The Graphic Tablet

Gruver Football

2009-08-29T07:34:00.000-07:00

Wow! I haven't posted in quite some time. To be honest it has been a combination of being busy with my new "day job", freelancing and comic strip work. First up, below is the most recent freelance design I have created. The project had a really fast turn around time and was pretty straight forward. I wanted to post this up to kick off the football season, high school and professional.

The school I created this for wanted something that was inspirational as well as visually pleasing. They supplied the slogan and I worked the art around it. Of course I had to stay with two colors, which is pretty standard for high schools these days. All in all I think it gets the point across and makes a visual impact at the same time.

Aside from this design a lot of freelancing as of late has been pretty much technical set up and recreation work. A lot of school organizations wanting thier ideas made reality and what not, everyone knows the game :) It's been steady and good work so I won't complain.

On the "day job" front, I recently began working in the t.v. broadcasting industry as well. I made this move to expand my knowledge base of where the internet and graphic design in general seems to be heading in the near future. So far it has been a very rewarding learning experience. So from time to time do not be surprised if I begin posting about motion graphics and video along with my traditional posts on the print graphic work and industry I thrive in as well.

On a final note, for the past few months I have been creating a webcomic strip called Robot Friday. It's the third project in my life that is keeping me busy and I will begin updating it more frequently soon. So, keep checking back on this blog for posts at least 2 or 3 times a week, keep up with my Twitter feed or check out my comic site to see what I am up to.

Purchase Artwork

2009-06-24T12:25:00.000-07:00

One final post before I set off on a much needed vacation. I have been working on filling up my account on iStockphoto.com with original illustration pieces that you can buy directly from that site and download in vector format. So, if you like my work but don't have an immediate need for a full scale layout or are a designer yourself in need of easy to use, great looking illustration please feel free to check out my space at iStockphoto.

Bookmark that site as well as this blog too because I plan to get much more illustration posted up in the coming weeks. Thanks and have a great weekend.

Leal's Mexican Food

2009-06-24T11:52:00.000-07:00

This piece was created for a promotional products client that was servicing the Leal's account in Amarillo, Texas. My client was pitching a series of new customer cards - sort of like gift cards, but with a few more functions - and needed artwork that showcased some of the Leal's menu items. Ultimately the final cards were never produced due to lack of interest that the restaurant had received from customers presented with the idea. Never-the-less I still like the striking image of the Mexican Sundae and the little play-on-words of the copy in this piece.

Background created along with image composite in Adobe Photoshop with final text and logo elements added in Adobe Illustrator.

We set prices for a reason

2009-06-18T18:13:00.000-07:00

I found the following video via a webcomic cartoonist and fellow graphic designer when he posted it to his blog as well. I really haven't come across anything else, written or otherwise, in a very long time that highlights how absurd it is for clients to try and haggle designers down or legitimize reasons for not wanting to pay prices that designers ask for.

I can understand if you clearly do not feel like you are getting your money's worth. Do not reward bad design with more work because you can haggle down the pricing, first of all. Secondly, just because lesser designers are willing to haggle does not mean the good designers, when you have the privilege of working with one, deserve to be insulted by you wanting to save a buck or two.

All I ask is the next time you need design work think about this video. And if you are a designer with this problem, post this to your blog or site as well and just direct clients accordingly :)

Robo Logo

2009-06-17T15:07:00.000-07:00

It's been some time since I posted last, but it's been super busy this summer and to top that off I began a new webcomic called Robot Friday that posts daily so my time management has been a little squirrly as of late.

At any rate I wanted to post up a recent coloring job that I did on the Robot Friday logo. As you may recall I created the logo a few years back for a project I wanted to develop at that time. Sadly, that project never got off the ground and I was able to salvage the logo with the webcomic - trust me, the relevance of the name will become apparent in later comic strips.

Until this past weekend I had not had the time to put color to the logo and, to be honest, I wasn't really sure how I wanted to approach it anyway. As you will be able to follow in the recorded "tutorial" that I created, I finally settled on a steampunk approach to the color. Since the logo already had a "grinding gears" feel to it I thought that steampunking it out would be nice. Another reason I decided on the steampunk feel was that I REALLY have fallen in love with the new gradient tool in Adobe Illustrator CS4. The new tool takes a little bit to adjust to, especially if you are used to the earlier Illustrator versions of it, but once you get it to work for you MAN it's great! I also added in a texture to the coloring as well to experiment a little bit. I haven't worked with textures like this very much in my past work, but have always admired designers that could pull it off. I feel like it worked out pretty well in conveying what I was going for. You can get the textures I used and many more at Artbackwash.com.

To sum it all up, if you check out the desktop wallpaper above and the recorded tutorial you can see that it came out pretty nicely. I will be doing more coloring in Illustrator in the near future, advancing the skills that I already have. So I'll keep the posts coming as I get future projects done :)

Road Hog from HELL

2009-06-02T16:05:00.000-07:00

I just finished up the final illustration project I began (along with two others) about a month or so ago. I love to be able to do a lot of illustration with my freelancing, but I almost bit off a bit more than I could chew when I took on three illustration jobs at the same time that needed to be completed about the same time as well (or roughly around there). What was good about these projects was to prove to myself what I was capable of doing and in what amount of time. So far all projects came out very well and the customers have liked them all.

The shirt design below is the most current one. The design is created for a semi-local Harley Motorcycle rally held every year in the small town of Lefors, Texas. It's basically a rally with a Harley poker run that ends with the raffling off of a Harely bike. The proceeds from the rally and the run and the shirts go to thier local volunteer fire department.

The customer had already decided that they wanted a Ghost Rider image on the shirt. I hand drew (with my wacom pen and tablet) the Ghost Rider image into the computer in Adobe Illustrator using the brush tool mostly. I used a few comic book image references to get a dynamic angle of the bike, tire and rider for the final drawing. Finally I added in the flames in the back and the typography over everything to get the final proof below.

Again, I feel it came out pretty well. I like the feel it has popping off the shirt and the sense of movement as well. The design will print on about four or five different colors, but I dig it mostly on black.

Hot Road Skeleton

2009-05-26T17:30:00.000-07:00

Over the past month or so things have gotten super busy and I had about three illustration projects come my way all at once, with relatively similar deadlines. This was one of them. Though I had more of an epic design in mind (as always) I had to ratchet it down a bit because of printing limitations. Still the customer was pleased with it and I think it came out quite well too.

On a related, but side, note - I am really starting to dig the new gradient tools in Adobe Illustrator CS4. When I first began using them they were so different from CS (the version I upgraded from) that it was a completely new tool to use almost, but now I see they have given you much more freedom and ways to conserve time. I am totally hooked.

Of Wings and Crosses

2009-05-19T17:45:00.000-07:00

I recently finished up a project that, to be honest, ran on longer than it should have. The project was a tribute t-shirt for a woman that had died of cancer. The client I was creating it for was one of fourteen other women on the Relay for Life committee in their area. The client came to me pretty much knowing what she wanted, but needed me to execute it.

The project began with angel wings with a large ornate cross imposed over the top. Over the weeks that followed the committee kept refining the design until the wings were completely removed and the cross had become something that I would not have considered alone. The graphics below are only three of the transformations that the cross went through. The wings you see were never used in the design at any time, I have them in there now just to give the crosses a bit more pop.

This project was one of those times when I am glad that the client was demanding of what their vision was and pushed me to create variations of something I have never done before. Though I have seen crosses a lot more ornate and impressive, the ones shown are actually a step up for me in this area and I am glad that I had some body to push me over that edge.

Star Trek Design

2009-05-15T22:35:00.000-07:00

I just returned home from seeing Star Trek for the first time and wanted to post a blog about it while it is still fresh in my mind. Normally I don't talk about general pop-culture on this blog much, but what I wanted to post about isn't necessarily the movie itself (I am sure you have read all the movie reviews already), but rather about some of the design of the production. Keep in mind that I am not trained in set or production design for movies, nor is my primary design background based in film. So, having put that out there up front, let's move into what I thought about the design of Star Trek.

First, if you haven't seen the film yet you should probably do so it is everything you have heard it is. What I really applaud Abrams on doing is keeping the overall feel and general look of the original Star Trek franchise, but at the same time injecting a much needed "new ship" smell into it as well. The design of the trademark ships, crew, shuttles, weapons and uniforms will remind you of why you fell in love with Star Trek to begin with. The addition of alien races that were a little more strange looking than regular humanoid was nice too. But something I like and dislike equally was the look of the bridge of the Enterprise.

I like the ship's bridge because it did have that original Star Trek movie feel, plus that command center feel in Star Wars while the attack on the Death Star was under way. I felt that the uniforms as well as special effects played very well off of the mostly white (and clean looking) surfaces and nothing says 23rd century like clean surfaces juxtaposed with black knee-high go-go boots.

I did not like the ship's bridge ,at the same time, because it looked like an iPod. Now don't get me wrong, I own two iPods, buy all my music, rent all my movies and buy most of my movies off iTunes. I like Apple and all their products (though I don't own a Mac computer, but that is another story for another blog). Though Apple stores, Apple computers and most Apple products are all impeccably designed and Apple products have a very intuitive design and operation feel to them as well, which I am sure the same holds true for the Enterprise bridge. The reason I don't like that the ship's bridge looks like an iPod is that, just as if you were to eat chocolate cake for every meal, seeing the iPodesque design on everything today is starting to get a bit old.

