Sometimes the work you are most proud of doesn’t fit neatly into your professional category but merits a little showing off. This is an image I did in 2002 (if I remember correctly). The client came to me wanting to replace the phone in this man’s hand, but had no pictures of the phone. That’s right, they wanted to replace the phone but had no image. This was before we all had cameras in our cell phones. All they had was the actual phone. And of course (as is usually the case in advertising) it was due “yesterday.” So, there was no time to do a photoshoot. I set the phone upside down on a coffee cup so I could view the perspective right. Within a few hours I illustrated the phone entirely in Photoshop. Cutting masks and painting. Just like in the old “analogue” airbrushing days. I’m proud of this because it’s something I don’t think a lot of artists are capable of. I do a lot of stuff like this as a Retoucher, and I think it goes beyond the expectations of a typical Retoucher, but it’s something unique that I have to offer because of my background as a painter.