This is the main drawing from my Christmas card this year. My original drawing idea was much more ambitious but as things go, time and the acceptance of your boss tend to change things. My boss this time around happened to be my dad (cause this card was for his company and also cause he was paying the publisher's fee).

This is how the illustration wound up after a our graphic designer (Brian Gage: www.briangagedesign.com) had a handle on it. I like it, but I like the original idea a bit more.

Anyways, this is Gabriel. We wanted to show a knight praying, either coming or going from fighting, asking God to bring peace. It was multi-tiered in meaning. First was that we hope that God has mercy on and protects our soldiers in Iraq. Second (and more importantly) that we recognize that there is much strife in the world and that Jesus came to provide us an escape, Salvation and an end to war and suffering (thus the Christmas-y part of the card). Lastly, and perhaps most loosely (and also definitely more personally), I wanted something to do with the Crusades to be on the card.

We really wanted to show a solider but we didn't want to connotate a militant nature with the card and we found some really neat verses in Isiah that really helped complete this.

All in all, the cards look flippin amazing! I'm really glad with the results. And now I have a nice portfolio piece to boot lol.

Anyways, I have a few left. Lemme know if you want one.

Merry late-Christmas and delayed-New Years!

You can see the whole layout of the card here: [link]

Character devoted to my brother Jay: