture!

Christmas Card Fun

2006-12-25T07:46:00+00:00

MERRY CHRISTMAS! As I have mentioned on a few other posts, I am going to be a father in a few months, and of twins too! In keeping with this theme, I was able to squeeze this picture into a hectic month of deadlines for our Christmas card. My wife thought it was a laugh so we ran it. *For the record, when I suggested it for the card, I was joking, and gave her numerous chances to pass on it for a more lean scene, but she wanted to print it! It's been a great year being part of Drawger! I wish you all health and happiness in your lives and especially in your picture-making adventures! See you in 2007!

Deadlines

2006-12-22T09:11:48+00:00

When Santa has too much eggnog, things can get a little hectic with the big man's deadline fast approaching. Where is Mrs. Santa? Oh yeah, she loaded the rifle off screen.

Otter Drawings

2006-12-15T04:52:31+00:00

I just finished up a huge illustration project. 50 pencil illustrations in about 3 weeks. Its a new young adult fantasy novel coming out this spring. I will post images from this when the publisher gives the ok. It was a blast! That's one of the reasons I havn't posted that much recently. But here are some otter drawings I did from life on my trip to the Monterey Aquarium last month. Pretty sweet place for the animal enthusiast. My patient wife let me draw these guys for like an hour and a half. Almost as fun as 50 illustrations in 3 weeks!

Turkey Revolution

2006-11-23T15:12:22+00:00

It's happening.

Back from my California vacation!

2006-11-15T06:42:10+00:00

Well it was a vacation and it wasn't. Half the trip was spent selling paintings, the other time was spent with my 14th month pregnant wife (whose carrying twins, our first children) trying to enjoy Yosemite, Carmel, and San Franscisco. Needlass to say, aside from taking off someone's rearview mirror in Carmel with my rented minivan, getting rained out more than once, and having to get up at 5am for a few days to finish an illustration I accepted hours before leaving, we had fun. I managed to sneak in a few paintings too! Not my usual amount, but here are some panels painted in Yosemite, and one in Carmel. The painting above was painted 6"x8" in under 20 minutes of the famous "tunnel view" overlooking the entire Yosemite valley. We drove by at around 6:30 am on our way to the Seqouia Groves, when I pulled over real quick at the turnoff lookout point. After my wife Ann, sort of gave me a "what-are-you-stoppping-for-now?cant-yousee-I-have-enough-morning-sickness-without-you-driving-like-a-lunatic look, I asked her to time me no more than 20 minutes. I thought how silly it would be too try and paint such a complex scene in that short of time. It was like a gesture drawing of a landscape. Set up was about 3 minutes as was breakdown, so I really splahed this puppy out. By the time I was packing everything up, I was swarmed by 2 french documentary filmakers and a busload of Korean tourists! When I got into the warm car, my hands trembled to my coffee cup as Ann was happy to have a nice little painting to remember the trip by. Have I mentioned how awesome my wife is? We also got to meet up with the great Donzo Kilpatrick the 3rd and his family. Had a great time!

Tis The Season To Be Goulish...

2006-10-27T11:35:36+00:00

Good Morning Drawgers! I thought these drawings would be pleasant over breakfast ................................................. ........as you ate your runny eggs and crunched apart breakfast meat in your bacteria laced mouth. Needless to say, I got 3 stars for the one on top when I did these last week during arts and crafts hour down here at the asylum.

Illustrations for Framable Prints

2006-10-25T20:45:21+00:00

Finally! I am able to post some new real illustration, and not sketches. Here are two monster illustrations I have been working on little by little since around March of this year. By Monster, I mean pretty large, and rather crowded with elements. Not sure if it comes through, but I had a blast with these. Tons of bliss! These two will be produced into two seperate art prints. I'd love to hear your thoughts on them!

Plein Air Prep

2006-10-17T08:03:44+00:00

Before I travel, I sometimes look at some old paintings from previous journeys. These are the types of things I do when I am killing time at shows. My wife, Ann and I are getting ready for a trip out west to San Fransisco area for a show in Sonoma.
One of my favorite subjects are my two corgi dogs. I usually do a batch of original paintings and other products featuring them and exhibit and sell the art at this fun event. We will also be staying in Carmel for a bit. Hoping to get some painting in while I'm there!
My wife and I have done this specialty Welsh Corgi show for 5 years now, the only difference is that she is pregnant with our first kids. That's right kidS. plural. We are going to have twins! I'll be sure to post more about this as the adventure unfolds....

Weird Sketchbook Adventure #1

2006-10-12T01:59:44+00:00

This took place when I was drawing down at the Fort Worth Zoo. I was close to finishing my M.A. in Illustration from Syracuse and one of the last contact periods was in Texas. Don Kilpatrick asked me to post a few from that trip, so here is the first batch. I always say, carry your sketchbook wherever you go, and its times like this that I was glad to of had it. The page is mostly filled with Ibex drawings, pretty straight forward and boring. In the bottom righthand corner is a curious little drawing though. I included a closeup directly above this text. I was getting ready to leave and I passed through the walk-in aviary. If you have seen these things, you know that they usually have two seperate sets of screened in doors to prevent birds from leaving. In the middle between two sets, I noticed a predator bird above me enjoying something. I instantly backed away as a piece of squirrel or chimpmunk fell next to me. I quickly started drawing the scene. When I looked up again, a group of school kids were shouting up at it. As soon as the teacher figured out what was causing so much attention, one little girl got intestines in her hair and many others were laughing or crying. Afterwards, I added a little watercolor to the drawing as I sat in a restaurant and regailed the tale to some classmates.

