Archive for October, 2008

Finally, something new. A project on social awareness, based around press freedom in countries where there’s really no such thing, and speaking out against the government can be dangerous or deadly. The text on each of the newspaper boats comes from newspaper pages of countries scoring very low on the press freedom index. Since it’s all in languages – in most cases, even in alphabets – that I have no comprehension of, I really hope none of it says anything really stupid or inappropriate to the image. Heh.

I’m happy with the concept, but the final itself contains a lot of experimentation, much of which failed epically. Maybe at some point I’ll redo this, to get something more portfolio-worthy.

Fun fact: I had such a hard time getting down the perspective on the paper boats, I just made 9 paper boats and photographed ‘em. Life of an illustrator.

When I first saw this week’s Illustration Friday topic I had a different idea, and I got two-thirds of the way through a sketch involving Victorian zombies (huh?) before I came across this in its unfinished state – begun for a previous Illustration Friday theme (”Packed”) – and decided I liked this much better. So ironically, it’s just an old one, finished late. I think it fits this fine anyhow. The train is late again, poor woman.

This was fun. It’s nice to play and experiment without worrying about a teacher’s approval or, indeed, any real consequences whatsoever save for my own amusement.

The promised second David Usher image. All further Interpretive stuff will be of people other than David Usher. Like I said before, wasn’t planning to draw him twice, but both sketches were approved, so…

A portrait loosely based off “Kill the Lights”, the first single from his new album. Getting the likeness on this one was tough, since it was put together from a mishmash of different images rather than just one. Then again, that’s why I chose this direction for Interp to begin with, so I could get better at likeness. You live, you learn…

New Narrative project. The assignment involved a scene with two voices, one of which was either an inanimate object or the setting itself.

How I got from that to an elevator that thinks it’s a film noir detective is anyone’s guess.

A T-shirt design submission.  Our year is printing up some shirts to sell to raise money for our Grad Show at the end of the year; I just finished this and sent it in so no idea if it’ll actually be printed or not.  Either way, it was fun to do something so different from my normal stuff.

So it’s no big secret that I love David Usher. I mean, this blog is named after one of his songs. I did an animation based off another. I’ve been to five of his concerts. Thus, no big shock that when I decided I wanted to focus on portraiture and capturing likeness as part of my Interpretive thesis that he’d be my first victim. This is, in fact, the first of two pictures – I wasn’t planning such, but both sketches were approved, so why not? Done the lines for another, which’ll be up next week. For now, this.

The other one is more conceptual; this one’s pretty straightforward, based off three things. First, the lights and feeling of energy from the concerts. Second, the cool splattery “Strange Birds” image that showed up in the music videos from his last album (called, you guessed it, “Strange Birds”) and also on a bitchin’ shirt that I totally own and third, a photo that I took the very first time I saw him live. It was the night before my high school graduation. Don’t remember much of the graduation; boy do I remember that concert.

Hey, illustrating musicians for magazines is a staple of illustratordom. I might as well practice on somebody who makes me all kinds of happy.

Haven’t done anything for Illustration Friday since FOREVER, so here’s a quickie for this week’s topic, Sugary. Who doesn’t love a delicious lollipop? Don’t worry, little gothboy, I won’t tell.

Brushpens in my sketchbook with a 5-minute digital thing slapped on at the end.

EDIT: Here’s another version, done based on the critiques in class. I’m not sure how I feel about it, actually, I think I like the original better, but it was worth doing.

Remember those lines I posted a few days ago? Well here’s the final, for our Seven Deadly Sins project. Not nearly as blatant or harsh as most of the rest of the class, although man, those sure are some boobs there.

Please look at the full size. The thumbnails are kind of grody.