Firefly Grove :: Graphic Design Adventure Log

January 28, 2007

Hollywood Threshold Guardians

Mythically speaking, the judges in American Idol are akin to all-powerful Gods. These Gods are themselves beyond judgement -- they drink ambrosia out of their ruby-red cups as they peer into the essence of our souls. While they can shame and humilate us, they can also grant us passage to the next realm: Hollywood. Is Hollywood merely a city in California? Not at all. It is that place beyond the threshold where our grand adventure just begins. It is the place we go after we've proven our initial ability. And no, "singing" is not the only way to get to Hollywood. We all have our own unique abilities; it is up to each of us to recognize these skills and harness them. We must push ourselves to the limit. Nothing but relentless training and the most disciplined practice will deliver us to the treasure that awaits.

January 23, 2007

Soccer Superstar, Part 2

Another version of the soccer picture, based on another sketch. Technique-wise, this didn't really push any new directions... though I was able to produce this picture in only a fraction of the time. So that is good, if nothing else... increased profiency with the skills I have, even if no new skills were used. But that is what it is all about -- learning about yourself. Keep exploring, and you'll find a new passageway eventually. Plus, I have plenty of ideas of new places to keep exploring.

January 17, 2007

Soccer Superstar!

The most recent picture I've 100% finished. This one is a picture of and birthday present for my little sister (from another mister). A primary goal in this pic was to have a nice background that fit in seemlessly with the foreground element... and I'm quite happy with the success. As for the grass and the trees, I simply winged it and am very happy how they turned out. Esepcially the trees in the background -- I had no idea I was capable of "figuring out" such stuff without a tutorial or example. This experience has certainly fueled me to keep trying new things with a renewed confidence (always good).

January 16, 2007

Bert Monroy and the PS Pen Tool

As much as I love the graphic "style" I've recently been working in, I also want to continue learning new things. One unbelievably awesome resource I've found is the video tutorials of Bert Moroy. These videos are of absolutely unmatched quality: the content, presentation, and production value is all you could ask for. Bert Monroy himself is a pleasure to watch, as well. This is the second of his videos that I've gone through. There are 15 available so far, and many more to come (hopefully). To all Photoshop bad-asses: take note! Video tutorials are great, and with commentary they're even better! Also check out the videos of Anton Peck and Dani Jones (don't miss Dani's Video Notes, either, as they add great value to her videos).

Scanning Line Art: the Basics

Was able to borrow my parents' flatbed scanner for a little while. Having relied on a digital camera to take pictures for many months, I've finally decided to see what them rich folk must live like. Setting up the scanner wasn't the hard part... it was tweaking all of the settings. I've certainly a lot more to learn, but there are many basic tutorials out there regarding how to do this properly. So far, the biggest benefit is the complete reduction of all annoying facets of using a camera -- mainly, the reflection of the flash. The scanner itself picks up so many details, it isn't saving me much time there (ie, I still need to clean up the images as before). Here a few useful links I learned from: [one], [two], [three], and [four].

January 15, 2007

Sketching: Back to Basics

At the end of last week (about the time of the previous post), I soon realized that my appetite for Photoshop was far ahead of my basic sketching practice (and output). After taking a break for a day or two, I went back to basics. No comptuer; just a pencil and paper. The results have been quite reassuring -- I've reminded myself of how much I simply love to draw. This post includes some of the sketch highlights from the last few days. One of these I've already turned into a completed work (will post soon). I'm going to start working on another one soon. As for the rest, well I imagine they'll rest safely in my sketchbook (along with the sketches I continue to pump out) that may get used one day in the future... or not. But this isn't sometihng to feel bad about, is it?

January 11, 2007

Tablet-Drawn Brushes in Illustrator

My goal in this project was to practicing using the tablet to drawn brush strokes in Illustrator. This wonderful technique was discovered over at DaniDraws, a fabulous graphics blog by Dani Jones. I cannot express how glad I am to have discovered this technique, for its feel is quite natural. Shading and coloring was done in Photoshop via the same method as my previous project ("Blizzle"). This project took about 1/4 the time, overall. Learning is good. I name this character "Willuby".

