Niki Maro Illustration + Design

my thesis project for THIS spring semester

2010-05-03T11:03:00.000-07:00

So, having enough with painting naked people... This spring I did portraits. Of authors. Because you know, doing attractive famous people is just so played out.

This first one is George Orwell, author 1984, Animal, etc...

This is David Sedaris, who write mostly autobiographical short stories about being a Christmas elf or growing up in The South.

And last for now is John Hodgman, author of two books, and self-proclaimed minor television personality.

I'm so bad at regular updates...

2010-05-03T10:52:00.000-07:00

... that it took my way too long to find the "new post" link at the top of the page. Anyhoo, here's the rest of the pieces from thesis last semester. They WERE going to hang in my commencement show. But they got bumped. Probably.

My Thesis...

2009-12-11T18:33:00.000-08:00

For this semester I did a series of funny/vulgar/naked greeting cards. Most of them revolve around a pun of some sort (they're very classy like that.) This second one deserves thanks to Rachel Dougherty for thinking of "You're A Catch" when I really just wanted to draw sky-bass.

Where the Wild Things Were

2009-11-07T10:03:00.000-08:00

Poster for Where the Wild Things Are (done a couple months back when the movie was nothing but a couple image stills on imdb)

Congressman Fossella's Wild Ride

2009-11-07T08:44:00.000-08:00

This was a small book I did for an article about Congressman Vito Fossella (from New York) getting pulled over for drunk driving in Virginia.

Mr. Santiago Calatrava

2009-11-07T08:39:00.000-08:00

I'm trying to get some design pieces on this blog. This was (is?) a postcard created for this building.

Geriatric Reform

2009-06-25T15:14:00.000-07:00

This was a piece for an article about senior health care, and how many can not afford it. It was quite the juicy bit of reading, I can tell you.

In the future, none of this would actually happen.

2009-06-25T14:58:00.001-07:00

My final for Illustration concepts, I did portraits of three science fiction writers. The biggest problem with these guys was deciding what age to draw them at (so before you look at one and say "Hey now, he's far too young/old/whatever" take a quick google search around. I assure you, all three gentlemen were once this young/old/whatever.)

First is Douglas Adams, author of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

Second is Isaac Asimov, author of... well, a lot of things. But known for his Foundation series (and Robot series.)

And last is Ray Bradbury, author of Farenheit 451, The Martian Chronicles and more! Mr. Bradbury is my particular favorite, mostly because of his crazy insistence on being a crotchety old man (and those sexy hipster glasses.)

Insert tacky jokes about the Royal Jewels

2009-04-16T18:11:00.001-07:00

A re-inventing of The Emperors New Clothes (for an assignment, to re-invent a fairy tale, because my teacher had seen this short film [which really has nothing to do with this post, but it is a cool movie.]) The idea is instead of an emperor who's hubris causes him to make a fool of himself, my emperor is just a crazy old man who enjoys flashing his subjects.

Sleestack HISS

2009-04-15T11:49:00.000-07:00

The assignment for this was a bit weird... it was fashion illustration for the movie remake of Land of the Lost, but not an illustration FOR the actual movie. The green dudes are sleestacks, if you aren't a fan of the show (or, in my case, a generation or two off of the fan base and haven't seen the movie yet.) I forget the designer of the woman's outfit, but Adam Kimmel designed the clothing I based the men's outfits on.

Chili Infused Dark Chocolate

2009-01-06T18:52:00.001-08:00

This is my final piece for Illustration Concepts, a candy bar illustration, like the Artist Bars. I had just recently tried Chili Chocolate for the first time, it was rather tasty. I recommend.

Lucy Fer

2009-01-04T07:01:00.000-08:00

My Character Development teacher, Brian Ralph, had one of the Charm City Roller Girls come into class with all her gear to model for us. Which was fun, and after we designed out own roller derby girl. This is the initial design for mine, a devil chick I call Lucy Fer.

This is the action poster we created after.

Cutesy Aliens

2009-01-02T14:12:00.000-08:00

This piece is a surface design from an Illustration Concept's assignment. Intended for 3-5 year boys which was pretty fun to do. Aliens and robots seemed to be popular with this age group, I love aliens and robots (I think that pretty apparent).

