Indie Music Magazine Illustrations

In the mid-90's, I did a lot of black and white band illustrations for a few independent music/pop culture magazines. I'm not even totally sure which magazines each of these was for, but I believe most of them were done for Carbon 14, which still seems to be in existence (and has a now-coveted 3-character URL - impressive!).

These pieces were all done in a flurry, and I don't believe there was any payment involved other than one or two issues of the magazines in which my work was featured - which was fine back then, as I was still developing my style and getting used to doing this kind of work. Still, I had to turn these around quickly, and they were all illustrations of real people, which took me much longer to work out (though the average person wouldn't be familiar with these musicians' faces, so if they didn't look perfect, I doubt there would have been any protests).

Though the Internet was around back when I did these pieces, it was in its very early stages and I didn't have access - the magazines probably didn't, either. So since these were done essentially for free, and in a short timeframe, there was no approval process - I'd get 8x10" glossies of the band, possibly with photos of them in other magazines, and I'd sketch and then ink them with my brush-tip markers. Then I'd send the final pieces into the magazines, and they'd print them as-is. If only things were always so simple and direct.


A band called Sinkhole. I really like the way the guy on the left turned
out, though I think I'd be scared to meet him in person. I can't be sure,
but this may be the same band.


The Refreshments, who had one big hit in the mid-90's.


A cool little band named Betty Goo. I gooified them. The top
photo on this page is the one I used as reference, way back in '96.


Ben Folds Five. Get it - "Folds" - like in Poker? And I drew
them in playing card costumes? That's supposed to be clever, people.


From a computer advice column. The logo is
supposed to be shown on a mouse pad,
though I'm not sure it totally registers as one.
From Escargot zine.

As always, some turned out better than others. The one guy's arm below, drinking from the soda bottle, is particularly effed up - but I still take responsibility for them, and I resisted the urge to clean them up in Photoshop before posting them. That's got to count for something, right?