Gregory Manchess is one of the major illustrators in America. The fact that he is represented by Richard Solomon is a clue. His clients include Time, Newsweek, The Atlantic Monthly, Playboy, Smithsonian and The National Geographic.

He has been featured in articles in Communication Arts, Step-by-Step Graphics (now Step Into Graphics), the Artist’s Magazine and Walt Reed’s The Illustrator in America 1860-2000.

To say Manchess works in an open, painterly style may be an understatement. His broad, loaded brushstrokes define the forms with luxurious sweeping areas of color. You get the impression that he enjoys the look of the strokes themselves as design elements, the way they overlap and intersect with each other, sometimes in sharp relief.

You can see the brushstrokes and other details in the images featured on his section of the Workbook Illustration site, thanks to a Flash portfolio feature that lets you zoom way in on the images and pan around at will (image at left, bottom). For larger single images, go to his own website.

Manchess is also one of the artists featured through Solomon’s Art on a Grand Scale site which is devoted to illustrators who create work to be reproduced as digital murals.

Link and info courtesy of Jack Harris.

Claude Bordeleau is a Canadian illustrator, designer and cartoonist who has done work for Warner Brothers and Cartoon Networks as well as a number of other editorial and advertising clients.

Bordeleau has a springy, lively cartoon illustration style with lots of energy and color that is nicely restrained with precision linework. He uses a rich color palette and often accents his color work with touches of texture.

His site includes examples of his illustration, character design, caricature and comics work.

Note: the site contains some NSFW material.

Illustration Mundo is a portal/blog (for lack of better terms) devoted to illustration. It was created by Illustrator Nate Williams because he felt the lack of a portal site specifically for illustration (as opposed to those which included design, photography, film, etc. as well as illustration).

The site has recently incorporated Erik Olsen’s illustration podcast blog Iconic, which features interviews with working illustrators with a focus on their working process. This is a fascinating angle on illustration that is seldom encountered, hearing the artists comment on their work and process in their own words.

If you find the main page a bit overwhelming in terms of selections, the site can be accessed in several ways through the navigation at the top. The Articles tab gives you the main articles arranged in reverse chronological order like most blogs (image at left), and you can sort into spotlighted articles, Iconic Audio, print Interviews and so on.

The articles are brief, but usually showcase several pieces by the illustrator and, if available, some personal photos. The podcasts that have now moved over to Illustration Mundo from the Iconic site are marked by an icon (what else?) in the upper left. There are also tabs for News and community oriented features like Polls and Forums.

On the About page, Williams and Olson invite you to become involved and encourage you to submit news, participate in the forums and place your work in the Illustrator Database. Most of the articles also allow for comments in the usual fashion for blogs.

The site also uses a “Favorites” and “User Rating” system to rate the illustrators in the database (by votes, clicks, most tagged as favorites, etc.). I’ve seen this feature on CGI portals and I’m still dubious about the value of such systems. It may help you find something others like and it may cause you to miss things.

You might actually do better with a feature like Illustration Mundo’s “100” tab, which serves up 100 random illustrators, with links to their websites, arranged simply as squares captured from their images.