Published January 17th, 2010 at 7:15 pm in Anatomy, Illustration, Sketch, Surgery with no comments
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I thought I’d show my working process in photoshop, starting with drawing and going toward finished illustration!
This portrays the pulling/dissecting up of the gallbaldder from the liver bed. It’s actually kind of a bloody mess; it’s not like the gallbladder just sits and hangs out by the liver, it becomes tightly invested in it via connective tissue and small vessels.
The checked background is the default background in photoshop, letting you know what’s transparent and what’s not. I’d probably leave that out next time.

The original drawing, scanned and masked

Initial masking and tonal development

More finessing of tonal base and vignetting

even more tonal finessing

Rough color study - see the blood?

Refined color choices and flat masking

The final - more vignetting, adjustment of tone, and more color variation, and highlights.
It needed to be clear that it’s not the prettiest thing to happen in the body, but didn’t want to get gory. The final looks rather watercolorish in some respects.
Published January 16th, 2010 at 2:33 pm in Anatomy, Biology, Illustration, Surgery with no comments
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Otherwise known as removing the gallbladder, this surgery is often performed in a particular demographic remembered by the 4 F’s: fat, fertile, fair, female. Often there are stones that have complicated the health of the patient, and this cute little organ has to go! Fortunately, like a lot of surgeries, this one can be done laparoscopically, with the patient in and out of the hospital (although not fully recovered) in a single day.
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Published May 23rd, 2009 at 5:35 pm in Exhibition, Imagery, Surgery with no comments
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The Art of Science has recently picked its 2009 winners. The concept behind this year’s contest, the 3rd of its kind, is found art — none of the chosen pieces were labored over or planned out, they were simply unexpectedly and suddenly seen through a microscope, computer screen, or what have you.
I’m not a fan with all the images chosen, but when you view them one by one, there are quite a few that hold there own. See “Cement Flower” and “Metadherin Expression at 10.5 Days Post Conception” and “Semiconducting Feathers”. The whole concept reminds me of Michael Kimmelman’s “The Accidental Masterpiece” — unexpected art buried found buried in chests, garages, attics, dollar stores.
There’s an opportunity for veterans, orthopoedic surgeons, or any artist affected by war: Wounded In Action Art . Submissions are being accepted from May 15 to October 15, in a variety of media. The juried exhibition will be in March 2010 and aims to honor and pay tribute to those who have suffered from orthopoedic injuries, the research that is furthering surgery techniques, and the surgeons behind the operations.
Published May 7th, 2009 at 5:26 am in Anatomy, Design, Illustration, Surgery with no comments
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Finished patient education brouchure is below! Rather than target patients before they have a Cesarean section, this focuses on the post surgery healing process; most recievers of C-sections a) need unplanned operations and wouldn’t have time to read details in a pamphlet or b) have already had a Cesarean section and know the ropes.
Media: pencil, pen, Photoshop, Painter, Indesign
It’s constructed as a typical tri-fold brouchure — below are both the inside and outside of it.

Inside pages

Outside pages
Published April 2nd, 2009 at 5:51 pm in Anatomy, Biology, Illustration, Surgery with no comments
Tagged with heart, Illustration
I’m finally getting these images of hearts up that were designed for a powerpoint presentation about normal heart anatomy and flow contrasted that of with persistent truncus arteriosus. Minus wrestling with Powerpoint over some issues, it was more exciting than it sounds. All were done in graphite/photoshop.

Normal heart, showing the internal right side

Surgical fix of truncus arteriosus heart

Flow of blood through truncus arteriosus heart
Published March 26th, 2009 at 11:33 am in Illustration, Surgery with 2 comments
Tagged with Illustration, Surgery, surgical illustration
Media: graphite, photoshop
It’s ironic that the baby’s head is never shown, when the surgery is all about getting the full term fetus out, but it never became necessary to show the head.

Cesarean section surgical illustration, with emphasis on suture layers
Published March 14th, 2009 at 5:00 pm in Anatomy, Biology, Exhibition, Surgery with no comments
Tagged with Art, art exhibition, medical, proposals
Chicago’s International Museum of Surgical Science is calling for exhibition proposals for the 2010 year – the deadline is April 19! They are looking for medically related art (more than figure studies with anatomy), 10-15 in number.
It looks like they prefer highly conceptual pieces more than the stereotypical medical illustration work, but this is nevertheless a unique opportunity.
Currently, the following is showing from January 30 – April 17, 2009:
Dominic Paul Moore, “Put This in Your Mouth”
Laurel Roth, “Hope Chest”
Details about the exhibitions in general: Anatomy in the Gallery
Details about submitting proposals: Exhibition Opportunities at the IMSS
Published March 8th, 2009 at 4:48 pm in Anatomy, Illustration, Surgery with no comments
Tagged with ovariohysterectomy, pig, Surgery, surgical illustration
Final comps for the porcine surgical piece – in this case, the removal of both the ovaries and uterus. Steps were limited to 3-5 within 1 or 2 plates, plus and image for orientation, and minimalism in content was pushed. This kind of illustration would be in a journal, accompanying an article, and the idea is that those readers would have the background knowledge to be able to recognize these relatively abstract tissue shapes.
Media: crowquill pen and ink, Illustrator, final format in bitmap.

Porcine ovariohysterectomy, page 1

Porcine ovariohysterectomy, page 2
Published March 2nd, 2009 at 7:05 pm in Anatomy, Biology, Surgery with no comments
Tagged with heart, Sketch, watercolor
I tried rendering a few of my heart sketches on foam board – I’ve heard some fine artists get great results on this media, but they ended up being much looser than what I was going for. Not bad in and of themselves, but not great for the current project.

External view of normal heart anatomy, classic AP view

A cutaway view of the same heart

internal view of a heart with persistent ductus arteriosus
The last one is the most interesting – ductus arteriosus refers to the merged aorta and pulmonary trunk that’s present during normal heart development. Problems only arise when the heart doesn’t finish fully developing. Notable is the single great vessel feeding to both systemic circulation and pulmonary vessels, the ventricular septal defect, and the hypertrophic right ventricle, which needs to compete with the left for output. In these situations oxygenated and deoxygenated blood is mixed, the lungs are flooded, and all other circulation doesn’t get enough. There are sugeries to fix this that force the plumbing to be what they should, but unfortunately survivability in the long term isn’t great.
Published February 22nd, 2009 at 9:48 pm in Anatomy, Surgery with no comments
Tagged with instrument, reference, Surgery
Unless you use a lot of surgical instruments often, it can be difficult memorizing/learning the myriad instruments common in surgeries. There are lots of surgical instrument catalogs online, but they’re not designed for educational uses and can have 100’s of variations. So here are a few sites online that clarify the more common ones, each with images that at least get the job done.