Tuesday, February 23, 2010

The New Emerald City


To see all my illustration portfolio samples, visit my web site. 

I guess the Emerald City in The Wizard of Oz was the first city to officially go "green." What most people don't know is that the giant flaming vision of the Wizard's face that scared the Lion enough to jump out the window, was actually solar powered. Glinda,The Good Witch of the North's flying bubble and The Wicked Witch of West's flying broom? ...yup, both were zero-emission transportation. (well, except when the Wicked Witch wrote Dorothy's name in the sky!) And not to mention all the walking, hot air ballooning, and horse-carriage riding everyone did to get where they wanted to go. 

Posted here is an illustration I recently completed for Pittsburgh Magazine, to appear on the cover and also with the feature article inside their next issue about the city going "green"... The illustration depicts a stylized skyline of Pittsburgh as the Emerald City (taken from the article's title). The illustration to be used with the inside article will also contain some additional icons and a rolling green carpet. The illustration was created by using some of my painted textures that I scanned into Photoshop, then merely made specific shapes of them with the lasso tool. I also used the airbrush tool and erase tool to complete the final image... oh, and certain shapes had their opacity levels altered and the "noise" filter effect was used as well. 

Now get out there and follow the green brick road to work tomorrow!