I could go on for days about other design aspects of the movie like make-up, props, general special effects and the like, but I will wrap this up with the other big thing that really stood out to me and it was typography. From the first poster I saw of Star Trek to the final ending credits I really liked the way the film makers, again, stayed true to the original look of things but kicked it up a notch for this movie. If you are at all into typography or motion graphic design you must stay through the initial ending credits. In my opinion it is some of the best parts of the movie. The initial ending credits, played against the original Star Trek theme song, reminds me a little bit of the way Abrams handles setting subtitles in Fringe, but they are accompanied by amazing color of space and stop motion planetary graphics that really do delight the eyes.

At any rate, I will finish there. Not the most in depth look at the design of the movie, but something to look out for when you do see the movie. One final thing that did bother me and I just didn't get why they were even used: Lens Flares. Huh?

Sketchbook Drawing

2009-05-14T11:55:00.000-07:00

More sketchbook drawing of one of the characters in my forthcoming webcomic strip. The strip is still in production and, to be honest, it has a long way to go before it will be launched. Once it is and once I get a bit more time to do things other than bang out freelance work (which has been sweet as of late) I am going to broadcast a weekly internet show from my Ustream.tv feed. These videos are sort of preparation for that and a fun way to show a little bit of my process.

I also plan to broadcast live work that I do on some of my freelance projects as well, but right now I'm a little too busy to concentrate on it. Follow me on Twitter or keep checking the blog for more info on when I get that going.

Bike Run Update

2009-05-13T12:23:00.000-07:00

I sent out a semi-rough proof this morning for the Lefors Bike Run project I am working on and after my meeting with the customer to add some sponsors and minor tweaks, they loved the artwork. I just wanted to post a finished inked version of the figure drawing for it. There will be more (text and background images, etc) but those still need to be worked on.

I used a few Marc Silvestri images as reference (not traces) for what I was going for and had to use some artistic license to make the image easier to print on textile, but so far I think things are going well. I will post the finished project once I get it done.

Spot Illustration

2009-05-12T22:39:00.000-07:00

I uploaded some new spot illustration work to iStockphoto.com today. The files are currently in the approval process so you won't be able to download them for a few days. Below is a sneak peek of the artwork though. I drew the faces in my sketchbook and then scanned, inked and colored them in Adobe Illustrator.

Right now my iStockphoto.com portfolio isn't that expansive, but if you are in need of quick spot illustration check out my stuff. I hope it helps you out.

New Illustration this week

2009-05-10T14:07:00.000-07:00

It was a crazy week last week and to be honest this coming week really doesn't look any less hectic, but since it has been a while since I last posted I wanted to give you a sneak peek into what I have been working on over the weekend.

This is my first attempt at total digital drawing. I am using a Wacom tablet and pen (one of these days I MAY have a Cintiq) and drawing right into Adobe Illustrator with the brush tool, mainly. I use Illustrator to draw into rather than Photoshop because 1.) I'm better at Illustrator than Photoshop 2.) t-shirt printing often requires some resizing and crisp lines and shapes to print well and vectors are the best in both those areas.

Anyway, I am working on a couple of video blog type things explaining some of my process on various projects so I'll post those up as soon as I can and try to keep a better update schedule in general.

Darth Vader Pencil Sketch

2009-05-02T03:22:00.000-07:00

It's been a pretty busy week with all the different freelance and personal projects I have going on. I didn't really get to sketch in my sketchbook as much as I wanted to this week so I decided to post a time lapse of a Darth Vader pencil sketch I did a few weeks back.

Restaurant Apparel Promotional Flyer

2009-04-30T19:58:00.000-07:00

Promotional flyer created for a client specializing in promotional products and screen printed apparel.

The project consisted of complete design and layout as well as copy writing. Photos were provided by the client.

The client of my client recently revamped thier branding and wanted a flyer for thier new spring launch that could help them get in front of new customers while introducing thier new brand and programs to thier already existing customers as well.

Having images provided by the client I designed the color scheme around what was provided. Instructed to focus on the product as well as the message of the original client I made the text and product the main subject of the flyer embellishing where I could and tying the whole thing together with a footer and header that brought the subject and color together.

Logo Samples

2009-04-24T14:37:00.000-07:00

Most of the time a client will come to me or to the clients that I am working with and just want a logo. These clients either have already created thier own "text only" letterhead or identity package but want a bit more with thier logo or they are an organization that is small that really doesn't need or want a big identity pacakge, just a logo to begin branding with.

The samples below are a variety of the different logos that I have developed over the past several years. Some of these logos were developed over time with a more focused process with the client involvement while others were quick one shots done with minimal input from the client other than company name and a brief history of thier program or company.

Corvette Club Design DONE!

2009-04-21T11:30:00.001-07:00

You may remember me posting some of the works-in-progress on this project a while back. Over the past few weeks I have had to place this shirt design on the back burner to get more pressing projects out of the way, but I finally got to get back to it last night and finished it up (the front of the shirt anyway) this afternoon.

The shirt is for a local Corvette Club. They do a car show each year that showcases corvettes as well as hot rods and other kick ass vehicles. One of the clients I have prints thier shirts every year. I am happy with the way the design came out. We were trying to go for more of a gritty, old-school hot rod feel because every shirt that previous artists have done for them over the past three or four years has been really flashy, gleeming, shiny art so we decided to change up the feel a bit this year.

I am hoping to get the back done over the next couple of weeks (again, bigger and more pressing projects are just ahead) and I'll post it up once its complete. The event they need these for is at the end of May so we have plenty of time. By the way, the blue border around the art is to show the color of shirt it's going on.

Various Identity Pieces

2009-04-20T22:24:00.000-07:00

The pieces below were created for various clients that already had existing identity packages and were in need of only a few individual identity pieces or were only in need of identity pieces and not a full package.

I can create a wide range of identity pieces from four color process or minimal spot color to one color identity pieces that convey an image of professionalism to one of whimsy. The clients below also consisted of a small start up business to a national corporation to a home based personal business.

Clemmons Art & Design Identity Package

2009-04-19T08:15:00.000-07:00

The Clemmons Art & Design identity package conveys professionalism but also states that I'm a different kind of local designer. I bring a sense of fun and exploration to my work process and I feel that should be reflected in my work as well.

My identity goal was to create interest in the viewer to ask questions and seek out information about me and my work.

It's my belief that great design should demand attention as well as communicate a concept. I try not to be a cookie cutter designer and my client work reflects that as does my identity package. The pieces include a business card, envelope, letterhead and website. The website, again, was created to showcase a working model of what kind of web design I am capable of as well as to show a consistency of design and identity message across a range of different media.

Art-N-Design Identity Package

2009-04-19T08:05:00.000-07:00

The identity package below was created as a show piece for the capabilities that Clemmons Art & Design has to create identity packages that stay consistant across a wide range of identity pieces and can range from fairly conservative in design to highly detailed.

The pieces in this package included a logo, business card, envelope, letterhead, promotional flyer and a website.

New Horizon Identity Package

2009-04-19T07:52:00.000-07:00

I created the corporate identity package below for a client specializing in textile manufacturing, mainly sweaters out of India.

I initially met with New Horizon in one of thier early start up phases as they were basically shopping around for the best designer for their business. The turn around for the project was fairly short, one week, as they had several trade shows they were attending not only in the United States but in other countries as well.

Once the bid and our artwork presentation was accepted I created final printable and digital artwork for the pieces below. The identity package show consists of logo, business card, envelope and a letterhead.

TBI Identity Package

2009-04-18T10:40:00.000-07:00

The pieces below were created as identity package for a client specializing in commodities trading.

The client wanted something that was bold and striking, but conservative in design without alot of flash and flair. I created the logo based on the idea of a building's foundational cornerstone. The cornerstone is one of the first stones laid in the foundation of a building and is there for the life of the building to help support and identify the building. TBI serves as the cornerstone of a solid trading foundation, so the cornerstone premise in the logo seemed a good fit.

Once the logo was created then the rest of the package was designed around it and the company colors that were arrived upon with collaboration with the client. The final package consists of a business card, envelope, letterhead and postcard mailer.

Acute Transportation Identity Package

2009-04-18T08:42:00.000-07:00

The pieces below were created as the identity for a client specializing in transporting patients between various hospitals and clinics.

My task was to create a complete identity package centered around the logo and color scheme that the client already owned.

Working under a very tight deadline (turn around had to be in less than 24 hours on the complete design) and with little to no copy to work with the following pieces were created to complete the identity package consisting of a two sided single fold brochure, business card, note pad and information name card.

Tweet Me

2009-04-15T21:11:00.001-07:00

Well I have been hit by the Twitter bug and the following video is completely true and false at the same time. It's perfectly twitterific.

Friday I will post new video to my RobotFriday Video sketchbook. I have already updated my Comicspace.com site with new sketchbook pages and I hope to have some new finished (or semi-finished) illustration up here soon.

Pretty Interesting

2009-04-12T01:39:00.000-07:00

In my search for cool video posting sites I have come across Vimeo. They usually have more of the artistic type of films that are usually alot more focused than what you find on Youtube. The film below is one I saw a while back somewhere else and recently rediscovered it on Vimeo and decided to share. It's a great idea and nicely done.

HBO/Movie from Kenky on Vimeo

Take that!

2009-04-11T12:35:00.001-07:00

Well, it's good to know know that I have at a slightly better than one-in-two chance of being eaten alive when, and I say WHEN, the zombies attack.

