Commissioned Stylized Caricatures

"The Bad-Joke Guys"

    A friend commissioned me to illustrate his idea of him and his two buddies, all in Christian ministry coming from different walks of life.

    I should have made this a vector illustration in Illustrator instead of a bitmap illustration in Photoshop with a Wacom.  Fixing mistakes or making changes took forever.  I used the Brush tool for most of the project.  I used the default black foreground and white background; I drew with the black, then pressed x to 'erase' with white.

    I used the Pen Tool to create the patches on the vest:

1. In the Brush Tool options, I set the Brush Master Diameter to two points
2. I used the Pen Tool to draw a path in the shape of the patch on the vest.
3. I right-clicked over the path to bring up the Stroke Path option
4. Clicking the Stroke Path option brings up the Stroke Path / Tool: option dropdown menu
5. From the dropdown menu, I selected Brush, and a 2 point brush line stroked the path

    I made the chains on the front of the vest in Illustrator with the Art Brush tool.  I imported the chains into Photoshop as Smart Objects, so I could resize them without losing resolution.  I made the background in Illustrator also.

    My friend liked the finished product.  He surprised his buddies with copies for each of them, and they liked it also.

Dreamcatcher Creatures

Dreamcatcher

    A co-worker commissioned me to Illustrate her dreamcatcher concept, incorporating different creatures she came to appreciate while studying biology. She wanted something like the minimalist bird and seahorse illustrations I’ve done. I didn't know how challenging this would turn out, but we both liked the results.

    She requested certain creatures: an eagle ray, a spotted salamander, a crane, a caddisfly or dragonfly (my choice), a rainbow trout, and a fathead minnow. For the dangling items, she suggested snail shells, shark teeth, and pinecones. I added feathers also since dreamcatchers usually feature those.

Caddisfly

Crane

Eagle Ray

Fathead Minnow

    Pattern Swatch: I created the eagle ray's dots, dots on the feathers hanging from the bottom, and the fathead minnow's scales with Pattern Swatches. The art you create will tile infinitely inside the shape you assign it to.

The dot pattern: Create a white dot on a black square then follow steps 4-5.  Take note of item 3.1.
The X pattern: See the diagram below, which shows how to create a seamless tiling pattern.

1. Create a square with no fill or border that the X will fit into
2. Create long, thin rectangles with pointed ends, like a pencil sharpened on both ends
3. Rotate the rectangles 45 degrees. The points will go into the corners of the box
1. You’ll see a space where the corners or edges of the swatches don’t connect if you don’t get it right
4. Open the Swatches palette, and drag and drop the shapes onto an open space on the palette to create a new swatch
1. This action will create a little icon of your new swatch, which you'll see at the end of the other swatches in the Swatch palette
5. Create the shapes that will receive the pattern 
6. Select the shape and click on the dot swatch or the X swatch, which will apply the pattern to the selected shapes

    You can then move/rotate/reflect/scale/shear the pattern inside the shape, without affecting the actual shape, by selecting Transform Pattern Tiles in the General Preferences, or when you right-click > Transform > Move (or Rotate/Reflect/Scale/Shear) and select Patterns in the Object section.

The X Pattern

Rainbow Trout

    Art Brush: For the rainbow trout, I made the fins detail—the row of ovals—, with an Art Brush.

1. Create a black oval
2. Shift + Alt-drag to make a copy of the oval
3. Scale down the second oval
4. Select both ovals and use the Blend command, with "5" in the Specified Steps window, to make a row of seven ovals that go from big to small.

You can’t make a brush out of blended objects, so:

1. Use the Expand option to turn the blend into seven separate selectable ovals
2. Use the Group command to group the seven ovals together
3. In the Brushes palette, select New Brush, then Art Brush
4. In the Art Brush options, select which direction the brush should go in when you draw the line and select the Proportional option under Size.
5. The Brushes palette will display the new brush at the end of the other brushes

From there you can either use the actual Brush tool or the Pen tool. 

• Select the new art brush and make a line, or make a line and select the art brush
• The art should follow the path, which you can modify the line, but not the actual art

Spotted Salamander

    Scatter Brush: I used a Scatter Brush for the scales on the trout and white dots on the spotted salamander. 

