Completion of final pieces

All of my final pieces are now completed, I will be posting photos of them very soon, to display what I have done, I will also talk through them individually, to note why and how I have managed to complete them.

My first image was of my girlfriend's gecko, called Kai, For this image I used a digital program, called sketchbook express. It is a basic photoshop elements style program, that features some quality brushes. I am really pleased with this image as one of my finals, and it is one of my favourites. For this image I took inspiration from the digital artist, Griffsnuff. I detail this in my blog, which I will post a link to, after this sentence. (https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6973146728022153024#editor/target=post;postID=7712124889831276369;onPublishedMenu=posts;onClosedMenu=posts;postNum=6;src=postname)

This image, was my first made using adobe photoshop CC. It is a drawing of a west highland terrier dog, that I know. I took a photo of the doge, and worked from that, I wanted to bring an element of cartoon style, into the piece, as you can see with the thick and bold lines. Again, I am really happy with this piece, and I am pleased it is one of my finals. I again, like my first image, took inspiration from the artist griffsnuff (Bold lines, colour, cartoon visual look). However, I also took elements from a few other research artists, such as Julia Kay (In terms of her style of mark making, using lines). I will post a link to my research on Julia Kay after this sentence. (https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6973146728022153024#editor/target=post;postID=1797631174131317973;onPublishedMenu=allposts;onClosedMenu=allposts;postNum=1;src=postname)

This digital image, that i created, is my favourite digital image that I have made. I sketched out a tree in photoshop, that I sketched during reportage, and then took a photo of a leaf. After drawing the tree fully, I added the photo leaves, after cutting and pasting them into the correct position. The white leaves, are of leaf prints, where i applied in the the underside of a leaf, then put it through the press. I love the style, as I tried to bring an element of print/house style into the piece. It looks like you would easily find a print like this, on a cushion, or a sheet. I took inspiration from my autumn tree reportage sketch. At first I did not take much inspiration from any of the digital artists that I researched, however, after my 'accident' with the fill tool, I have come to the conclusion that this final piece reminds me of some of the work that Ellie York Brooks creates, with her scratchy style. The branches resemble the 'scratchy' style, that can be seen in one of her images below). I will post a link to a blog, about the research on Ellie York Brooks. (https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6973146728022153024#editor/target=post;postID=8859920167851396361;onPublishedMenu=allposts;onClosedMenu=allposts;postNum=14;src=postname)

My fourth final piece, is based on a sketch from the people and characters project, where two circus performers came in, and allowed us to draw them while working. Loads of interesting colours, and movements were involved on that day, and I tried to use vivid colours, to capture the circus element. This image, replaced my existing fourth image, as I wasn't happy with how that one turned out. For this illustration, I used a photo that I took during a live session, as my main influence, however, I took into account some elements of my artist research, for example, James Jean's work features a high level of colour, I tried to add a lot of colour in this particular piece, this can be shown in the character's vibrant jacket. I think it resembles his visual style, but only in terms of colour. Here is a link to my research on James Jean, who I gained the colour inspiration from, as well as the use of thin line art. (https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6973146728022153024#editor/target=post;postID=1668301693177425369;onPublishedMenu=allposts;onClosedMenu=allposts;postNum=5;src=postname)

I really enjoyed this unit, and I will be using digital again, in the future.

Thomas.

Final Piece #5 (Step by Step)

For my 5th final piece (to replace my 4th) I have created a digital piece, of a character. This particular character was one of the entertainers, who came in for us to sketch during the people and character unit.

For this illustration, I used a photo that I took during a live session, as my main influence, however, I took into account some elements of my artist research, for example, James Jean's work features a high level of colour, I tried to add a lot of colour in this particular piece, this can be shown in the character's vibrant jacket. I think it resembles his visual style, but only in terms of colour.

I also notably took inspiration from the artist Greg Guillemin. I took some inspiration though his 'flat' visual 2d style in the sample artwork that I placed in his research. You can find the link to his research here. 

I placed the existing pencil illustration, that I sketched of two characters who came in to perform a circus act.

I then sketched the outline, of the image using a 5pt brush, to transfer it digitally into photoshop, so I could work with it.

Still outline sketching, more progressed.

Ditto.

After filling in basic colour, I noticed the proportions were wrong, so I added to the left side of his face, and erased the mouth to start again.

With mouth re-added in to the piece.

Vivid colour added to the jacket.

Detail added to the chair, using rough, brown brush strokes. I also filed in the colour on his trousers.

I completed the colours on the hat, and finished his left hand.

I added some shading, to the body, and the hat.

Added extra detail to the trousers, and some shading to the nose.

