Working on a few things lately. Along with doing a bit of coloring, I'm also working on another addition to my Homo Ferus series. It's been fighting back, but it'll get there soon. Looks promising, too. I was drawing for most of the morning when I found myself in a serious block. Nothing seemed to work so I decided to take a break with final work and loosen up in my sketch book for a bit. These four were my favorites out of the bunch. All of them were done with Pentel brush pens.

Scholarship Show and more...

Some good news happened the other day. Two of my pieces were accepted into the Society of Illustrators' Student Scholarship show. The two that got in were Kumaon and Passerby:

In other news, besides finishing a few other projects, I'm starting up some more personal work- which means more posts for everyone to check out. Whether it's process shots, finished work, or just other posts, I'll be sure to start posting more frequently. I know, I know, I sound like a broken record. I'll believe it when I see it...
A few call for entry deadlines are coming up, so I've been mostly working towards that. American Illustration is the next big one. Don't think I made it in to Communication Arts but I'm not entirely sure. Oh well, if not, there's always next year. I'll keep you posted. Hope everyone is keeping busy. All the best.

Hardboiled

Better quality version on my website: http://johnnydombrowski.com/illustration/hardboiled/

Hardboiled fiction- mostly concerning crime- is a literary style that tends to have an "unsentimental portrayal of violence and sex." Shooting a man face to face was just another day on the job. I've been reading who knows how much of Raymond Chandler and he's quickly becoming my favorite author. On top of that, I've been watching a bunch of movies like The Maltese Falcon and, maybe one of my favorite movies, In A Lonely Place. All of that detective fiction and film noir, definitely helped spark the piece.

Since I had so much fun drawing smoke in some other illustrations, I wanted to rework it as an aesthetic instead of working as a big part of the storytelling. And one thing they did do, was smoke. That's all those movies were made out of, anyway. Shadows and smoke.
Taking a little break from my Homo Ferus ideas, I wanted to illustrated a moment that could be considered either raunchy or violent. And most importantly, him not caring either way. Characters like Marlowe could be beaten within an inch of their lives and yet still manage at being a smart ass. Whether they can get themselves out of trouble is another story.

I may be posting some detail shots soon. Depends. Also, I've been thinking about blogging on more than just new artwork. It's a blog, after all. Why not use it to its full potential? Hope all is well.
-Johnny.

SOI 53 Annual

Some good news popped up recently- thought I'd share it with everyone. I found out this week that I had two pieces accepted into the Society of Illustrator's 53rd Annual Exhibit and Book! Really exciting. The two pieces that got in were Homo Ferus and Passerby- my two most recent. -Johnny

I'm really slow with adding new posts but I am working on stuff! More work coming hopefully soon. Halloween= watching scary movies and drawing all weekend.

Homo Ferus | Desperation

As always-for a better quality image- view the piece of my website:
http://johnnydombrowski.com/illustration/homo-ferus--desperation/

I'm back from the dead! Here's a piece I just finished tonight. It'll hopefully be the first of a series following feral children. Children who grow up in the wild or in complete isolation from any form of social contact with other humans. Homo Ferus was a term coined by Carl Von Linné (I believe, correct me if I'm wrong) which places the feral child in a stage between animal and man. Not quite either. What makes us man? Is Nurture really that much more important than Nature? It seems like it, yeah. There have been cases of children being locked in a single room for years at a time to the more legendary examples of kids actually being raised by wolves. These children would tend to walk on all fours and even bark and act like dogs.
During the sketch stage, I wanted the first image to put the child alone fighting against the elements, and in this case, hunger. With no options or knowledge for another way out, he resorts to desperate grabbing of fish in a nearby river. I stayed pretty faithful to the sketch with the hair being the one exception. As the idea developed, I wanted the boy's face covered up in this, and most likely, in every illustration from the series. Since we relate to someone the easiest through their eyes or face, I wanted to take that safety net away from the viewer and portray him as, in a way, just another beast in the wild. That's when Ian Laser Higginbotham, a friend and fellow artist, mentioned the idea of having his hair soaking wet and dripping over his face. Perfect! After the ink drawing was done, I colored it digitally in photoshop as usual.I'll keep in touch- more where this came from. Let me know what you think! Talk to you later.
-Johnny

Stage Fright

Ink, Acrylic, Chalk

What started out as a simple piece about theft, turned me into that experimental artist living inside of me. It may not be much visually but for me the thought is there.

Since narrative is such a strong focus in illustration- the part of me that wants to make it incredibly abstract is usually taken out of the picture. In fact, it only really shows up when I'm working in my sketchbook. If you look back and some of my personal work like Hugo or Son, you can see what I mean.

I had originally planned for this piece to be about the fear or anxiety before committing a crime. I'm a bit fascinated about criminal psychology. For example, how certain criminals can rob the same place or store over and over again. I guess we are creatures of habit. Even when it comes to somethings as extreme as stealing or holding someone and gun point.