52%

Live Drawing

2009-04-11T11:20:00.000-07:00

Ok, the title of this post is a bit dishonest. I tried to use Ustreamtv.com to create some live streams of me drawing at my desk, but after many attempts to use it I got it to work only once and now it has become too frustrating and time consuming to continue with. But I still want to film my drawings and post them online so I am now using Youtube.com to do so. I have a few archived videos up at my Comicspace.com gallery and will post a whole new batch of drawing sessions up each Friday. Below is the last session I posted before the end of the day Friday.

Grass Roots

2009-04-09T16:45:00.001-07:00

My largest customer got a phone call late yesterday evening about a grass roots political rally that was going to happen in our city next week and wanted to know if my customer wanted to make t-shirts and sell the shirts at the rally, all proceeds going to my customer for shirt sales. After we discussed it, and did a bit of research on what the organization was, we decided to go for it. I am going to take a cut of the shirt sales rather than my regular fee for this one because if it goes well both my customer and myself stand to make a good piece of cash.

Below is what I came up with for the shirt. We wanted to stick with one to two colors so it didn't get too crazy to print in such short notice and this way it makes reprints easier if we need them.

I am almost finished with the carshow t-shirt front as well and will post the full finished piece when I'm done. Further down the scroll is a unfinished version if you missed it the first time.

Webcam Live Drawing Stream

2009-04-08T12:04:00.000-07:00

This week I have been sorting through the semi-up-to-date video technology that I have so that I can begin live streams of me sitting at my desk drawing in my sketchbook. I am probably going to disable the chat feature for now, but I may stream some music as I draw.

There really isn't much of a demand for this from any viewers of the site or my clients right now, but I wanted to get my work out more and have more options for people to see how I do what I do. The cool thing about this service is I can stream what I am doing on my desktop too, so I can show my digital work as well.

The video camera I have, unfortunately does not allow me to plug into the computer and record. So, now that I have exhausted all of my other options, I am going to have to break down and get a real webcam. As soon as I do and get things going I will let everyone know.

Getting Close

2009-04-07T14:30:00.000-07:00

Here is the image so far for the Wheels Xtravaganza t-shirt I have been working on a for a while and estimated that I would be done with before last weekend. Due to me being a borderline perfectionist and a picky monkey I'm still not finished with it, but the customer did get a preliminary proof look at it yesterday and they loved it. I should be done with it in the next few days though. I am really digging it, it's a departure from what they have done in the past and the fresh look was what they wanted. They have been a pleasure to work with and I hope I get to do the shirts for many more years to come.

I am also in the process of consolidating this blog and my gallery site into one place. Soon I will be posting all of my work past and present here along with a side bar nav system so that everything is easier to keep updated and in one place.

Holy Crap, I'm a Red Shirt!

2009-04-05T00:20:00.000-07:00

I had originally planned my day around finishing the car show t-shirt that I am working on, but after a bit of doodling in the morning and some internet surfing I got the idea to create this little bit of promotional goodness.

I wasn't too on board with the new Star Trek movie coming in May (even though J.J. Abrams is attached to it) until the third trailer released with The Watchmen movie. Now I'm giddy as a fanboy. So giddy, in fact, that you can download a pdf of the piece above. Follow the instruction on the piece and you too can count the days until you can "Boldly go where no one has gone before." - again.

Now I wanna go to the Ocean

2009-04-03T23:51:00.000-07:00

I wanted to post a couple of new works I did today in a flurry of productivity. The State Bound shirt I like, not because the design is especially complicated or anything, but it was literally something I had to come up with and roll out in about 15 minutes for a last minute customer (which is what most schools I deal with are). Another reason I like it is because I feel the design is pretty solid and it came out really close to the sketch (which doesn't happen very often).

This second shirt I like just because of the organic feel and the beach colors. I do a shirt for this group every few months or so and they always will provide me with sketchs in various states of creation. This one was pretty much finished, but was drawn by a teenager on notebook paper and needed some clean up. I digitally reproduced his drawing from the bottom up to the buildings exactly and then recreated the buildings and text on my own, but stuck with his overall concept and vision. I think I like this one because if gives me that old graffiti surf feel and it just flows pretty well.

I'm working on a car show t-shirt I can't wait to see finished and get up on the blog as well as a few other projects I'll post as soon as I can.

Woot, one year later. UPDATE!

2009-04-02T01:14:00.000-07:00

Well it has certianly been a while since last I updated. I blame a lot of different things, but work really isn't one of them. Business has been decent, but as of the last several months things have been dropping off (as I am sure is the case in most parts of the country and some parts of the world). Nevertheless, I am currently working on a hot rod car show t-shirt that includes the little gem below.

Over the holiday season I finally upgraded my programs from Adobe CS to Creative Suite CS4. The jump is almost like trying to learn a new program all together. The feature I have found the most improved and amazing is the live trace. In most of the work I do, to turn a profit, being able to produce good images in almost no time is a neccessity and with the car show tee I had a picture of the corvette above they wanted on the shirt and live trace was a Godsend in creating something cool fast.

Though I used live trace for the base of the image and getting it into black from the photo, I still had to draw in the rest of the lines and the flame job. At any rate the shirt is coming along. I'll post the final piece once I'm done.

How time flies

2008-03-09T18:05:00.000-07:00

Wow, the past week or so has been pretty crazy and super busy. Coming off the slow season, which is pretty much from November to about late February, has been from stop to GO! Things are looking good for the Spring with tons of projects in the pipe and a new project I am developing myself that I will share with everyone as soon as I have more aspects of it finalized.

Today I wanted to make a long belated post to let everyone take a look at some of the projects I have been working on. The first one is a flyer for one of my biggest clients who owns a bartending business. She wanted a sort of a summer beach theme to the whole thing so she can rent out her frozen drink machine at events and functions that she bartends.

The one below is for the same client, they own a screen printer as well, that does a lot of work for many of the public schools in the area. The drama class of one of the high schools is putting on a play that is set in the big oil boom era. They had a rough idea of what they pretty much wanted, but wanted it to also reflect the fight against good and evil and big corporate thinking versus grass-roots organization.

Finally, I have started more comic book coloring samples with this new image of Captain America. Right now it is in the "flats" stage and the coloring style on this one is going to be a departure from the more photographic style I had on the last sample I did. I will post more of this image as I get it done.

Well that is about it for today. I promise to try and post more often, this week have just been really crazy. The above work is just a small bit of what has been going on. Also, I will post art from the cartoon project I have in development soon so keep checking in and thanks for reading.

Yikes!

2008-02-25T16:38:00.000-08:00

Well it has been a crazy day. About a month ago the slow season was seemingly stretching into this month and I was thinking was going to continue, but in the past couple of weeks the flood gates have opened (which is a very good thing) and today it just kept a-comin'. The list for the near future is:

Logo design x 3
T-shirt illustration x 2
Flyer design
Mailer design
T-shirt design layout
and some business cards

It seems like I missed a thing or two in there, but that is it for the most part. All of this due in pretty much the course of this week. Now don't get me wrong, I am not complaining, far from it. I LOVE it! After having dead months it really feels good to be crazy busy again, I just hope it keeps up into and beyond the Summer months.

I have also been trying to keep my drawing mind fresh and have been sketching a lot as of late. Below is the fruits of this labor. Every one of those things are on my desk along with a ton of other things. I'll post more drawings, projects and coloring as I get it done. Thanks for reading.

Finished Colors

2008-02-24T23:31:00.000-08:00

The weekend has been a busy, short one but I managed to get the comic pin-up that I have been coloring for the last week or so finished. This is my first real shot at coloring comics right. I usually don't do painting or coloring work in Photoshop, I usually stick to Illustrator for most of my color stuff, so there has been a slight learning curve and I still have some learning to do, but so far it's going pretty well.

For the most part I am happy with the final piece, but I have a long way to go to get to the level that I want to be. This was my first time to use Photoshop brushes to created a textured background like the one below and I really like the way it came out. I am going to have to use that technique for more of my deisgn work as well. Parts I could improve on are better highlights and glows as well as modeling on the lower body area, so there is more to strive for (which is good - it gives me stuff to look forward to).

I have two goals in doing coloring this way. First, to learn new techniques and applications in color to carry over into my design work. Secondly, I love the comic medium and it would be really cool to work in the industry.

Anyway, enjoy and thanks for taking the time to read.

Working

2008-02-22T23:30:00.000-08:00

Well, I still have yet to get the finished coloring of the pin-up I have been posting finished. I really didn't plan on getting much done on it today (though I was hoping) because I have some backed up work to finish before the end of the weekend.

The work I am doing for my design freelance business is good work, most of it has been set up stuff, but there have been a couple of things that just haven't gone the way I had hoped. I know you have had this happen before too, you create thumbnails of the designs you are going to create, you prep everything you need to prep and gather the images and resources you need and then during the actual designing it seems like the stars shift and the world is against you in creating what you have actually envisioned. That has been my life for the past week. Finally I am getting to the end of the projects, but it has been like fighting a bear the whole way.

Anyway, I have set up some Adsense ads on my site. The new Youtube video section at the top of the page is actually a big ad to click on, but the cool thing about it is that you get to view relevant video content on the site as well. I dig that. Also in the side bar, near the bottom of the blog, are Google ads you might find useful as well. As you probably know, I get cash when ads are clicked so it would be nice if you checked some of the stuff out, but that is up to you. Either way I hope you keep checking back in on the blog and have a great weekend.

Been Busy

2008-02-22T01:24:00.000-08:00

I have been meaning to update more this week, but things I have put off have finally gotten to the point where they REALLY need my attention. Not only that, but it seems business is starting to finally pick up and I have genuinely been busy.

