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Custom Graphics and Artwork
I began displaying some respectable artistic talents at a young age, and had I only been more honest with myself I would have pursued proper training toward a career in art or graphic design. As a child I spent most of my free time doodling and drawing cars, trains, buildings, and anything mechanical. Eventually I felt satisfied with my own style for "organic" subjects. I developed a good raw freehand talent, but save for a couple years of basic art in high school, never pursued any proper training or instruction. Even in spite of my involvement with computer labs I didn't take any computer graphics or art classes outside of basic CAD... which did prove to be very useful nonetheless!
My inner artist won't stand down and be denied, however. The model railroad lets me express myself in multiple mediums spanning 4 dimensions (I consider "interactivity", as it applies to the viewer, to be the "4th dimension" as it pertains to art), and that's where most of my free creative time goes. But thanks to (or in spite of?) that, in recent years my pursuits have led me more toward recreating existing works in the digital medium as well as developing my own. So to that end I self-taught myself Corel Draw in 2004 and have become reasonably proficient; not good enough to quit my day job yet, but enough to get what I want - and even make a bit of bucks on the side. I'd like to get back into doing more "original" work and sketches but I still prefer good ol' pencil & paper for those.
Below you'll find a sampling of works I've done, although most of them are purely digital. A few older original sketches will eventually be added here as well. Of course, works where trademarks are represented may not be entirely of my own credit, but were nonetheless 100% recreated, redrawn, or reinterpreted from scratch by me. A few works might be worth more explanation and eventually I'll link those images to specific pages of their own.
1962 B&O Piggyback Trailer Placard reproduction
In 2001 I found a classic truck trailer intact in a feed yard in Lexington, Kentucky. I asked to cut the sign off the side, and gave it to the B&O Railroad Museum in Baltimore, who treated us like VIPs for the gift! But before delivering the goods, I traced the die-cut edges, scanned them for a reference, then redrew the logo myself on a computer and had a reproduction made.
NMRA MCR Division 10 logo
Look familiar? My local chapter of the National Model Railroad Association formerly had a logo that was, uh, less than inspiring. Soon after completing the B&O logo, I realized the profile of the train within is similar to Kentucky's geographic silhouette, and went to work. I originally put a bit more modern flair into the text, but was asked to go back to a simpler, more traditional look.
STC Railway Logo
This logo is a 100% original custom design, although similar logos have been used both by railroads and other companies. I wanted something simple yet clever, to combine a pine tree and a railroad track. For more info on this design, consult the STC section of this website.
Unreleased Tyco "Tide" hopper car
Based on a car that was shown in catalogs but never released, and never seen by anyone until I designed and made the graphics for it myself.
Unreleased Tyco "Oreo" refrigerator car
Like the Tide car above, this was another one that was shown in catalogs but never seen until now...
Commemorative STC Caboose
A simple yet boldly colorful design layout to celebrate the birth of my first daughter.
Custom Tyco ChessieSystem Sharknose
It's a catfish! Get it? GET IT? Ha ha, sigh...
NIN "A.I.R." graffiti
During Nine Inch Nails' 2007 "Year Zero" A.R.G. campaign, I turned the provided "Art Is Resistance" flag image into scale political propaganda. In addition to laptop stickers that I traded for bootlegs.
Vintage Toledo, Peoria & Western RR timetable cover
In 2008 I was commissioned to take a scan of an old timetable, and convert the cover into vector art suitable for silk-screening. Automatic raster-to-vector tracing tools can provide a starting point but are not perfect, and I basically redrew (or manually traced) about 98% of it from scratch.
Railroad equipment paintschemes
The paintscheme for the Saint Canard Midland may be freelanced fantasy - but it looks as authentic and legit as anything a business enterprise could hope for.
NASCAR paintschemes
More info on these can be found in the Automotive Models section
Jurrassic Park logo
You might be surprised to know the JP image above is a bitmap - go ahead and download it! In Christmas 1993 I got my first PC: A Packard Bell 486DX-2 50mhz running Windows 3.1. Remember "Windows Paint"? Since the computer had nothing else to run and I had a whole Christmas break to kill, I drew the Jurrassic Park logo (remember this was 1993: not only was Jurassic Park cool, scanners cost more than computers themselves and .jpgs hadn't really been invented yet) using nothing more than Microsoft Windows 3.1 Paint. Oy vey, am I a glutton for punishment. Note the hand-dithered orange: the 16-color Windows 3.1 palette did not have orange.
Chessie System "KeepOnTrackin'" graphic
A digital recreation and modification of an image that previously only existed as a scarce 4"x4" t-shirt transfer from a 1977 Lionel train set. I scanned the transfer and redrew it completely, modifying the layout and fixing a few elements. I then used an embroidery tracing program to render what it would look like stitched on the back of a jacket, then sent the design to a company who agreed to make me a jacket for free if I let them sell others using the design. You can now order them from www.jelsma.com
3STRIPE apparrel logo
A friend asked me to design a custom logo for his imprint, giving me no requirement other than the name "3-Stripe". Concerns over Adidas' trademark association with the term eventually won, but the logo was well-received nonetheless.
HO Service Vans
Somewhere in Germany, the Mario Brothers are at work! Before Ebay's rules became more draconian, I had great success selling these and other 100% original custom-art HO-scale vans at a premium to modelers all over the world...
Miscellaneous signs
A sampling of random images and graphics, both original and modified, that I've used for projects over the years. See if you can find them in other pictures on the site...
2003 Kentucky License Plate Spoof
If I'd met the deadline, the Lexington Herald-Leader would have published my spoof of Kentucky's much-maligned 2003-2005 license plate. But the different one I created in real life - which uncannily played off my long-held personalized phrase - was filmed by a passing TV news crew.
Like you I sort of wonder if I had some proper training what I could have accomplished if I pursued drawing. Like you I always doodled and such when I was suppose to be paying attention in school (1+1 = 5, right?), but I would draw cartoon characters. You complimented on my Roger Rabbit that I did in paint at work (again, doodling when I was suppose to be doing something important, sorry Travis!). That was quick and dirty, but I still wonder if I could had been the guy to come up with spongebob or something as popular. And that's so funny about you drawing the Jurassic Park logo. I did the same thing, but in Mario Paint for the SNES. I remember sending it in to the Nintendo Power magazine for a art contest they were having. I never heard back from them. I'm going to say that if they displayed that some sort of copyright laws would have been violated. Yeah, that's why I didn't win. :D
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