Illustration Job For Midnight Express Books

Midnight Express Books is a publisher that helps inmate authors get their books published and out into the public. I have had the pleasure of working with them on numerous occasions, with various authors, and they never fail to send me interesting and challenging subject matter. For this book I was given the following description to work from:


"The author tells me that he was thinking that the background would be a major city. In the foreground would be a black guy's face, he's smiling and has some visible gold teeth. He's looking like he's deep in thought and what he's thinking about, somehow pictured around him, are:

1. a pretty Hispanic woman with a nice body
2. a nice home
3. a Benz or Lexus truck."



After a little back and forth communication about how to actually illustrate the daydreams, dropping the idea of putting a house in there(it just didn't work well for the layout), and a few proofs later, we finally landed on a concept fitting the authors description as well  as working well visually. The final version turned out fantastic, and remains my favorite piece to date for Midnight Express Books.

Dope Boy Dreams 

If you are interested in what the story is about, you can always pick up  a new or used copy at Amazon.com

Pen and Ink Stipple Portrait

This is a portrait of a dearly missed friend who passed away sometime ago. The only actual lines within it are the hair and a few on the edges of the glasses, everything else is made up of thousands of tiny dots, in various sizes, meticulously applied over a total of 48 hours. Even though it is incredibly time consuming, this is one of my favorite mediums because the final results, if done well, take on the look of a grainy black and white photo.

11x14 - Ink on Bristol Board

Detail of Stippling

Detail of Stippling Showing Gradient From Light to Dark

Working Set-Up