This is the first half of my homework for my History of Visual Communications class. We had to create a playing card which was decided by our birth date. I happened to get the Jack of Hearts.
Completed in roughly 3 hours using Photoshop and a Wacom tablet. It was a lot of fun and I loved working on it. Now to create the back of the playing card before the assignment is due. : )
Last week got pretty crazy. This week isn’t looking any better. I found myself getting discouraged because I’m still not finished with these piece two weeks later, even though in total I have only spent roughly three hours on this project.
Instead of fighting myself on it, I think I’m going to call this one done and move on to other things.
Maybe, eventually, I will come back to it. But for now, I’m happy with where I got. I’m happy with the things I learned and the workflow I’m continuing to develop.
Thank you, Mr. Dragon, for being a fun project.
I haven’t been inside of Photoshop in a while, so this week I decided to focus on digital painting to keep myself from getting too rusty and as a way to keep from getting burnt out with sketching.
This project took longer than I would have liked, but I’m getting back into the flow of things and it was great spending some quality time with my tablet. <3
Since these are pretty self contained projects I’ll most likely end up posting as they are completed. So here is day one of week three. I completed this on Monday, but never got around to posting on my blog.
Illustrator Friday Challenge – Melt (Icarus)
I had a hard time a first thinking of a composition I would be interested in working on. The typical ice cream, ice cubes, and such came to mind, but were uninspiring. While getting ready for work I got onto the train of thought of wax, which led me to thinking of the Greek myth of Icarus.
He flew so close to the sun that the heat melted the wax holding the feathers to his wings causing him to fall to his death.
The sun in the background is contained within a lantern, which acts as a frame and makes the scene seem more like a vision. The sides of the lantern have melted wax dripping down, adding to the sense of heat and light. The sun itself is also melting, pushing the feeling that the scene is falling apart, just like Icarus’ wings.
This was the final image for this week’s Illustrator Friday Challenge. The word we were given was ‘Pet’.
The word pet can be used in a dehumanizing and degrading context. To invoke this connotation I created a digital painting of a woman in a short kimono. Her shoulder is tattooed with the kanji for dog as a way to show she is thought of as little more than an animal, a pet.
The lighting of the scene focuses on the tattoo, as I feel this is the most important element in the story. The bare skin of the woman’s shoulder is the next thing the eye should be caught by, as it is the brightest area in the composition, which emphasizes her state of undress.
The composition is relatively dark to instill a more ominous feeling. I wanted there to be a sense of vulnerability, as if something bad were lurking in the shadows.
This is the second project for my class Digital Story Telling. The goal was to take something ‘unpackagable’ and to turn it into an product which could be marketed.
Artist Statement
The inspiration for my product came after a stressful situation l where I was worried my tolerance would run out.
Tolerance will be tablets sold in stores, much the way Tylenol and Advil are.
I think of tolerance as a strong, long-standing, almost stoic trait. Because of this association I have decided to use an Ancient Greek theme for the marketing of my product.
This was the final image I created for the Illustrator Friday Challenge. This week’s work was ‘wiggle’. Below is my artist statement.
Artist Statement
After brainstorming I decided to go with the more somber topic of drunk driving for my design. Through word association I came to the terms jell-o, immature, and wiggle room. I worked all of these terms together through my image of a hand reaching for a set of keys sitting on a table populated with jell-o shots.
The foreground and background will be faded to draw attention to the mid-ground of the scene. The jell-o shots will be red as a way to draw more attention to the mid-ground and to push a more warning / danger feeling into the composition.
Illustrator Friday – Strong WIP2
5-6 hrs
This the progress I was able to make on my assignment.
I hope to finish her up tomorrow.
Illustrator Friday – Strong WIP1
Illustrator Friday – Strong Sketch
My class this month is Digital Story Telling. One of the weekly assignments is to do the IF Challenge.
Each week the website posts a word, and it is up to us to create an image for that word by Friday.
Well, this week’s word was “Path”. And this is the image I created for it.
My first, full blown, digital painting in Photoshop. I know there’s tons of room for improvement. But I’m proud of how it came out, especially with how little time I actually put into it. Roughly 5 hours.