Illustration | Ukraine
After the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, I’ve been producing illustrations to raise money for, first, the Hospitallers, and then locally, RocMaidan. I also volunteer for RocMaidan sorting and packing medical supplies for shipment to Ukraine. My father was born in Ukraine less than two months after Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union. He and his parents were sent to a forced labor camp by the Nazis and eventually liberated by the US armed forces. Direct family history and my own interest in the history of Ukraine and their seemingly endless struggle for self-determination meant I needed to do my part, however small, to aid in eventual victory. As is evident below I am proud to carry on the old Ukrainian tradition of dark humor. Please support Hospitallers, RocMaidan, or others that in turn support Ukraine in their fight for freedom.
A poster of a tryzub (the Ukrainian national symbol) made up of destroyed Russian military equipment. The modeling nerd in me made sure to make accurate drawings of actual equipment so there's a big variety there from T-72B3s, to Tiger armored cars, to a Pantsir SAM system, and more. All now rusting useless junk.
It's been great to learn that my dark sense of humor is a shared trait among my Ukrainian ancestors. For good reasons I might add. I got this idea from a moment early in the war when an older Ukrainian woman confronted Russian soldiers in her city saying "You’re occupants, you’re fascists! What the f*** are you doing on our land with all these guns? Take these seeds and put them in your pockets, so at least sunflowers will grow when you all lie down here.” Baba doesn't play around.
Part of my Ukraine fundraising series made for RocMaidan. "Orks" is a common nickname for the Russian soldiers, a reference to the creatures in The Lord of the Rings.
A small piece I made to make stickers to sell and donate the proceeds. It's a stylized version of a famous photo of Ukraine's legendary poet Taras Shevchenko. I'd like to think Taras wouldn't put up with this invasion from the Russian swamps either. Translation: "Putin, go f*** yourself."
This one just poured out of me fast; a response to a horrible video that came out of Russian soldiers executing a Ukrainian soldier who had surrendered. The man's last words were "Slava Ukraina! (Glory to Ukraine)" so the image depicts the response "Heroyam Slava (Glory to heroes);" as all of us answer his defiant statement.
Riff on the famous Rosie The Riveter poster for a print I was selling to donate to Ukraine aid.
Early in the Ukraine-Russia war, the Ukrainian farmers became adept battlefield recovery troops, grabbing Russian tanks as they ran out of gas and were abandoned by their crews. While I enjoyed a lot of the artwork and memes that came from this, my armor modeling side got the best of me and I needed to make an accurate version of a tank liberation. A T-72 was easy enough to find reference for, but luckily a farm nearby had several of the big John Deere tractors that seemed to be all over Ukraine. I designed this as a cross stitch embroidered table runner, each "pixel" of color is a chunky x, mimicking a stitch. I kept adding colors though and it became prohibitively expensive to have these screen printed as I had intended. If anyone ever wants to try and embroider this for real I will happily share the pattern with them.
Four Ukrainian soldiers kitted out for the front, an homage to a famous still from the Sam Peckinpah movie "The Wild Bunch."
The big hexacopter that Ukraine has been using for the past couple of years has earned the nickname Baba Yaga after the mythical forest witch. Some artistic license later and we have this. Full disclosure: I was having trouble getting her expression the way I wanted, so I used an AI tool to create a reference image. I've found AI useful on occasion for this task but its been really inconsistent in quality. I 3D modeled the bombs and used a 3D model of the hexacopter to get the perspective ok too. You've gotta use all of the tricks in your bag to get things done quickly sometimes. ;)