Jared Purrington

STAR WARS Teaser

jared@jaredpurrington.com — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 05:12:00 -0800

I recently worked with Blur Studios creating the story art for the Star Wars: The Force Unleashed 2 teaser that premiered at the VGA Awards. I've had the priveledge of working with Blur on a number of story projects over the last year, of which I plan to post more of.

See the trailer here.

And here are the boards I created...

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The Fortuitous Union

jared@jaredpurrington.com — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 18:39:00 -0800

I made this piece for my good friends who tied the knot exactly one year ago. The original illustration was created in Photoshop and then transferred onto a wood panel by printing it onto t-shirt transfer paper and ironing right on–a trick I learned while attending Art Center. The final piece was displayed at their wedding and now hangs in their bedroom.

On either side of their portraits I depicted images that remind me of them, such as Keith's love of bedsheet ghosts or Leslie's persnickety cat, Emma. Leslie's side also contains an allusion to yet another illustration of mine–an invitation Keith had commisioned me to do for Leslie's Birthday the year before. …I'm so clever.

Happy Anniversary Keith and Leslie! -

Nancy Kwan for ELIZA

jared@jaredpurrington.com — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 02:41:00 -0800

My latest illustration for Eliza Magazine is of the Hong Kong born actress, Nancy Kwan.

When I first saw pictures of her I couldn't help noticing how beautifully smooth and perfect her skin looks, so the idea to turn her into a China doll was almost instant. I am also a fan of Chinese blue porcelain and thought it would be a fun challenge to translate the qualities of those art forms into the illustration.

Research and reference always comes into play for jobs like this, and while the interweb hunt can be quite tedious, I really enjoy learning about the subjects I'm researching, and will constantly find myself sidetracked on interesting tid-bits I find along the way, such as this video of Miss Kwan on the gameshow "What's My Line?" from the early 60's.

And for fun I made a little reference board out of some of the inspriations I found for the piece.

As can happen with how I work, I ended up with two versions of the illustration as I tried different approaches. Below is the initial black and white sketch I did and the unused, alternate version of the final illustration.

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PRADA Trembled Blossoms

jared@jaredpurrington.com — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 15:32:00 -0700

In early 2008 Prada premiered Trembled Blossoms, an animated short film conceived by artist James Jean to showcase Prada's Spring collection.

James had called me to see if I could illustrate the storyboards for the project that was on a bit of a tight deadline. I was pretty excited by the work James had already done for Prada and jumped right on. I created the boards and designed some of the flora and fauna that appear in the film. The final illustrations were based on compositional roughs that James had provided.

Prada ended up printing all of the boards in a comic book format that were given away at the premiere of the film at their flagship store in New York.

I really liked the story and world James had come up with and still enjoy the pre-production artwork he and I created in such a short amount of time.

Here are the boards in their entirety with some larger images of some of my favorites.

You can watch Trembled Blossoms below or check it out on Prada's site.

BOOK COVERS pt II

jared@jaredpurrington.com — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 18:23:00 -0700

As another personal book design project, I decided to re-envision one of my favorite sci-fi novels, Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card.

The story follows a small boy born third of three genius children who all have a role in deciding the course of human history and the fate of worlds beyond their own.

I wanted the illustration to conceptually explore the "thirdness" or trinity of Ender. The opposing qualities his brother and sister embody are what make Ender whole while simultaneously splitting him apart. They are three-in-one: Inseparable and the sum of their parts.

BOOK COVERS pt I

jared@jaredpurrington.com — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 18:53:00 -0700

I saw Let the Right One In at the beginning of the year in a little indie theater up in Salt Lake City. I thought it was a great film and it made me really want to read the novel by John Ajvide Lindqvist. So, I went out in search of the paperback.

I found myself standing in a bookstore staring at a copy of the book as it sat on a table among other currently popular titles. I really wanted to buy Let the Right One In, but I did not want this book. The cover design was really bad…embarrassingly bad if you ask me.

But with no available alternative, I did buy the book, and soon after finishing it, I was a bit excited and did some drawings based on Lindqvist's characters: Eli, and another character that doesn't show up in the film version whom I will call "Cyclops."

