Book Cover Illustration

Our current project in the Illustration class I am taking, is about the art of book covers. The assignment is to choose a book of your choice, and re-imagine the cover illustration. I chose "Tithe" by Holly Black, not because it's one of my favorite books, but it has a simple graphic illustration cover. Since the original cover is not a detailed illustration, I'll have a lot of room to play with. I came up with a bunch of thumbnail sketches but I'm narrowing them down to a few and developing them more. Here's one of the finished sketches. Don't mind the negative space on top, it's where the title would be placed.

Gaming, and I don't mean console!

In Illustration class, our instructor introduced us to Collectible Card Game, or gaming for short. He illustrates for the popular card game, Magic: The Gathering. The project he assigned was to illustrate, from a given description, the theme of the card. The list he gave us varied from guardians, to creatures, and spell cards. Some descriptions were trickier to illustrate than others. I settled on the description of the 'Pride Guardian', where a lion humanoid is guarding a gate. I really enjoyed this project even though it was kind of tough. The descriptions are well quite descriptive, but the challenging thing is composing it well enough that it reads on a card. And it's small. Here's my interpretation:

Conceptual Illustration

Lately, when I've been working on projects I find myself diving right in, and hoping for the best, to churn out good and quick pieces. And sometimes in an awe-inspiring moment, something wonderful might turn out...or on occasions long works in progress. Since I've been taking a Fantasy Illustration class, our instructor does not expect us to have fully fleshed out- completed illustrations. He would rather have us work on conceptual illustrations, that are well thought out and then is used as the foundation to a completed piece. To be honest, I haven't spent that much time in the pre-production phase of an illustration in quite some time. Usually, it's just a quick pencil sketch, then I scan it into Photoshop or dive into Photoshop and paint away. But, going back to this method has not only been enjoyable, but helpful as well. I think I've always longed for this, but my mind is so geared towards seeing a final piece that sometimes you neglect the importance of preparation. With that in mind, I hope to continue to spend a little more time in the conceptual phase. Here are a few concepts, that I've been working on for class, that provides as the foundation to a completed piece.

Based off the quote, "A tiny voice asked, "is he the one?""

Ram character design

Search and You Shall Find!...What!?

Okay, so I happened to Google my name to see if my website or any of my other portfolio sites came up, and I'm perusing. Then I clicked on Images and....my illustration, "Demonia" is featured under "35 Most Beautiful Female Digital Art Portraits" at ninjacrunch.com. I KID YOU NOT. Here's the link for proof (http://ninjacrunch.com/35-most-beautiful-female-digital-art-portraits/). Oh my gosh, could I be secretly famous!? *Reality of being jobless hits me in the face*....maybe not. I was pretty surprised and flattered, but I really do not believe my illustration is up to par with the rest of them. But it's nice to know that there are people, even if they are far and few, who admire your work. It makes all the hard work worthwhile.

Intermission

Greetings! It has been a while, I know. I've hit a rough patch on my journey as an artist, and it was hard for a while after being laid off. But the extra time allowed me to work on different projects, learn new tools and spruce up on current skills. What I found difficult is to work through an artist block and with so many different subjects to work on, it's hard to know where to begin. I discovered for myself that it is much more manageable to bounce back from project to project because this way I won't get stuck. When I return to a project, it'll be easier to approach and I'll see it a bit differently. Here are a few things that I've been working on. I have other stuff in the works and near completion, stay tuned!

Clicky Pig character design by Erin Filson

   Clicky Pig is put on hold until further notice.

WIP

Background Designs from DietVille

Background designs can be very technical but can allow lots of creative freedom. Besides designing characters at DietVille, backgrounds were something that I've always looked forward to working on. I love meticulous work, that's why I enjoy working on backgrounds, because there's a lot to consider. How things fit in together, like color and texture. What creates the mood and the characteristics of the space. All these things and more help unify and bring to life a particular space.

When I started working on backgrounds for DietVille, there was already a set background in place. Fellow coworker, Adam Parkes, created the 3D backgrounds to establish the space in the game. My job was to illustrate the space by giving it the characteristics of the given subject, such as 'Seasonal Store'. As shown above, here's just a couple of backgrounds that I'm proud of that showcases the artistic freedom I was given.

Characters of DietVille

One of my favorite projects at DietVille, a weight loss management social gaming company, is designing characters. Here are just some of the characters, the rest can be found at my website. If you noticed, the characters are all pointing towards their left, that is because these are tutorial characters that are guiding the player at the beginning of the game. The tool I used to sketch and create the characters is Adobe Photoshop. No words can express how much I love it. Next time on this blog, backgrounds from DietVille!