Final Exam - Final Portfolio

Holy Crap.....65% of our grade riding on 4 pieces of work....where to begin.
Well, I felt like this portfolio was much harder to choose for than the last.  Not because we had to only choose 4 works - but because we had to choose 4 works from a much smaller selection of material.  Also, because I felt that the mediums that I used this last half of the semester were much more limited.  Earlier on, there was more required (and projects that worked better with) watercolor and drawing.  This half, I focused on mainly my digital technique.

The first piece that I knew would be in the portfolio was my Society of Illustrators.  I was able to reprint it without the color mix up and largely love this assignment because of the scale and also because of the open concept.  I feel that this work is a great display of how I can use the computer as a digital painting tool.  I labored over this on my other dying computer for days and hours.  I feel like after a lot of trial and error, I finally painted a lighting effect that would mimic an underwater glow.   I gained a lot more experience with the technique I used.  I normally am not able to paint such large-scale finished works because of the time involved.  Despite all the time spent on this, I only came to realize how much more I could do with double or triple that time (and a faster computer to run SAI on).

My second choice was my World Record work.  I spent a comparable amount of time on this graphic to get a clean-looking vector with a lot of detail.  I learned a lot about using transparent layers of color to build up a graphic or to change other colors beneath it.  Although the face doesn't quite show, I learned a lot about creating one with illustrator without a reference to look at, which helped with my later vectors.

 

Third, I chose my Native American illustration and fixed it so that the typography lacked the previous mistakes that were pointed out.  I really appreciate this poster mainly because of the detailed graphite drawing that I worked on.  Even alone, I think it is quite a good-looking illustration.  For the poster as a whole, I am quite happy with the balance of the composition and juxtaposition of vectored text with a rustic drawing.

Finally, I am using my book cover as my final work.  I was able to take the vectoring skills I used in the World Record and create a detailed finished work much more quickly than before.  The concept is solid to me and definitely illustrates a main conflict in the book.  

Illustration was a blast to be in and be a part of.  I'm actually sad that it is ending, and would have liked more projects that forced me to go back to watercolor or graphite drawing.  I learned a lot from my professor and from my classmates.  I'm definitely going to be using the illustration room for personal works in the future though.  It's a great space to work in.  The only frustrations that I have had is not ever really knowing what specifically to target or what previous works of mine were "worth."  Critiques offered ambiguous, but helpful criticism that only confused me more.  If I knew much earlier on what of mine was good and bad, and what specifically distinguished that...I feel that my work could have changed for the better even more.  It's crazy to only have one set of grades to go on....  Rusty, what do you want!  xP  Guess I'll have to find out in Viz II next semester....  Same time and place....maybe it will really feel like Illustration still hasn't ended.  :)

Blog Blog Blog

Well well well.....before the Final Review post that I would like to write, I need to make sure to post what I was able to do in Illustration since the Society of Illustrators poster.

We finished the Native American Heritage Month posters and I was able to turn the following in.  It was a big challenge to try and make sure it was only 2 pantone colors, but I managed after wrestling with it for a while.  I really liked the finished piece because I haven't had time to do some nice graphite drawing in a while.  I love watercolor, but I just can't wait until Drawing 3.  The typography was done hastily though since I had trouble with coloring and Rusty made sure to point it out in class.  Sorry....I will never make that mistake again!  xD

Next was the lovely classical album artwork.  I had trouble thinking of an idea for this one but found a funny punny thing about Beethoven, Brahms, and Bach being known as "the 3 Bs".....so naturally I envisioned them as bees....that was my first idea.  I looked forward to it, but Rusty suggested I pick something else.  I ended up picking Ballerinas......with some encouragement from classmates.  This was an extremely busy time of the year for me so it took a long time for me before I was able to finish it.  However, I really like the end result.  I painted the ballerinas and background, and just pasted on the heads and did the typography in PS.  We had to have 3 sizes printed....so much foam core.....all gone!

After that, we had the World Record illust.  I originally conceived drawing a guy furiously head-chopping watermelons, but that was deemed too literall.  After weeks of thinking, I found one that would be fun to illustrate.  I chose the World's Highest Bunny Hop...which only ends up being like 4 ft, or something.....but I'd rather exaggerate.  I chose to vector it so that I could do it quickly....of course....I spent more time than I meant and was glad to finally realize I DID have more time!   I am proud of the detail it has.  I even spent 4-5 hours on the face, but ended up thinking it looked wierd and covered it with sunglasses.....The early printouts in AI and ID, however, had a lot of problems, so I had to drop it into Photoshop and flatten it to finally get it to print out right.