Anyway, I have more comic book coloring to post today. I meant to have this piece finished by now, but refer to paragraph one for why I haven't yet. I plan to have most everything vital done by the end of Saturday so that all I have to do is finish the colors on this. So far I think it is coming along pretty well. I need to be more bold with my darks, but other than that it's not bad for my first real shot at serious comics coloring.

I have always wanted to learn how to use Photoshop more effectively to color and paint because I feel that even if I don't ever get a professional gig in color comics I can apply what I learn to design and make my current paying work better, as well as, add more skills to my marketability.

I have also begun putting flats into another series of pages (this time with panels rather than just a pin-up) that I want to do after the Jubilee one. I know that I have only done a pin-up at this point but I think I can tackle panels and I will have to at some point so I might as well jump in now. Other than this and design work I have been doing little sketches of cartoons since I seem to have lost all ability for cartooning that I used to have. I hope to have some design stuff to post soon, most of the stuff I have done over the week has been set up work and not alot of design to show off, but I have a couple of cool projects in the works.

Anyway, here are the panel colors so far, keep coming back for the finished pin-up and thanks for reading.

Photoshop

2008-02-18T23:30:00.000-08:00

Today I still have very little "graphic" work to show. Such as stuff I have done for my design business. The project I am currently working on is just proving to be a bit harder than I had thought. It is one of those things that worked out really well in my head and on sketches, but as I progress on the finished image it just isn't working, so I have to improvise as I go and it just starts to draw way out that way.

Anyway, I have progressed on the comic book colored image I started working on last week (I think). In previous posts I posted "flats" for the image. I have sinced gotten the "grads" (gradients added to the flat colors to give them some form) and am in the process of "modeling". Modeling is basically adding lights and darks as a traditional painter would to his under painting. In this image I have just begun the modeling process so I have a bit to go, but basically there are a couple of steps to take within the modeling process - airbrushing and cut-edging. Airbrushing is adding the smooth blends of color from dark (or light) to the base color to add a 3-D depth to the image. Cut-edging is the practice of adding to the airbrused elements a hard edged color so that it makes the image pop off the page more and emphisises the believable 3-D look.

Until I started dipping my hand into comic book coloring I had really relegated the use of Photoshop to dealing with only photos I had to touch up or manipulate. Working in Photoshop to color has really opened my eyes to all of the possibilities of this program. I am learning more everyday about a program that I thought I already knew (which is one reason it is a bit slow going on the coloring front), but I am having fun doing it. I think I am starting to find my niche in comics. I had tried my hands a few years back at drawing and inking them and walked away frustrated. Coloring and lettering seem to be more in-line with what a designer loves to do and works with every day anyway so I am hoping the frustration level won't be so high this time round.

Comic books

2008-02-17T16:04:00.000-08:00

Over the weekend I made more progress in the arena of comic book coloring. For a short while last week I had practiced on the Flash image below, mainly using it as a practice piece trying out different techniques and hodge-podge color ideas. As I worked on it I came to realize that coloring comics is a whole different animal outside of the standard design world techniques and I finally gave up on the Flash image last night.

The image was coming along ok, but that is really about all, just Ok. I have been reading a sort of text book on comic coloring and lettering and decided to pretty much step-by-step apply the techniques and color palletes in the book. Because of this the art below is the beginning result.

Right now this is in the stage called "Flats". Basically it's pretty much like traditional painting. The colorist's lay down flat colors throughout the entire piece and then will model over those flats to build up to the finished piece. In just flats this image is already way better than what I have done before, so I am optimistic. I'll keep posting more progress as on this so keep checking in.

Monitors, music and more

2008-02-15T23:04:00.000-08:00

Today was another in the string of days where I got little actual artwork done. Well, paid work anyway. This morning I got up to a burn out monitor that I have had only one year to the day to be exact. Getting the extended warranty at time of purchase on electronics seems to pay off, by the way. Right now I am typing this on a monitor about 4 times smaller than the one that burn out because the large one will be shipped off for three weeks for repair. So, this monitor will be replacing the dinosaur of a monitor I have on my work station when my big one gets back, which will finally clear enough space off my desk for my 14" Wacom tablet to fit comfortably on it.

By the time the monitors were taken care of I had enough time to do a small bit of comic coloring and then it was off for a paying client meeting. I met with a singer by the name of Tennessee Tuckness that will be opening up for Blind Melon on tour this spring and summer. I will be creating a t-shirt design that will double as a logo for the tour. Her music is described as a mix of folk-blues and rock.

I am looking forward to creating the art and I already had a pretty good idea I sketched out for her in mind before the meeting was over (that she liked - which is always good).

After the meeting the work day was pretty much over. Being that it is Friday and about to rain and snow I decided to call it a day and just color more comic stuff. I'll post more of that and the work I am doing for the band the further along I get it. All in all it was a good day, considering it started funky - and of course the weekend is here so it can't be all bad.

Thanks for reading, cya next week.

More coloring

2008-02-14T00:37:00.000-08:00

Today I come to realize that coloring comics is hard. Of course I knew skill and talent would be needed for it, but from what I have been able to pick up so far it is alot different than any other way I have colored things digitalling before.

Some of it is that I am not really used to coloring in Photoshop, I mainly use Illustrator for pretty much everything and just getting to really understand some of the little things that make coloring easier in Photoshop is going to take me some time. At any rate I think I am starting to pick things up, as far as technique goes, and I am starting to work toward something that I like.

Below is some of the more seriously coloring I did on the same picture I posted yesterday. It looks alot different and somewhat darker, but the technique is better. I'm just going to have to work through the learning curve and then find my own flair to add. I'm sure I'll get there in time. Tomorrow I seriously need to do some "money" work, so I am not sure how much more comic coloring I'll post before next week. But I'll keep putting stuff up so keep checking back in.

Digital Coloring

2008-02-13T22:57:00.000-08:00

As of late I haven't really had many big client projects going to show off so I haven't had anything to post in a bit. I have been working each day on quick turn around stuff, mainly one color screenprinting set up jobs that have been pretty much "designed by client" and I just have to make it work, which is fine with me too. I like doing the smaller things as well as the full design stuff, as long as I get design stuff most of the time. By next week I should have a new flier that I have finished for my biggest client to show off, but for today I wanted to talk a bit about comic book color.

All my life I have had an on again, off again thing for comics. My most recent stint with comics ended about 3 or 4 years ago, but over the past month or so I have been feeling the pull back in. I really like the visual aspect of comics. From a design stand point there really isn't another medium that mixes design principles so completely with traditional art (possibly fine art) principles. Comics have amazing layout design, unique lettering styles, great hand produced art and vibrant colors (the really good ones anyway) and all of this in a variety of styles that can just make you drool.

My goal in comics at first was to be a penciler (one who actually draws the comics), but I finally came to the realization that I just didn't have the patience or the turn around time to do the penciling well. I next thought about being the inker (the one who adds the black to all the pencil to help in print reproduction as well as emphasising storytelling)but again, my turn around just wasn't there. Just recently, after buying the Logo, Font and Lettering Bible, I became very interesting in hand lettering. I have always liked hand lettering, because when I was growing up we didn't have computers to do the lettering for us so I have always retained the love of hand drawn letters. I began to revisit hand drawing letters after reading the book and remembered all the cool logos and splash page headers from comics that looked so cool too, so I cracked out my old comics and sat just staring at lettering I had previously overlooked.

Looking at my comics brought back one of the main reasons I like comic art, the color. As I mentioned before the coloring in comics is always vibrant and energetic and just so dynamic. Stuff I love. After my reading binge I hit the book stores to look into more books on lettering and such and came across a book on comic lettering and color. After reading a few pages of it I decided to try my hand at coloring comics. Below is my very first shot at it. This page is an original page of actual professional art (not drawn or inked by me). I got it from the internet just to practice on. The page below is my beginning colors. Right now they are in the beginning process and I really suck, but I am going to keep practicing and I know I will get better (and I did this with my mouse in Photoshop - I can't wait to try it out with my Wacom and pen).

As I said, I have an on again, off again love for comics. Since my time away I have come to see that comics have helped shape me into the designer I am today in alot of ways. Along with my already active imagination, my history with comics (since childhood) has taught me to push my creative thinking and techniques with styles and tools farther than some of my other collegues. I think I will stay with comics this time. I may not like everything that there is out in the comics world, but I can overlook the bad and learn from the good and maybe one day help contribute to it as well.

Photos and Links

2008-02-12T20:09:00.000-08:00

Keeping in line with the updates of the blog and studio site I want to bring your attention to the side bar links I have added. I have put in some of the sites I either frequent daily or that have helped me with inspiration at one time or another and continue to do so.

Also, if you scroll down the side bar you can see I have added some badge links to my Facebook photos and my videos on Vimeo. As I am trying to stick to a monthly update of art at the studio site and a daily blogging routine I will be regularly adding new links to the side bar, so make sure to keep checking that when you come to the blog each day.

Today was mostly meetings and outputting print ready files so nothing new, artwise, to show. As soon as things settle down a bit with getting the sites and branding in place for Clemmons Art & Design, I want to do daily sketching (probably characatures) that I plan to blog about too.

Anyhow, thanks for checking in today and let me hear what you think about the blog so far.

New Stuff

2008-02-11T21:11:00.000-08:00

Welcome to a new era in the Clemmons Art & Design blog. From today on I plan on doing my best to update the blog once a day. If I miss daily I will for sure blog at least once a week.

