Crypto Kitties

I recently made this illustration about Crypto Kitties for IEEE and Spectrum magazine.

This is what the Kitties look like… I would have to translate this into my illustration style.

NFT-collectible Crypto Cats became immensely popular and failed just as quickly for becoming too bloated with collectible variations and lacking enough nuance to keep it interesting.

For this Editorial, I chose to illustrate a Crypto Kitty landfill.

The challenge for this job was incorporating the look of the Kitties within my own drawings, and drawing the sheer volume of cats.

For the job, I took visual inspiration from the classic children’s book, Millions of Cats by Wanda Gåg, and from recent illustrations by the great Yuko Shimizu.

Fun fact: Millions of Cats is considered the first modern children's book. I learned about it from my favorite Illustration History YouTuber, Pete Beard. Check out his videos and give him a follow!

Rick Shambles is Forever Adrift

A long time ago there was a thing called “Myspace” and for some reason, Dark Horse Comics was producing comic book anthologies in partnership with the now-antiquated social media platform.

I was commissioned to illustrate the cover of “Myspace Dark Horse Presents #6: The Year We Make Contact,” which you can see below, but the thing that really got me excited about the job was the chance to write and illustrate my own 2-page comic for the anthology.

My entire senior year at Art Center was spent writing and illustrating a 24 page comic about a guy’s shoes coming untied, which was nominated for an Eisner award in 2010.*

The cover illustration for Myspace Dark Horse Presents Volume 6: The Year We Make Contact

The student painting that inspired the Forever Adrift. story.

I came up with a story called “Rick Shambles is Forever Adrift,” based on a painting I did at Art Center, about an unconfident space hero who uses visualization and other self-help techniques to achieve his self-serving goals (one of my illustration students accurately described him as a “loser”).

You can read the story here on my site.

Process

Below, you’ll see the pencils, inks, and finished colors for the comic.

I recently began reformatting some of my comics to be easier-to-read online.

I was inspired by the Marvel Comics app for the iPad. The experience on the iPad is better than what I was able to achieve here, but I think this a decent alternative.

John Buscema’s cover of Silver Surfer #1

If you decide to download the Marvel app, I recommend purchasing Fantastic Four #1 and my favorite, Silver Surfer #1. Those books look incredible on the app. It appears that the original art was rescanned and adapted for a tablet. They stayed true to the original flat colors that are so mesmerizing.

I didn’t plan on this post becoming a commercial for the Marvel app, but there you go.

Have a read of Rick Shambles is Forever Adrift and let me know what you think.

Cheers,

Frank