Richard Pool Illustration

Jimmer POY

2011-03-01T21:30:00.003-06:00

March is here and that means so is my favorite time of the year March Madness. To celebrate we have a poster for Jimmer Fredette who should be national player of the year. If you know me you know I am a Huge KU fan. But there is no one like him on our team. Heck I have never seen another player like him. Ive never seen a coach believe in a player enough to allow him to pull up from 32' feet and let it rip. Just youtube him and you will see. If you dont already know.

Its been too long

2011-01-08T16:09:00.003-06:00

Well hello again its nice to be back on here. A lot has happened since my last post. To start I got a real job being a designer. Even though my education was in illustration I got a job as a Product Designer at The Gerson Companies in Olathe, Ks. This interview process happened at the start of October and that explains why I haven't posted in a long time. Unfortunately I cannot put up any of my work from their for quite a while.

After that I got engaged to the most wonderful girl in the world who I love very much. We are getting married in September of 2012. Im sure there will be post about our wedding plans in the near future. I very excited to design invitations and do all the other good stuff that comes along with getting married.

For now though I started a home project. At this very moment there is a batch of beer brewing in my apartment. Its a pale ale / canadian style draft. (I picked this because hey if i mess this batch up, its no one I knows favorite style of beer) Plus I want to save my good ingredients for when I have more experience. Being the nerd/designer I am, I decided to make labels and packaging for this beer. To start I ordered your typical brown glass bottles. The website I purchased the bottles from also had bottle caps. I chose white bottle caps, only because off the top of my head I couldn't think of a beer with a white bottle cap. After choosing the bottles and caps I though a little bit about branding / a name for my "brewery" I settled on "White Cap" pretty simple and logical do to my purchase. As for the look, I wanted something that is not the typical beer label and this wont be sold in stores so I have no restrictions at all on the design or colors. I couldn't decide between more of a modern look or a retro one so I did both, well I did a retro and a less retro for now more are to come unless I decide I really like one of these. But here they are.

The lighter blue are my favorite at this point I think I like the square label as well.

Technology

2010-10-16T12:32:00.003-05:00

So as of late I have been feeling like my computer has been failing me. I have an imac that is about three years old and I am also using photoshop and illustrator cs2. It just feels like an im using an antique, like trying to make a website on a typewriter. Its just the way it is though since apple replaces their products every six months. So if anyone feels like donating a brand new imac and cs5 or even cs4 to me I would really appreciate it.

On a side note this image was not originally made for this purpose. It was created as a test project for a company. I just reinterpreted it to how I was feeling today. Over all though the creation of the typewrite image was a lot of fun and I am very pleased with it.

Detail.

Peacocks revisited

2010-10-07T19:26:00.002-05:00

Just some peacocks today.

Día de los Muertos

2010-10-06T13:59:00.005-05:00

To celebrate my half some kind of hispanic heritage (literally I do not know which kind of hispanic) I have decided to continue my sugar skull style illustrations. Just remember this November 2nd to pray for those who have fallen. Like Jason Voorhees and Boba Fett

Finally had time to do this.

2010-09-29T12:09:00.007-05:00

I finally got around to photographing the skateboards I made. (see March and April )

Little red riding hood

2010-09-28T15:51:00.002-05:00

Just a digital sketch for today who knows if ill take this any further.

Kansas Cattle

2010-09-16T17:48:00.005-05:00

Its been a long time since my last post, and a lot has changed. First off I moved into a new apartment which took forever to get everything situated. Then I went on vacation to the east coast which allowed me to recharge my batteries. But now im back and im ready to create.

The piece below is about the numerous products made out of Kansas cattle (and or contain cattle parts in some way). Most people can only think of the common products ones like milk, cheese, beef, and leather. Here are a few products most people do not know:

cellophane wrap

tape

industrial oils

lubricants

shampoo

conditioner

high grade steel

textile sizing

whitener in refined sugar (made from bones yum)

medical sutures

glass

anti-aging creams (made from brains)

explosives (made from fats)

linoleum

imitation ivory

runway foam

2010 tour of lawrence

2010-06-08T15:46:00.004-05:00

If you know me then you know I like lawrence quite a bit so I figured why not help support a unique event in town The 2010 Tour of Lawrence.