I've finally gotten around to updating my studio site and have new artwork up. I am currently working on updating the gallery section, but you can check out some new stuff that is in the Recent Work section on the main page.

My plan is to update the studio site once a month as well. What an update includes is cycling the Recent Work section into the Gallery section and putting fresh stuff up on the main page. So, if all goes to plan and I am not slammed each month, there will be fresh art up at www.drawingfreak.com to check out once a month in addition to reading daily here.

I've also been getting reaquainted with the old design forums I used to frequent about a year or so ago. So much has happened in the past year that I have gotten away from my social networks and friends online. So if you are one of those from the forums I have been posting in as of late, welcome and thanks for stopping by. As always, if you are a regular reader too, thank you for your continued support and I hope we can make this blog a regular posting and discussion community throughout the year.

Thanks again for reading and make sure to check back each day and leave a comment.

Got game?

2008-02-10T18:24:00.000-08:00

It's funny how things work for creative people. I drew the sketch below almost a year ago at my former day job when I was bored out of my mind and thinking way too much of World of Warcraft. I really liked the look of the sketch in terms of the shape it made in the layout. I took the sketch home and added it to my stack of projects I wanted to get to some day. Well this weekend that day came.

In the sketch I just had the main focus of the design, the controller and the cord and plug that connected it to the console. As of late I have been very inspired by younger designers from other countries, such as the Orient, that add a warped twist to much of their work, so I tried to emulate some of those twists in this piece.

I have always had a tendency to create digital collages for many of my backgrounds in alot of my designs, but I tried to go a bit more graffiti-like with this one. I really liked the way the yellow and pink clashed with each other, but thought it needed a cooler color to calm it down a bit, enter the blue. It was intended to print on a black t-shirt (hence the black background) and has a Christian theme to it which says, Pray when you are lost and your way will be found.

At any rate I feel like I really stepped up my art a bit with this, not only in terms of trying different stuff with color than I am used to, but also the graffiti look and a mix of realism with abstract. I also did a short little "Making of..." animation for it you can check out over a Vimeo. I am going to also add it and some other new stuff to my main studio site, Clemmons Art & Design, soon so check that out too. Let me know what you think of this design and anything else and thanks for reading.

Changes

2008-02-10T10:26:00.000-08:00

In an effort to consolidate the looks and content of all the different sites that I have on the web that deal with art or my art creation I have made some small changes to the blog. They aren't anything huge, but you will notice I changed the header to fit more closely with the overall branding look I am working on creating with my fledgling design studio, Clemmons Art & Design.

There were a couple of really small cosmetic changes I made too, but overall this blog was already pretty much in line with what I was going for, especially in color and content. I am going to add a link from the studio site to the blog to drive more traffic this way, as well as, begin posting more projects to various social networking sites that cater more to creatives such as Vimeo, Flickr and the like.

Now my next task is to keep the blog updated once a week at least, working toward a daily update. We will see how that goes, one step at a time until then. Thanks for supporting and enjoy.

Communicate & Question

2008-02-04T16:54:00.000-08:00

Today I learned a very valuable lesson in communicating effectively and asking alot of the right questions. I created the logo above last week to re-vamp one of my client's second businesses and prepare for the creation of a new phone book ad for them this year. Because the ad needed to be complete rather quickly I made the mistake of trying to push through a new logo design for the ad.

I should add, I have been sketching around on this logo idea for some weeks now. I knew the direction I was going to go and made a comp mock up of font styles and overall look for the customer to look at before I began the work. Here is where I made mistakes.

The company I was creating this for is a family owned business where the parent owns the business and the daughter runs it. All decisions, especially design related, needs to be ran by them both (and I know this). Mistake #2 was not running this comp by the daughter. I ran it by the parent (who was on hold on the phone and I was in a hurry to get started on the art - mistake #3). I have been working with this customer for a while now and there are some things we are a bit less formal with in review than others - in hindsight this is one that should have been more formal.

Anyway, the parent liked it and gave me the go - the daughter (manager) was out of the office on the day I was in. So, in my haste to get the logo going I began on it and worked all week on it. When I had it complete and showed it to the manager for approval on Saturday I could tell she didn't really like it, but she was polite and told me, "She could get used to it." Red flag right there. Turns out that she had a completely different idea of direction that their company will be going this year (more elegant and formal parties) and wanted a logo to reflect that. Not the "western" look she thought it had (personally I was going for old time bar look - but I do see the western look too). We decided to keep the layout and the glasses, just redo the font look and make it more elegant and refined. So, it wasn't a complete bust because the layout I can still use and some of the art.

I did buy a font offline for it that I will have to eat, but I like the font and I know I'll use it for something somewhere.

Oh, by the way, the first mistake I made. I assumed I knew more about their business than I did. I didn't bother to ask questions like, "What direction is your company going?" or "What kind of parties do you service?" Simple questions and taking my time to talk to both parties for preliminary approval would have saved us all alot of time and me some cash.

Overall, though, it isn't a huge problem. We created the ad with the old (current) logo and will meet and approve more comps later this week on the final, new logo. I like this customer alot, they let me do alot of over the top stuff and they are satisfied with my work. Some times things like this happens, but as long as you can salvage the communication and learn from the mistakes everyone can be happy in the long run.

I love my job

2008-01-13T20:25:00.000-08:00

Well, I'm back from Dallas and have decided to leave my website and blog just the way they are. I toyed with the idea of merging them into one site, but really the way the site now is set up is pretty nice, I just need to update it more.

I will probably change the header of this blog to match more closely to the site look and list the blog on the site (and update the site). But other than that I think I'm gonna focus more on actual work right now and maybe in the far flung future change the site and/or blog.

I got a great book over the weekend that is all about hand lettering and logo design that I really dig and hope will help me develope more in my work and help with creating a new area for new business for me. Anyway, I'll post more recent work I am doing soon.

Happy New Year

2007-12-27T12:33:00.000-08:00

Oh WOW, what a year 2007 has been. This year began on a very low note, progressed to me quitting my day job and striking out on my own and ending up with me not yet in the poor house. All in all, not a bad year.

2008 looks to hold even more promise. After the beginning of the year, and once I am back home from an extended vacation in Dallas and Austin, Texas, I plan to merge this blog and www.drawingfreak.com into one central website for my clients, friends and family to keep better track on what I am doing on a daily basis.

2008 also holds promise in new business. So far Clemmons Art & Design has been successful in keeping our key business relationships and expanding on those to open new doors to more types of business in the future, but companies don't grow unless they build on thier successes. Clemmons Art & Design will look to land 1 to 2 large corporate accounts in the coming first half of the year and by the end of 2008 is looking to have filled our client list out by double or more of what we currently have.

So in short, look for a new face to the company website, look for new and more dynamic content on the site, new art, new blogs and new clients. Feel free to email us with any questions or comments you may have or if you feel that you or your company would make a great addition to our client list. Happy New Year, stay safe and see you in 2008!

Finally Friday

2007-08-10T15:16:00.000-07:00

I decided to post one last post for this long, semi-hellish week. I thought I'd show you just a couple of small things I worked on this week. The head is from a logo I am finishing up (the final logo hasn't been approved yet so I didn't want to post the whole thing). Of course, the word balloon is my little sense of humor and, unfortunately, won't be going on the final logo.

The HCA logo was a quicky a while back, but came out pretty well. Today they wanted to use it for t-shirts with a distressed, Abercrombie-Fitch look to it (why they are so popular I can't tell ya - they are super boring to me). I really dug the final distressed look on this, good call guys.

Anyway, that's it for this week (finally). I'm off to Dallas for a couple days. Have a great weekend!

Just Dance

2007-08-08T15:22:00.001-07:00

This has absolutely nothing to do with my work, but sometimes ya just gotta dance!

This is probably more of a "Friday" thing to post, but what the heck. The week is half over so just get your groove thing on!

Summer Block Party

2007-08-06T23:15:00.000-07:00

Over the weekend I put together a design for one of my customers that does t-shirt printing. The city of Amarillo holds an annual Summer Block Party on one of the more historical streets in town and my customer does the printing for the shirts almost every year. This year the committee in charge of the party wasn't sure if they wanted to do the block party at all, but came to us a couple of weeks ago so we could start thinking about the project, just in case they had the party. About three days later they put the project of indefinite hold and that was the last I heard about it until last week, that is when they came to us wanting the design finished and printed by the 10th of August.

So, if you do the math and logistics that means (given my work load at the time) I had pretty much Saturday, August 5th being the earliest time that I could get to the project. Add to it that the print shop I design for needs at least 3-4 days to hand pull all the 300 front and back t-shirts, that means that I had to design the art on Saturday, pray to God that the customer immediately approved the art on Monday - with no changes - and I got the art output by Tuesday so that the shop could get them on press Tuesday afternoon. Below is the final product of the 5 hour design session on Saturday. (The weekend before, I took the pictures of downtown Amarillo, so there was some prep work involved outside of Saturday).

God heard my prayers and the customer did approve the art on Monday morning and I spent the rest of the afternoon doing output. So now it is in the hands of the print shop and their printer. I feel for them, but better them than me at this point :-)

Evolution of a Soda Jerk

2007-08-03T12:30:00.000-07:00

Last week I began a logo redesign project for a new customer. Their business is based around restaurant supply and they already have a current logo they like, they just need to customize it more and update it for their changing market.

