Graphic Design and Illustration.

Posts from the ‘Illustration’ category

Welcome to Drawcember!

Drawcember

About halfway through October, I found out about Inktober, where illustrators from all over try to complete one traditional (not digital) drawing per day. Sounded like a great idea but October was half over by the time I found out about it, and while I have plenty of sketchbooks to fill, not too much India ink in my art supplies these days.

The month of November kinda flew by, so I decided to try out the month of December for a daily drawing challenge. Yes, I know December can be a pretty busy month, but I figure what the heck, I moved into the house I live in right now two weeks before Christmas, this has got to be a breeze, right? Or I’m marching off to my doom.

The Rules

So now the rules. Again, to make it easier on myself, I am leaving any medium open, including digital. Though if it is digital, vector drawing will be out. I like vector drawing, but I am trying for a more traditional approach to artwork for this and I’d just be wrestling with the software too much for a traditional style in programs like Illustrator. And the artwork must be a finished piece. Quick sketches and doodles scrawled out on post it notes don’t count for this exercise. Though sketchy drawing styles are acceptable. Confused? Good. Me too.

Even tough this is a daily challenge I will only be posting once a week on my blog. The blog will contain proper scans of my work if done using traditional media. To follow my daily progress, you’ll have to follow my Twitter feed. That will only contain snap shots off my iPhone if traditional media.

Once everything is over, I will post everything to my vastly underused DeviantArt account and maybe setup some prints for sale. I MIGHT even put a book together of my experiment.

So, Let’s Begin…

Charcoal and Conte of Girl

I’m slightly cheating on this one. It’s a snapshot, not a scan. The final scan will happen for this one at the end of week roundup.

This image has nothing to do with anything. It’s just some random drawing idea I’ve had for ages. Since December 1st kinda snuck up on me, I decided now is the time to get it out.

Update

You can see week one drawings here.

You can see week two drawings here.

You can see week three drawings here.

You can see week four drawings here.

And you can see the last fews days and my final thoughts on this project here.

Image of the Month – November 2013

November_2013

Remember this picture of Sir Aiden? Well, this guy may look like a big grump, but he has a huge heart and is a staunch friend of the Giraffe people. He’s Enrol, King of the Yeti people from the far, frozen north. And he’s sporting an impressive ‘stache for this Movember (and pretty much every month as he is a Yeti after all.)

Initially sketched out on paper. Then shot with my iPhone and then drawn out in colour in Adobe Ideas on said iPhone. It’s quite the thing to draw these out on such a small canvas. Interesting challenge though.

Enjoy.

A Quick Sketch

Female_Face_Cartoon

Starting November off with just a quick vector image. She’ll deny it, but it is loosely based on my wife.

She says it looks like this girl is ready to fight crime or solve a mystery.

Who knows? She might be right.

Drawn with Adobe Ideas with my iPone and a stylus. Enjoy.

Faded, Old Copper

patina

Remember this image? Well, it looks like even 3D models aren’t immune from the ravages of time!

For a much more long term project, I’ve been playing around with some aged materials. This nice copper patina is the end result. The basic material for this image came from BlenderArtists.com, but I added a bit of my own nodes to it for a more customized look. Mostly the colour and the shiny reflections on the copper untouched by the patina.

I especially like how the effect makes it look like the model has proper eyebrows (a happy accident).

Enjoy.

 

Sir Aiden, Protector of the Giraffe People

Sir_Aiden

Just a quick post while waiting for my phone to update to IO7.

A very imaginary drawing inspired by my son. Of course the details are largely guesswork as he’s only 6 months old. But if he keeps eating the way he is now, I’m certain he’ll get to this size soon enough. As for the rest, the giraffe cowl is inspired from his favourite blanket. Toss in a bit of sleep deprived imagination and he we go! Drawn in Adobe Ideas as a test. The drop shadow and a couple of very minor tweaks in Illustrator.

BTW, this one has become a personal favourite of my wife. I’m going to see what my options are to get a print made of this one. I’ll probably tweak the illustration a bit more before that though. Adobe Ideas is a pretty nifty program, but there’s just a few things bugging this sometimes anal graphic designer.

1 Comment

RIP Charlie

Charlie

Not the post I had in mind for this week.

This past Sunday, my wife’s cat, Charlie past away. He was pretty old – over eighteen years old, and not in very good health. He was having kidney troubles and was diabetic. We had a few close calls over the past few years. Infections that really seemed to sap all his energy. But he always bounced back. But these past few months he really slowed down, and it seems his kidneys finally gave out on him. Probably Friday or early Saturday. He looked and sounded pretty grim Sunday afternoon.

I took him to the emergency vet that was open on Sunday, and they gave us the bad news. It was just about the hardest thing I ever did.

Anyways, a quickie tribute to him. Chowing down on some kibble. Pencil on yellow note pad. Colour quickly done in Photoshop.

Rest easy Chuckles.

Charlie

Image of the Month – September 2013

September_2013

A New Twitter Avatar

The avatar I was using for Twitter was something I put together quite some time ago. So long ago, I used a little program called Freehand to make it. Which is dating myself quite a bit. So it was time for a new one.

Twit Tweet

This one started out as a sketch I quickly scrawled out on a notepad. I then took a quick snapshot using my iPhone, and brought the image into Adobe Ideas to develop a nice quick vector image. Every Adobe Ideas drawing allows for one image to be used as a background. In this case, I was only using it as a guide for the rest of my linework. I would delete the image afterwards.

My quickie snapshot. Would have been better without the flash, but good enough for a guide.

My quickie snapshot. Would have been better without the flash, but good enough for a guide. The massive checkmark was just a little reminder to me that this was the sketch I wanted to flesh out later.

This one turned out rather well. It has taken some getting used to using speed to adjust the line thickness rather than pressure. I wound up using the undo feature quite a bit. So regardless of the somewhat loose looking colour use and sketchiness of the line work, this is actually quite a controlled piece.
Enjoy.

Big Eyed Monster

Alien_Render

Remember this guy? Well I got him all properly textured and rendered. Not too shabby if I do say so myself. Rendered out in the latest, greatest version of Blender 3D. A small bit of retouching needed around the eyes and a few other small places in Photoshop. And some minor adjustments to the colour. Enjoy.