Illustration Friday - Cold

Whoops... I knew sooner or later I would miss and Illustration Friday... but at least I am back. This is less of an illustration than it is playing with type. The snowflakes could use some work but like I said the type was what I was concerned about.

I will definitely try not to miss any more.

Enjoy or don't... Just please don't throw a rock at me if you see me on the street.

Illustration Friday - Float

Literal... so literal. Because I'm lazy. This is something I did quite a long time ago... almost 10 years ago in fact.

At the time I had been working for a man who had a client base existing almost solely of real estate agents. Most (all) of the stuff we did was ass-ugly. The ugliest shit you can imagine. Business cards that were just covered in phone numbers and cell phone numbers and fax numbers and home numbers and work numbers and on and on and on. Never before had a 2 by 3 and a half inch piece of cardstock held so much information. I never understood why these agents felt the need to have 4 or 5 phone numbers on their business card. If I were a client and I couldn't reach my agent after trying the second number listed, it would be time for me to find a new agent. Well what can you expect from someone who thinks being pictured on their business card wearing a gigantic plastic ear would somehow make clients think he was listening to them.

So, on to the duck. The duck came about because one of these real estate cats wanted to have a children's chore chart on the back of his junk mail (that's what it was... hey I'm being honest). After poking through the pitiful Corel clip art we had, I decided I would illustrate it myself. I had never done anything like this before, but it beat the hell out of squeezing a dozen phone numbers on a business card. I did this illustration to represent taking a bath. I also did one for brushing your teeth, making your bed, and something to do with toys. I can't tell anymore from the illustration.

I look back at it now and there are things I like about it, and things I don't like about it. I love the tiled wall and the fact that it is an almost abstract shape. The duck.. well that's another story I like the tones of yellow and orange and that's about it.

Geez I am going to run out of old artwork and I'll have to start doing new stuff in order to keep up with the weekly Illustration Friday submission. Well that's par for the course for me. Don't do anything until I absolutely have to.

Until we meet again.

Illustration Friday - Fresh!

Ok... Look I had a completely different idea than what's posted here. I had this drawing I did of a bunch of fresh underpants. Nunderpants, Thunderpants, Wonderpants etc etc... But I don't have a scanner. That meant I'd have to carry this sheet of paper all the way to work on the commuter train. Too much effort to try and keep it flat and uncrumpled, especially when the jackass sitting next you has to open his legs so his "boys" have some room to lounge about. But I digress.

I borrowed from a few other things I did and came up with this gem.

Oh that bee... what a rascal... what a rapscallion. He's just trying to get some. And the flower is all "Access Denied". Yeah wait till your petals turn brown and your leaves sag.. you'll wish you had bees buzzing about you then. You'll be lucky to find an earwig willing to climb your stem.

More heroes...

Here are the first two experimental figures I did for my cut paper project. I'll get to it, I promise... Stop looking at the crossed fingers behind my back.

Anyway I really do like how these turned out. I was able to create them with out any gradients or curves which were the only guidelines I had set for myself. Sometimes good things come from being boxed in. Sometimes they don't, but that's rare.

Just a couple notes here in case anyone was curious. Yes... the "S" is not the same as the actual Superman shield. To be honest it just didn't look right without curves... so I improvised. And I like the result.

In retrospect, Superman feels a little stiff compared to Batman, and the Flash illo I posted a couple weeks ago. But hey, I'm making this up as I go along so cut me some slack. Maybe in the future I will add backgrounds to these to give them some context. I can totally see the back of some fedora wearing thug's head way up in the foreground being snapped back by the force of Batman's fist.

Comments anyone? Good? Bad? Ugly? Fair to middling?

Illustration Friday | Escape

Sometimes you feel like a pig... some times you don't. It's all in your mind. Sheldon knows that... look at that pig fly. Every night that pig can escape, and for 8 hours he can be what he really wants to be. Isn't that what we all want? I need to be more like Sheldon.

Christmas comes early.

I'm trying hard to post to this blog with some kind of regular frequency. While I've not done anything completely brand new since the "roots" exercise, I promise to do so in the future. In fact I really need to. For now though, my fans (all 2 of you) will have to be satisfied with another couple of oldies but goodies.

These 2 illustrations were done for our company Christmas card. Each of us was given a few words to illustrate, and these two were mine. I think there were a dozen in all and they ended up being the size of a large postage stamp. I loved doing it and once I started I couldn't want to stop. I must have been having fun.

Anyway let me know what you think. Or don't... Or just think quietly to yourself.

Just wanted to say...

This is a goofy girly illustration.. but my wife likes it, and she asks so little of me, so I'm posting it for her. And please, do have a nice day.

The word for today is... Depth

Wow! I'm amazed that I'm actually making another post here. I am deadline driven, or at least assignment driven... It's hard for me to get anything done with out having the proverbial piano hanging by a thread above me. So here's my second Illustration Friday assignment! Depth!

The Flash illo was something I had created a few weeks ago. I was fascinated with cut paper and started creating "cut paper" figures in Adobe illustrator. They were to be test runs for the actual cut paper piece. Needless to say, I have not reached the cut paper stage yet.

Anyhoo, even though it's a very two dimensional looking piece, I used size and colour to convey depth of field. The other restriction I had set for myself was that I wanted to use only stratight lines... no curves. I added in the cityscape as an homage to Carmine Infantino. Carmine was the artist on a great number of Flash comics in the 60's, and he created these expansive futuristic cityscape backgrounds. The Flash always seemed to be running in a giant open tiled square, with the city looming miles in the background.

So there you have it.

Illustration Friday... the first of many I hope.

So I came across this site called Illustration Friday. Basically the idea is that you are given a word and you have a week to illustrate it. Anyway you want. Any medium you want. At your own pace. Ah... now those are my kind of parameters. The word this week is "roots".

My solution is posted here. I don't know if there's any greater meaning than the literal one, but if you happen to think of something good, let me know.

Good eve.

Procrastination Station... all aboard.

I get inspired very easily. I get started on things eagerly. I rarely finish what I start.

But it's not my fault... honest. it's my personality type, INTP. I won't bore you with the details, but basically my enthusiam for a project takes a sharp nose dive over time. I am content to live with things as they are... unfinished. Actually, not really content, more like too lazy to do anything about it.

Why am I telling you this? Because I'm letting you know, way in advance that my posts here will be sporadic, and possibly non-exist as time goes on. I can't help it. Not my fault. I didn't do it. That's the way it is. Que sera, sera.

Inspiring first post, no?

Well, onward, upward and ever forward. Here we go.