Screen Shot

2010-06-08T11:21:00.003-05:00

Wow its so much easier to do this rather then save the file name it and blah blah blah. Plus it uploads sooo much faster. So heres a screen shot of some personal work.

Producing

2010-05-19T10:30:00.007-05:00

Ive been working with pattern lately and the thing is, there are so many tiny shifts you can make to completely change things up. I woke up this morning with a little extra pep in my step and went straight to the computer my bird cages were left open and they then sparked these. The last two are new for today, im thinking I will make a book of all my patterns.

Fall colors or maybe 70's shag carpet colors?My personal favorite.Its so nice when you can make something so simple and it just works. very simply birds turn into a nice paper or textile pattern.

Geo-abstracted super colorful flowers.

Lions, elephants and giraffes. Looks like it could be gift wrap, this one is still being developed I tend to sketch a lot of quick ideas on the computer and heres one it will be polished later.

Patterns and Peacocks!

2010-05-18T19:44:00.004-05:00

Today I had some time to work on personal stuff. I got some advice that I should produce more patterns and surface design so heres my start. Its a fall paper pattern but can easily be turned into something else. When I get bored I sometimes break down organic forms into geometric color blocks and thats where this one came from. Short and sweet a digital doodle that sidetracked me for about 30 minutes.
Saving the best for last, another pattern. I have a pet parakeet and think birds are pretty cool creatures. I also love sports and thats where these little guys came from, im not sure what I will ever use it for but I like it a lot. I think it has a sumer kind of feel to it.

The King

2010-05-11T15:07:00.004-05:00

Well being bored and thinking of what to digitally doodle Elvis popped into my head. Im a pretty big Elvis fan and after a while of thinking I became curious where the closest place he played to lawrence was. It turns out on may 21st 1956 he played at the Municipal Auditorium (now TPAC) in Topeka realizing the 44th anniversary of that date is only 10 days away I doodled this in about an hour or two. Please note he was actually billed as "The nations only atomic powered singer."

Alpha-betters!

2010-05-03T12:39:00.011-05:00

I know the alphabet market is saturated with all kinds of stuff but this is what I used as motivation to set mine apart. These cards do stand out from the crowd of everyday alphabet stuff. The front of each card has the alphabet letter and an animal. Somewhere inside the animal is where the letter is placed to help with visualization and association, below this is the name and syllable spellings of the animal. On the back of the cards there is the Letter, the background color of the card starts with the letter of the card. So there is a color and an animal for each letter of the alphabet. I also tried to use less common animals and colors then kids see everyday, why not challenge them a little. Lastly yellow is the only color that starts with Y, besides yellow mixtures like yellow-green. So if there is anyone who wants to license these or buy and sell them they are available... at least until I do it myself if I find no other opportunities.

Did I mention I get bored and make more posters.

2010-04-21T20:38:00.001-05:00

You lucky sons of guns have a free poster download!

Did I mention I do pretty things?

2010-04-20T22:54:00.003-05:00

Final poster let me know if you want one I have left overs from the senior show.

color study 13X19 poster

Did I mention I also make posters?

2010-04-20T16:30:00.007-05:00

So I have put a ton of work into senior year and here are a few surprises that came out of working my buns off. I dont ever claim to be your typical illustrator I really can do many things, not to toot my own horn or anything. Something I love to do is more graphic stuff, here are a couple of examples.

First we have what I have title Alpha-better. Im sure most of us can remember back to our first years in school and learning the alphabet. Well do you remember those lame borders all the way around the classroom. They would have the letter A paired with any guesses? an apple. So they continued all the way to Z with the most obvious letter animal combination. Well I redesigned these letters and heres a poster of them. They all have their own card with the animal name and letter and syllables.

And below we have an image I posted not too long ago that was made just for fun I slapped some text on this baby and polished it up and pow! poster. Ive lived in Kansas since 4th grade and I have never really made anything to celebrate the good parts of this glorious state. In the end... kansas produces a lot of wheat. I mean a lot.

lion

2010-04-15T13:53:00.001-05:00

bored in the computer lab

I CREATE

2010-04-13T14:23:00.008-05:00

So for the Senior Show we are sending out these postcards with the theme "I CREATE" and we are supposed to put whatever we want on the cards to make them great. Each person sends out about 24 here are some of mine. A series about things I create.

I think the word for this is infinite retraction, something like that but they idea of them getting a card of me holding the same card of me till you cannot see it anymore is funny to me.