Character Design

2006-10-07T19:58:50+00:00

Here are the rest of the ape drawings I drew in a session. I posted them in the sequence I drew them. Notice how they begin to get more playful and stylized as you scan down to the bottom. The last one, the green one, was done in sort of design that throws out the anatomy and realism and focuses on the idea of an ape, or a child's view?

Zombie Ape!

2006-10-07T01:25:29+00:00

It's like the art school saying, "Life can't always be zombie primates, you have to give 'em some bananas too." No. Wait. I think they said that in the halfway house.

Hockey Drawings

2006-09-28T17:04:26+00:00

It's always fun trying to draw something that is constantly in motion.
These two pages where completed on site with pencil and my mini, rusted up tin watercolor set while at a minor league hockey game.
In college, I used to go to the zoo once a week with a group of fellow artists that wanted to improve their gesture drawing chops. For years we kept this up and after tons of paper in the trash, and many curse words uttered, we finally started to see improvments. When a 2 minute fight broke out on the ice, it reminded me of afternoons past trying to draw lightspeed spider monkeys! (except that beer vendor, he was kind of like drawing the indian rhino who slept all day.)

"Beauty Within The Beast"

2006-09-27T02:05:35+00:00

Some plein air action taking place in a field near my home. One good thing about central Florida, there is always a healthy supply of broken down, banged up cars that sit abandoned in a field just begging to be painted. This hunk o' junk was painted during an afternoon quite awhile back, but I thought I'd post it because its one of my favorite plein air babies.

Lost Calamari

2006-09-25T09:47:47+00:00

Happy Monday!
I've been up all night on a deadline and I'm getting kinda squirrely.
This is what happens when I don't get proper rest.

"Always on the move..."

2006-09-21T15:07:21+00:00

This thing started out as a phone doodle, then it sat unfinished for a few months until I discovered it again during my recent move. I finished it up and used it for my "change of address" mailer.

The nest

2006-09-20T19:24:07+00:00

I thought I'd play along with all the studio photos everyone is sending in. I'm always fascinated to see other artist's work environments. I have an ongoing curiousity about comparing the personality and work space of an artist to the qualities within the final artwork.
Seeing if the two have any lingering effects on each other is always fun.
These were taken a few weeks ago shortly after moving into my new house. I still have a few things to unpack and put up. When I am finished, you won't see much wall! The gem of my studio is my desk...and the "major award" lamp.

Creeps

2006-09-19T23:45:40+00:00

These drawings capture the spirit of togetherness as they were drawn from life at my last family reunion. OK, seriously... these ugly drawings are the type of thing done in the morning as sort of a warmup to get the blood flowing and the wheels turning!

It's tough to be a clown...

2006-09-18T20:20:47+00:00

Can't say too much about this project other than these were part of a batch of character designs I did for a multimedia story that involved a deeply sad individual. Top three are traditional pencil. Bottom two are all digital.

Ahhhhh Venice!

2006-09-15T00:53:37+00:00

Here are some other plein air paintings done from my last trip to Italy. I call these paintings "cigar box paintings" because most of the time I use a modified cigar box with paints inside and rest the canvas against the lid. It makes for an extremley economical and lightweight paintbox! It was heavily overcast all but one day we were in Venice, however I always say Venice is a city that looks great in any light! NYC too! These acrylic paintings are usually 8x10 or smaller. The one directly above is a smaller one, around 6x8, of a couple I saw on the Grand Canal intensely working on the same painting. I saw this couple on another occasson earlier in the week, but they were bombarded with onlookers...so I didn't bug them. This time they were sort of alone so I painted this quick study before they packed up. I have seen plenty of artists in the field, but never a couple working on the same painting.

Send in the Clones!

2006-09-14T05:24:58+00:00

One of my favorite things is plein air painting. Being outside, the unpredictable weather and people you meet on these adventures are always a thrill for me. The paintings created on the spot become excellent souveniers of a day well spent. These ones were done on a trip I took to Italy last October. My wife and I spent a week in Bellagio and a week in Venice. Due to the disruption of sleep patterns from flying overseas, I found myself waking up at 6am every morning and banging out a few canvases before the locals and tourists were about. These were on Lake Como. The painting directly above this text was painted on an overcast day at the villa where scenes were shot for "Star Wars - Attack of the Clones". To make myself look like an even bigger geek, I happened to have an Ipod with me that had the sountrack on its playlist!

She's Ovulating!

2006-09-12T13:23:13+00:00

Figure Drawing Action

2006-09-12T05:44:50+00:00

I love drawing the figure from life! I love drawing anything but nothing beats throwing some ink around and scrapping into some fresh sheets of paper trying to capture something that is alive. Always a treat searching for that flow and rhythmn in the human form. These were done from various models and demos.

Hello, we have a new student joining us....

2006-09-10T05:26:25+00:00

Hello! This sort of feels like the first day of school. The first post on my first blog. So I am hoping to keep this thing filled with lots of my artwork. I have been a "lurker" for awhile now, enjoying other blogs from a distance, but it was Don Kilpatrick who convinced me to finally start one of my own. Thanks a bunch Don for inviting me to join Drawger! As a freelance illustrator, I find myself cooped up in my studio most days. I have sort of grown to enjoy the solitude this career demands, but still feel the need to connect with other artists. Hopefully this will be a way to do just that and "get out there" a bit more. To start things off I thought I'd post this gorilla drawing I did a few weeks ago for my cousin who is thinking about getting a tattoo.