Today I was hanging out at the lynda.com studios (working on my Illustrator CS5 One-on-One: Mastery course, if you must know). When I ran into that one artist who isn’t afraid to make his own reality, even if it requires hand-drawing individual drops of bird poop and sacrificing three years of his life. By which I mean, Bert Monroy. Colleen was there, too—these days, she works for lynda.com. And, before anyone knew it, Bert was showing us the most recent version of his gigatron-by-teratron piece of bazillion-pixel imagery, “Times Square.”
It’s radically dazzling. Not to mention, huge. In a way that few things beyond a stretch-Ford F750 hauling 100+ freight cars might be deemed huge. (Seriously, it contains more pixels than there are galaxies in your head.) And it made me realize how very ashamed I am for not having shared the following info until now: By some random quirk of fate—perhaps because Bert is out of his mind!—this excellent man decided to include Colleen and I in his masterwork. Here’s a miniature (not to mention, old) version of Bert’s composition. With Colleen and I rendered in bright green. We’re on the left. You can’t miss us, because there’s a giant Zapf Dingbats finger pointing in our direction.
I know many of you live in awe-and-wonder over the likes of Bert. (As well you should, I say.) Which is why I thought I’d post these charming sketches:
It starts like this: Bert wakes up some random morning, puts on his socks—rightside out, just like you and me—and draws this cartoon:
Which is to say: I (right) have the forehead of Frankenstein’s monster. Colleen (left) has a strange sort of grappling hook for a right hand. And our feet are hideously misshapen. But wait, what the? Is that my hand in Colleen’s pocket? Am I a pickpocket looking for extra change? Or is the only thing about my hand worth defining a stubby 4-point thumb?
If I kid, I do so not just because I love, but also to point out that a master like Bert defines his sketches in the broadest of terms. Later, he—in a radical step forward—refined our headshots to look like this:
A bit plastic, you say? Look more closely. Bert hadn’t yet quite nailed Colleen’s eyes, but just take a gander at that hair. (Rendered on a strand-by-strand basis, I might add.) And, yes, I appear to have an aircraft carrier for a forehead. But wait, I really do have an aircraft carrier for a forehead! Plus, Bert paints my teeth so white, they’d take the enamel off a Crest commercial. And I dare you to look at my fragile strands of chest hair. Painted painstakingly but lovingly against my uranium-enriched florescent skin. Oh yeah, baby, that’s me all right!
Bert promises to send me more soon. In which case, I’ll keep you posted.
Wooooooooooooow Interesting News!!
Thanks Deke…
Keen to see it!
Black Seals ... White Reveals…!
Check out the celebrities!
These definitely need to be displayed in Adobe’s House of Wax.
They are so lifelike I touched my screen just to make sure!
wow!
Thanks Deke ...
For a good article that brought us to get to know each other more.
Where you at?
I saw this on Bert’s site: http://www.bertmonroy.com/timessquare/timessquare.html
I don’t see you. There is a car where you were pointing too. Didn’t make the final cut or what?
Actually, we’ve decided to get into the taxi
We’re getting into the taxi driven by a mysterious Illustrator Wizard (young Bert.)
These definitely need to be
These definitely need to be displayed in Adobe’s House of Wax.
OIC
Ahh, I see you now. Very cool.