China Blue Rockett Illustration

Art Director and Illustrator, currently working at Pilot Studio!  Follow me @RockettBlue

[pilot-studio]

@chiinacatt talking art and the community surrounding it with @iamkesikesi Check out @onthekyu if you haven’t yet! #art #artcommunity #creative (at Pilot Studio)

[pilot-studio]

It’s going down tonight! 3rd Annual Pilot Hot Sauce Competition #branding #design #storytelling #Cautionhot #hotsauce (at Pilot Studio)

[pilot-studio]

It’s getting hawt in herrrr… #hotsauce #storytelling #branding #newhotsaucewhodis (at Pilot Studio)

[chinabluerockett]

Happy New Year!

Last year at Pilot we did some work that was hugely fun for myself and the team, especially being such a fan, myself.  It was as though I was creating fan homages for one of my childhood’s most influential movies, but was privileged to work closely with the Publishing team and their guidance.  The driving inspiration behind this style was to capture something of an animation feel in the artwork.

These preview images and others can be seen on the Amazon page.  Buy paperback or e-book!

https://www.amazon.com/World-Reading-Trapped-Death-Level/dp/1484705106

This Star Wars early reader written by Michael Siglain.  Art by Pilot Studio (particular credit to Chis Ford, creative direction, China Rockett, art direction and illustration, Indigo Moorhead, illustration).

[chinabluerockett]

Unexpected exciting update from the Star Wars twitter account!  In livetweeting the SDCC SW Publishing panel, they revealed the art styles for their Star Wars Early Reader books!

They also revealed the slightly older age bracket, painted by my talented coworker Tony! https://twitter.com/starwars/status/756551967648940032

We work at Pilot Studio!

[chinabluerockett]

Great detail shot, hi-res, from the Star Wars.com SWCE livestream schedule blog post.  The X-wings speeding off the right edge of the poster montage!

SWC poster by Pilot Studio.  I served as illustrator/art director on the visual portions of the project.  Creative Director: Chris Ford

[chinabluerockett]

This year, I had the great honor of art directing the Star Wars Celebration badge and poster art at Pilot Studio!

Read more about our process here: http://www.pilotstudio.com/the-story-behind-star-wars-celebration-artwork/

We had a large art style jam at the start of the project, creating a pool of imagery and art styles and creating sample pieces, going through our usual reviews process.  What I submitted and was helped by the team to refine is a style which captures likeness and photorealism with the definite feel of an artist’s hand.  Each character had a pencil piece that served as the backbone to the painting, and in most cases, a huge proportion of that pencil is still visible.  Same with all the badge art!

I had SO much fun with these pieces.  Please enjoy these process photos from our website!  

Part of the fun was printing the piece huge (it took 2 strips off the 24″ printer to make the full size piece).  When we artists say take a step back... it’s easier to to that physically, let’s be real.

I’d LOVE to see your badges!  If you take some cool photos or get celebs to pose with their badges, please tag @Pilot_Studio on Twitter or ping me!!

Illustrator&Art Director: China Rockett Creative Director: Chris Ford.

[chinabluerockett]

Man I tell you what I have been really AWFUL about finding the time and lighting and camera to take photos of my IMC work so you know what? Here are two laughably low quality photos so I am FORCED to put something out there and not waffle on posting anything from that amazing experience any longer!! :V I hope to have a nice high quality photo or scan soon to post and maybe even revisit and continue to paint, digitally this time!

[chinabluerockett]

Some tough ladies from my sketchbook; one a seraphim or djinn of some sort, the smaller one a scarred-up elf.

[chinabluerockett]

Another bit of my senior year concept work!  I still like some of the thoughts and design elements that went into this, and have been considering rebooting it to explore.

[chinabluerockett]

Cosmic!  2012

Some more senior year portfolio stuff!  Space opera future fun time, as a reactionary response to gritty sci-fi that I'm fairly well sick of.  Shh, don't tell anyone I'd prefer sci-fi to be nebulas and magic space dogs.

[pilot-studio]

Graham going to flight school. Day 1: Naboo Fighter training. #starwars #jedi #pilotstudio #pilot #Naboo (at Pilot, Inc.)

[chinabluerockett]

Shown here: grueling days in the studio.

[chinabluerockett]

From senior year of college!  Still playing catchup with this Tumblr, goodness!  I made a portfolio with a few different narrative developments in them, and this one was about a little dragon wishing to become a knight.

Dae/Knight, photoshop - 2011/2012

[chinabluerockett]

Perrin   -  oil and digital on illustration board, 2011

In senior year, we had a semester-long project and in it I created a narrative and explored some mixed media techniques with oil and digital.  Years later I see so much I would have done differently, and it's not much of a clear narrative, but there are several instances where I really love the mixture of oil and digital even with my rudimentary levels of both.

Perrin and her shadow friend still have a special place in my heart!  The two horizontal images, their Meeting and Rescue, are my favorites.