Using the Eli Illustration, I mocked up my own LTROI book cover.

To be fair, I did leave mine cleaner, without all the badly placed copy that I'm sure just has to be on the US film release edition of the book.

I think we should judge more books by their covers, and that the art on the outside should be a formidable companion to the literary art on the inside.

Frida for ELIZA

jared@jaredpurrington.com — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 02:57:00 -0700

I Finished a portrait of Frida Kahlo for Eliza Magazine.

I ended up reverse engineering this illustration. I knew I wanted to do a clean portrait of Frida, and I wanted her to feel more contemporary–not a throwback to or copy of the Nickolas Muray photos that most people are familiar with. I chose to portray her a bit younger and without all the adornment usually associated with her.

I was a little anxious and jumped right into the portrait first. It wasn't until that was pretty much done that I realized I didn't have a concept beyond that. So I tried some different directions, and while I wanted to keep it clean, I did want to acknowledge her unique personal style (It was an illustration for a fashion magazine) and her life.

I ended up depicting her with one of her traditional large bead necklaces as it breaks apart around her. I wanted to use objects that were familiar to and used by Frida herself, such as the string/vein of her necklace and the arterial clamp, but again, I wanted these elements to feel new while paying homage to her own artwork.

I had also played with a simple title treatment of her name that I didn't end up using. I chose the blue/red palette because of its simplicity and I liked the slightly sterile medical feel it gave the piece, and if anyone is viewing the illustration with 3-D glasses right now, let me know if it looks cool.

I am happy with the final piece. I have a feeling she would have hated it.

TOGETHER WE ARE Show

jared@jaredpurrington.com — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 08:51:00 -0700

I will be part of a group show opening this Saturday at Barracuda in Los Angeles.

The idea behind the show was that each artist would create a black and white illustration that would then be printed as a limited edition, silkscreen poster. All of the artists were also given five artist proofs from the edition to colorize and customize them any way they wanted.

My print that will be available is based off of a series of animal illustrations I have been doing.

This particular study is called Advancements in Technology: Tiger

Each Serigraph is printed on Stonehenge printmaking paper and measures 15"x22"

The black and white prints are an edition of 42.

The custom prints are an edition of 5.

Prints are now available directly from Barracuda here

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COMMUNICATION ARTS 50

jared@jaredpurrington.com — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 20:23:00 -0700

A portrait of the fashion icon, Twiggy that I did for Eliza Magazine is featured in the new Communication Arts Illustration Annual 50 that just came out.

The cover of the annual is graced with an illustration by my friend, Frank Stockton, who I think also has around 500 other illustrations featured within the book.

Here's the Twiggy illustration as it appeared in the magazine...

I've done a few Illustrations for Eliza over the past year, all of them portraits of figures that have had an impact on fashion and were celebrated for their personal style. The earlier illustrations were more graphic, with Twiggy I started having fun putting some more painterly touches in.

Greta Garbo:

Barbara "Babe" Paley:

I just finished a portrait of Frida Kahlo for the next issue. I'll post it soon.

Website GRAND OPENING

jared@jaredpurrington.com — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 11:00:00 -0700

Welcome to the first post of the new site!

My artistic interests are a bit eclectic: a detail you will probably notice in the variety of work that will populate the digital pages of this website. I enjoy experimenting with different visual approaches and have always found it difficult to label something as "my style". My influences and inspirations include illustration, graphic design, typography, fine art, comics, film, animation, architecture, fashion, photography, nature, space, technology, and everything.

I've had the opportunity so far of working at some amazing places like Pixar and Blur studios, and with some amazing artists and people such as Shepard Fairey and everyone at Studio Number One, and my friend and super artist, James Jean.

This is phase-one; jaredpurrington.com will soon see the addition of a gallery with more artwork and a store where I will be able to offer art, prints, and other crap you really don't need.

Please check back often and click at the top of the page to join the mailing list, and I will notify you when the site is fully armed and operational.

-Thanks