Christopher MacNeil
Long Beach, California, United States
Traditional-Media Illustration
Hand-drawn pencil or pen/brush & ink on paper, scanned, then digital wash and color fields added in image editing programs.
End result: hi-res, fully digitized raster and vector natural-media artwork.
End result: hi-res, fully digitized raster and vector natural-media artwork.
Vector Illustration
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While there are a few raster effects and texture overlays in these illustrations, they were all created in vector-editing software, and were only rasterized as lower-res images for this portfolio; the original, underlying vector art remains infinitely scalable and resolution-free.
The artwork in this section is arranged generally by style; each row or two represent a different take on characterization and aesthetic sensibility. Please feel free to indicate which style you would like to pursue for your project. |
Vector Medical-ishness
Some highly-inaccurate medical-image silliness, just doofy enough to deserve its own section.
Animation
These animations were drawn in pen & ink or pencil on paper, scanned, then animated in non-linear video programs.
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Life Skills, Lesson One: Tolerance
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Peewee Goes Emo
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"Beeswax Business" pencil animation
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"Smooch" Pencil animation
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About Christopher
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Bio:
I grew up in a small town outside the Boston metro area. Most winters were a few months of snow followed by a long, rainy spring. Summer got into stride at the end of May—trees lush with leaves, mosquitos buzzing and biting. Fat black wasps the size of your thumb droned in and out of the gaps in our shingle roof. We ran through the woods. Caught frogs and crayfish at the swamp where we'd ice skate come winter. I moved to Southern California in high school, to another small, inland town, this one riddled with tumbleweed and cactus, manzanita and yucca dotting surrounding hills as tall and gold as summer itself. I have a BA and an MFA from CSULB. I'm an author, artist, musician, and freelance illustrator. I've worked a lot of jobs, from carpenter to contractor, to college professor (multimedia design, Adobe Illustrator, digital character animation) and bumbled through my most important and humbling job of stay-home, homeschool dad. Clients Include:
Walt Disney Studios Motion Picture Production Penguin Random House Simon & Schuster Hampton Brown National Geographic Publishing Infoworld Exhibitor Magazine Education Next Magazine POZ Magazine UNH Magazine Night Sky Magazine Dolphin Log Magazine INterview with Christopher MacNeil:
How old were you when first realized you wanted to become an artist? I won the “Best Drawing on the Bottom of a Paper Bag” contest when I was four, and haven’t looked back. Do you still have any of your early artwork? Several drawings from early grade school. A smattering of high school pieces, some early college work. A lot of later college work, MFA projects, etc. I have them in an archive of sorts at cbmac.com. Have you studied art formally? I have a BA in Art, and an MFA from CSULB. Is there an artist whose work you admire? What is it about their artwork that intrigues you? Hmm... There’s so many, both illustrators and fine artists. Cy Twombli’s paintings are probably at the forefront, particularly his later Peony paintings. And recently I’ve found myself drawn to Gustav Klimp’s work. The Kiss, Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer, Judith and the Head of Holofernes - I’m amazed by Klimt’s blend of sophistication and naiveté; his use of ornament with stunning naturalism. His pieces are dense and decorative: gold glitter covers huge swaths of the surface, yet it doesn't subdue the humanity he portrays. And of course Heinrich Kley. The pen and ink master. How did you arrive at your current style. What techniques or authors inspired you? I’ve done a lot of work in pen & ink, and brush & ink over the years. For the first several years my freelance illustration portfolio was only pen or brush & ink and watercolor wash. I've also always painted, both in oil and acrylic, but I’d say of all the art tools available, the lowly pencil is my most native tool. When I draw with a pencil, my hand knows what to do with little direction. Of course, pre-digital illustration was difficult to pull off in pencil, so I focused more on ink drawing, as did most illustrators at the time. I love the wet black ink line, the gleaming swash as the brush flows jet black over the page. The crisp black against the stark white page is exhilarating. Graphite, on the other hand, is reflective and transparent, and photographs poorly, particularly the lighter lines and shading. But nowadays, with high-res scanning and digital enhancements, graphite can have the strength it needs to compete. I love the aggressive subtlety of a pencil line. It can be rough or smooth, even in the same line. A pencil line drawing can be flat and two-dimensional, or three-dimensionally sculptural in a way no other medium can quite pull off. Except maybe digital drawing. The quality and expressive line available on a lowly tablet app is remarkable and a game changer. In addition to natural media and digital paint, I've also worked in vector for decades. I arrive at my vector images using a different path than my natural media images. I don't rely as much on sketches and work with the pen tool, which is a cruel, unintuitive beast; though I think the general demeanor of the images I end up with still indicate they were created by the same person. What are the sources for your inspiration? Do you have a muse? Do you have a process you employ to generate ideas? A few muses haunt the studio, though their diaphanous gowns tend to be more distraction than inspiration... I’d say my ideas usually come directly from the project. I don’t like to over-intellectualize an idea, or get too clever. I like the sudden flash, the inspired vision I get when I first hear the job description. But that doesn't always work out. I also make lists, spitball ideas and focus on the project until next flash. Of course, in the end, all ideas are flashes; they don't exist or come into existence in real time. One moment they don't exist, then something clicks and there they are: pale tendrils of outline, or better yet, fully fleshed and ready to be recorded into the real world. What tools do you use most in your work? For my natural-media illustration work, I work in pencil first. Quick sketches, then more developed work in ink or pencil. Then I scan the drawings at high res, adjust in a photo-editing program, apply digital color fields, etc. For my digital work, draw in Procreate on an iPad. The vector work I create in Affinity Designer, and bounce the file back and forth between Affinity Photo and Designer as the image develops, to take advantage of each program's strengths. Occasionally I scan a pencil sketch to work from, but more often I work directly with the vector tools, which helps maintain the crisp nature of a vector image. I export and deliver images in any format the job requires. How do you re-charge when a difficult assignment nears the deadline? Food, drink, and a long bike ride. I get a lot of ideas and insights while I’m riding my bike. I don’t know why, maybe the extra oxygen? Whatever it is, I think clearer, the ideas come thick and fast, though most of them are lost: it is hard to sketch while dodging squirrels. |
