Self portrait

I know I am always late on the challenges, but here is my stab at self portrait.

Cinemagraph

Take a gander!

My first shot at cinemagraphing.  (My sis and her baby were the models ^_^)  All the stuff I thought would be hard (looping, matting) was actually pretty easy!  The part I'm struggling with is getting the gif to look nice, without being grainy.  I have no idea how that site does it...

Tilt-Shift

These pictures were NOT taken with a tilt-shift lens.  I found a recipe in Photoshop that works pretty well.

Levitation Photography

Just experimenting.  I feel we have the technique right, just not the right setting.  I'll keep practicing.

Self Portrait, sort of...

So a crossover from last challenge to this one, a photo self portrait.  I think there are some more creative things you could do, so maybe I will experiment more later, but thought this would be a good start.  Have to give Joe Fowler credit for snapping the photo, I unfortunately do not have a pair of superfluous limbs that could operate a camera while I held a camera.  

Previous Challenge - July / August

This month’s challenge “The Necessary Narcissist”! Self-portraits have become a way of life with the plethora of social sites, portfolios and online profiles etc. Lets get creative with them. Create a self-portrait that is a representation and creative expression of you. You can take photos, illustrate, graphic design or sculpt, whatever you want to create a “self portrait”.Just be arrogantly creative.

Something fishy

I am taking an illustration class this fall, Pima Community baby. Anyhow, here is my first illustration. It's a little wacky as per the assignment, but whatev. As embarrassed as I am to admit this, this is the first time that I have ever attempted painting entirely in Photoshop. (OK confession, I did draw the fish by hand with a pencil, but everything else is photoshop)

Creative Collaboration

My son just started school and so we got him a notebook. In it he's filled almost all the pages with drawings of his favorite superheroes. He's inspired me to make this collection of cool color combinations for Superman. Most of them he colored some of them I colored, like the one with blue and yellow. I never knew that Superman would look good with black yellow and red. Some of the green ones were mixes of two or more of his colors. Tons of fun!

A real quick self portrait

I based this one on my facebook profile pic.  Have more ideas to explore, this was just what I did while rendering scenes in AFX.

You all can draw better than this

So I took a picture of myself and drew. Then I colored the eyes and added some shading on the upper lip in Photoshop. Yep, I need to practice.

an old Self Portrait

Hey, to get any thoughts going, I wanted to post this old illustration I did.  It was a remake of project my high school art teacher would make us do.  We created a profile outline, and then filled it in using art to represent who we were.  So this shows one way you can vary the concept of a self portrait.  I still plan to post other self portraits, since this is a project from the past.  

May 2011 challenge

The challenge for the month of May is to destroy the abomination above me. WE NEED LOGOS, and they need to be cool as cuss. Come up with any way to portray the title of "The Creative Think Machine", whether it be graphic design, illustration, photography, sculptures out of found objects, there is no limit to creativity. Banner sizes can vary, so just make something longish. Also, you can create a PNG with transparency. Peace out, and create on!

P.S. Feel free to explore themes or design a background image that would go with your design. Preferably seamless in repetition. It might be fun to change the blog up every few months or so. Also, you can explore CTM as a logo option.

a few more logos

I went with the idea of eradicating any sort of pre-conceived ideas from our minds.  In essence, that is creativity.  Creating something out of nothing.  So that is where the head explosion came from.  Then I evolved a font gun, but then I was thinking about the saying "think out of the box" and I thought well, why does it even have to be a box to begin with?  Which gave me the idea of the exploding box.  The logos are still kind of rough, and could stand a good beating of feedback, but I had fun creating them.

my first logo!

okay, this is one of the directions I tried for a logo.  Super simple, but rather fascinating how many tries and versions it took to get to something so simple.  I have some other logo ideas in the works and will post them soon.

Tron_lEGGacy

Tron + cartoon = this

Let's get BIBLICAL!

I was watching a video of David and Goliath and was motivated to come up with this. I didn't draw his shield or his javelin. I guess that he was a Sherman tank!

Tree Studies

I need to understand trees better.  So I did a couple quick sketches.  I learned that trees are a funky balance between random and flowing, sporadic and elegant.  They have a general flowing gesture, but use really random paths to get there, with the often random change of course of the flowing gesture.  If you make your trees too flowing, they become more stylized "feeling" of a tree.  if you go completely random, it looks like lightening, or scribbles.  Trees are balance.

I found the aspen tress rather simple and easy to capture the gestures.  But after all, black and white trees look pretty good in black and white.  But the other tree was a bit more of a challenge.  The texture is so intense when you get down and analyze it.  The only way to approach it is to create strokes the mimic the texture.  (I wonder if there are tree bark brushes for photoshop?)  Same with the leaves.  No way you can draw each and every one of them.  So I am a bit fascinated with techniques to draw trees and make them look good.  Any tips or ideas would be appreciated.

I suck at drawing.

Okay, I did some drawings the other day, and was frustrated at how unskilled I felt.  So I decided I need to renew my sketching, and focus on sketching less from the mind, and start sketching from life.  I have wandered too far from reality, and my drawings suck because of it.  I need to draw cars, plants trees, buildings, etc, things I see in real life, so I better understand their nature.  

My first step was to study facial expressions, and I have a book full of facial expressions, so I did some drawings from that.  I tried some really quick as well as some longer studies.  It was very helpful, because I start to realize everything that goes into a facial expression.  Most notably this time around I was noticing how much the nose changes shape with each expression, and how important the muscle at the bottom of they eye is in conveying expression.  

Inspired by superman to start the new year, I am rededicating myself this year to making my drawings a lot better.  (also to finishing the graphics to this blog)

Super New Year

Hoping everyone will have a super 2011!
(Now if only Superman would crush coal into diamonds and give them to me, then that would be super)