I edited the left side of his head, and added some extra detail to the collar. The image is now complete.

Michael Oswald

Michael Oswald is an American digital manipulation artist, who uses such software packages as adobe photoshop, and also incorporates Artrage, and 3D max. He is generally inspired by real life. He started using photoshop in 1998, whilst sitting in the back of a mechanical crafting class.

Interestingly he uses a mouse, more than he uses a graphics tablet, as he claims his style is more technical. He can create beautiful pieces of artwork, in the span of 2-4 days, sometimes he can spend only one day on certain pieces. Something which I find very highly impressive. He also has his own store, where he sells his work for high prices, the average price of one of his prints, is around the $500 mark.

http://www.bymichaelo.com/amalgamate3.htm < image reference at this link.

He likes such digital artists such as Anry Nemo, Craig Mullins and Chuck Close.

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http://www.bymichaelo.com/index.htm < A link to his main site.

http://www.bymichaelo.com/process2.htm < A link to some of his online FAQ's, as well as some before and after examples of his artwork. This very interesting, as it is similar to what I have been doing over the past 3 weeks, in digital manipulation. It's helpful to see other artists processes, in their work style.

https://www.facebook.com/MichaelOart#!/MichaelOart




Thomas.

Alberto Seveso

http://burdu976.com/

Alberto Seveso, is a graphic artist and illustrator, who works freelance from his hometown of Portoscuso, Italy. He was born in Milan, Italy in 1976. His passion for graphic art, began at an early age, he began to seriously enter the art world, at the beginning of the 1990's.

http://burdu976.com/?portfolio=adobe-photoshop-cs6-extended < image reference at this link.

He claims on his site, that his passion for graphic arts began in these years (90's), due to his fascination with album covers on tapes and CD's of metal bands. He said that he started to think of how this artwork could be reproduced.

He had a Commodore Vic20, as his personal computer in the 90's, and he used this to make early artwork.

He does collaborations with other artists, and uses CS6, to produce some of his extreme work.



Thomas.

James Jean

James Jean is an traditional illustrator, who creates digital work. He can be part of my other research, for example, he could fit in the people and characters blog as well as this one. He was born in Taipei, Taiwan in 1979. He is a very famous artist who is well known for his professional commercial work, and also his gallery work. He received a B.F.A at the School of Visual Arts in new York City, USA and has participated in many exhibitions, some of the solo exhibitions that he has partaken in, are as follows below.

2009: Kindling, Jonathan Levine Gallery, New York City.
2011: Rebus, Martha Otero Gallery, Los Angeles in California.
2013: Parallel Lines, Jack Titon Gallery

He is known mostly in America, because of his digital work, creating covers for DC Comics, (see last image below). Note his use of line, and colour.

http://karmajello.com/culture/art/james-jean-psychedelic-art-gallery.html < Image reference here at this link.

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhApE6KLsaxznTZtOOyc8Ck8sHlnY-Y2I0OhTTyREJ2MJSiEF6Au1KwIaqg3geXDTvnJW4Vbv9brZTVenBYcsHcXcfzlPqI2wghvNDTDQNP6fewvz3uy30q6ID4RgZpwZcX5j5Pr6V3sTbU/s1600/B31BC6_thumb.JPG

The illustration above shows off his wide uses, of vivid colour.

http://karmajello.com/culture/art/james-jean-psychedelic-art-gallery.html < Image reference here at this link.

The image above is an example of his digital work, for DC Comics. I really like the comic style, so naturally this is something that interests me.

I used some elements of James's work, as part of one of my final pieces. I took his usage of colour, as well as his usage of thin line art, and used it to my advantage.



Links:

http://www.jamesjean.com

http://www.jamesjean.com/work/ < Link to his extensive gallery.



Thomas.

Stanley Lau (Artgerm)

http://artgerm.deviantart.com/ < His page on deviant art.

https://www.facebook.com/Stanleyartgermlau < His facebook page.

Stanley Lau (otherwise known as Artgerm) is a professional very talented, digital artist, illustrator, concept artist and and creative director from Singapore. He uses photoshop, and his digital graphics tablet to produce finely detailed, and colourful artwork.

http://artgerm.deviantart.com/art/A-Sword-without-a-Sheath-414344702 < Image reference at this link.

He is also the co-founder of Imaginary Friends Studio, which is a very big, and critically acclaimed digital art studio, that produces work for such big companies as DC Comics, and Square Enix. He was also recently contracted by the games company Capcom, to create new artwork for the upcoming Street Fighter game.

I really like the ultra realistic style that he works in, and goes to show that digital artwork takes a lot of practise, and precision, in order to produce very highly detailed work.



Thomas.