1. I made a simple quarter-moon shape for the scales, and a plain white dot for the salamander markings
2. I selected New Brush and then chose Scatter Brush
1. With the Pen Tool or Brush Tool, draw a line and experiment with all the Scatter Brush options to find out what they do.
3. I drew a Scatter Brush line on either side of the creature
4. I made a copy of the creature's outline, placing it on top of the two Scatter Brush lines 
5. I selected the outline and the two Scatter Brush lines
6. then used the Mask command to "mask out" any of the Scatter Brush effects that fell outside the creature’s outline.
7. You can continue to adjust the Scatter Brush lines inside the mask, the Scatter Brush options, or the mask itself.

        For the dotted feathers hanging at the bottom, I lowered the opacity 50% to make them slightly see-through with the Transparency palette.

😃

Adventure Time-Inspired Caricatures

Adventure Time-Inspired Caricatures

      I had a lot of fun with these two illustrations, based on two co-workers and influenced by an overdose of 10 seasons of Adventure Time.  It doesn't take much to inspire me to create, just the right impetus.

     Adventure Time uses a lot of flat colors, and simplistic, abstract shapes.  They use lighter colors to represent lit sides of the forms, and darker colors to represent shaded sides, which gives the characters and objects some dimension.  The art style -- with minimalistic, wiener-limbed characters and primitive-looking, detailed backgrounds -- has an original, iconic, and instantly recognizable look.  I had to work within the parameters of the style so the viewer would recognize the style I drew the illustration in.

     I started off with Post-It© drawings of the two gentlemen I had in mind.  I had just watched the first guy's prog-rock trio, Flock of Walri, in concert at a local venue.  The band members all wear matching pink flamingo shirts.

Post-It© Drawing

    I photographed the drawing with my phone and Blue-Toothed it to my computer.  I realized my co-worker plays right-handed, so I had to horizontally flip the picture.

     I opened the drawing in Adobe Illustrator and traced the outlines with the Pen Tool.  I selected the outlines and used Pathfinder / Add to Shape Area to combine all the outlines into one shape.  Then I manipulated the nodes to finish off the shapes.

    I struggled to get the three-tone shading on the dreadlocks right.  I used dark, medium, and light shades of gray.  I kept the light source in front of the face, which helped me place the highlights and shadows.

     The black outline of the dreads took the most time.  I set the Keyboard Increment to something very small, like .001 inches (Preferences / General / Keyboard Increment) so I could move the nodes in small increments with the Arrow Keys.

     I used shapes with Transparency for the blue shadows on the shirt so the lines and flamingos showed through.

     Making the illustration look Adventure Time style proved the hard part.  

 Adobe Illustrator CS2

 Pink Flamingo

Post-It© Drawing

    It took me a while to get the forms and shading of the cliffs to look how I wanted, using just four colors and a handful of flat, abstract shapes.  I found the right kind of off-kilter balance the show masters so well only after a lot of node poking.

    The background: I wanted a warm desert background, so I made the sky yellow and the other objects with colors tinged with yellow.  I used less contrast between colors, and no dark colors, to create atmospheric perspective and make objects appear further in the distance.

    The foreground: the figure and guitar have darker colors, some black, and more contrast between colors.  I used cooler complementary blues and greens to separate the foreground from the warm background.  The complimentary colors, contrast, and darks help the objects in the foreground look closer to the viewer.

    I used a right-hand light source, with the sun out of the scene to the right.  The objects have shadowed areas on the left side, and cast shadows fall onto objects behind lit objects.  A hint of blue behind the cliffs represents reflected light.

    I had to do some thinking and reworking to make the cracks in the desert ground look right.  I made the crack in the foreground bigger, and the other two smaller as they recede in the distance, giving the impression of depth and perspective.  The middle crack sits closer to the rear crack instead of exactly in between the top and bottom cracks, adding to the illusion.

    I muffed the clouds in the illustration below, which I didn't realize until after I posted it.  Adventure Time has rounded clouds.  The clouds below look more like flat Chuck Jones-style clouds.

Adobe Illustrator CS2

 Peavey Cirrus

Bluejay, Charlie Harper, Exploring the Ruins

      I'm happy to feature my latest Adobe Illustrator CS2 illustration, inspired by master illustrator Charley Harper.  I found his book, "An Illustrated Life" by Todd Oldham, at a local Half-Price Book Store.  A several-page interview, then chock full of minimalistic, basic shape happiness. :)

"Charley Harper, an Illustrated Life" by Todd Oldham

Bluejay

     I started with a photograph I'd taken with my trusty Canon Rebel XTi.  The challenge came from wanting to stay true to the original photo, preserving shapes, colors, and details, while rendering everything in basic shapes.

