Northern Lights 2004

First magazine cover! This was a huge moment for me, I had “made it”… After many projects with Computer Arts they finally gave me a cover shot for a process tutorial. I created this image and a step by step Photoshop tutorial to accompany. I was turning out a lot of landscape orientation work during this time as a result of the magazine 2-page format (e.g. Ergonine, Ursa Minor)

I remember during this period, for whatever reason, it was really trendy to incorporate antlered wildlife into your illustrations. There were also a lot of bands coming out with names like Grizzly Bear, Deerhunter and Band of Horses. Early aughts zeitgeist I guess.