Below are some sketched ideas of what came to mind from my initial meeting with the customer. He wants to keep the retro look and feel that his logo currently has, but wants to make it somewhere between iconic and representational. Right now his logo is very iconic and just doesn't seem to pop out at you to state exactly the feel and service of his business, in his opinion.

These sketches are just the beginning pre-concepts. We have a lot of work ahead of us, but he and I both agree that we are heading in the right direction. I will keep posting progress and the final logo as we work on it.

My customer had a retro style in mind for what he wanted, but wasn't sure what to do with the logo characters face and head exactly, so he wanted to look at different styles - a bell hop look with hat, a character with a large cow-lick and a soda jerk character with hat. My favorite is the soda jerk, but for this project the best head design would probably be the combination of the soda jerk's face with the bell hop's hat, in my opinion.

At any rate it has been a fun project to work on. I am currently working up the body concepts and will combine the whole figure this week. As I said before, this is a logo update so the logo concept is there, we are just refining the imagery a bit more. So after the character is finalized the rest should move a lot quickly. Now I am in the mood for a coke float!

Tyler Durden

2007-07-27T18:02:00.000-07:00

Below is the second caracature I've drawn in as many days and I gotta say this one came out better than the Tarantino one. Though I do like them both and I have a long way to go from this one in getting to where I want to be. But they've been fun.

Like before, the reference pic is below the drawing.

Funny Faces

2007-07-26T18:43:00.000-07:00

I happened across the work, website and book of Joe Bluhm's the other day and was amazed by his work. Most of the characaturists I have seen at the big theme parks or fairs have always seemed too flat and boring to me, stuff that I always felt I could do better so I never bought anything.

I would buy anything Joe served up, whether it looked like me or not - which I am sure it would. Anyway, since I have been swearing to draw more, I have decided to dabble in characatures a bit. Nothing very serious really, just something to get me back into a daily regiment of drawing and to relieve some stress a bit too.

Below is the first one that I really thought came out decent, nothing near the quality of Joe Bluhm, but amusing to me none-the-less. I'll keep this up and try to put a bit of my flair into them as I get used to them. Who knows, maybe characatures will come in handy in my own business soon, we'll see.

One last thing, since it is a good chance you may not be able to tell who the celebrity is that I drew, I put the picture I drew it from next to or below the drawing.

Vacation Pics

2007-07-13T14:02:00.001-07:00

Ok, here are just a few of the pics that I took when we were in Europe. I cropped and color corrected (and in some cases made into black and white) most of the photos to get a sharper looking photo.

I've decided to create a dedicated website for the rest of the pics, so I'll post the link to it as soon as I get it up.

The Plunge

2007-07-12T19:29:00.000-07:00

Well I am back from my European Vacation and back to the old grindstone. But this time the grindstone is mine. I took the plunge and quit the day job to work for only myself. Of course this week was the first full week back and it is always hard for me to get back into the swing of things, but things are looking pretty good so far. I am going to have to rely on my savings mostly for a bit, but soon the work should be paying the bills again.

I took a ton of photos on my vacation that I plan to post soon. I am still unsure as to whether I want to create a site dedicated to showcasing them so friends, family and clients can link to it or if I just want to post some here in my blog. I'll decide in the next couple of weeks.

Well, I don't really have any new art to post for you yet, but in the next couple of weeks I am sure I will.

Even though I loved Europe it's great to be back in the U.S.A and good to be back into the swing of things, especially since the swing is now mine!

Born to be Wild

2007-04-29T11:24:00.000-07:00

It's been a long while since last I posted, but this year has proven to not only be busy, but trying as well. I've been doing a lot more t-shirt designs this year and have more in the works. Below is the most recent one I have finished. As you can see, it's for the Annual Harley-Davidson Motorcycle Rally to be held this year in Amarillo, Texas.

I really liked how this one came out. I have really been getting into a digital collage sort of style as of late and I find that it suits my personality very well. I can just sort of experiment and stay loose as I work and be excited and surprised as much as the viewer can with the finished design.

The top design is for the male attendees and the bottom one is an alternate version for females if they so desire. The top one will be printed using four-color process inks screen printed on the shirt. This will mark the first time I have actually had my work printed four-color process on a t-shirt so I hope things work out well. The event is coming up soon. If the shirts print well (which I am sure they will) I'll grab a shirt and post photos for you to see the printed product.

Well that is all I have for now. I promise this summer is shaping up to be very busy and there will be a ton more work to be posted on the blog soon. So keep checking for new stuff.

Final Push

2006-12-18T13:24:00.000-08:00

Well here it is, the end of the year practically. Below is what will probably amount to the final two projects I complete this year. The Amarillo Select Volleyball was for the day job and wasn't used, but I thought it was better than the final version they did use (one that the sales and marketing people pretty much "art directed" into crap). What they wanted was something that commanded respect and gave an air of distinction and intimidation to the viewer.

Though the image does resemble a classic newspaper logo, in my opinion, that is exactly what helps it achieve the feel they were looking for. Now don't get me wrong, I don't feel that this piece is the "be all, end all" to what the logo could be. But we were on a time crunch and with the time allotted it was great. Anyway, they didn't like it and art directed it to death and now it's pretty much the same old crap you see on any sports apparel item. Oh well, I still got paid.

The t-shirt piece below was pretty much just an all out fun project to run with. This one was done via my own freelancing for a t-shirt shop client of mine and, as always, had a time crunch on it too. But I dig the way this one came out anyway. It is very simple, clean and straight to the point. On black it pops nicely. I think the reason I like it so much is because it is simple. Some times, after doing a lot of detailed stuff, I just want to do easy simple stuff. This was one of the times and it was great fun doing it.

The shirt is to be used by a local program that teaches junior high kids the fundamentals of basketball. From what I was told it seems to be sort of a camp of sorts that eases the kids into the sport so they can go on to enjoy it in high school. The client didn't really have an idea of what they wanted, they just needed something quick since the artist they had working on it was pretty much failing to deliver anything they liked. Anyway, they liked my design. The only revision they wanted to see was to take out the vertical bars in the background which looked ok, but this version looks much better so this is the one I like to show off.

Ok, that is it for the year. I have tons of other projects in the pipe for my freelancing and the coming year looks to be great. I really do plan on getting www.robotfriday.com off the ground in 2007 and have TONS of robot drawings and sketches lined up to show off so that will be exciting when I get that going. Thanks for taking an interest in my work and my life and have a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Warbot - Good God Ya'll!

2006-10-27T08:24:00.000-07:00

I promise you this blog is not, itself, turning into www.robotfriday.com. I am just using it as a temporary post for my robots. I promise to post more enlightening things soon about art and design. and about my processes on things and about what is going on, creatively, in my life.

But for right now ITS A ROBOT FRIDAY! The robot below is called the Warbot. Designed to take other robot and human troops into battle on distant worlds and nuked areas. Designed with a special ultimate intelligent AI this robot is the finest in battle field command and conquer situations. Enjoy!

More Robot Friday!

2006-10-20T14:42:00.000-07:00

Ok, no robot drawing today, though I do have a doodle here on my desk calendar that I could scan it, but instead I will entice and amaze you with the official one color logo for the pending www.robotfriday.com website.

I am currently working on the interface design for the site. Once that is nailed down I'll get on the art and get the coding done last. Baby steps I guess.

Super Robot Laser Flash Friday!

2006-10-13T08:00:00.000-07:00

Ok, so it may not REALLY be Super Robot Laser Flash Friday, but I thought I would try and push that on ya and see how it stuck. I can see it isn't sticking so well so I will just back off now.

Below is a new sketch of a Tremble-Bot that I drew (it looks all trembly - is that a word - so I dubbed he Tremble-Bot!). The other, more finished bot, is the Water Cooler Bot that a friend of mine created for Robot Friday. She did it in Illustrator CS2 I am thinking. I did mine with pen on a scratch pad at the day job.

Remember, though www.robotfriday.com is not officially up yet, you can still get in on the robot action by emailing me a pic or link to a robot of yours as well. Until next Friday (or when I have something I just can't keep to myself) make mine metal!

Trouble!

2006-10-11T08:43:00.000-07:00

The pics below are my entries for this week's www.illustrationfriday.com word, Trouble. They are pieces that I have done in the past actually but I feel they represent the word pretty well. As a matter of fact they represent trouble on a variety of levels. I posted three images because I couldn't decide on just one that I liked the best. They all have a coolness about them that I dig.

The first two were done as pin-ups for two different independent comics. One was more of an apocolyptic set in the future comic and the other was more along the lines of The Lord of the Rings.

The last one was a character study for another comic character, Xavier Knight, that I was commissioned to do. The comic never saw the light of day and I never saw any money, but thems the breaks I guess.

Anyway, enjoy. (Click pics to view larger)

Everybody Compute!

2006-10-06T07:26:00.000-07:00

It's a Robot Friday! Everybody compute! Well to keep things moving on www.robotfriday.com I post for your pleasure and amuzement another robot. I tried to come up with a kitchy little name for him, but, meh....I'm tired.

I'm still working on the getting the official site up and running, but it may take some time. Until then if you have a robot you want to submit just email it to me at admin@ideasintoart.net and I will post it on friday at www.ideasintoart.net.

It's a Robot Friday!

2006-09-29T11:50:00.000-07:00

Today I registered a new domain name, www.robotfriday.com. The website is not yet ready, but what I can tell you is that it will involve robots on friday.

The concept is pretty much a rip-off of the concept of www.illustrationfriday.com. Each friday (once the site is ready) you will be able to upload a robot illustration that you have created. Of course you will be able to upload a picture any day of the week really, but on friday maybe we will showcase the best or something. As you can see I really haven't thought this the whole way through yet.

