stores cleared out of bread and milk and stuff after the quake
Back-story: Part of this was completed while I was living in Tokyo, Japan during the big 2011 earthquake/tsunami/nuclear disaster. The street swayed back and forth like I was standing on a waterbed. The buildings were flopping back and forth like they were made out of jello. Things were falling and breaking in peoples houses. I had to run back upstairs after the huge quake and continue working on this super tight dealine drawing all these labor intensive animals while, side-stepping all the broken dishes and glasses, I had no time to clean up even. I ran to the bathroom (what we deemed to be the safest place in our tiny tokyo apartment) with my laptop many times that day when a big aftershock would hit in order to keep working. Constant aftershocks prompted me to disassemble all tall and heavy things in my room because they might violently collapse in on me during an aftershock and kill me. Things like bookshelves are the number one danger in Japan. This project literally could have killed me. The exciting life of an illustrator right?
2 days later after the radiation scare got bigger and all the foreigners I knew were leaving Japan I decided I should get out too. So on came the triumvirate of stress of moving my whole life out of a country, the biggest ad project I've ever work on, and the stress of aftershocks and radiation/instant death/mutation and later death. Also the fact that our building was so old (like from the 50s, for japan that's old) that it was slated to be destroyed at the end of the month was super un-comforting amongst the aftershocks the kept everyone from sleeping. Sure the building took the biggest quake in history, but could it take all the aftershocks? I had no time for any of this, i had over 2,000 animals to draw, get approved, color, and more, in 10 days! My visa was going to be up soon so i had to totally move out of Japan which made time insanely tight and I had to make up for the time lost doing all the things you need to do to move to another country (next was to be Barcelona, Spain).
I escaped to my friend's house in Seoul, S. Korea on the US Army base embassy housing and what followed was a week of 16 hr working days and 5 hrs of sleep a night. I finished and all the exhaustion paid off because these illustrations won a bunch of awards:
Back-story: Part of this was completed while I was living in Tokyo, Japan during the big 2011 earthquake/tsunami/nuclear disaster. The street swayed back and forth like I was standing on a waterbed. The buildings were flopping back and forth like they were made out of jello. Things were falling and breaking in peoples houses. I had to run back upstairs after the huge quake and continue working on this super tight dealine drawing all these labor intensive animals while, side-stepping all the broken dishes and glasses, I had no time to clean up even. I ran to the bathroom (what we deemed to be the safest place in our tiny tokyo apartment) with my laptop many times that day when a big aftershock would hit in order to keep working. Constant aftershocks prompted me to disassemble all tall and heavy things in my room because they might violently collapse in on me during an aftershock and kill me. Things like bookshelves are the number one danger in Japan. This project literally could have killed me. The exciting life of an illustrator right?
2 days later after the radiation scare got bigger and all the foreigners I knew were leaving Japan I decided I should get out too. So on came the triumvirate of stress of moving my whole life out of a country, the biggest ad project I've ever work on, and the stress of aftershocks and radiation/instant death/mutation and later death. Also the fact that our building was so old (like from the 50s, for japan that's old) that it was slated to be destroyed at the end of the month was super un-comforting amongst the aftershocks the kept everyone from sleeping. Sure the building took the biggest quake in history, but could it take all the aftershocks? I had no time for any of this, i had over 2,000 animals to draw, get approved, color, and more, in 10 days! My visa was going to be up soon so i had to totally move out of Japan which made time insanely tight and I had to make up for the time lost doing all the things you need to do to move to another country (next was to be Barcelona, Spain).
I escaped to my friend's house in Seoul, S. Korea on the US Army base embassy housing and what followed was a week of 16 hr working days and 5 hrs of sleep a night. I finished and all the exhaustion paid off because these illustrations won a bunch of awards:
Communication Arts Illustration Annual 53
Applied Arts Advertising Annual 2011
Society of Illustrators NY 54
Communication Arts Advertising Annual 52
Advertising and Design Club of Canada (ADCC) Silver medal for illustration, Bronze for Posters and Newspaper Ads catergories
Applied Arts Advertising Annual 2011
Society of Illustrators NY 54
Communication Arts Advertising Annual 52
Advertising and Design Club of Canada (ADCC) Silver medal for illustration, Bronze for Posters and Newspaper Ads catergories
taking down the big hulking bookshelf that did not have earthquake brackets installed like i always meant to do. My nerves were shot after so many aftershocks and looking up at this wondering if the earth was going to violently slam it down on me so i had to take this down.
one of my roommates sleep under his desk at night for days.
the airport was like a refugee zone. all the foreigners were trying to get out. That line goes on forever. it took 2 hours on that line to check in and everyone was super p!ssed and scared and stressed and flights got bumped and double bumped. I hadn't slept in 2 days because my airline ticket got messed up by the Tokyo travel company that was surely experiencing the craziest time in their history so i stayed up all night working expecting to sleep on the plane only to find that I can't fly until the next day. I finally made it to Korea, got the project done after a lot of blood, sweat, and dementia, and have a good story to tell now. The exciting and dangerous life of an illustrator right?