Cannon Spike!

Super Street Fighter IV is super thumb-blisterin' fun! Cammy's my current favourite, although I'm stuck on Seth at medium difficulty. I'm not awesome at the game but I've been a big fan of the art for quite some time!

Canadian Running Half-Page Illustration

Here's a half-page illustration I did for Canadian Running, it'll be published in their September/October issue. It's for a regular column they run that's written by a runner named Peter Hadzipetros who shares his insights, funny stories, and lessons learned about marathon running.

In this piece I wanted to challenge myself a bit, so when I silkscreened the colours I did two gradients. The yellow and the blue both do a gradual fade into white. In this piece it helps to indicate the haziness of a hot day and the distance reaching back into the background. Gradients are tricky to do with silkscreen printing, but I think I might start using it more in the future.


Here was my initial sketch. The client wanted it to be simpler and to incorporate a face, so this was my next one:


Here's the second sketch, which I like a lot. The simplification really helped. And because it's more of an entertaining opinion piece, it's nice to have a personal focus with the figure. The client wanted the full figure shown, which leads us to the final product. I always seem to lean towards cropping images in close, so it's good that I have a full figure in my portfolio now!

I don't often use orange, I don't know why. Whenever I try to, it creeps into the red or pink territory. My "Add Rhyme and Mix" piece also has some orange in it, lately I've been making an effort. So not only am I glad I got to work on doing hand-done colour gradients, but I broadened my colour palette, too! My next goal is to do an illustration with a cool purple or blue in it.

It's always great to get a new client, I was thrilled to get a chance to work with the magazine! Hope you enjoyed seeing my process.

Julia Minamata site / blog

June 28th Macleans illustration

Here's the final for the Macleans illustration. The subject of the piece was a Thai welder who came to Edmonton to make a living and to support his family back home. He was a devout Buddhist, so I wanted to make the design resemble temple decorations and use Buddhist motifs. Hope you like it!

Julia Minamata site/blog

Macleans illustration, coming to a newsstand near you!

Here's a little sample of one of my latest jobs, the obituary illustration on the back page of Macleans magazine. It's published in their June 28th, 2010 issue. I've done about half a dozen of these, but this is the first one in a while. I get a particular kick out of doing them because my mom get a subscription and there's nothing cooler than getting your artwork published in a magazine that your mom reads!

I also love the stories of people's lives. Creating images to accompany and augment amazing stories is one of the reasons I love editorial illustration. For me, the more information and details I get to work off of, the happier I am.

New work on t-shirt @Rogue Monk: Please vote!

Here's something new and fun! I submitted my work to Rogue Monk, if it gets voted up enough they stick it on a t-shirt. Please visit the site and vote me if you like it! You have to sign in, but that means you can also vote for a bunch of other cool designs. Try it! -- Julia

Casino Royale

Here's an image I did based on the Vesper-Lind-Drowns-in-Venice-in-an-Elevator scene from Casino Royale. This is more of an interpretive take on the event, not a straight-up narrative representation.

I was flipping through one of my Toulouse-Lautrec books and I love his use of coloured line to define figures, so that's what I'm playing with here. Daniel Craig is a brooding Bond, so I've got him in Thinker pose. His nakedness indicates his psychological vulnerability. He's holding the Algerian love knot necklace that Vesper wore during the film. Vesper is blue because she is full of water. Oops, I guess that's a spoiler! Also, they were on Earth all along. And he's actually a dude.

Julia Minamata

Add Rhyme and Mix

Just finished the album cover for Mr. Attic's new album, A.R.M. (Add Rhyme and Mix). Attic is a crazy talented hip-hop artist and Juno award-winning producer based in Toronto (Choice cut Records). The music is terrific, if you get a chance to check it out I highly recommend it.

The concept plays on how Attic creates his music: mashing up a bunch of records, taking the best bits, and mixing them into something original and fresh. The girl's pose is reminiscent of a DJ. There is a small portrait of the Attic on the poster in the background, and the other poster shows an Ensoniq EPS sampler, Attic's real tool of choice. In the cardboard box are some of the other albums that he's worked on. Lots of fun details!


Here's the initial sketch for the idea.


This is a further developed sketch. Very close to the final! I like doing a really tight sketch for a client because that way, everyone knows what they are looking at. Gives me a chance to change anything that needs changing before I get into the silkscreen printing. Although the magic of Photoshop can cure most ills! Composing in a square is always a challenge. I wanted to make a balanced composition that wasn't overly symmetrical.

juliaminamata.com