Ferdi Rizkiyanto (pepey)

http://pepey.deviantart.com/

http://ferdi-rizkiyanto.blogspot.com/ < A link to his blog.

Ferdi Rizkiyanto is an artist, that I came across on the website deviantart. He is a digital manipulation artist from Jakarta, Indonesia. He creates a lot of environmental art, something which I personally find appealing.

I have sent this artist a list of questions, that I will place here, if he answers.

Update:

He never replied to my list of questions, so sadly, I cannot place any answers here.

http://pepey.deviantart.com/art/what-lies-under-212851140 < Image reference here at this link.

Digital Tester #8

Tried my hand at sketching something using photoshop cc, in my personal time. Thought i'd include it as part of my digital trial work.

Most of my digital testers that I have created in this unit, are just me practising how I can create my finals in the digital medium. I found through practise, it made me feel more confident about creating and developing the 4 digital final pieces.

Thomas.

Digital Tester #7

For this digital tester, I tried creating a cartoon animal, so this can tie in with my animal unit from before. For this tester, I have taken inspiration from the artist, Griffsnuff (Tina Alfredsen) who creates work in this particular style. (http://griffsnuff.deviantart.com/). You can also find my blog research on her, here > https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6973146728022153024#editor/target=post;postID=7712124889831276369;onPublishedMenu=posts;onClosedMenu=posts;postNum=6;src=postname

I initially sketched out a wolf outline drawing on paper.

I then imported it, and then went over it in photoshop with a brush.

The line art was at this stage, almost complete.

Zooming in to create smooth, precise and fine strokes with the brush.

Simple colours added, with basic shading as you can see on the background legs. I simply used a darker shade of grey to create this illusion.

Inclusion of a green background, to allow the image on top to stand out. I also began adding different tones of grey, to indicate lighting.

Zoomed out, you can see the full view of the image now with lighting.

I added the eye detail, which helps make the image look more complete.

Smoothed out the shading.

As complete, with more levels of grey tone, and further smoothing out.

Nastplas

"Nastplas" (comprising of Fran R. Learte, who is an illustrator, and Natalia Molinos, who is the creative director) are a skilled creative collaborative duo. Together, they form what they both refer to, as the "Nastplas team".

http://www.nastplas.com/index.html < image reference at this link.

Fran Learte was born in Spain, in the year of 1979, he graduated from the academy of fine arts in Salamanca, during 1998.

Some of their clients include Coca-Cola, ICON, IDN, Airtran Airways, Foneclay and Urbankaos.

As a collaborative effort, the team's work has been published in a large list of magazines, such as the following for example.

• Advanced Photoshop Mag
• Lexus Magazine
• Bak Magazine
• TDA Magazine
• ICON Magazine

http://www.nastplas.com/index.html < A link to their great online gallery.

Mike Harrison

http://www.destill.net/profile.html

Mike Harrison is a multi disciplinary illustrator and designer, who is based in the city of London, UK.
His portfolio features a wide variety of different mediums. He is known worldwide as an illustrator, and during the time that he practised as a freelance illustrator, he worked for big companies such as Nike, Atlantic Records, ESPN, Sports magazine, Fotolia and Newpage. He has had some of his work, published in a variety of published books.

http://www.destill.net/fotolia_ten.html < An example of his digital art, Image reference here at this link to the left.

He states that he is personally inspired by the changing environment of design. He is a member of the International Modern Art Collective Depthcore, and also a member of Keystone Design Union.



Thomas.

Ahmed Mounir

Ahmed Mounir, is a typographist and digital artist from Egypt, who makes patterns in his spare time.

You can see within his artwork, that he loves to create pixel art. He claims that his style comes from old vintage games, and that his work features a combination of arabic text, and pixel artwork.

He was a freelance artist between the years of 2008-2012. As of now he has his own studio, called the Nayzak studio.

http://www.africandigitalart.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/ahmedmounir9.png < <Image reference at this link.

Links to some of his various sites below, this is also where I got most of my reference from:
http://www.behance.net/AhmedMounir

• http://ivan89.tumblr.com/

• http://eg.linkedin.com/in/ahmedmounir

• https://twitter.com/ivanizm

• http://www.africandigitalart.com/2013/09/pixel-art-and-design-by-egyptian-designer-ahmed-mounir/

Jason Seiler

http://www.jasonseilerillustration.blogspot.co.uk/

http://jasonseiler.com/about/

http://jasonseiler.com/portfolio/character-design/warriorgnome/#main < Image reference.

