Second Life Book Cover Illustration

Jeff: This Illustration appears on the “How to Do Everything with Second Life” book, published through McGraw-Hill. The full illustration, seen here, was cropped and redesigned for the book cover to accommodate space restrictions. The concept was to depict the surreal and adventurous environment often encountered in Second Life, where “virtually” anything is possible. The figures and foreground in the illustration are captured at high resolution out of the Second Life virtual world environment and layered together digitally in Photoshop with effects to enhance the scene. Many of the textural elements on the figures, including the hat and skins were created by yours truly under the Second Skin Labs brand name in Second Life. The pose on the robot is a tribute to Michael Whelan’s famous “Robots of Dawn” illustration seen on the cover of Issac Asimov’s like named book. Read more about the Second Life book here (https://rossmanart.com/project/everything-second-life-book/).

San Jose Shark Hockey Illustration

This illustration was commissioned by Terry Smith Creations to explore concepts for developing a line of toy hockey figures.

Jeff: I produced this illustration digitally in Photoshop from a pencil sketch. I was able to explore some cool depth of field and motion blur effects within the illustration on separate layers within the original.

Birth of Technology

This illustration appeared in an Applied Materials annual report recalling the birth of such technologies as printed circuit boards, the microchip, and personal computer. The lotus flower in the illustration is symbolic of the blossoming software industry (specifically referencing Lotus software). The moon in the background represents one prominent goal driving the technology that ultimately lead to the boom of the semiconductor industry. The race to the Moon was largely a cold war agenda when the Apollo missions were being run, but the research that supported this effort accelerated the growth of the technologies mentioned above.

Angeldance

Jeff: Angeldance is an illustration I commissioned myself to do as a visual exploration of worlds within worlds. The title of the work is an allusion to the theological question “How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?” Originally this question was posed to debunk mediaeval angelology. My visual interpretation doesn’t necessarily refer to non-corporeal beings, but does refer to contemplating infinite space. The answer to the rhetorical question is similar in both cases – When dealing with infinities any number is irrelevant.

Ammo Event Poster

Ammo was a monthly music event held at the former FX club in downtown San Jose, CA. Rossman Art was commissioned to illustrate a poster for the debut performances at this event.

Jeff: I decided to traditionally illustrate the poster in black acrylic ink on hot press illustration board to meet time and budget. No white paint is applied in the illustration. A quick application/removal technique was used to render the details with an airbrush, paint brush, mechanical eraser, and Exacto blade. A few areas required the application of frisket, but this was kept to a minimum. The top of the illustration was deliberately blended to white so the client could produce their own copy above the illustration. The borders on the poster used white to give the effect of the saw blade breaking out of the frame. The same effect is seen here on black.