Owls are scary

pretty self explanatory.

Thats true!

Oh Dang

2010-04-12T20:06:00.001-05:00

Graduation is about 36 days away thats scary.

Self Portrait Digital Sketch

2010-04-12T00:10:00.005-05:00

while putting off concept art I sketched this little number in illustrator. In case you have never met me, I look exactly like this.

Chicken Feet

2010-04-08T08:25:00.005-05:00

Have I mentioned I can paint. My senior year work has been mainly graphic vector based stuff. Beyond that it has been pretty cute stuff too. I decided to do a creepy image and painted a chicken or bird foot (story to come in a minute). I choose this because when I do paint I prefer watercolors, I think the delicate work of water color would contrast the imagery well and well this is what it looks like, But anyway heres a little story for you guys.

So im not a big fan of chinese food and a year or so ago I went to a Dim Sum restaurant in New York with my girlfriend and her sister. If you have never been to one its kind of like a chinese buffet but people bring carts around and you grab whatever you want off them and they add it all up at the end. To make a long story short her sister kept asking the people with the carts if they had pork buns. Eventually one of the ladies flipped out and opened all the little bamboo baskets and slammed the lids down yelling "NO MISSY CHICKEN FEET, CHICKEN FEET, CHICKEN FEET." Danielle this one goes out to you.

New Skateboard Color

2010-04-07T00:49:00.002-05:00

BUCK ROGERS DANGEROUS ADVENTURES IN SPACE

2010-04-07T00:14:00.002-05:00

So after or character model sheets we had to put the characters into a final illustration, I decided to do a cheesy comic book cover. Yes I mean intentionally cheesy goofy sayings all over the place and just really 70 and 80's comic book cover style. It reminds me of Nintendo Power.

Domain Name

2010-04-04T23:48:00.003-05:00

So I bought my domain name and am in the process of making my portfolio site so while that is under construction my blog will fill its role. If you would like to look at some newer stuff click here See my store at Zazzle

Buck Rogers

2010-03-25T21:50:00.002-05:00

In concept art II we are re-imagining The classic Buck Rogers into a modern video game. We have to due 3 characters model sheets(Buck, Killer Kane, and a female) and one final illustration with them in action. I will admit I have been slacking at scanning my sketches so you are seeing the finals in progress. Below we have Buck, I imagined him more as a nerdy guy, shy, and not so impressive. I guess just a lame super hero, if you can even call Buck Rogers a super hero.

Murder Weapons

2010-03-24T01:37:00.010-05:00

Sticking with the more graphic style ive been using lately heres my latest pattern/illustration. Im exploring weird things not normally associated with pattern and decorative arts. Which seem to be dominated by flowers and birds. So naturally as a boy I went with murder weapons! The first one is a skateboard deck pattern layout attempt. The bottom is just a detail of my favorite weapons especially the Uzi. Lastly im not sure about the dark grey background.

Alphabetter.

2010-03-15T11:33:00.002-05:00

Remember when you were a kid and the borders of your kindergarten class room were awful plain Helvetica letters with a cheesy illustration of an animal next to it? Well I do and I personally remember those animals and letters being very boring. I have decided to redo these letter, animal pairs in a set of cards with less common animals. More importantly a much more lively typeface, ITC Officina, and bolder more graphic style images that might be a little more visually challenging for the younger ones. Kids in general are way smarter then adults think, so I think they can handle it. Heres a select few, I have 18 done 8 more to go.

Whole Grain Pasta

2010-03-15T11:26:00.002-05:00

Kansas is a large producer of wheat and this helps to produce whole grain pasta. Im not positive why I made this but it was made waiting for my girlfriend to get home so we could have dinner. This lead me to the idea of a series of states exports who knows. I have a lot of time during spring break and I might do a couple more. Either way I guess my point is the next time you eat whole grain pasta think of Kansas.

Baby Napoleon

2010-03-09T10:44:00.003-06:00

Baby Villains were due in class on monday and after a weekend of working twenty four hours at my lovely part time job this is what I cranked out in about 8 or 10 hours. It is done in oils. No im joking its just digitally painting in good old photoshop. On a side note the drawing on the background paper was the most fun. Lastly I plan on a Illustration IV update pretty soon.