Bluejay, Canon Rebel xTI

     The bold, simplistic shapes and coloring of the bluejay's head/face lent themselves to rendering in straight lines and simple curves.
     The colorful pattern on the bluejay's back went through a few iterations before I finally achieved the simplified, balanced symmetry.

At one point, still trying to simplify

     A vertical centerline runs from the left edge of the tail and through the middle of the body.  I centered the pattern--evenly-spaced triangles and arches--on the vertical centerline.
     All the up-and-down lines comprising the tail taper to the centerline at the top middle of the arch of the pattern.
     The tree limbs consist of repeating arches and "V"s.  The blue triangles and rectangle represent the sky.

     I kept the colors to a somewhat limited palette.

Recent Art

    I've added some new art and some revamped art.  I'm still attempting to capture a mid-century illustration feel, which has inspired me for many years.  It made a big comeback somewhere in the late '90s or early Y2K.  I just bought a big book about Charlie Harper and his art.  His amazing work back in the day inspires me to create art in the same vein.

    "Red Bird."  I used a limited number of minimal shapes while trying to retain the character and shapes of the bird.  I used a spattering airbrush texture to create the gritty effect seen where lights and shadows meet.  This adds some interest and creates a more traditional painted look.

Adobe Illustrator

Blue Whales and Neoplasticism

    I printed and hung my bird illustrations, then started thinking about what to create next.  I chose humpback whales since I haven't done many underwater creatures.  The whales have a distinctive look, with different shapes and textures I could play with.

A Couple New Illustrations

 A caricature of some friends we visited for Christmas.

A stylized mourning dove.

Anniversary Illustration

Eva and Shadow

     For an anniversary present for his wife, my friend commissioned me to illustrate a picture of his wife and their recently deceased kitty.  For reference he sent me a phone cam pic he just happened to catch when the moment happened.
     I opened the jpg in Adobe Photoshop, and YIKES!  Very small and pixelated! (He warned me of the pic quality ahead of time).  Pretty much a small, dark, fuzzy 72 ppi jpg.  I forget the original dimensions, but my friend had asked for an 8.5" x 11" illustration.  Using Photoshop's Image Size functions (Alt-Ctrl-i) I increased the dimensions as far as I could without losing too much detail so I could work on top of the photo.  I could only increase it to about 8" x 10".
     Since I would print the final result, I set the Image Mode to CMYK (Alt-i-m-c).
     Dark rooms and phone cam pics without a flash don't mix, and so the photo had muddy colors and hard-to-see details.  Adding new Adjustment Layers (Alt-l-a) I adjusted the Levels and Hue/Saturation until I had a brighter, clearer photo.
     I created four layers:
--a background layer which I filled with white (Alt-Delete fills the layer with the foreground color, Ctrl-Delete  fills the layer with the background color),
--the photo layer,
--a color layer I would use to paint under the inks,
--and the inks layer.
     The inks layer: switching between my Wacom Intuos 4 and the mouse, I went for a kind of pen and ink graphic design stylization that kind of comes naturally to me, .  Using lines, dots, simplified shapes, and some Franklin Booth-inspired hatching, I drew over the photo.  I made some of the contours more geometric, and worked to capture the essence of the details with minimal shapes and strokes.  With the white background layer I could make the photo layer invisible (clicking the eye graphic next to the photo layer in the Layer Window) to see just the ink layer and check my work.

Inks Layer

 

     Painting in the color layer underneath the inks layer, I used the Eyedropper tool to pick colors from the photo layer.  I continued rendering with geometric shapes.  I kept the curtains, pillow, and shirt colors flat to keep the focus on the cat and woman's face.

 Color Layer

Detail

 
     I printed the illustration at the local Fedex/Kinko's and sent it off so it would get to my friend in time for their anniversary.  Afterward they both told me they like it and will get it framed and hung as soon as possible. :)

Adobe Photoshop CS2

House Sparrow

     I captured a rather handsome house sparrow with my trusty dusty Canon Rebel XTi.  Opening the photo in Adobe Illustrator I originally aimed for a much more simplistic, cartoony bird to match other bird illustrations I've done...
Cardinal
Space
...however, this illustration grew into a contemporary retro piece.
     Sticking with simple shapes (circles, squares, lines, triangles) I decided to stay faithful to my feathered fellow's anatomy while rendering with minimal description.  Geometric, but finessed, and daintily detailed just enough to make my sparrow recognizable and interesting. :)
Adobe Illustrator CS2