Illustration Work


Becky

Illustration created for Becky's Résumé
Becky Headshot Illustration

Becky

Using Adobe Illustrator I created this headshot of my friend Becky. Becky is a teacher who was looking for a way to make her résumé stand out and hired me to create a professional illustration based off her headshot.

Hippos for Hire

I draw pop-culture heroes and villains as hippos, I'm aiming for the drawings to be funny.
Hippo For Hire

Hippo Heroes

I like drawing hippos. In 2013, I began what I now call Hippos for Hire. Hippos for Hire is an online store I'm currently constructing of pop-culture heroes and villains drawn as hippos. I'm aiming for the drawings to be funny. Here's a small sample of the custom artwork I have created. Most of these were created using Strathmore Bristol paper using a combination of Prismacolor and Copic Markers.

However, I have also included a digital illustration of mine that I created and sold in the 2015 Chicago Comic Entertainment Expo (C2E2). It's an 8x10 of the cast of Avengers: Age of Ultron in a piece I call, 'A Whole World Screaming!'.

Comic Garbage

Home to web comic "Brian & Gregg are Going Places"
Comic Garbage Logo

Comic Garbage

I co-created Brian & Gregg are Going Places in 2011. It began as a Wordpress blog of character designs and concept art. The comic follows the lives of two young Garbage Men, it's about everything from happiness to work. In addition to writing and illustrating Comic Garbage I co-created the web site, which is powered by Wordpress.

  • Role: Co-Creator, Co-Author, Co-Web Designer, Co-Web Developer, Writer, Illustrator.
  • Years: 2011-Present

Technical Illustrations

Technical Illustrator at Technical Illustration Corporation
Technical Illustration Corporation

Technical Illustrator

Technical Illustration Corporation supplied Ford Motor Company with technical illustrations for over 25. While there, I worked with a team of around a dozen digital illustrators and engineers in Dearborn, Michigan and India to create Part Installation Illustrations for Ford Motor Company's Vehicle Assembly Manuals.

  • Client: Technical Illustration Corporation / Ford Motor Company
  • Role: Technical Illustration
  • Year: Feb 2010-Nov 2011

Flash RPG Characters

Character Design and Animation for Flash Based RPG
RPG Builder

Flash RPG Characters

Hired by Thumbs Up Studios to design and animate characters to be used in their Flash based RPG Builder. Playable characters were required to have walk cycles and several different attack animations. I also created several monsters for our heroes to beat up on.

The Human Eye

Scientific Visualization
The Human Eye

The Human Eye

A scientific visualization of the parts of the Human Eye created in Adobe Photoshop.

CD Industry Ad

CD Industry Ad

CD Industry Ad

This Illustration was created using Adobe Illustrator. It was created for a project where I was tasked to replicate an advertisement found in a magazine with a different tone. I chose to replicate an advertisement about how the CD Industry is broken with a more aggresive tone.

Death By Punisher

Comic Retrace
Comic Retrace

Comic Retrace

This Illustration is a retracing of a Spider-man Comic Book Cover. It was created as a project for my Vector Graphics Technology class at Purdue University. The project required us to recreate a 4" by 4" section of a Comic Book Cover. As a long time Spider-man fan I chose to focus on that character. This was created using Macromedia Freehand.

Venetian Statue

Technical Illustration made in Macromedia Freehand
Venetian Statue

Venetian Statue

This Illustration is based on a photo I took of a statue in Vienna. Created using Macromedia Freehand I made this as a project for my Vector Graphics Technology class at Purdue University.

Mouse Workshop

Product of the Purdue EPICS Program
Mouse Workshop

Mouse Workshop

For three years I served as the project leader for the Mouse Workshop project in the Engineering Projects in Community Service (EPICS) program at Purdue University.

Mouse Workshop is a collection of Flash based eLearning games, aimed at special needs pre-school students enrolled in the Greater Lafayette Area Special Services Pre-School (GLASS-PS) Program.

Creation of these games involved meeting with the GLASS-PS teacher every semester to discuss the levels of mental, and physical development of GLASS-PS students and how we could best provide her with games that would encourage cause and effect learning and improve fine motor skills. Games needed to motivate children to continue playing through use of positive reinforcement rather then competition or the of scoring performance.

