Project 2- Vector Drawing

My second project! The idea I had for this project changed quite a bit from my last progress post. I decided to play with size, and based the final image off of the scene in "My Neighbor Totoro", when the girls and Totoro are standing in the rain by the bus stop sign. Not sure how well that idea got across, but it ended up being pretty fun anyway. Edit from the last time this was posted- I decided to keep the messy edges that I had when I was working on this. 

"My Neighbor Steve"

Logo remix- Gundam Wing

Gundam Wing was one of my favorite shows as a kid because it featured guys in giant robots blowing things up. The premise was actually way more complicated than that, but the giant fighting robots were really all that mattered to me. Anyway, I thought it would be fun to remix its logo for this assignment. Here's the original:

In all its 80s/90s glory

I really wanted to feature a silhouette of Wing Zero (look it up), and the rest came together after that. I wanted to use a similar font, but have the text non-italicized to match the straight-on view of silhouette. I don't think it really loses the dramatic cheesiness of the original, but I guess if I did that then I wouldn't be properly representing the show.

Portrait progress and AI tool post

My progress thus far on my portrait piece:

It's eventually going to be more than Steve's giant nose- I think I'm going to have him standing on something that trails down the canvas (hence the huge white space). We'll see how the rest of it turns out!

There are a few tools in Illustrator that I have yet to use. One of them is the gradient tool, which allow you to control value scales within your work. It's pretty neat, but I've never used it much in Photoshop so I don't know if I'll end up doing much with it in Illustrator. Anyway, you can learn more about it here. 

Vector artist post: RasixDesigns

Raul Seng Iglesias is an artist and musician from Mexico. In addition to his vector work, he also does photography, traditional animation and illustration, and editorial design. There is unfortunately little on his background and how he got started, but his work can be seen in a variety of places and websites. He's done some really neat album art for different bands, some of which he's played guitar or bass for.

"There's Something Dead in Here" Album art for Jacket Bullet

His illustrations all have a very whimsical feel to them, which he accomplishes with various styles. Much of his work involves stark use of color, and intricate detail through the shapes making up the final image.

"2.0"

A few of his works also seem to have a more painterly quality. In all of his work, the composition and use of space seem to be very well thought out in order to balance out the impressive amount of detail he puts into his work.

"Wolf"

Both of Raul's styles show the wide range of experience he has as a digital and traditional artist. It's a shame that there is so little on his process and how he works- having studied some of the tools of vector artwork in class, I have to wonder if he spends hours and hours just making small shapes with the pen tool, or tiny brush strokes with the blob brush.  The idea of that is a little mind-numbing, but at least his work is pretty.

"Chasing my Nightmare"

Music Sketch assignment

For this assignment we needed to make an abstract sketch while listening to a song that was played in class. It was an interesting assignment, but a little out of my comfort zone. When I was listening to the music I thought of ripples in water, so I made some circles from the preset shape tools. From there I imagined twisting the shapes and using different colors.

Project 1- "When the Shadows Get Long"

A long-belated post on my first major project! The assignment was to combine an image from the web, a photograph, and a scanned image. I made the background from a photograph I took during a family vacation to Yellowstone, and a sunset image from the web. I then made pools of water from CD scans. Finally, I added a figure I drew and made it all ghost-like by reducing the opacity. It was a lot of fun to make.

"Well, they call me William the Pleaser
I sold opium, fireworks, and lead
Now I'm telling my troubles to strangers
And when the shadows get long I'll be dead."
-Tom Waits, "Lucinda"

Special thanks goes to my laptop, which somehow didn't spontaneously combust while I was working on this massive file.