IDK maybe I should have kept the face.....it's good....but he seems.....too happy & not "cool" enough.....not sure.
Without sunglasses:

Finally, we had to do classic Book Covers!  Hooray, I had a really great idea for this and felt like I executed it really well.  I chose the Great Gatsby, and after the success with my world record vector, I chose to vector the cover as well.  It ended up with just enough detail and was able to finally utilize transparency and the Color Editor in AI to edit large groups of colors.  Here, we have Gatsby and Daisy holding hands behind Tom's (Daisy's husband's) back.  Once again, we needed 3 sizes.

Huh.....what have I done since Midterm...

Oh yeah....thought the first was Life & Death, but it was actually # 5 I believe...  Yikes...I don't have those files transferred to this computer yet though...have to do that later!

AH WAIT...found it on my flashdrive...the final at least.  I'll put the comp up later.

What else for #5?  5 dollar footlongs, of course....did most of this at home during midterm break on my kitchen island.  Did the rays and some color punching after Rusty saw it for the first time.  Printed it so fast I forgot to do any ps editing and the printout looked horrible....

Life & Death Comps.

I was very fond of the cat one and the video game hearts.  The other one was done sloppily and because I had no other ideas...something of how the best of life is the little moments when drinking hot tea or sitting outside at night or warm laundry, etc....and the worst of life....the death of me is being incredibly busy and having all these appointments and things to do and no free/down time to appreciate those little things I love.  Kind of ironic since I over schedule and overstretch myself and my time anyway.  Something's wrong with that...

The hearts would have been easier and quicker to produce, and I also like the minimalistic qualities it has.  However, I was more humored by (and Rusty also liked) the Schrodinger one.  It's comp was approved and I went on to the final.  With his advice, I did the 2 works separately but similarly and saved lineart for photoshop.

Did 2 versions with gouache + watercolor and it turned out looking like crap.  Scrapped those upon Rusty's advice and did two more in just watercolor which turned out looking enormously better.  Very happy with them.  I had also just bought some cheap glossy paper which actually looks great and makes my printouts look amazing as well!  Very happy.

Then there was Society of Illustrators, which was basically a do-whatever-the-hell-you-want (awesome!) project.  Did a bunch of sketches for this....

 

 

 

 

Rusty approved the snorkeling one so I comped it quickly...

 

 

Used Sai on my PC for the final one.  Wanted to work with it more but my PC kept freezing and SAI kept bitching and etc.  Still spent a good 10-20 hours on it.  Here's some of the process pics....

 

Color-edited finished with lighting stuff....when I printed it, the dark shading on the lower horizontal half of the girl unfortunately got really bright and looked strange to me, which was strange since it had no weird layer overlays and it was on the same layer as other elements that printed correctly. Meh....the rest of it looked really nice at 16 x 20 inches though!

I just really wanted to do an underwater scene I guess.  2 of my sketches dealt with underwater scenes.   Made sure to look at a lot of underwater references but I still could have made it more realistic...  And wanted to be able to do something really detailed.  It's easier to do a lot of little detail digitally than in a traditional form.

Here's my unedited native american comp for the poster.  Working on the final and will post the approved comp later.

Midterm Portfolio

3 Traditional Line art Illustrations
These were my personal favorite examples of line art only - They were fun to draw and have a great level of detail and a pleasing composition to me.  The lines are largely organic and quite gestural.  In all of my artwork, I like to have, or at least tend to have, mostly gestural lines.

2 Watercolor Illustrations

My favorite watercolors so far have also been my largest.  My two 20 x 30 watercolors are the pieces this semester that I have spent the most time on and because of the scale, were able to include a large level of detail.  I spent 30-40 minutes on the lucy for each and the sketches were as pretty to look at as the watercolors.  By this time I was able to use my nicer watercolors which led to a better finished product.  I think that these are also great examples of using tonal variation and different hues to create shapes and implied lines and forms - rather than implying on line to ground a figure or use it to be able to distinguish it.  This, in my opinion, leads to a more believable representation.

3 Traditional Line and Color

Although I believe I have had many good examples of using line and color, I like these three the most because of the simplicity of the watercolor washes and then using the ink line to really ground the form into place.  It is what gives structure to the figures while the watercolor helps to add an interesting visual effect.  I like watercolor and line best this way.  Imperfections are best with wash and line.

1 Gouache Illustration

Although we have only done two gouache illustrations so far, I haven't been AS happy with them as I have with my watercolor works.  I think I will like it if I try to do more of the matte medium lifting technique, but out of the two works, I like my lincoln the most.  It actually is a gouache/watercolor combo but primarily relies on gouache.  I did use the matte medium technique on the background which let the gouache & watercolor mix flow so much more to create a more interesting texture.

