Website of Matthew Childers, Visual Storyteller » Illustrations

Darth Threepio: A Star Wars Excursion

matthewchilders — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 14:33:36 +0000

So I bought a new Cintiq digital tablet and have been itching to actually work on a digital painting. It’s so addictive. I also have a lifelong obsession with Star Wars so I felt it only fitting that I do something with that. For some reason I got the idea to do a C-3PO piece. I think it comes from my theory that the true heroes of Star Wars are Threepio and Artoo. Anyway i loved the contrast of having this nervous goofy proper droid dressed up like a Sith carrying Sith blade. He’s the most unmenacing character ever trying to be menacing. So I set out working on this and let my style just kind of develop itself because I’ve really not done much of this kind of illustration. And strangely enough it kinda came out with a Drew Struzan feel to it rather than a oil painting type feel that alot of digital artists have.

This was all digital on Cintiq with photoshop

Melancholy Goth Girl

matthewchilders — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 16:04:26 +0000

While I’m not really able to show the actual sequential pages for the story I’m currently illustrating, this was a character piece I did to highlight one of the main characters and to give me a little more confidence in the style I’m working in. I found myself fighting with some of this but in the end sticking to the Art Nouveau style worked out for the piece in the end and I was extremely satisfied with the result. I did have a bit of a fuss over the color and end the end opted to go with toned down neutrals and then I let her hair be the showpiece.

This was pencil on Windpower Bristol with digital color.

Historical Ticket

matthewchilders — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 22:01:32 +0000

Last spring was the 50th running of the Coca-Cola 600. I was asked to help produce an ad that would help celebrate this fact so I found inspiration in the past. I found the original ticket from the first World 600 at Lowe’s Motor Speedway and using it as a guide redesigned the ticket so it still looked like the original but incorporated all of the current logos and dates, ect.

Holiday Illustration for Lowe’s Motor Speedway

matthewchilders — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 02:12:58 +0000

Recently I was asked to concept a holiday illustration for a promotion they were doing. They wanted something fairly specific.. a santa in a 50’s style car type sled. For some reason I wanted to give the illustration a Norman Rockwell feel. So after laying down an initial sketch which i was happy with this ended up being the finished illustration. It was a mix of pen and ink with a little pencil shading. I then added color in photoshop and really put alot of work into the chrome of the car which was quite a challenge but i feel like i solved it fairly well for this particular illustration.

Addy in Wonderland

Matthew Childers — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 03:20:57 +0000

In 2007 I was asked to design the Addy Show Booklet and cover. The theme we had that year was Alice In Wonderland and I knew immediately I wanted to do an illustrated piece. I was really absorbing alot of James Jean at the time… and decided to do something that felt like his style. I don’t think I came anywhere close to the freshness and quirkiness of his work and I really never got the craziness out of the character designs that i really wanted but I did enjoy the ornamental design work that I did and the colors had a very ethereal feel to them that I ended up being pleased with.

The Expatriate pin-up.

matthewchilders — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 17:35:51 +0000

An old friend Jason Latour who was the artist on The Expatriate for Image Comics (written by B. Clay Moore) asked me to do a pin-up a few years ago as a filler page in his book. I happily accepted and came up with this little diddy. I tried to keep with the color scheme of the actual book.. not sure if I did since I never found a copy of it. My comic shop at the time was rather lacking in the image books. But regardless I liked the piece.

Bristol Dragway Concept Illustration

matthewchilders — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 17:27:46 +0000

A few years ago Bristol Dragway decided to expand thier club seating ect. I don’t remember all the details of what they decided to do but they asked me to whip together a concept illustration to kind of give an idea of what it could look like. While I know it didn’t end up looking like this it served thier purposes and everyone seemed to enjoy it. Since it was mainly being used conceptually i went with the typical marker comp rendering with pen and ink overlay. Were I to do something like this again however I’d probably go with watercolors since they add more depth and give more flexibility, but that generally requires a little more lead time as does any painting for me.

Chicken with a gun.

matthewchilders — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 16:53:57 +0000

This was one of those wild hair moments I got. I was toying with the idea of the animals of the world developing the ability to wage war.. and what it would be like. And of course i love to draw chickens. So guns and chickens seemed a natural fit. I really need to do the cow evolution of this at some point. This was pencil half-tone on bond with photoshop color.

HVAC Illustrations

matthewchilders — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 16:38:49 +0000

A friend of mine asked me to put together a few illustrations to help promote saving energy by using Energy Star appliances. I wanted something clean and simple but vibrant in color. The images were illustrated as marker comps then I built them in illustrator but actually put them together in photoshop… using the illustrator built shapes as masks. So they actually came out looking like a mix of illustrator files and airbrush.

Knoxville Cancer Society Fundraiser Illustrations

matthewchilders — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 15:38:30 +0000

About two years ago I was asked to do several illustrations for the Cancer Society fundraiser in Knoxville that was held at the Knoxville Museum. I was given a sample illustration that the art director on the account was looking at and liked. Using that as a launching point I dissected the style… looked at the timing needs as well as the budget and realized to do a traditional painting (which i really wanted to do) wasn’t feasible. It would require a much bigger and better scanner/and or extremely good photographs of the work for use in print if i painted the paintings.. and to get the line quality that i’d want I’d need to work fairly big which would again.. make scanning and or taking photos of the work time consuming or expensive. So I decided to do a mixed media approach. I did the line art in a traditional pen and ink method and then much like I would a comic.. i scanned in the work and painted the illustrations digitally in photoshop and painter. I experimented with different textures to add to the painterly feel of the piece. It was definately a good exercise in breaking down a style (something which I find myself fairly good at) and putting it back together with my own particular beats. I also was able to work fairly abstract…. something I’m not used to but which felt good otherwise.