March 2012
28 posts
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deadline #23 - surface design - floral
Category: Surface Design Topic: Floral Start Date: 3/24/12 Deadline: 3/28/12
I have some ideas for florals that I can enter into this contest.
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deadline #22 - book cover - The Golden Compass...
A year or two ago, I made a little illustration of the first scene in The Golden Compass, where Lyra, hiding in a coat closet, is spying on a presentation Lord Asriel is giving about Dust. When I was thinking about this illustration, I realized that this older, unfinished piece would be a great starting point. The point of view is similar to what I used in The Amber Spyglass book cover (see...
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deadline #22 - book cover - The Golden Compass
Category: Book Cover Topic: The Golden Compass Start Date: 3/20/12 Deadline: 3/24/12
I already illustrated a book cover for the third book in this trilogy, The Amber Spyglass, so I will have to make this guy semi-related.
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deadline #21 - portrait - Will Arnett - finished,...
Look, you guys. They can’t all be super-crazy-amazing winners. They just can’t! I’m learning, and it’s a process, and etc etc. I wanted to learn more about textures this week, and using Photoshop to mimic painted textures. I found a really great brush that mimics pencil lines, so all the pencil lines here were drawn with my tablet. That’s pretty cool. So, you...
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20 Illustrations Done - Lessons Learned
Creating a new illustration every 4 days has been an extremely valuable exercise for me so far. Here are some of the lessons I’ve learned in the last 2 1/2 months.
1. There is no way to overexaggerate the value of the sketching process: I was thrilled with this Napoleon portrait, and most of the credit goes to the time I took making the initial drawing. The sketch was clearly-drawn...
20 Illustrations Done - The Winners
March 16th I posted my 20th illustration for The Illustration Deadline. Not too shabby! You can see all the finished pieces here. Let’s look at some of my favorites, in no particular order.
Oh Conan. I think this is my favorite portrait to date, and I will be trying to create a similar style for my current deadline. Stuff I really love about this one includes: the way the texture...
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deadline #21 - portrait - Will Arnett
Category: Portrait Topic: Will Arnett Start Date: 3/16/12 Deadline: 3/20/12
#21! I need to work on a recap this weekend of hits and misses from my first 20 illos. And also work on making this portrait way nicer than the one I did of his wife, which was a miss.
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deadline #20 - editorial - the real iPad inventor?...
Man, I need some new textures. I am getting sick of the ones I always seem to use. Whoops!
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deadline #20 - editorial - the real iPad inventor?
Category: Editorial Topic: For tablet computer visionary Roger Fidler, a lot of what-ifs Start Date: 3/12/12 Deadline: 3/16/12
Illustration #20! Very exciting. I mainly picked this one because it reminds me of the very first illustration I made for this blog, my Steve Jobs portrait.
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deadline #19 - surface design - stripes -...
I had some ideas for stripes that would be made up of other shapes, but would still look like stripes. But then I was thinking, you know, I rarely do totally abstract patterns, and this would be good for me. Right?
I had a picture in my mind of stripes made of triangles, sort of inspired by/based on the quilt paintings I did a few weeks ago.
Stripes are fun, but they certainly have...
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Vote for my cheater quilt design!
Vote for my cheater quilt design here!
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stripey inspiration
There are some really great stripes out there in the fabric/surface design world!
Lizzy House:
Julia Rothman:
Alyssa Nassner:
Anna Maria Horner:
Cloud 9 fabrics:
Birch Fabric:
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deadline #19 - surface design - stripes
Category: Surface Design Topic: Stripes Start Date: 3/8/12 Deadline: 3/12/12
Stripes is a pretty open-ended topic, no? Not a bad deal.
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deadline #18: book cover - The Help - finished
Finished! Ahead of schedule! Lessons learned during this illustration: (1) Drawing fancy silverware? Way fun. (2) Drawing fancy dishware? Way fun. (3) Green is pretty reliably great. Particularly kind of light, airy, yellow-y green.
Some details:
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deadline #18: book cover - The Help
Category: Book Cover Topic: The Help Start Date: 3/5/12 Deadline: 3/9/12
I haven’t seen the movie yet, but I did like the book quite a bit.
Unrelated: I’ve been posting much less here for the past few weeks. I felt I needed time to figure out what exactly I want to record on here, and what would make this blog worthy of being read. I’m still figuring things out, but I have...
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deadline #17 - conan o'brien portrait - finished
Fun facts I learned from this deadline: Conan majored in history and literature at Harvard. Conan has blue eyes.
I’m super happy with how the texture all turned out on this one. And how you can use little bits and pieces to get a good enough likeness. Good deal!
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deadline #17 - portrait - conan o'brien
Category: Portrait Topic: Conan O’Brien Start Date: 3/1/12 Deadline: 3/5/12
