I'M NOT DEAD!

It's been a while (about a year?), but now I'm back and ready to share what I'm up to…which is quite a lot actually.  Let's start with what I'm currently doing!  Can you say…FIGHTER PILOTS IN SPACE RIDING ON BOOKS?  Yep, I can!  It's my design for the Memphis Library Card contest, due today.  I originally wasn't planning on designing a card, since I'm working on my Bachelor's of Fine Arts piece (I'll get to that later).  But I figured this would be a lovely break from doing class assignments, or should  I say "opportunities," since I need to stop thinking like a student.  So here you go!

It started as a pencil sketch, then I scanned it into Photoshop and painted it digitally.  Here are my favorites!

Macbeth 4

Okay, so here is a more revised painting.  I amped up the contrast and thought maybe it'd be more effective if I blended the middle witch with the background.  I added more definition to the witch with the shear veil over her face and tweaked the shadows on the arms of the two flanking witches. 

Macbeth 3

So here it is!  My final, digitally painted Macbeth poster.  Or my "final" for now anyway.  

 

MACBETH 2

Here's a color study and it's variations, with line, without line, with text, combined with the value study, etc.  I will definitely exclude the line and use a painterly approach.  I'm really enjoying the painting part of digital illustration.  The colors are a complementary color palette of reds and greens with accents of golds.  It seems to fit with the theme of Macbeth.  Green is envy, red is seduction/murder/blood.

Fill colors

Value study and color study combined

Without the line looks best.  It's softer and more sinister.

MACBETH

New assignment!  For our next assignment in my illustration class, we are creating either CD covers, book covers, or movie/play posters!  I'm so excited, and as the title shows, I've decided to create a play poster for my favorite Shakespearean play "Macbeth."  I'm not entirely sure why this play, of all plays, stands out to me the most.  Probably because it's all about how unhealthy ambition can be your downfall.  I'm super ambitious just so you know.  Also, this play as some of the strongest female characters than any of Shakespeare's other plays (unless you count Taming of the Shrew).  Lady Macbeth is evil and awesome!  She is the true villain and manipulator.  Also, the three witches are simply iconic. I love to quote them..."Double, double," "All hail thee Macbeth, thane of Cawdor," etc.  It really surprised me, when watching my favorite Harry Potter movie, the Prisoner of Azkaban, that the  students sang the witches' poem from Macbeth.  Love, love, love!  Anyway, so here are some of my sketches and studies for my poster.  I really love the idea of ambition being seductive and tempting.  In my thumbnails I went back and forth between showing Lady Macbeth tempting and coaxing Macbeth and the witches coaxing him.  I decided on the witches, purely because I wanted to show a trio hovering over Macbeth.  Here are some thumbs.

I then took very specific reference photos using friends who were sweet enough to pose for me.  I came up with this sketch.

I then scanned the sketch in and turned it to line art.  

This is a quick value study.  

Now for the text.  I really do love Garamond, mostly because it's the font used in all of the Harry Potter books.

Color studies and other fonts and placements are on their way!

Faces and Backs

Okay, so I forgot to include my back design for the cards in the previous post.  So here we go:

These are for a COMPLETELY different project for a different class, but this blog isn't strictly for illustration.  I'm trying to double major in illustration and painting, and this is what I'm doing in my painting class currently.  These paintings (and there are more) were influenced by 3D stop-motion films and the production of these films.  These pieces are meant to reflect that sense of unity and teamwork involved in stop-motion.  Also, I've been using pattern as a framework, or net, that provides structure and reinforces that idea of unity.  So yes, always trying new things.  These are done in plaster gauze and acrylic paint.  

Creation. 30"X36"

Feeling Whole Again. 11"X18"

Card Borders and Backs

So it makes life, and art, so much easier and better if you just make your own textures.  Especially if you want a specific look.  Using the paint tool or the burn tool on Photoshop didn't give me the desired effect, so I just burned my own paper.  I suggest not burning paper in an enclosed room like I did, unless you want your smoke alarms to go off.  So the backgrounds are actual burned paper.  The dark lines (the "eyelashes" that frame the ovals and suit signs) were done in pencil, scanned in, and manipulated on Photoshop.  I thought that looked better than using a brush, and it is more consistent I think.  So one problem I noticed, however, is that when printing and cutting, there's the possibility that some of the edges will get cut into.  That's always something to think about when you're designing something meant to be printed and reproduced.