January 10, 2007

Painting with Photoshop: Experimentation

In this project, my inspiration was to create a Photoshop painting that had a very indistinct outline, as seen in the work of Paige Pooler. To acheive this effect, I attempted to use detailed shading to move from the lighter tones toward the dark outlines (kept as thin as possible). While this took me a long time, I learned quite a bit. I didn't 100% arrive at my goal, but the journey itself was much worth it. This is a character I call "Blizzle".

January 9, 2007

Further Exploration of Blending and Shading

Here, I wanted to take the shading skills I learned from the basic tablet exercise (below) and apply them to a line-art drawing. I used a previously drawn sketch, a "woman in dress" inspired by the awesome womanly drawings of Paige Pooler. Drawing women is much harder then men... I needed practice. While the shading style doesn't match the outline style too much (in my opinion), I still think it looks pretty good and I certainly learned a bit.

January 8, 2007

Purple Fuzzy, Redux

I re-approached Anton Peck's "Purple Fuzzy" tutorial, this time armed with my pressure-enabled tablet. My main goal was to emulate his background effect with more precision -- the pressure-sensitivity definitely helped with this. I'm not necessarily as happy with the Purple FUzzy himself, as my color choice for the feet didn't yield to good blending (in addition to my rushing through it). All in all, learned a lot with regard to using the tablet and creating backgrounds.

January 7, 2007

Tablet Exercise #1

Looking at the great post on Tablet Basics (see the previous post), it was time to put this newly functioning tablet to the test! For an exercise, I used the example they have in the post: creating a basic sphere on a table with basic shading. I didn't necessarily intend to follow through with a full-scale imitation, but that is what happened. And I couldn't be happier.

Tablet Basics

About six months ago, while rooting around in a closet at my parents' house, I discovered a drawing tablet my father must have purchased long ago. Noting the interest in my eye, he encouraged me to take it for myself and see if it would be of any use. In the first week of owning it, I plugged it in once or twice and messed around for probably twenty seconds (in Adobe Illustrator). The tablet didn't seem terribly useful at the time, but I was glad I had it and put it aside for another day when it might be useful. That day is today. Time to learn the basics.

January 6, 2007

Photoshop: Basic Airbrushing & Painting

Fueled by a long and hard day of work and exploration within Photoshop, I gathered my remaining energy for one final task. The objective? To digitally paint over one of my previously sketched images -- the so called "Revelation" picture from last month. My goal: to attempt to learn some skill in shading with Photoshop.

Experiments with Blending & Brushes in Photoshop

A smaller but still noteworthy project. In this exercise, I set to explore the realm of basic brush use, which includes blending, opacity, and other such fine details of the digital painting experience.

Purple Fuzzy: Anton Peck Tutorial #1

Proving to be a definite godsend, Anton Peck has posted some fabulous "ArtCasts" at his website, which are essentially video tutorials in Photoshop. Thirsty to get my hands on these, I started (naturally) with the first of his ArtCast posts: creating a "Purple Fuzzy" monster with a cool textured background.

January 5, 2007

First Attempts at Digital Painting

After dreaming, fantasizing, and salivating over the idea of digital painting with Photoshop for several weeks, the time has finally come for me to get down to it and give it a try. In this exercise, I used a previously drawn sketch ("Clever Farm Boy") and re-colored him using brushes in Photoshop. Certainly not a masterpeice and not even really "good", it was a worthwhile exercise nonetheless.

2006 & Prior

Previous Work

While I do have a fair amount of previous work (mostly from early 2006), it is not currently online in any one organized place. If you're interested in seeing some of this stuff, your best bet is to check out a graphics blog I briefly ran in early 2006... it can be found here. This older work shows my first explorations of computer graphics, done entirely with Illustrator. This creative period took place between March and May, 2006.

In the last few months of 2006 I experienced quite the resurge in creative output. These images, however, are not currently available online. I'll get to them soon enough! Hang in there.