Never yield to popular opinion. Go against the grain. Go against the flow. Forge your own path. Fight your own fight. Be an individual. Be your own boss. Make your own destiny. Make your own rules. Think outside the box. Etc.

And here’s a closeup detail from this week’s inspirational/motivational idiomatic illustration:

I don’t usually work in this manner, but for this illustration I worked in a colorized line art style. I first created a tight black and white sketch and then recolored the linework and painted in the background colors digitally.

all images ©jeff szuc Jeff Szuc illustration

With the January 2012 launch of my new all-in-one website (where you’re currently reading this) I killed off a couple of my old site locations – my old blog site, and my even older blog site. Even though I’ve removed all content from those sites, google keeps sending people to a 403 lack of permission error page at those locations from their search results. To clear up some confusion for the viewers I decided to create a nicer, code 404 page, for people who get directed there. While I was at it, I also decided to combo that task up into creating another digital gouache painting for my new tra-digital illustration portfolio.

Above, is web version which greets visitors to any of the old links pointing to megahappyfunland.com or blog.jeffszuc.com, and bellow is the full painted version of the piece. There is actually two versions, as you can see, I would love some feedback on which people prefer. The negative space, stripped down minimal version was actually created second, through removing all the work I had done. They create very different atmospheric effects, and though I think the empty space version is a little more sophisticated, I hate to think I painted in all those houses for nothing.

all images ©jeff szuc Jeff Szuc illustration