Christmas is sometimes a silly one...

Merry Christmas everyone.

bride

This is from a big huge pile of work I did for Oxford University Press - English as a Second Language program of some sort.
This will end up being super tiny on the page in the final product, but I thought I'd post a much larger version to my blog.
I dunno, I kinda like the way this one turned out. I cut the groom out because he looked sort of dorky.

My LIttle Monster Children's book

I just wanted to announce that the book I illustrated recently is now available.
It's a customizable children's book, where you upload your picture, and you become the character in the book.
It's called "--your name-- and My Little Monster". There are 4 different books available, but I only illustrated this one.
Creative, interesting idea.
I thought I should let people know, just in case they are looking for some kind of Christmas present idea. This particular book is being marketed to parents and pet owners.

check it out...

Flattenme.com - My Little Monster

The site allows you to flip through the whole book.
As far as illustration jobs go, it was probably the most enjoyable job I have done this year.

So if you wanted to order one of these from flattenme.com, there's 8 days left in order to get it on time (for Christmas).

- j. elston

Illustration Friday - superstition

Black cat...

Chimp

Here's a chimpanzee.
... from the project I'm working on right now. Book 7 in a 10 book series from Scholastic.
j.

paintings

Here are some paintings I did at a conference in Orlando this past weekend. Please excuse the crappy photo quality, I only had my cell phone camera with me.

Wakeboarding photos

wow... these are pictures of me circa 2000 or 2001 or so...
I was at Shaun Murray and Gerry Nunn's house, and a girl on the boat had a real nice camera with a super tele-photo zoom lens. I look back at those days and they almost seem like a dream. Nowadays, I live in PA, I am in my late 30s and I am in the throes of parenthood. There isn't a lake anywhere around Johnstown. Well there are a few reservoirs and whatever, mostly used for fishing. No watersports scene at all in this region.

I miss those days.

I went wakeboarding on the Delaware river earlier this summer, but now I'm all sluggish and out of shape, and I can't do half of what I used to be able to do.



btw, I did the illustration on the board I'm riding in the picture
j.

Goliath

I just finished a huge pile of illustrations for Lifeway Christian Resources. Here's Goliath, and a measuring tape to show how tall he was (9 feet I think).

Taiwan in the 70s

These are my siblings (all except my younger brother who wasn't born yet) and my Grandma and Grandpa Chen somewhere in Taiwan, in 1971 or '72, I'm not sure...

I'm the littlest one in the picture (with Grandma)

I restored the heck out of this photo in Photoshop.


j.

more cyberbullying

Another illustration for the Plugged in Article.

Jesus Teaching on a hillside

Apostle Paul

cyberbully

here's a magazine cover I did for Plugged In magazine. The article is about the ever-growing problem of cyber-bullying.

My Little Monster Children's book

here's a spread from a children's book I illustrated for Flattenme, a new company that makes customized children's books-- by inserting your photo into a character in the book. It's cool. Check it out.
The book I illustrated is called "(your name) and My LIttle Monster".
I think it's due out in the fall sometime.

j.

bunny

illustration

here's an illustration from book #3 of a book series I'm illustrating for Scholastic.
I'm sure they'll change the colors around and stuff to fit with the color scheme of the book when it gets printed.
whatever.

Pink

Here's a drawing I did in church.

Mr. Liang animation

silly flash animation I did. Based on an old Chinese man we met about 20 years ago at a Taiwanese baseball game. My brother Ed did the voice.
j.

Illustration Friday - Suit

This is a different kind of image than I usually do.

Running Ninja flash animation

here's a ninja I did in flash.

experimenting...

j.

Bubblegirl

self-promo thing

mother's day flash dealeo

for my wife...

j.

Can't Stop Dancing

tshirt design for a local dance studio.
j.

Flying Bunnies

cinco de mayo giraffe

here's a giraffe with a sombrero.
j.

Ladybug Flash Animation

here's something me and my kids did for fun, sort of as a homeschooling thing, and also to help me learn how to do character animation in flash.
I've been meaning to animate something forEVER, but I was either too busy, or couldn't come up with something to animate.
so ...whew... here it is. Feels good to have broken the ice.

imo, my kids have the best cartoon voices. But I'm not biased or anything.
;-)

Elephant dude

elephant guy...
just experimenting with textures in illustrator.
j.

Illustration Friday - snap

Snap!

Illustration Friday - I Spy

Here are some images from the book series I have been illustrating for Scholastic. The whole series is a spy series, so I thought I'd post several images.


from spy book 9 - Spies surveying area. 3 of them are spies.


from spy book 8 - Spies playing some kind of game in the dark with night vision goggles.



from spy book 9 - spying on people over a magazine.



from spy book 9 - setting up a decoy.
j.

The Haitian

Here's another illustration from Heroes.
This is the Haitian, and he's gonna make you forget.
j.

Nathan Petrelli

I did this for the Sugar Frosted Goodness art blog. It's Nathan Petrelli from Heroes. I am absolutely obsessed with that show.

Ward Kimball

I was digging through my old photos and I found this one of me meeting the late, great Ward Kimball. Since I worked at Disney Animation, famous and semi-famous people would come by for different reasons.
Ward was part of the "9 old men", the original nine guys that developed Disney Animation.
I had met Frank and Ollie, who are usually considered the big superstars of the nine, and that was cool, but Ward Kimball was by far my favorite. In addition the the classic Disney characters he brought to life, he did some of that crazy 50's modern super styly animation that I just LOVE.



here's an image from Toot, Whistle, Plunk, and Boom

my Jedi kids

I made these because I was trying to explain to my son about editing and fx.
I used Mirage and imovie.
fun.

Figure Drawing

From a figure drawing session I attended in Pittsburgh the other day, hosted by the Pittsburgh Society of Illustrators, of which I am a member.


Man... I haven't done life drawing in forever.
This is the only image out of the bunch that I liked.
j.