Great Awakening Caricatures

I created these caricatures of Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield for a woman in my Bible study.  Edwards and Whitefield helped lead the 18th-century Great Awakening revival movement.

Most of the Jonathan Edwards reference pictures showed the same facial characteristics, making picking reference pictures easy.  Many of the George Whitefield pictures looked like different people.  I collected the most common depictions and hope I captured Whitefield's actual likeness.

I downloaded the free Inkscape vector illustration program a couple months ago.  Adobe won't re-authorize the programs I already own, and I don't want to rent my programs from the Cloud.  I have over 20 years of Adobe Illustrator ingrained in my head, and Inkscape shares almost nothing similar to Illustrator.  I'm getting it down though.  I created these in Inkscape.

1 Corinthians 10:31- So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.

Ephesians 5:14- ...Therefore it says, "Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.

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.

😃

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.

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.

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

fb Character Design page meme: The Jukeboxer

Adobe Illustrator CS2

Illustration Friday meme: Space!

 Songbird

Bluebird

I made sure to leave a lot of space around the birds so they'd stand out. :)
Just working with simple shapes and colors.  Ever see any of the Ed Emberley drawing books?  As a kid I loved how he could create anything from a horse to a pirate ship with just the simplest shapes. :D

Adobe Illustrator CS2

Community Passages Logo Part Deux

As it turns out, I won the company logo contest (WooHoo!).  My unit director decided to go in a different direction than my previous entry and showed me an example of what he had in mind.  I came up with these logos next and apparently I'd nailed his idea.
The top part represents a path, just a simplified abstract icon.  I created a couple dozen different shapes along the same lines and these two captured the correct "path" feel I'd wanted. :)
Adobe Illustrator CS2

Mutant Attack

Pencil, inked, scanned, Photoshop colored.  Background detail done in Illustrator.  Not my best, but I like the action, composition, and perspective. :)
Illustration Friday theme: Boundaries. This spacer's boundaries are about to be imposed upon by his mutated comrade.

Illustration Friday-- Mail

Adobe Illustrator CS2
Tried my best to just use simplified shapes and concentrate on design, color, and composition. :)

Illustration Friday-- Sneaky

Moroccan Mark/Adobe Illustrator
This man looks like he could be a little sneaky. :) Actually, this was a friend's Halloween costume, and inspired me enough to draw a caricature of him. :)

Big Boss Man

For Illustration Friday's Unbalanced. Usually the old man gets a little crazy around mid-week, but Nerble takes it in stride.
Adobe Illustrator CS2
Adobe Illustrator /PhotoshopWeathered version: I exported the Illustrator file as a tiff, then opened it in Photoshop. I opened a photo I'd taken of a cracked asphalt sidewalk, then dragged and dropped it onto my illustration. I blended the texture into the main illustration using the Multiply filter, then manipulated the transparency until the illustration still dominated but the texture showed through just enough.
I changed the background into a layer, then added a layer underneath the illustration layer, and turned the color to brown. I erased some of the illustration layer to let the brown background show through. Then I created some additional distress drawing cracks, highlights and shadows the Dodge and Burn tools. :)

Anniversary Card

Here's the front of the anniversary card I made for my wife. It's 3D Max. :)

Final Approved Blaze Logo

T-shirt front and back designs.

Mock-up of t-shirt application:
Adobe Illustrator CS2

Freelance t-shirt designs

Here are a few ideas I put together for a t-shirt for our church.

Close-up of t-shirt back design
There's a big sign out in front of the church which (as far as I can reckon) uses Times New Roman for the "Glenshaw" and Arial for the "Alliance Church", which I used for my version. I then used a few different offset path thicknesses to achieve the 3D effect for the logo.
I appropriated the photo of the church from their website and traced it in Illustrator.
The background came via the scribble stylize effect. Front and back
Church name logo ideas
The logo with all the symbols is the Christian and Missionary Alliance logo, which I found a big version on the web and traced.
Adobe Illustrator CS2

Space Cat Enters Reptile Temple

Adobe Illustrator 8/CS2

    I created this at a time when I wanted to learn cartooning. I always thought of myself as a realist and considered cartooning beyond my grasp. I really had to go back to the basics.  I looked at lots of 50's modern art, abstract art, animation, Jack Kirby, and I don't know what all, to better understand basic shapes and simplification in cartooning. 😀

DJ Spooks freelance illustration

Adobe Illustrator

I created this for a lady from Kuwait I met on Flickr. She posted a photo for me to use as reference.

When I first saw the photo, I knew exactly what I wanted to do with the glasses.
I initially traced the head and facial shapes, which looked rather random and helter-skelter when I finished. I then manipulated the shapes --straightening, rounding, simplifying... trying to unify them, creating a flow with the shapes for a more graphic feel.
I used two different halftone screen sizes for the face and the cap. The sharp, detailed, and close-up photo revealed the man's pores, suggesting to me the halftone screen as how to imitate the effect. The cap was knit, and I thought the bigger halftone screen captured the feel of it well. :)