I’m thrilled that Plastic Shards and my work has recently become popular among blogs and design/illustration sites, I’m grateful for the exposure!

However, with all of this new exposure comes a bit of the “telephone effect.” Basically, as some blogs pick up my work and publish it in a post, some facts can get skewed here and there. Most notably is some confusion about what I do, and the focus of my work.

I’d like to take the time to clarify that I do photography as a hobby. In the case of some blogs, they write that I “often use photography” in my work, when in fact I’ve only used it in two pictures within my gallery. [The "Series I" images.] All of my work is actually created from a more classic approach — that is, I start with a quick thumbnail of the scene, I bring the thumbnail to a rough sketch, the rouch sketch to a cleaned up sketch, then the cleaned up sketch to a final polished drawing. I have some supporting imagery to show the processes in a couple of my images.

[Click the image below to see a larger version.]

I also have a video recording of one of my one-hour speed paintings, start to finish, compressed into about 10 minutes. You can see how I work directly!

So I like to use photography as a method to improve my visual memory, composition, and value, however photography is actually RARELY present within my work :) This would make me a Matte Painter if I did use photography — but the truth is that I’m not a matte painter. I like to be a conceptual designer and illustrator. I like to sketch and draw things from my head, quickly, and then embellish the sketches after the initial speed sketch. [Much like the video above.] Of course if anyone has any questions, feel free to drop me a comment here!

Just wanted to clear that up, and hope you found those examples interesting!

Thanks again!

I’m not exactly the kind of person who’s idea of home sweet home is a house in a nice quiet suburb. I suppose I enjoy the city life and the interesting things that come with it. Apartments are usually highly modular places to live, many buildings tailored to fit specific peoples needs. I’m not much into the whole “ultra-modern look” that was conceptualized during the early ’90s utilizing abstract shapes, but I will admit I like the more “designed” interior with questionable materials, open spaces, and bold colors. The kind that is almost industrial in nature, using a lot of metal and crude exposure of the architectural elements. I was interested to see if a these kind of “artists lofts” existed in Boston, and through a little sleuthing I found one.

“loft23″ is an interesting collection of luxury loft apartments which are more or less a single huge room divided up with walls. A single bedroom here is a bit hefty at $2100+ per month. As a student, my current rent is $475 a month, and I find that hard to scrounge up on time as it is. Still, if I find a love, I’m sure moving into a place of that price would easy across two people with full-time jobs. Though by that rate, renting an apartment would be foolish over time, and you would be better off paying to own.

Still, this would be my kind of living.

Man, I would love to have friends over at a place like this. How relaxing.

Stainless steel half-inch tiles in the kitchen. Strangely beautiful.

How about that? They actually made the roof of the building a functional social area. Great view of Boston.

Check out the place for yourself to kick your curiosity: loft23