Martian Robots from Mars

2008-12-31T10:50:00.000-08:00

For Character Development, we were assigned to design a toy.. I made a robot with multiple personalities. I imagined that the smaller the head, the more psychotic the bot, where the black head would be like zombie bots, and the skull heads would be psychotic (not really kid friendly, I suppose, I was thinking more along the lines of designer vinyl toys).

After the initial design we had to make something to go with it: a toy, a poster, packing, etc. I made a toy and a poster (but the poster is the only thing finished so far). I imagined the scenerio for my robots to be something like Ray Bradbury's Martian Chronicles. Only instead of aliens they are robots, and instead of dying out, the robots fight back and try to destroy all Mars bound humans.

Try 2

2008-12-30T12:47:00.000-08:00

Now that fall semester's over there's going to be a slue of things that I didn't post earlier because I had wanted to fix it a bit. I already posted this piece but went back and changed it around. This version is more graphic, I think.

If he's already got the stupid Hawaiian shirt...

2008-12-30T12:21:00.000-08:00

This was for a Character Development assignment, the "sole survivor" of "something." I went with the classic marooned on an idea situation. He's a man who was all ready for a tropical island vacation. And despite the plane crashing, killing everyone except him, he is on a tropical island, equip with coconuts and a gorgeous beach.

Got a little captain in you.

2008-10-23T16:43:00.000-07:00

For Character Development, we had an assignment to redesign a known commercial cartoon character. I picked the Cap'n (fun fact, his full name is Captain Horatio Magellan Crunch). His giant spoon is for battling (original, Quaker Oats had him have a sword for this purpose, but that vanished when the Cap'n stopped being heroic).

All Together Now

2008-10-09T21:10:00.001-07:00

A illustration of 10+ characters for Character Development. I imagine these people to be North Jersians (not quite New Yorkers, but disgruntled nontheless). This image is actually pretty small.

Run, run, run

2008-10-08T21:15:00.000-07:00

This is a quick piece done for an Illustration Concept assignment to illustrate a quote from Overheard in New York. We had to incorporate the quote into the picture as well. I'm pretty pleased with how the crowd of running people turned out (as Brian Ralph has said, drawing a lot people just makes you feel good about yourself sometimes).

EOTO

2008-10-08T09:02:00.000-07:00

This is for the band Eoto, playing at the 8x10 next weekend. It was an assignment in my Illustration Concepts class where the owner of the 8x10 (Brian Shupe) came in and the posters made are actually going to be used as part of the promotion for the shows. My band, Eoto, are these two guys who do most their music with drums (hooked up to keyboards, I think. It sounds very techy, to me, they define their as sound 'trip hop, house, drum n' bass'). There is some drama surrounding their appearance at the 8x10, so the venue is going to put extra effort in their promotion. So there should be a couple hundred of these printed off, which is exciting. Since they sound so techy to me, I decided to pull inspiration from some of the old sci-fi poster imagery (who doesn't have a soft spot for fight with a tentacle monster?). At this size, the text for date and time are a bit hard to read, but keep it is intended to be seen at 10x14.

Bass Player

2008-09-25T16:02:00.001-07:00

The finished drawing of the bass player in my last post, done in pen and ink. This guy narrowly avoided become a jazz bass player (at some point there was a hat involved...) but I decided to stick with the more rockabilly aesthetic. It turned out ok, if a little dull, but the exaggerated hands were what I thought about most going into this, and I do like how they turned out.

A bit of an art dump.... sorry.

2008-09-16T07:36:00.001-07:00

These are some things from last spring semester that I did, but haven't gotten around to posting yet. Now that it is fall semester, I want them out of the way so that I can start posting for this new semester's work.

This is a faux movie poster for the Hitchcock movie Strangers on a Train staring Robert Walker and Farley Granger. In the movie, Walker's character keeps referring to his and Granger's sordid deal by saying "criss-cross" so I planned to have that criss-cross shape. T original version of this involved oil paint and was just a mess, so was scrapped completely and redrawn in ink. I feel like most illustrators (well, maybe not most, but a lot. And a lot of people that I like) use Photoshop for their color work, but still manage to have their have really nice texture, so I decided to try. This came out very flat and graphic, but I liked using Photoshop, so I might try again.