The name of the domain came to me while I was drawing this doodle today.

I thought the name robotfriday.com was catchy and then the illustration thing came to mind and, being the impulsive sort of guy I am, the rest is history. I also plan to make the site a what's what of robot knowledge, stories, news and trivia too on top of the illustrations everyone can submit (feel free to submit stories of your own as well if you want).

Anyway, if you want to get on board now feel free to draw a robot and send it to me via email at admin@ideasintoart.net. I'll keep ya posted on the new site and HAPPY ROBOT FRIDAY!

Portrait

2006-09-04T19:51:00.000-07:00

About a week ago I picked up a new local client and it has been awesome working with them. I began my career in design and art in the screenprinting business doing pretty much everything from designing and ink mixing to operating presses. For about 8 or so years though I have pretty much exclusively been doing stuff for offset printing or the web and have been longing to get back into screenprinting some way. Finally, I've got an open door back in.

The first big project I did for them is the t-shirt design posted below. (Click on it to view a larger version.)

The actual customer that commissioned the design through my client wanted a Junior Diabetes Research Foundation Walk for the Cure t-shirt done for the local fundraiser on September 9th, 2006.

The customer wanted to focus on the fact that they are walking for a cure for their daughter (teams that walk in the fundraiser created their own shirts to focus on their reason for walking). Other than that they really had no clue as to what they really wanted it to look like so I just ran with it. I suggested that we do a portrait of their daugther with a background that had a feel of what her personality is like. They had to keep colors down to two so I used halftones to help out. They suggested the text. I think it out came out pretty well. It is scheduled to print this week and I am sort of anxious to see if the halftones print well. My client assures me they will so I am sure they will. Still it is going to take a load off when my first big design for this client and my first big design back in the business is finished and I can feel like I have accomplished something new.

View from afar

2006-09-04T18:39:00.000-07:00

A while back I came across an account on Flickr that housed photography work from an artist that uses lens and camera techniques to snap photos of cities that look like miniature railroad scenery. I would post a link to it, but am unable to find the link again (thanks to computer issues of mine as well as misplacing back-ups).

Below is a photo that I cheated on to try and create the same look. Though I didn't get any where close to what they did I think it came out sort of cool. It's an odd look I will admit and not really "miniature town" looking but sort of surreal and funking all the same (which is right up my alley).

What I did was I took a photo of downtown Dallas, Texas off the net and used Adobe Photoshop to get the focused/unfocused look along with tweaks and filters to finally arrived at this solution. Like I said, not as cool as what I was shooting for, but I like it just the same.

I'll try and give this sort of thing a try again, right now I have alot of freelance going on. But maybe over the Holidays I can snap some of my own shots and work with them.

Also, if anyone has the link to the photographer that does this originally, drop me a link. I'd love to be able to study his work some more.

Small Miracles

2006-08-24T11:16:00.000-07:00

It's funny how small things can mean alot or make all the difference. Take the drawing of a pencil below I did this morning at work. it's really nothing more than a doodle, but the character of the lines and crosshatch are great. It's the kind of drawing I want to get in all of my more complicated drawings, and what I used to get. Working back to what you used to could do, I think, is more discouraging than learning how to do it in the first place. But small miracles break the walls sometimes and those miracles are worth all the work.

Super-Maybe....

2006-08-18T14:56:00.000-07:00

As I have resolved to do, I begun sketching and drawing more this week. Most of the sketches I have done I don't really like and have just skimmed over as crap and moved on. But to get to the good drawings you have to go through some bad. The upside is that I do feel myself getting out of the sludge I have been in as far as drawing goes and I feel myself getting back to the old self I used to be.

Anyway, I started this little doodle out to be Super-Man (notice the spit-curl "S") but as it progressed, halfway through my pastrami sandwich at lunch, it really started to be less Super-Man and more Super Jock. At any rate I sort of liked it. It is more representative of my drawing style and shows I am getting the mojo back, even if it's just a doodle.

One Giant Step

2006-08-15T23:32:00.000-07:00

This is my submission for this weeks Illustration Friday word "Play". I was going to submit the doodle from my previous post until yesterday when I drew this one up. I think it works pretty well for "Play" because who of us has not at one time or another when we were a kid played like we were a space cadet or commander? And if things keep going the way they are in space tourism, one day we won't have to play any more. Click on image for a larger version.

So that I make myself actually pencil and paper draw more I am thinking of starting a daily or weekly sketch and drawing post on the blog. My hopes are that it would give me a reason to draw more, but my fear is that it will be just one more thing on the list of obligations that I already have. At any rate, keep checking in for more posts and sketches.

2,4,6,8 Who Do We Appreciate?!

2006-08-15T23:18:00.000-07:00

During down time at the day job, which has been ALOT as of late, I tend to do little sketches or doodles on my desktop calendar. Most of the time they are pretty much nothing worth mentioning, but on the off occasion I do something that either I just like the way it looks or it makes me laugh for one reason or another.

The sketch I have posted below is one that made me laugh. I thought it was a more original take on the whole zombie thing. If it ever gets turned into a movie it has GOT to be in the same vein as the original Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie with Kristy Swanson and Luke Perry. That would be awesome!

It's Your Birthday! It's Your Birthday!

2006-08-15T20:39:00.000-07:00

About a week ago I got a possible new client come my way. The client is the apartment building I live in and could mean business from them and two other complexes in the city. The project was to redesign the current birthday mailers the apartment complex currently has.

For everyone's birthday our complexe gives them a small gift, a cupcake and takes their picture and puts it on the community bulletin board in the office. To remind people to stop by the office the complex manager puts a small postcard mailer on the birthday person's door. Below are the mailers they currently use. Click on the picture to enlarge it.

There were a few textual changes they wanted and they needed their new management logo applied to the new postcards. But essentially they gave me free reign to redesign them as I saw fit. Below is my new idea for the project. Again, click on the picture for a larger version.

I decided to frame the information on the card with a birthday party motif. To do this I used a scrapbook style, sort of artsy-crafty. Though all the elements were constructed in Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator I tried to convey the cut paper collage effects that scrapbooking is known for. I created all of the patterns for the papers as well as the confetti in Adobe Illustrator. I used photograph clipart for the cupcake and other pictorial elements.

I also rearranged the heirachy of information from the original card to be more visually pleasing and to convey the important elements on the card. I used all of the original copy supplied. Overall I thought the new cards came out very well. It was pretty much what I was going for. Something different, cute and relateable. I have not yet gotten the final word or the go ahead to print, but I expect it in the new couple of days. Hopefully this is only the beginning of more work to come from them.

As Of Late

2006-08-02T17:59:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago at the day job I got the chance to redesign my first resturaunt menu. The resturaunt is actually a trendy local coffee shop with a few locations around town. I wasn't too thrilled at first to do it because they wanted to stick to the look of the hand out menus they have (which are pretty boring and posted below) but as I got going I really got into the project.

What I am going to do is just sort of step-by-step through the project showing you what the customer had as inspiration and what I was expected to follow as guidelines. The final menu boards (digital at that, we have them on LCD screens that are 36" if I recall correctly) are at the end of the article. I hope you enjoy a bit of insight into my day job projects.

These are what the coffee shop originally had for menus. Personally I liked them, they added character to the shop and fit the decor very well. But the shop was running out of menu space on them to add items and wanted to go digital (as they are planning to do with all of their locations).

To replace these chalkboard menus they wanted 36" digital displays that would rotate through slides that listed the menu items and prices. Personally I think flipping menu boards is a bad idea, especially with the amount of items listed (as you'll see later on). But the customer wanted to so it was my job to try and make the rotation as few as possible.

As I mentioned, the customer wanted us to retain - as best we could - the look and/or feel of the handout menus they have below.

What I decided on first was a color scheme. I obviously stuck with the red, green and black of the handout menus, but added in a brownish-yellow as well to sort of tie the new menus back to the chalkboard menu's brownish-yellow borders. Once I had the color scheme I decided to continue with the layout they have on the handout menus by creating headers in big black blocks and the menu items listed in red and descriptions in green. I also, fairly quickly and after some sketching, decided that using a straight forward grid layout was the best way to go in composition. Below are my sketches on that.

The customer had supplied us with professionally shot photographs of some of the store items (this is VERY rare for where I work in the day time, generally it is "Just pull something off the internet", so I was giddy at the thought of using GOOD photos this time) they required we use somewhere on the menus. To balance the composition out I decided to create a sort of mastehead on the left hand side of the menu with a verticle photo and the screened back customer logo below it. To balance that I then added a footer at the far right of the menu on the bottom using a cropped photo of coffee beans and fruit. After all of the specifics and composition was decided upon it was just up to asthetically placing color and then spacing the menu items and prices to fit on the two boards without having to flip the menu too much in the process.

To add interest and to use the required photos as well as to try and differentiate the items from one another at a glance, different photos were used on four different mastheads of the boards and the frappe footer was fruit instead of coffee beans.

All in all I think the new menus came out really well. The customer loved them and said we exceeded expectation on them. There are a few kinks to work out over time, such as, once the menus were installed they decided that our hardware consultant was right from the beginning and they needed bigger LCD monitors and there are some issues about the readablity of some of the small text because of the amout of items on the menu and the fact that we don't want to flip through fifty plus slides to make each items large. Plus, by customer request, we added a verbage slide that has a catchy saying on it about the customer's product and/or business that rotates as well in the mix that we will have to change over time. But for the most part it was a successful, and great fun, project.

