Warhol does Munster

Okay, not really. But this Herman Munster assignment has an Andy Warhol look to it, doesn't it?

Me as Herman Munster

Assignment: Draw yourself as Herman Munster.

Monster Draw Sketches

Magazine Graffiti

The Tell-Tale Heart

My Poe project for the Adobe Illustrator class where we were using the tools and drawing and painting with words. I did make the title into a paint brush and warp the word "wind" but I did take more of a graphic artist's approach to this. Here is the breakdown...

• The title represents the heart beats, beating strong and rising up from the ground.

• The mouse's tail leads to the heart under the floorboards.

• I kept the heart a simple outline to give that black heart feel of the characters.

• The colors were kept to black and red, very horror-like in my palette. Black symbolizing the night and the darkness of the act and the red for the blood.

• The story copy in the ground drills downward like burrowing.

• The quote referring to the mouse wraps around the shape of a mouse.

• The quote talking about the wind and the chimney wraps around to form the shape of the chimney and house as a larger word "wind" whips through the chimney.

• The word "mouse" is used to add detail to the mouse-shape with the "o" as an eye, the "M" as the whiskers, the "U" as the inner ear, and the "S" & "E" filling out the shape of the body.

• The words in the sky are warped to add an element of madness to the story.

Business Man

These arrive the other week. Business cards!! I'm hearing that next month's APE convention isn't the best for selling but is a good networking con. So I should be getting some good mileage out of these.

Wrong! So Wrong!

Tonight's homework: Draw the Love Child of two characters from The Simpsons.

Go, Moe! Get yo' FREAK on!!!

Artist's Cards

Saturday night was my "Stay at Home/Chill Out" night. I think I needed a breather after staying out late after class on Wednesday talking to almost 1am, Panera meet ups Thursday and Friday evening, and then my BASA Art Field trip to the Crocker Art Museum and Evangeline's in Old Town Sac on Friday. Lots of Arting it Up and having fun with friends but I do need those recharge days to catch up on sleep and work on some artist's cards for APE. The convention is one month away and there are still things that need to be done but, for the most part, all my irons are already in the fire and I'm just waiting on the printer. So this next month is just filing papers and working on art to sell.

Mucha Tribute

Assignment from class: Draw yourself as a baby from an old baby advertising ad. I went way back and chose an Alphonse Mucha ad. It was fun to finally play in the Art Noveau style but I sure did turn myself into a creepy baby.

Here is the original Mucha below....

Fun with Text! Weeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!

More basic Adobe Illustrator stuff tonight in class. This time, playing with text. Much of this was the same from Illustrator back when I used it in the 1990 with the exception of the 4th page with all the bloating and swirl tools, which are new to me.

Now Things are Getting Serious!

This arrived on Friday.

It is the banner I ordered for the APE convention. I knew I would be a little uncomfortable seeing it though. Not only because, by blowing up one of my images that was the size of a baseball card to poster size, it would reveal all the flaws but also, despite what some people might think, I don't like the spotlight and calling attention to myself.

But that is something I have to get over in today's market. I noticed that with other creators in that it is less about the artwork and people talking about the story and more about self PR, tweeting, and networking. So yes, having a big old banner behind me announcing myself and my art is something I'll have to get use to.

But despite that, I think it looks pretty good. Up close, the Frankenstein image does reveal its flaws but, from just a couple feet back, it holds well. It did get a little washed out though. The artwork behind that holds up better as the original was 11x17 in size and scanned at 600 dpi. And the black on red is a color choice I don't always see at cons. Between that and one large central image, I'm hoping it stands out and makes an impact.

Speaking of stands, I guess it didn't come with one and I'll have to order that as well. More costs but this is an investment in multiple conventions.

Playing with a Full Deck

This arrived last Monday. I ordered in on Friday. Three days later it arrives. But with shipping being 1/3 of the price, damn right it better be expedient shipping!

So what is this? Well, there are all kinds of crazy and cool options out there for your artwork and customizing things like shot glasses to tote bags. But I wanted to do some playing cards but with a monster theme using my monster artwork. Essentially, I draw each image once but use it multiple times (sketchbooks, playing cards, etc.). It is the only way I can price my original artists cards affordable to sell and yet make money back on the time I put into them.

The playing cards will have to be a real specialty item though. I only ordered 10 decks, I'll keep one, sell the other nine, but at $15 a pop. Who pays $15 for a deck of cards? Well, hopefully someone that really is into monsters, I hope. With no cheaper options on shipping available through the company, I have to price them high to make any sort of profit. It is such a cool idea but now I know why I don't see it more often at cons.

Atomic Roadster

Homework assignment: Draw yourself as a car.

Well, I suck at cars! And working 20 years for a car newspaper didn't make me any better. So rather than trying for something looking more realistic, I went the more Big Daddy Roth roadster route and made up my own design. I didn't go the anthropomorphic route either and just had me morphing into the car's design.

Cap Trace

Homework for Digital Illo class: Trace your favorite cartoon character in Adobe Illustrator to get use to the brush tool. I chose a classic Jack Kirby Captain America, which is really what is saving this drawing. If you get in close, my line quality is bad. I have to overlap my lines more for the process we are learning to work better. And the mouse control on the lines (look at the rough curves on the shield). Lots of learning still to do but I can see a light at the end of the tunnel: the highlights do give it an extra pop!

Pre-highlighted version. I had a lighter blue but wanted my highlights to pop more so I darkened the mid-tone blue to make it pop more.

Above: The trace.

Above: The original.

My final needs more work and clean up but I think I'm going to let that go and save what I learned for the next one. No sense in putting all those highlights and maybe shadows on a shield that probably needs to be re-drawn anyway.

Fruits & Veggies

Practicing with Illustrator in class and getting some painfully bad drawings out of it. It didn't help that I saved it in CS6 but only have CS5 at home (which, I think, crapped it back to a pre-cleaned up line version). But really, these were bad to begin with. I'm going to have to really master the brush settings and tablet and mouse control to get this down. 

Bezier & Learning Curves, indeed!!