Skateboards

2010-03-01T13:56:00.006-06:00

So ive been doing a lot of concept sketches for skateboard graphics in illustration IV and here is the first one I decided to push to finish.

Final product.

first concept sketch done during illustration 4 class. Just a doodle and I did not think much more of it.

Patterns Revised

2010-03-01T00:36:00.005-06:00

Heres some patterns revisited, you know fixing negative space and slight color changes. Im a big fan for the flowers at the bottom, girly, childish, decorative, not my style at all but they turned out well.

Baby Villains

2010-03-01T00:07:00.004-06:00

Our second concept art project has been underway for a week or two, the assignment is baby villains. Heres my better ideas.

Left baby Napoleon crossing the play room on a rocking horse (this is the idea im going with.) Right baby Shredder, you might wonder why there is a can opener and a juicy juice can, the answer is simple the ninja turtles always used to call him a big can opener.

Left the bad guy from the karate kid (Johnny Lawrence) vs a crane. Right Harry Potter vs Voldemort in a game of magic the gathering. Note I think Harry in my sketch looks a little bit like me.

Doodles and identity stuff.

2010-02-22T16:51:00.003-06:00

With the last name of Pool I think a belly flop is and appropriate logo idea so heres a quick sketch.

Up coming pattern, I think so. Everyone loves dinosaurs.

Updates Updates Updates

2010-02-22T16:34:00.015-06:00

Today I am stuck on campus due to a basketball game and the fact we have two illustrators coming for a presentation. So after an hour long scanning session I have a huge update. My home scanner is horrible I need to invest in a good one. Anyway style is something every student seems to talk about, personally I do not have a style to do all work. I find that this is limiting, I want to make illustrations the way I see fit for the project, client, or story. So heres an bunch of examples of ways I paint and draw. So overall these are all my style they just look a little different from each other. All of these were done in class last year in about a hour or less

acrylic self portrait
watercolor and oil pastel
watercolor and oil pastel
watercolor and oil pastel
watercolor and oil pastel
Alton Brown brushed ink
watercolor
ink drawing
Elvis watercolor (I love Elvis.)
Elvis ink
acrylic
colored pencil
MJ acrylic.

Zombies.

2010-02-22T13:21:00.000-06:00

Well our zombie project is due in concept art II. I must say I am not too satisfied with these. I wanted to try something really different and not my style, that was accomplished but nothing else. I feel like I lost interest in this as soon as it went from one image to being a triptych... Sorry Plex (the robot) you were cut from the middle image because robots cannot be zombies.

More Old Work!

2010-02-22T13:18:00.000-06:00

Today being on campus I have decided to take full advantage of the amazing internet speed. There is also no bandwidth limit unlike my house. So here are a bunch of older images I have done.

This is from concept art I, we did a quick lesson in matte painting. I found the top image which is how it appeared in the move. The bottom image is a quick matte painting I did for the background.

This is the cover to my book I wrote and illustrated during Illustration III. Im still very happy with this cover.

During a lesson in Concept Art I we did some digital speed painting from old master paintings. Top my speed painting the bottom is the original. The same goes for the two images below. both speed painting were done in about an hour.

Both of these top images are from illustration II I believe. The assignment was Details and it was done for jetpens.com. I decided to illustration the dead mans hand in poker which fit the idea conceptually and thematically. The top is done in good old red, blue 3d so bust out those glasses it really works

Symbolic illustration of "loneliness."

Image from my book. The stereotype for this was the big time high school jock from a little town.

Last another image from my book. Image is paired with text about how you usually don't see fratguys in classes where you have to write a lot of papers.

patterns and kids stuff!

2010-02-17T22:59:00.000-06:00

I decided to work on some patterns and more child like things, I am pretty happy with how these turned out and could see this print on some pajamas. Please keep in mind these are first drafts.

detail

old lion and elephant I like this one too, has a wrapping paper feel

River Otter and Platypus.

Valentine's Day

2010-02-14T13:39:00.000-06:00

I made this card for my girl friend Jessie Plotkin who I love very much.

Dinotrucks

2010-02-04T21:09:00.000-06:00

Two things little boys love, monster trucks and dinosaurs... I guess they kind of look like dragons too, oh well I was bored and illustrator was open.