This was a piece done from St. Valentines day. When I was given the assignment, I immediately thought back to the "Saint Series" I had done before. The thought process for this was something like "well, I did St. Ambrose covered in bees, so maybe I'll do St. Valentine covered in lovers. After a few sketches, it was starting to look very much like an orgy, but I like the idea enough to push on, and am pleased with the outcome. This was done in ink with acrylic over top.

This was a portrait of the band Tiger Army, a psychobilly band based in California. Tattoos are heavily part of the aesthetics of this band, so in the front is lead singer Nick Thirteen, with bass player Geoff Kresge on his left and drummer James Meza on his right, tattoo style. This was done like the St. Valentine's piece, with an ink drawing and acrylic over top.

This is a linoleum print done the the animated movie Fantasy Planet (a strange little film were the world is controlled by large blue people). There were other registers that came out more clearly but those ended up looking the most flat, my teacher liked this one the most. I have to agree that I like the texture the bad registration gives, but I'm also afraid someone may look at it was say "this girl is just a crappy printer!"

Spot Illustrations

2008-07-14T11:19:00.000-07:00

Two spot illustrations for short stories written by Ray Carver, The first one for "Neighbors" and the second done for "The Calm". Both done in pen and ink.

Mon Oncle

2008-07-10T21:26:00.000-07:00

A poster for the French film "Mon Oncle" from my Dry Media class. Done in scratch art (a.k.a the devil).

Killer

2008-06-27T09:42:00.001-07:00

Just something kind of silly I did, not really for an 'assignment' assignment, for Dry Media. A fish, done with mostly nupastel on inked paper, and some colored pencil.

George

2008-06-26T20:01:00.001-07:00

This was done for my Dry Media class, in colored pencil. Basically, I had just wanted to do an old man covered in tattoos. Drinking tea. Ta.

Saints with Silly Patronages

2008-06-23T11:14:00.000-07:00

For my illustration final, fall semester, I decided to do a series (only three, so a small series) on saints that were the patrons (in my opinion) of silly and/or amusing things. All of these were done in acrylic on bristol, with some light collaging.

This is the first in the series, St. Ambrose, the patron saint of bee keepers.

Second is St. Servatus, patron saint of feet and foot problems.

And third is St. Drogos, patron saint of unfortunate looking people.

Big Cats Are Big

2008-06-22T06:58:00.000-07:00

Quick poster done for Hand Letters, for a fake band named "Big Cats Are Big." Done in acrylic.

Woody's Haunted House

2008-06-17T11:45:00.000-07:00

A poster for an imaginary Halloween party, for Hand Lettering. This was done as an ink drawing and then uploaded into Photoshop.

Vacuum Collision

2008-06-15T21:34:00.000-07:00

This was an assignment to illustrate a "very short story" from Wired magazine. Mine was "Vacuum collision. Orbits diverge. Farewell, love." by David Brinn.

This was the first version I did for this assignment. It was done in ink and Photoshop. I had drawn the different elements separately and merged them together on the computer. There are things I like about this one, and a lot of things I don't. Mostly I didn't think it felt entirely connected.

So I redid it. This was acrylic, painted on glass, which was interesting to do. A lot of backwards thinking. I like this version much better.

Neil Gaiman

2008-06-14T11:24:00.001-07:00

This was for a portrait assignment to do an author that I liked. I choose Neil Gaiman (I do recommend his books, not just Sandman). Done mostly in acryclic, with some brown paper and charcoal.

Lust and Chastity

2008-06-13T15:15:00.000-07:00

This was done for Illustration I class, where we had to pick two opposing virtues, mine were Lust and Chastity. Done in acrylic, on canvas board, which I don't think I'll ever want to do again (the canvas board, it just doesn't have a smooth enough surface).

First Post.

2008-06-13T13:12:00.000-07:00

A blog for the sake of posting my illustration work. I'll start with something I did a while, but think is ok enough.

Done in charcoal, about a year ago. I can't really explain what the subject is about. Just that I was looking at a lot of Goya's prints while doing it.