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.
The main assignment for this week was to create an info graphic. Below is the artist statement I wrote to accompany the composition.
Artist Statement
Through brainstorming I came to the term ‘safety’, which led to a curiosity about the crime rates of Orlando, my current residence. After looking through crime reports I chose to do an info graphic around some of the more interesting facts I found.
I felt that using a realistic photo for the background would help the facts feel more real and impactful. The darker coloration is used to help with overall readability. The red coloring in the text is used to draw the eye to the important data.
Currently I am using American Typewriter for most of the text to invoke a legal / report type feel to the composition.
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.
The challenge is almost done. Day 18 already… Wasn’t it just yesterday I was mapping out my key priorities?
Well, today is about building confidence. Chalene really encourages participates to go out and DO things today. She explains it extremely well by saying that it’s like riding a bike.
At first we’re scared. We’ve never done it before. We worry about messing up, and falling off. But after that first ride, we’re more ok with the action. We’re more confident in ourselves because we did something and it didn’t kill us. We survived, so we should survive the next time.
Doing built confidence. Action did it.
Confidence isn’t something that we’re born with. It’s not something you buy or wear. It’s a skill, just like communication. It’s something that can be practiced and developed. It’s something we learn.
This challenge is all about doing stuff. Taking action and moving forward on goals that we’ve convinced ourselves we can’t reach. So the homework today is to list at least three things we have accomplished so far during this challenge which boosted our confidence.
I have been meaning to do this for almost a year now, but I always kept putting it off. I never had someone to help me test it out. I didn’t know if it would work, or what issues there may be. It was easier to always push it back and not work on it, to not figure it out. I constantly moved it to Tomorrow’s to-do list, a reminder that there was a monster I wasn’t facing, letting it lurk in my mind and take my energy.
No longer. While there are a few issues we still have to work out, the idea behind the Hangouts works extremely well and there has been lots of positive feedback. Completing this task was a reminder to, as Nike says, “Just do it.”
I know I am not the best CG artist out there. I know I’m not the best setup artist, or the best scripter. So there’s always a bit of fear when I work on a project. How is it going to be received by the community? Am I going to get called out for doing something silly? Will they like my stuff?
This fear can make it hard to complete my projects. If they aren’t completed I don’t have to show or share my work, so I avoid rejection.
I do good work, though. I know I do. I gain amazing feedback each time I post a script online, and I grow and develop in amazing, unsuspected ways each time I push my content.
Completing my projects all the way solidifies the fact that I know how to take my goals, break them down, and reach them. It proves to myself that I know what I’m doing, and that I can do it.
This isn’t really associated with any of my goals, but it did give me a huge boost in confidence. Again, I might not be the best, but I was so happy with how my ‘Strong’ IF Challenge assignment was going. I never thought I would be able to draw or make anything interesting in Photoshop. Not from scratch like that.
It gave me confidence as an artist to see something that was in my head coming to life on the screen. It made me feel like I can do this, because I’m sitting here doing it.
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