In 2008 we entered our project in Purdue's Idea 2 Product Competition for Social Entrepreneurship, and were awarded first place. We were invited to present our product at the 2008 National Idea 2 Product Competition in Atlanta, Georgia.

Mouse Workshop includes:
The Bucket Game
The Color Game
The Balloon Game

  • Client: Greater Lafayette Area Special Services Preschool
  • Role: Project Leader | Lead Designer
  • Years: 2006-2009

About Brian

I'm currently working as a freelance Web Design Consultant for local Comic Book company Able Ideaz LLC. I've also built them a WordPress site for a YouTube series produced by Able Ideaz, entitled, 'Comics Beer & Sci-Fi'. Working with a team of Two other Web Developers We are trying to create a new web-site for Able Ideaz, a very niche market company, as, Able Ideaz is not a Comic Book Publisher, but rather a Creator of Comic Books. Our job is to convey this message to potential clients while also showcasing existing Able Ideaz Comic Books that are available for purchase through PayPal.

Until December 2015, I worked as a full-time Web Developer at DataStax. DataStax sells, and supports a proprietary Database management tool based off of Apache Cassandra, and is located in Santa Clara, California. This position was fully remote. While working for DataStax I worked on the DataStax Academy redesign team, to create a new face for the DataStax Academy web-site. The DataStax Academy web site is an eLearning site built in Drupal 7, to train, and certify developers, and web administrators on the ins, and outs of Apache Cassandra, and DataStax Enterprise. I worked with our Senior Web Designer, and the DataStax marketing department to create layouts and templates of new, and existing site features, while abiding by DataStax digital brand guidelines, and maintaining the integrity of the DataStax brand maintained within our new design. Working in an Agile environment our Senior Developer and I developed new site features and deployment standards for using Git to deploy new, and revised site content.

Prior to that, I worked as a UX Designer for Nexient, in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Nexient is provides development solutions to companies such as Best Buy, and Johnson and Johnson. While there I worked on two main projects the Best Buy Geek Squad Android and iOS app, and 11Main, an eCommerce app created by Alibaba in Node.js. While working on the Best Buy Geek Squad App, I worked with the Lead UX Designer to create layouts and user workflows using Omnigraffle and Photoshop. I also designed icons for the Best Buy Geek Squad App, and worked with an Android Developer on the team to make sure the icons rendered correctly on multiple Android devices. While working on the 11Main project at Nexient I was responsible for working in an Agile environment with a team of approximately one dozen Node.js Developers to design and build Administrative Interfaces for 11Main employees.

Before that I worked as an Applications Developer at AK Rewards LLC. A start up company in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, AK Rewards hired me to develop a Family Organizational Management application using PHP CodeIgniter. The application used positive reinforcement to reward children for completing tasks and chores assigned by to them by family members. I worked with our CTO to create and modify CodeIgniter modules to create a user registration and login system, and also developed an administrative suite of tools to manage user settings. While development was my primary responsibility, I was was also responsible for Designing Interfaces, layouts and presentations, as well as mocking up potential new features using Apple Keynote. We worked in an Agile environment and I met with investors and other developers weekly to present and explain new site features.

Previously I worked for Detroit Media Partnership in Detroit, Michigan. Since I started there in 2011, I have maintained and deployed web sites and mobile applications for some of the largest web sites in Michigan. I have experience developing in Drupal 7, Wordpress, as well as the Smarty Templating engine, and Python.

I graduated from Purdue University in 2009 with a Bachelor's of Science in Computer Graphics Technology. My focus in the Computer Graphics Technology department was in Interactive Multimedia. I learned not only how to design interactive products, but also how to refine them and use technology to study my users, as well as my designs to create a usable and visually pleasing product. I have minors in Computer & Information Technoloy, and in Psychology. I also completed Purdue's Certificate of Entrepreneurship program.

Digital Illustrator

I love to draw. Doodling and cartooning in the sides of school my notebooks growing up eventually led me into digital media and illustration courses. I began using the skills I was learning to create storyboards and work with fellow students to animate my own cartoons in Macromedia, (at the time), Flash. As I tried to distribute my cartoons to a larger audience, I began teaching myself HTML and CSS and by my freshman year of college I had started my own Freelance Web Design company. My first project: designing and developing a web site for my high school cartoon series 'rollerskatinghippo'.

Me and my pal Stan Lee