1 Digital Line Art

Definitely my puppies.  Spent the most time on this illustration and the line weights really intrigue me.  Also, Rusty, you liked this well enough to put on the blog so that must mean something is good about it.  :)

Digital Line Art & Color (lion) PLUS 1 My Choice (self portrait)

Okay, these are both digital color and line art and I wanted to put them both to stress my proficiency at digital illustration.  I could have chosen my Herbal Essences Product Illust. but I thought I already included enough proficient watercolor.  The self portrait had me spend hours on my face and then scribble together the rest of the drawing.  However, the time I spent was well spent and I'm pleased with everything about it.  The lion is a better example of what I could do in 30-40 minutes and uses more lineart than my self portrait, so I chose it to represent the color/lineart example.

I'm very happy with what I have accomplished in only half a semester and can't wait to see what else will come out of this class!

Lincoln's a Badass

...and so I drew him as such.

I'm too lazy to blog about my past illness and I would like to honestly forget it as soon as possible so I won't do that.  Moving on and focusing on getting everything done.  I do feel that I'm up to date with illustration, however being sick seriously affected my study time and project time for art history, computer science, and digital graphics.

Gouache isn't all that bad if you mix it with watercolor...but I don't like how it's halfway between acrylic and watercolors.  I like acrylics.  I like watercolors.....can't stand halfway inbetween.  Not opaque and goopy enough to get messy with but not transparent and flowy enough to look like watercolor....maybe it also has to do with my cheapo 24-tubes-for-9-bucks set as well.  I bought watercolor tubes that were 9 bucks a tube and those things are like liquid gold.  I think most of my newer projects will continue to be in watercolor or digital illustration.

So here is my lincoln comp and final piece.  Pretty close!  :D  I'm glad I made the decision to add the purple bg wash in though.  I put matte medium down first and it really let the gouache flow.  That's got to be the only good thing about it.  I don't think I could do that with watercolor quite as well.

3 Image Montage

Busy now.  Focused on logo work....will write very lengthily later....

3 image gouache montage.   Gouache......we need to talk....

Unfotunate Events

So....I'm sick....I've known that for a long while.  But this morning was a totally new experience.  I got out of bed and nearly fainted.  Felt miserable...I can't tell if it's in my head or my chest yet, but I thankfully don't feel as bad.  I couldn't make my classes.  "Trying" to get ready was a joke and eventually I told my school-junkie self to send out emails and take care of myself for once.  I hate that I overwork myself all the time and expect too much of myself and it definitely doesn't help when I get sick.  I also hate the feeling of letting my professors or fellow club members down when I know they are depending on me to get stuff done.  I just feel so guilty and rotten. 

I was able to get some more sleep, then finally eat something and then pushed myself to go to my proficiency meeting.  I knew it would be hard to make up and since I knew it would be over quickly that it may be doable.  I made it in time but I totally was brain dead as soon as the professors started asking questions.  I must have looked so sloppy or high or sleepy...  But I have a feeling it went well.  I remember what happened and passed, which I wasn't worried about.  I thought the feedback was good and am proud that there was such a positive response to my work.  Now the only problem will be taking the work down....

As for illustration, I am SO HAPPY I left my painting and print out on the wall last night.  I was unable to make it to class so I hope, Rusty, that you were able to pick them up or at least see them.  I am now super super worried that if you haven't collected them that they will get lost or stollen though.  *Scared*

I'm feeling well enough now to sit and do some vis comm hw but I hope hope hope it gets better from here on.  Being sick has got to be the worst thing in the world.  Makes you really appreciate that you basically have nothing and can do nothing in life without your health.

Note to self...

....take photos of / scan my lineart before painting.  The lineart always looks prettier...

9.28 Second 20x30

Whooohoo!  Posting before the due date today.  I'll be too lazy to blog later.

Anyway, another 20 x 30 - free subject matter, which I immensely enjoy and appreciate.  I just feel that if I had another hour or two I could have kicked this watercolor's ass a bit more....it's tough to be constrained by print monitors' schedules...

I used a -freetoreproduceaslongasitisntcommercial- photo by Hakan Photography, an image I had saved to my DevArt favorites.  Wonderful and colorful fashion photo!  Fun to paint as well...just wish I had more time with the face...

{http://hakanphotography.deviantart.com/art/Village-Roadshow-2-163281879}

9.26 Digital Color & Product Illustrations

Okay....5 color digital illustrations.  Very excited about these.  Spent hours and hours on the first three....the jumping guy & lamp....like....5 minutes each.  Hahaha.  Oh well, I think the first three are strong enough to not need the other two.

Also, product illustrations!  I like how mine came out.  I did my bottle of Herbal Essences that I had in my bathroom.  didn't want a flat line to show how much was left, so I tilted the bottle a bit to get the curve before I shot my photo.  Had to print and mount it as well....ugh.  I did like how much better it looked when it was printed though...