Michael Jordan and James Dean

This is Michael Jordan of the Chicago bulls. The painting is done in acrylic on illustration board. The good thing about the painting is I captured the iconic presence of MJ. The bad thing about the painting is I could have added more detail and value. Originally I wanted to do a caricature of MJ. Funny how things change in the process.

(Above)I think James Dean is a very iconic figure. That is the reason I did a painting of him. The piece above is done with acrylic on illustration board. It is trying to mimic a photograph, but I did add a bright stripe of cadmium red in his hair. It was supposed to me monochromatic, but I couldn't help adding in grays, browns, and purples to my color pallet.

Pen Tool Portraits in Photoshop

This is a portrait I did of Tegan from the band Tegan and Sara. I've done this style before. I did this with the paint brush tool on photoshop, but I could have easily done it with the pen tool as well.
-Sam Winder

Bajio Caricatures

(above) amilio, memo, and jeff:

(below) gary, john, and melody:
santiago, hector, joey, and ryan:
esau, elizabeth, and sam:
-Sam Winder

Haiti Earthquake

This is one of my favorite conceptual pieces I have ever done. I am telling the story of the Haiti earthquake of 2010. I did this piece in acrylic, pencil, pen, and marker. This was a triptych piece on value. I used three different value schemes for this piece. The first is domanintly white with gray and a little black. The second panel is mostly gray, and the last piece is primarily black.

The first panel is extremely large and the next two get progressively smaller. The first panel is of a Haiti native with exploding eyes to show the terrible impact of the earthquake. I made the border of the piece white and have the exploding tears go onto the border to represent the drama and impact of the earthquake. As the panels progressivly get smaller it represents the the destruction and fading hope for Haiti and its future.

The second panel in the triptych is of a politician with money, a UN car, a camera (for the press), and a newspaper coming out of his head. This represents how people from first world countries, including America, try to help Haiti durning it's time of struggle. It also represents how people (mostly politicians) aren't necessarily helping, but just reporting about the issue and arguing about the what to do.

The last panel is of a crying stars, and its tears are falling on a Haiti native holding the countries flag. This represents the little hope for Haiti. The white star contrasts with all the black that surrounds the issue. This means there is hope but it is very small. The star looks like it is crying to represent the mourning that comes before the light of hope shines on the country.
-Sam Winder

Subject Matter Is Important!

This piece is done in acrylic on illustration board. It is a study of a female guitarist. I was focusing on value and color for this piece. Everything is fairly monotone accept the bright orange color on the guitarists' left arm. This adds emphasis to the piece so it isn't so dull.

Rock Band Illustration

Here is one of my first illustrations of a rock band.  I did most of this in photoshop.  The characters were done in pencil and then scanned into the computer.  The background was mostly done with the pen tool.

Guitarist Sketch

The above computer sketch is titled, 'Kyle Scoufield: Mod Guitarist sketch.' Kyle Scoufield is a character in a story I'm writing. My sister took a picture of me playing guitar and I did a pencil sketch of that. I wasn't wearing my glasses and the sketch didn't look exactly like me, so I decided it would be Kyle Scoufield. In this piece you can still see the pencil drawing. This was the effect I was going for. I wanted the texture of the graphite to impact the rest of the piece when I added in color in photoshop.