Jason Seiler is an illustrator who lives in Toronto. He specialises in creating caricatures, portraits, and comedic illustration.
He also teaches in caricatures. He started out in an unusual way for an illustrator to be noticed, getting into trouble drawing his history teacher, as a caricature in high school. He first became noticed by his principal at the time, who hired him to draw caricatures of various faculty members. He went on to study fine art illustration at the American Academy of art in Chicago, after this.

http://jasonseiler.com/portfolio/caricatures/golfdigest_monroe_dimaggio_hemingway-2/#main < Image reference.

He has published two books on his artwork, featuring many humorous images from his illustrations. he has also published an instructional DVD, called sketching with Jason Seiler.

Some of his many clients, include TIME magazine, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and MAD Magazine, New Line Cinema. He uses a lot of digital manipulation in his varied artwork, especially with his caricature work. (See images)

He is a member of the society of illustrators in New York City. He also has been an art instructor for a few years.

Interestingly, his digital artwork resembles that of caricature art. I have enjoyed researching this artist, but I do not wish to take influence from him, as I don't want to go down the route of this style. I will say though, that he is an incredibly talented artist, nonetheless. 

Thomas.

Ellie York Brooks

http://www.digitalartistdaily.com/user/t3kmorris

Ellie York Brooks is a fantastic digital manipulation artist, who creates traditional work, as well as some digital work, made in the style of traditional based materials, such as if she used pastels, and paints. I have noticed in some of her work, that she uses a lot of 'sketchy' lines, to create rough shapes. She also allows the background in her pieces to show through this. I love this art style, and I think I might take some inspiration from Ellie, and bring this into one of my final pieces.

http://www.digitalartistdaily.com/image/17857/discover < (image reference)

http://www.digitalartistdaily.com/image/17881/rock_bottom < image reference at this link.

http://www.digitalartistdaily.com/image/17869/looking_glass (image reference)

The three photos above, are digital manipulation pieces. The lower one being a manipulation of a photograph. I love the techniques that she uses. I like how the third image, has the illusion of the colours blending, and bleeding into each other.

I created this digital tester piece above, mimicking the rough, colourful style of Ellie York Brooks. It has very similar themes to the first image of Ellie's work, in terms of line use, background, and colour.






Thomas.

Final Pieces Theme

For my four digital final pieces, I have decided to base them under a natural theme, that I mentioned earlier in draft form, at the start of the unit in blog number #1. The theme will be consisting of animals and plants. I have laid out a more refined plan here, of what to do with each.


-My first piece will be of a Gecko. (Sketchbook)

I aim to create something along the lines of this illustration, a digital leopard gecko. This is a perfect example by an artist I came across after browsing several images.

http://fc05.deviantart.net/fs71/i/2013/022/6/9/leopard_gecko_tf_7__commission__by_narubi2-d5scc1g.jpg < image reference at this link.

This image is a piece, by an artist called Narubi. Here is a link to his website > http://narubi2.deviantart.com/

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-My second piece will be of a Dog, that I developed through testers 2,6,8,9. (Photoshop)

http://www.deviantart.com/art/Westie-101620647 < image reference at this link.

http://www.deviantart.com/?q=westie+dog+digital+art < image reference at this link.

I will like to take inspiration from such artists as griffsnuff (Tina Alfredsan) and Julia Kay.

-My third will be of a tree, that I drew during the reportage project. I will use a print in this piece. (Photoshop)

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-3MyuObR0xpc/UA2zhuVOhTI/AAAAAAAAA2o/KYx_S4Jb_yg/s1600/progress2.jpg

-My Fourth will be of flowers, that I also sketched out during the reportage unit. (Photoshop)*

http://ih2.redbubble.net/image.8620887.4445/flat,550x550,075,f.jpg

*Update: My 4th idea has been changed, to that of a human figure, that I sketched during the people and characters unit. I changed this, because I did not feel it would have turned out to be a strong illustration.

To replace my 4th idea of using flowers, I will find an existing example of a similar piece, that I have in mind.


I will be using 2 programs, one will be Sketchbook, and the other Photoshop CC. I figured this would be good, experimenting with two different programs, with different features and brushes.

Zutto

http://zuttoworld.com

Zutto is a self taught, freelance digital illustrator, print designer and character designer from Moscow, Russia, with a diploma in interior design. She creates very colourful, and vivid pieces of such things as fantasy characters.
She uses adobe photoshop, and Illustrator, as well as a wacom intuos to produce her interesting work.

http://zuttoworld.com < Image reference link here.

I personally love her style of working, something which I will try to take some inspiration from. (For example with the use of bright colours).

http://www.behance.net/orange_zutto < Reference also from this link, to her Behance webpage.

http://vector.tutsplus.com/articles/interviews/interview-with-zutto/ < This site includes a great interview with Zutto.