New Shizzle


A full page illustration for Risk Magazine in the UK about banking of some sort

2 Illustrations for Utne Magazine about Weathermen and their views on global warming. It gets into how they discredit global warming are able to impose their views easily to the public, which they are not qualified as scientists to do. Basically they don't believe in global warming, hence this guy trying to wish away this sad sun guy. What's going on with this color scheme, its very un-Jason Raish-like. I am glad the art director went with my crazy weird idea with the sun guy. I hope she didn't catch too much flak from the editors for this one.

Posted byJason Raish at 11:52 AM 0 comments  

Movie Inspiration - Mika Ninagawa's "Sakuran"

Another movie that inspires me as an artist, Sakuran. It's the directorial debut of photographer Mika Ninagawa so it is definitely a super aesthetically pleasing movie. In fact this isnt really a good movie, i mean its OK, its all style over substance, but for me as an artist it looks amazing. I guess just from looking at these stills it might look like a rainbow vomited on your screen but when you see it all moving it looks amazing. It stars Anna Tsuchiya who is a half japanese half russian singer in Japan. The music in the movie is by Ringo Shiina, the music is also good. It's about Oiran (Geishas weren't prostitutes, Oiran were but they were higher than Yujo who at the bottom).

Posted byJason Raish at 11:42 AM 1 comments  

Movie Inspiration - Wes Anderson's "Fantastic Mr Fox"

The 10th installment of Movies that inspire me as an artist. This time it is Wes Anderson's "Fantastic Mr. Fox". last year when i first saw this movie in production I thought it looked like crap. I love Wes Anderson and most of his movies are on my inspirational list so I still had my faith in him and boy did he deliver. This movie is sooooooo good. It is soooooo well done. I think the voice acting is as high on the list of goodness as the stop motion is. Sure its an all star celeb cast but it works due to the quirkiness of the cast and the quirky dry humor that Wes and Noah dish out. I love how he shot it at a super low frame rate like 15 fps or something like that so the stop mo really shows. You have to see this movie MOVE.

as always I love the type he uses. Maybe its the same one everytime? the context its used in works. Otherwise it is a crappy crappy font.

the landscape is stark and lonely but the characters keep you occupied. Again you have to be a fan of anderson's quirk and humor.

Anderson always takes advantage of the wide ratio. How awesome would it be if the illustration assignments i got were widescreen? Every frame is like an awesome lesson in composition.

awesome set designs and lighting

love this composition. The opossum guy is in the super background

he pushed the edges in this movie a lot, meaning less than a third of the screen contained the characters. Like here less than a third of the characters are framed in this shot. I'm diggin' it.

I can't recommend this movie enough for artists and for regular people. His compositions, camera movements, color choices, lighting, music choices, dialog, dry wit, humor, casting, and misc aesthetic choices are all on point AGAIN. Check it out, Anderson has proven himself again!

Posted byJason Raish at 10:58 AM 2 comments  

American Illustration 29 two illustrations Selected!

I had 2 illustrations selected for the American Illustration 29 book. Here they are. You know what stings? the 95$ publication fee for each illustration selected! I guess that is the real price of recognition :(


This is for Yahoo! its part of this Yahoo! PurpleScape project with other artists. this will be shown in exhibitions in southeast asian countries. They also used mine on limited edition PS3's, postcards, t-shirts, and other products. They said I could do anything i wanted so i thought now is my chance to do all the Japanese themed stuff i have been wanting to do. Japanese design is crazy and detailed so this of course meant major work for me. this beast took me a whole 7 days working on it at least 8 hrs a day. Here is my rational:
This piece is Japanese inspired. The concept makes a spin on the processions that Daimyo warlords had to make every year to the capital of Edo. I tried to make this a little more fun and less serious that the shows of power and wealth that they really were. Instead of flying the Clan flag they are flying Koi fish windsocks, which are used for Children's day in Japan. Instead of Ninjas blowing poison darts for assasinations they are blowing bubbles. Fun bubbles! Instead of a Daimyo Warlord being carried they are carrying a Tanuki, which is a mischevious mythical Racoon-like creature. I thought it would be fun to reverse the scale of things like the mini sumo wrestlers and the giant rabbits and giant trees.


too bad you can't see this in person. he has a gold chain with a "T", T for Tanuki


samurais take super long to draw. if you tried to be true to all the detail it would take you a month to draw one.


This is for Tiger Beer for their Tiger Translate artist project. I was paired with a photographer and had to "remix" the photo and illustrate ontop of it. The photographer was Sin Kok Wai from Singapore. clothes are hanging from poles outside the apartment complexes. straight and uniform buildings didnt give me a lot to work. Here is my rationale:
The scale of the laundry and everything in the photo is so small so I created this huge gentle giant to contrast the tiny clothes hanging out to dry. The photo is of a modern apartment complex made of concrete and steel so I tried to show something living and organic. I wanted it to look like he meant well and was helping out with the laundry, but the whole story of this beast is up the viewer. This piece is also pretty big, probably 2.5'x1.5'. I like this guy. he kind of just showed up on my napkin when i put my pen down on it when i was at dinner one night.

Posted byJason Raish at 9:31 AM 0 comments  

Golf Magazine Illos

These are all separate projects over the months. Good Ol' Golf Magazine has been my bestest client with a monthly column and occasional extra assignments too. Cheers to the fellas over there.

golftreeFINAL

for the golf rules column about how to rule a ball stuck in a tree.

kickball

this one is about cheating in golf. kicking the ball from behind something and rationalizing with yourself that its ok is apparently one of the top cheats.

dogsbarking

about how even with a cart you still log lots of miles walking around and and the end of the day your dogs can still be barking and swollen and red. I love doing ugly run down 5 oclock shadow havin' guys.

Posted byJason Raish at 8:42 AM 0 comments