Illustration Friday - Visitors

OK here's a quick one I whipped up for Illustration Friday - Visitors. This was originally a photo that I accidentally took without the flash. I liked the way it looked and immediately thought of an alien abduction. Some color shifts, overlays and some of my own magic and style and I came to this image.

Hopefully the Illustration Friday police won't kill the link. I think it's suitably far enough away from a photo.

As always let me know what you think and take a look around my blog by clicking on the title banner.

Illustration Friday - Captain

Here's my entry for Captain. I think his hat is too small to be a ship's captain, so lets say he's a Spanish Conquistador Captain! I think he's sad because he's lost all his men.

I'm feeling OK with this one. I wanted to do something in Photoshop again and not have it look like my 10 year old niece's work. I think I had a major art block for about two weeks.

As always, take a look around my site by clicking on the header, and comments are always appreciated.

People on the GO - REDUX

Ok, so here's the guy from my first "People on the GO". I pulled him into Illustrator a while back and gave him some colour.

When I finished it, the style looked familiar but I couldn't really figure out where I had seen it before. I realized later that he looks very Hanna-Barbarra-ish. Couldn't help thinking he looked like "Black Vulcan". Check it out. Do you see a resemblance?

As a side note, no I didn't remember his name that's the magic of Google. As well the only reason I remembered him was because I'm fan of "Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law".

Enjoy this fun post.

Illustration Friday - Emergency

OK, well after two weeks of very weak digital entries for Illustration Friday on my part I decided to go back to basics. I pulled out the coloured conte sticks and just let it flow.

Here are my thoughts around this week's challenge and my response. When you have this big emergency happening (and I have had a few in the last twelve months) there's all this commotion around you. The emergency is staring you in the face ready to consume you. It's big and scary and your adrenaline is pumping. Yet, you can focus and be calm. Thoughts become sharp like razors. Know what you have to do and execute it. This is how came to my image for this week.

An interesting side note, I could see anger being very similar to danger. Maybe more red. But instead of a focus the middle is empty.

Let me know your thoughts, and please check out the rest of my blog by clicking on the header. I warn you though, my last two are slightly embarrassing. I was going to delete them, but I figured it's a good reminder of how things can go bad.

Photo manipulation

Well, I'm still in a bit of a funk with the last two posts. I've hit a wall when it comes to drawing lately. Here's a quick photo manipulation that I did. Nothing fancy. It's basic but kind of fun.

Illustration Friday - Missing

Here's a late entry for Illustration Friday. I wasn't going to do anything this week because I wanted to do an illustration that was more refined. I couldn't let this idea go though, so I just roughed it out in a sketch then into Photoshop. Sadly again, this took me longer that it probably should have.

At any rate, here's my entry for Illustration Friday - Missing: Missing Opportunities.

As an aside, I think I've peaked with Photoshop for now. Instead of progressing my skill I feel like I'm regressing. Instead of getting better and more complex, I feel like I'm getting worse and more simplistic. I'm really not nuts about the execution on this one. Ugh.

Well let me know what you think.

Humbling Post - first all Photoshop drawing (not complete)

Tonight I tried to do something completely within Photoshop. All I have to say is WOW, it's a lot tougher than it looks. Getting the idea out of your head and into Photoshop is not easy. Right now this thing just looks so hokey and amatureish. Well I guess you got to start somewhere.

I didn't really have a plan, I just was doodling and deling layers when something didn't come out right. Not to say that this did, but it at least started forming into something. I think I have to re-configure my workspace if I want to do 100% digital drawings. I also think I should move off of my laptop and onto a real PC with a nice big screen.

I've been reading some hardcore Photoshop magazines from the UK, the last one I got was Imagine FX magazine. This magazine is for people that want to get into concept art for videogames, movies and TV. Most of the art is sci-fi fantasy stuff. Similar to 'airbrush art' of old. Not that I like all of that stuff, but some of it is really good. Also from a realistic/technical standpoint it's quite astounding. The perspectives, realisim, anatomy and lighting is phenominal.

I do get the feeling though that the guys that are into this might poo-poo the more abstract or figurative work. Similarily all the conventional artists poo-poo the digital art.

Check it out at http://www.imaginefx.com/.

By the way, did I mention I'm still trying to figure out what/how I want to make art? I know I've deviated from my original concept of daily charcoal drawings and I've added a lot of digital work. Oh well, it's not like I have hordes of people are reading this blog daily. As a side thought I wonder how long I'm going to keep this up. My little expeiment today in Photoshop has disheartened me a little. Plus my other hobbies are calling me. (see HERE )

At any rate, if anyone is reading this let me know what you think of my stuff.