guy on ladder :: again

asaf :: this illustration was made for Tu Ciudad Magazine. the article tells the story of teenager who paints a mural of latino historical figures. one day he decides to repaint over it character from the Toy Story flick.

it was pretty clear from the begging it's going to be old tradition vs. pop culture.


after doing couple of sketches I went for the most symmetric composition to enhance the "versus" motif, while using the character to draw the border between to two clashing elements.


then for the tight sketch I noticed a drop of white paint in the right place could suggest a tear, but only visible to those who will take the time to look closely. like a trophy of sadness.


for the execution I spent most of the time throwing in textures to make it look dirty.

Life of Pi :: loosing Richard Parker

tomer :: about Life of Pi from Amazon: "The precocious son of a zookeeper, 16-year-old Pi Patel is raised in Pondicherry, India, where he tries on various faiths for size, attracting "religions the way a dog attracts fleas." Planning a move to Canada, his father packs up the family and their menagerie and they hitch a ride on an enormous freighter. After a harrowing shipwreck, Pi finds himself adrift in the Pacific Ocean, trapped on a 26-foot lifeboat with a wounded zebra, a spotted hyena, a seasick orangutan, and a 450-pound Bengal tiger named Richard Parker "
these drawings were done based on scenes from the book. the local (English) publisher was looking to reprint an illustrated version of the book and a competition was in place to choose an illustrator.
I enjoyed the book and was inspired by the simple structure of the story that somehow managed to capture a deep universal truth. that said, my tendencies to overly visualize horror while Disneyfiying the shit out of everything might have worked against me.
as I was working on these I consciously restricted myself to flat surfaces, I tried to keep it as un-painterly as possible so it doesn't become too heavy when seen as a series. the second self inflicted rule was to flatten down the perspective to an extant. this approach was based on some phenomenal Indian art I saw at the V&A. these Indian artists stayed away from faking a 'real' perspective (you know-- vanishing points and all that) and the resulting space seemed very natural for a two dimensional medium.
the winning artist is Tomislav Torjanac who is very painterly and had a great classic pitch. my vote however will go to this stunning series by Andrea Offermann who seemed to capture the unique lyrical aura of the story.

nuclear monster :: cover

asaf :: from the article : In 1959 the largest nuclear meltdown in american history occurred in Southern California. the radioactive waste from the meltdown has contaminated to ground where people live. this story was largely forgotten yet the people who live nearby are still getting sick from it. the lawsuits continue to this day.

from the brief : the perfect suburbia world with the hidden/forgotten nuclear waste in their backyard. we need to see some toxic creek or glowing ground near the perfect manicured lawns of the suburban homes.

I started off with thumbnail sketches, looking for that '50 horror comic book flare. since this is a cover illustration, I tried finding a simple composition that could express the idea right away.



from that, I went on and chose three of them, and made a more detailed version. since I'm all wacom these days, I couldn't resist the temptation of adding some color, shades, a small filter here and there, etc.



the AD chose to go with the one featuring a little girl and a monster. it was my favorite, and I started working on it immediately. I did the inking, and some flat coloring, and then the best part - doing the monster's weird skin texture. and here comes the real horror - suddenly, the AD asks me to go with a different option. there was a misunderstanding at the office. well, at least I got to do those bumps.



so I went on and finished this one.

The Placebo Man :: graphic novel released

tomer:: by the end of 2000 I was done with SVA and Asaf had already signed with a publisher in France-- his first European album was about to be published. we decided to do this thing, a two person anthology, where we each contribute half of the content and the only justification for it being under one roof was our identical DNA. Bipolar was self published for the first two books, and then was picked up by Alternative Comics. The Placebo Man collects my best comics work from the past six years, including stories previously published in Bipolar and New Thing.
design by Kobi Franco- an excellent designer based in Tel-Aviv.

"Hanuka's raw, illustrative style underscores the tension and awkward fumblings toward meaning and connection that lie seething beneath the stories' surfaces." -The Washington Post.