Skateboard Design (radical)

2010-02-04T10:44:00.000-06:00

Here are a few example of skateboard deck designs that im sketching up for senior illustration. Im pretty interested in surface design and more stereotypical "graphic design" type things, you know t-shirts, patterns, products, book covers. Most skateboard graphics do not take into consideration the shape of the board. Im trying to put a fresh spin on these graphics and I am also trying to stay away from the typical skateboard things. Anyway here are the rough sketches. Muno, I know he is copyrighted but it was a quick study.
Zombie Muno a merger of concept art class this project.
Finger and zombie fingers

Hot dogs. Its very hard to get the right digital color of a hotdogs the middle is probably the best.

Lastly a band aid and a cucumber.

Concept art II

2010-01-31T23:31:00.000-06:00

Concept Art II is underway and here are a few sketches from our first assignment. The assignment was to take cartoon characters and turn them into sketches. Heres round one of rough sketches. (scanned at 72 dpi and i draw light sorry) Ill put the final up in better quality.

MUNO! Yo Gabba Gabba!
Catdog (hated this cartoon) conceptually a funny idea though.

Doug

Eeyore

Logos? I'm an illustrator.

2010-01-28T16:31:00.001-06:00

Well second semester of my senior year is in week two or three. For Illustration Four our project is about self promotion. I decide to sketch up some logos in illustrator (I have never really used illustrator and final noticed some of its potential too bad its last semester senior year). Anyway here are the first three. These might be used for my upcoming website, undoubtedly more are to come.

Some old stuff

2010-01-28T16:00:00.000-06:00

I decided to post a few samples of my work from last semester, and a few from even before that.

This image is from my animation done last semester and is one of my favorites I produced.
In concept art class we are general give a broad topic with the goal to produce many sketches and one final image. For this assignment our topic was just aliens in general.
Another image from Concept Art, the assignment was a robot. I kind of went another direction with it and gave a jet pack to a child flying a kite. My idea was that kids will still be captivated by classic toys no matter the advancements in technology
Again an image from Concept Art the assignment was to make an inanimate object come to life. Again I snuck my own undertone into this assignment going with the theme of not being able to see what is right in front of you. I probably put a little to much into this piece and it does not communicate too clear. Oh well it was fun to draw a Viewmaster.
Concept art again, a simple idea of a self portrait as an animal. If you know me you know me at all, you probably know that I hate water. I decided to make myself an elephant seal (I don't know why I don't think I have a large nose). I will probably post some sketches from this assignment they were a lot of fun.

The last three images are from a book I made from illustration three. My concept was to do a series of images based on college stereo types. Most are more conceptual images some are pretty blunt. The book is still available from blurb.com if you want to see more just fallow this link http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/673606

This image was for the "average joe". The text on the joining page talks a little about how followers buy what is hip like vans checkered slip ons. I made the color-way of the shoe the same color of the ducks. You usually don't see just one duck.
Shot and simple illustration of a freshman college girl and the "freshman 15"

Simply I find it weird when college students dress, talk, and act like they are in a gang. I'm pretty sure every campus has kids like these I know KU does.

Happened to have my camera in the Spencer Art Museum

2010-01-28T15:24:00.000-06:00

I have a paper due in my modern art history class on Tuesday, so i decided to take my camera into the museum. I slapped on my wide angle lens and took a few photos of some of my select sculptures. The distortion the lens gives the sculptures adds a little bit of creepiness.

Work Space

2010-01-18T14:27:00.000-06:00

Well Im not sure who all looks at or reads this but im going to type and vent a little as an artist. My work space used to be in my girlfriends and my living room. That would be the same space im supposed to relax and spend time with her. Lately I have been having trouble relaxing or taking anytime away from my school work because it was always in the same room just right behind me. For spring break I stayed in Lawrence and my plan was to get a lot of my senior project done. Well instead of doing that I converted our spare bed room into a studio/office. If you know us or have been over to me and my girlfriends apartment most-likely you have never seen this room because it was just storage. I guess my point with this post is that I think, as an artist it is important to keep your work and your down time apart. Its hard to relax when you have your desk and projects looming over you, and in return its hard to get any work done or be motivated when you never take any time off. Relaxing your mind is important and I find I already feel better after this move. I guess a lot of people just see being an artist as "hey you like to draw and paint you are just having fun." Yes it is fun and I love what I do but it sure as hell is a mental game, kind of like golf. But hey im no expert, im just a senior in college. Anyway heres some photos of the new studio/office.