I hope you dig how we solved this design issue and keep checking in for more insights to come.

The Way I See It

2006-07-30T22:26:00.000-07:00

Some times when posting to a comment on a message board I tend to sort of get carried away and just ramble on and on and sometimes these ramblings are actually pretty good. Such was the case with this post. The original poster that I was responding to (whom I will not divulge) was in a pretty low slump and was pretty much at the end of their rope. Their post moved me and this just came out. Hope this can help anyone else feeling mistreated, undervalued and just plain screwed too.

More than likely if you were an in-house artist in a non-creative industry then you were probably just a glorified production artist. I say this because that is exactly where I am. It also just hit me too that that was what I was and that going to a 2 year school vs. the Univeristies groomed me to be a production artist not a designer. Fortunately, though, you understand the difference and because you do you have one hell of a good chance at becoming a designer with production skills. What will give you the edge you need is that you will have skills as both a production artist and a designer once you get your creative mind flowing.

In my opinion, none of us really have any edge in software. Just like none of us really have an edge using a pencil. The idea is the thing. That is what gives us the edge over each other. Once you learn to create and retrieve ideas from everything you will have a real edge over the young guys. Alot of the files I have to deal with that are poorly set up for print are either lay people that have Word or Publisher and think they can do it just as well as we can for less or the kids right out of school looking for experience. Those people you do have an edge over, but in most cases the inexperienced will learn and the lay people will pass on the assignments to others.

Getting jobs when you are skilled in a specialty is always hard. My best friend has a Masters in music comp and teaching and spent over a year trying to find ANY job when he was done. Even movie theatres and restaurants wouldn't hire him because of over qualification. The simple matter is that people in our field have it hard sometimes because people under value us, but when we do find employers that see our value it pays off.

Thinking along these lines (under value) I wouldn't take anything to heart that most people say about your work. Some people won't see any value in it. Those people you don't need to work for. Find the people that do value your skills. They will pay well for it and treat you well too. Redoing your portfolio may not be the answer. Stimulating your creative mind is the thing. Some times using the programs to do the work for you by way of filters is doing you and the work a disservice. Create as much as possible yourself and it will get your mind to thinking in a different direction.

What you should do is use your feelings of dispair, anger, betrayal and worthlessness and put all in a sketchbook. Don't think, just draw and feel it. Scribble if you have to, don't try to create just let out the pissed off feels and the uselessness that you feel. Get it out. I have done this and I have had pages and pages of sketches I have later used pieces of in other work. I have gotten tons of ideas for personal work that I have used from free form sketching. Also, create work you want to create. We don't have to listen to what other people say that people like to see. When you try and guess what styles or trends people like or don't then you limit yourself to conformity. Do what is cool to you. If you like grunge, do grunge. If you like abstract, do abstract. If you like to trace pictures in illy then do it. It will free your mind, stimulate creativity and make you feel better about yourself and your talent because you are producing work you enjoy on a personal and emotional level.

Don't get hung up rules either. Throw the rules of design out the window and just create. It doesn't matter if colors match or things align or anything makes sense sometimes. We are artists, not technicians. The form of something, though it may be a juble of fonts and colors, may strike up another idea in your mind or work within a design just because of the form, or the color or the juxtaposition to other elements. And you may get these results just by accident and not because you thought them out. In my opinion, artists are not inclined to predefined criteria. We are free thinkers and experientation is what we do well. We leap and everthing else be damned. Don't read artbooks. Read and enjoy books about artists. Modern and the masters. Learn why the artists that you like do the things they do.

Borrow from everything and everyone. My daughters (12 & 8) have done some paintings and drawings that sparked ideas in my own work that I would have never thought of because I was too prediposed to a certain "way" of doing things. Trash on the ground has given me ideas. The way the wind blows the trees and tall grass and the way the sky looks at certain times of the day has given my incredible color palette ideas. Other artists on this board and in magazines have inspired me. Find inspiration in abstract thought. In questions you can't answer. Any and everything. Get it on paper too. Don't worry about what it looks like or if it good. An idea will come from it.

Don't worry about an identity yet. stimulate your creative mind and your identity will find you. Create mailers that are just for art sake to send to employers. Don't always try to get a job, just get your name out there. Hit the bricks too. Talk with people and be genuine. Do what ever it takes if that is what it comes down to. Don't look back, focus on the future, trust in Jesus and do good work. That is all you can do.

The biggest thing that I have found that has hampered my creativity in the past is that I thought about what other people wanted too much. Not clients, but people in general. Other artists, family, etc. Once I started doing the work I wanted to do and to hell with everyone else (as far as my work goes) the creativity started flowing and the happier I got. What it boils down to is it is your talent. Use it the way YOU want and the rest will follow.

Hope this rambling helps. God bless and good luck.

One last thing, sites that have inspired me:

www.belief.com

www.hillmancurtis.com

Check out his artists series of short films.

Bit of advice

2006-07-24T16:02:00.000-07:00

I am fairly active at a couple of design boards that I consider to hold a good amount of professional designers and from time to time am compelled, it seems, to go on a bit too long over a critique and wind up giving advice more than a critique. On these occasions I have decided to post them here on my blog so that the thirty minutes or so I spend writing these won't go wasted when the message board thread disappears to page 2 in three days. So, here is the first.

In creating business cards you need to determine the importance of your information on the piece. Generally the ranking of importance on business cards is as follows:

Company Name/Logo
Your Name
Contact information
Listings

So, what you want the viewer to see first off is what company you represent, who you are and your title in the company. You might emphasis these elements by making certain text bolder, larger, smaller, etc. to guide the eye from place to place. Next, you want them to know how to contact you for services and then you might add a list of what you do to the card if you feel it is needed. For the most part a list of what you do may not be needed because in most cases if you hand someone your card you are about to or have talked to them about what you do and how you can help them.

It is key to place these elements in order of heirachial importance.

Secondly, any graphic elements you have on the card should not appear to be afterthoughts and great care should be taken to place them with strategic design importance. If the nature of your business or your design skills prevents this then you are better off without them. Also, since it is the tendency for the human eye to read left to right, justifying (lining up) all the text to the left side of the card is common - though right justifying the text works just as well in some cases.

If you are new to graphic design or business card design then you might find it usefull to review others who have more design experience and learn why they are doing what they are doing in terms of graphic placement, typography and general card layout. I have a few samples of cards at my site www.drawingfreak.com if you would like to start there.

I can guarantee 100% that all of us created bad design when we first began. None of us were "designers" until we got into the business and honed our craft - and I would caution to say that still some of us that call ourselves "designers" are not - don't become discouraged and keep working at it and in time you will be able to see what needs to be done and what works.

Here's my logo, get it to work!

2005-11-15T22:00:00.000-08:00

After ten years in the pre-press, printing and design industry I still run into customers that do not understand why a certain image type cannot be used to print from and why others can. What is even worse, though, is that from time to time I also run into print and design "professionals" that don't understand the difference either. Realizing that I am not the only professional that has the problem of educating the general public on this matter I have decided to create the following article. If you have anything you feel needs to be clarified or added please let me know.

The most common mistake that I deal with on an almost daily basis with many of my clients is the misunderstanding of what a graphic that is print ready actually is. The graphic below IS NOT a print ready image:

And this is why it isn't:

Before I go on, though, it is necessary that I define two terms that will relate to the topic. The first term is Raster art and the other is Vector art.

Raster art is art that is created in pixels (the small blocks of color on the screen when you magnify a photograph). The way the computer deals with raster art is it starts with the body color of an image (for example; our logo above) and the background color of the image and assigns variations of color pixels between the two colors to get a smooth looking image (as long as you don't magnify it or want to print it using spot colors on an offset press).

Vector art, on the other hand, uses PostScript language and mathematical algorithms to allow the computer to draw smooth curves. Vector art is not comprised of pixels so there is no gradual variation from foreground to background color. This gives the image a very clean and crisp quality and enables a vector art graphic to be printed on most all printers , digital and offset. The image below is an example of a vector art image.

The reason that the first (raster) graphic is unacceptable for a graphic designer to use in a design that will be destined to print in an offset press environment is because of the principles behind offset printing. Most non-digital printing done today is either offset printing or a variation thereof.

Offset printing works a bit like rubberstamping. The process transfers ink from the surface of the rubber stamp (or for offset printing, a plate) onto the paper in the shape of the pre-cut rubber stamp image. A designer must take care to create art work that will adhere to this basic principle as well. The art must be crisp, clean shapes that, when transferred, creates the desired look on the paper. If the designer is forced to use a raster image in this printing process the image will print jagged or fuzzy on the edges, not clean and crisp.

So, to wrap it up, in order for a printed logo or artwork to be printed using spot colors (spot color vs. CMYK vs. RBG color is an article for another day) the art must be vector art. If it is raster it will be unacceptable for use or look very poor when printed. Jpg, tiff, bmp, pict, png, gif are ALL raster files. When a designer asks for an .eps or .pdf file, he/she means vector art. Not raster art saved as an .eps or pdf file.

Conversly, raster art can be printed digitally (such as off of an inkjet or laser printer) only if the dpi (dots per inch) are at 300 or higher. The computer screen displays 72 dpi so by copy and pasting a logo off of a website to be used in ANY type of printing will not be satisfactory in the printed result. So, in most all cases, you're better off using vector art.

Ok, hope this helps. Again, let me know if I missed something or didn't clear things up. Thanks.