Project Updates – Andrew Johnson Illustrates

CAUGHT UP IN AN ANIMATED MAP

April was an absolute blur. We’re in the busy season at my day job as a Creative Director, with multiple huge projects going on, and biggest of all, for me at least, is a new “sketch” animation project. This one’s a two minute video for an organization battling homelessness in New York, and the art direction is roughly “wood block illustrations of river-rafter within a Lewis & Clark era map” (because nothing can ever be easy, and I wouldn’t want it any other way). One of the fun wrinkles that I’ve cooked up for this one is to start with live-action shots of hands (my totally model-worthy hands) holding the map, and then we dive into it for nearly the full length of the video before pulling back out for logo and CTA recognition.

Here are some of my favorite screenshots so far:

ONGOING PROJECTS

BATMAN TEAM-UP COMIC

The inks are done for Page 3! I’ve still got some things to clean up digitally, but overally, I feel this is a big improvement on my previous page. I still don’t feel confident with the finality of laying in blacks, but I did push them a little bit with Bane.

So far, 3 out of the first 4 pages are complete, with cleanup and coloring my second page being my top priority this month. This has been my favorite project to work on for a long time, and I am loving seeing my son’s creativity grow!

Take a look at closeups of the individual panels.

ILLUSTRATION UPDATE

The Character Design Challenge for March was “Animal Wuxia Warrior,” so I used that as an excuse to draw a version of the Grim Reaper that I’ve had in my head for the Land of the Dead. My Lord of Death is a cross between an angel and a raven, whose cloak morphs into black, feathered wings when he needs to fly. Whenever I get to a proper illustration of him, I’m looking forward to rendering his black armor, flecked and lined in gold.

My wife and I celebrated our 2nd Wedding Anniversary this month! Since the gift theme is “cotton,” and she loves hanging out at home in big, comfy sweatshirts, I decided to design her a college-style sweatshirt for her Hogwarts House, Slytherin (and, yes, all of this is exactly as geeky as it sounds).

Though her sweatshirt is one of a kind, you can snag apparel with my basilisk illustration at TeePublic.

By the next issue, I should be wrapped on the animation project, and I’ll be my creative energy and time will be freed up again to spread it around to my ongoing personal illustration and sculpture projects. See you then!

— Andrew

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A FRESH COAT OF PAINT (OR WHAT HAPPENED TO 2023?)

I feel like I say this every year, but 2023 has to have been the fastest year ever. And not even in a “time is relative” kind of way, but more of a “hey, when did days start having 18 hours in them instead of 24” kind of way. Whatever the case (Science? The earth’s rotation? Trying to do too many things at once?), my 2023 was absolutely all over the place, to the point where I missed out on contributing to this blog after last January.

I mean to correct this oversight. I’ve spent the first 3 months of 2024 really focusing on time management and habit tracking, and I think I’ve gotten myself back into a good enough schedule that it’s time to get back to writing. So, let’s look at this post as sort of a soft reboot of the blog, and make it issue number 1 of “Monday Morning Illustrator.” Starting today, I’ll be posting a blog filled with project updates, both big and small, every other Monday. I’m shifting the focus of my art career onto larger projects, so this blog will be used primarily to document the progress I make as a chip away at some big things.

But first…

2023 REVIEW…

…In Illustration:

… in Sculpture:

For my wife’s 2023 valentine, I recreated our honeymoon snorkling trip at the coral reef off the coast of Key West.

… and in the Sketchbook:

Oh, and I also won some industry awards for animation. Two Communicator Awards of Excellence (Animation and Causes & Awareness), and one Silver Telly (Series: Animation). It’s always nice to have your work recognized, especially when it’s with a great team and for great clients. To date, I’m up to 5 Communicators and 4 Tellys, and I’m about to start work on a brand new animated video that I think has a shot for one in the future.

BIG PROJECTS

BATMAN TEAM-UP COMIC

Starting last summer, my son (10 years old at the time) and I decided that we wanted to collaborate on a fun project together. We quickly landed on the idea of making a bootleg, 8-page Batman comic. Each of us would be responsible for writing, penciling, inking, and lettering 4 pages (I took on the colorist job for all pages), making the story up as we went, handing off alternating pages.

Take a look at the inking process for Page 1.

JUPITER IX

Aside from being a blast to work on, the Batman project is also a warm-up for me as I slide into original comics creation. I’ve had an idea since at least 2009 for a science fiction story, and this summer I’m finally ready to begin production on the first chapter of what I hope will be a ~250 page graphic novel. So far, I’ve thumbnailed out that chapter (titled “Jupiter IX,” named after the space station at the heart of the action), and have begun to revisit the character designs.

In June, I’ll start ramping up toward production on that comic, so be on the lookout for this blog to launch as a newsletter in the summer that will track its development.

Here’s a walkthrough of the thumbnails for Chapter 1.

Outside of the big narrative projects, I want to keep myself on my toes with smaller art pieces. I’ve actually booked myself up on these throughout year, because I had so many projects that I wanted to jump onto last year, but ran out of time. Here’s how things are looking so far:

ILLUSTRATION UPDATE

One of my goals is to draw every day, and to do so, I’m making sure that I at least always have something to work on in my sketchbook. I’ll be using the monthly themes for the Character Design Challenge as inspiration throughout the year.

For January, I created a Death Rider for my Land of the Dead (“Dragon Postal Service” theme).

And for February, I put our family’s dog Kevin in a mech-suit to create a police K-9 unit for the world of Jupiter IX.

As always, I took part in the For the Love of Kettle art exhibition/fundraiser for the Kettle Art Gallery in Dallas, Texas. This marks the 13th painting in my Bad Apples series. I’m not sure if I’m going to continue creating them for this event, of if I want to go into a different direction for 2025.

Check out a brief recap I made of the fundraiser, as well the progress video for the saddest pinata on the block.

SCULPTURE UPDATE

In January, I returned to a sculpt of Gandalf that had been sitting untouched in my closet for about a year and a half. I’m really enjoying working on it, and just got in some Cosclay to try out for the first time on it (so I can make flexible belts, hair, and fabric). Unfortunately, with everything else I’m working on, this one’s gotta be the palate-cleansing project that I’ll only be able to squeeze in an odd day here and there between bigger projects.

I try to make every valentine sculpt for my wife special, but this one definitely hits for me. It commemorates the first painting that she ever sold (from the 2023 For the Love of Kettle event), which was inspired by the storm of emotions after being laid off (along with all the other women from her department). Now that our family’s on the other side of that, I wanted to create an homage to that painting to celebrate her strength and spirit. Fun note: an empty high-heel is WAY harder to sculpt for me than a hand. That thing was for real the devil.