Headstand Media

OBJECTIVE
A Chicago area custom home builder required a rendering of a new custom residence designed in the Prairie style by Architectura.

SOLUTION
Randal Birkey first constructed a 3D wireframe model to establish viewpoint and details. He then created some study sketches from the 3D view to present to the client. The final color pencil rendering was then developed from the sketches, a 3D wireframe and customer feedback.

Contact Us for all your architectural 3D perspective illustration needs.

Randal Birkey needed a business card to communicate his architectural illustration business information during the 1980’s. This Frank Lloyd Wright house design was illustrated in a line and color pencil on yellow “trash” drawing paper, then combined with hand lettered text and printed as a 4-color business card.

At this time in my career I was working out of the design studio space of ComCorp, Inc. a design firm located at 742 N. Wells and owned by a friend named George Kubricht. We were a half block south of Moody Bible Institute in the River North area. The building is now an art gallery.

Randal Birkey was contracted by an architect to prepare a rendering of a proposed entrance structure design near a Chicago “Deep Tunnel Project” location. Randal went on site and took reference photos. He then inserted the architect’s entrance design–based upon scale design drawings–into the scene and rendered it in a line and watercolor style.

Randal Birkey was contracted through Koralik Associates, to create a cutaway illustration of a typical Medieval Castle Keep for Everyday Learning Corporation in DeSoto, Texas.

Working from references provided by the Herman Adler Design Group, Randal created a pencil sketch of the Keep, with various walls shown cutaway to reveal activities and uses of the various floors. The final art was produced in Fractal Painter using a Macintosh computer and Wacom tablet and pen.

Contact Headstand Media for all your educational architectural illustration needs.

The Arlington Park Racetrack experienced a major fire in 1985 that destroyed most of the main grandstand and clubhouse building. A new building was designed and constructed in 1989, and the ad agency was hired to produce new map and floor plan handouts for racetrack patrons to use in navigating the campus.

Randal Birkey was contracted by Dimeo, Rosen and Partners to produce an “exploded view” diagram of the new grandstand building, showing what was on each floor and locating major exits, restrooms, etc.

Randal worked from technical architectural blueprint scale drawings to create an isometric diagram in Adobe Illustrator.

Randal also recreated and cleaned up the Arlington Million race logo in Adobe Photoshop for the same ad agency. This logo is still in use today on the racetrack website.

Contact Headstand Media for all your cutaway and exploded view architectural illustration needs.

Frank Lloyd Wright designed this home in his Prairie School style of architectural design for John Franke of Ft. Wayne, Indiana. Randal did this line illustration of the home based upon a visit to the site in the early 1980’s.

Randal Birkey created this line drawing of a Corinthian style Greek column, as a diagram for a book on architecture.The original was done by hand with Rapidograph ink pens on illustration board using architectural drafting techniques.

Randal Birkey was commissioned to render an updated design for the Citibank branch location in Oakbrook, Illinois. The perspective view below was developed from architectural blueprints using 3D modeling software on an Apple Macintosh computer. The perspective view was converted to 2D and transferred to watercolor illustration board. The final art was hand inked using sepia ink in Rapidograph pens, then completed with Windsor & Newton watercolor washes.

Randal Birkey completed this color pencil architectural rendering for a residential architect in the 1980’s. The home was designed in the tradition of Frank Lloyd Wright’s “Prairie School” style of architecture. The home was built in suburban Chicago.

In the 1980’s, a cold-storage building located on the Chicago River across from the Apparel Center was converted into condominiums. The project was called Fulton House. This view of the project is from the southeast, at 333 W. Wacker Dr., where Headstand Media is located.

The original 20″ x 30″ art was produced by Randal Birkey as ink line work on cold press illustration board, with color pencil shading and texturing added.