Illustration Friday:Fail

Illustration Friday:Fail
Originally uploaded by speartoons

The United States airline industry has to feel like failures this week. Between canceled flights, bankruptcies and prolonged inspections, I'm wondering what my next flight experience will be like.

This illustration is rendered in Adobe Illustrator.

Indiana SCBWI spring conference

I am part of the Madison Park Church of God Writers' Group. I just posted an announcement on the site about an upcoming writers conference.

http://madisonparkwriters.blogspot.com/2008/04/indiana-scbwi-spring-conference.html

This is the spring conference for the Indiana Chapter of the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators. I'm going to attend. Maybe I'll see you there too.

Illustration Friday: Save

When I heard this week's word, it made me think of all the talk I've heard about saving money. People say we are in a recession now. It's time to save that money, whether or not it falls from the sky.

metaHatem : where hatem rambles & sketch: homage

metaHatem : where hatem rambles & sketch: homage

I found this great link from an Egyptian born illustrator. The illustration reminded me of an old toy firetruck my grandfather had. We played on that rusty thing for hours.

This is a great illustration because Hatem uses texture to give it an organic feel. I was surprised this is a digital illustration.

Photoshop Happy Accident pattern

Photoshop Happy Accident Funky Pattern

Here is a little surprise I thought was so cool I needed to share it (and therefore, file it away for future reference).

I was designing and illustrating a children's place mat. There was an area I wanted to knockout with soft white. I took this art from Illustrator to Photoshop because I needed to apply some random texture to the blue. I wanted the white edge to be extremely soft, but I was getting a strange pattern.

While the pattern looked fun, it wasn't what I wanted for this instance. I wanted it to be soft. I used the smudge tool, but the pattern kept moving with the cursor instead of softening like I expected.

Finally, I looked at the layer. I discovered I must have put the layer blending mode on "Vivid Light."

When I set the blending mode to normal, voila! i got the soft borders back.

I'd encourage you to try all sorts of combinations with blending modes in Photoshop. You just never know what effect it will produce.

By the way, here is what the place mat looks at this point. This is a project for Warner Press and they own the copyright.

Christian Elden: Sugar Frosted Goodness Blank Book

Coworker, friend, and all around great guy, Christian Elden, has just finished being part of the Sugar Frosted Goodness Blank Book Project.

He has a preview on his site. He chose to use the Paramount Theater in Anderson, Indiana as his subject.

Christian has a great style on the computer. It is also nice to see some of his freehand work. He has a nice versatility between his stylized, cartoon work and his more realistic flair. 

Here is an example from his blog.

Cartoon: Downsized

Spear cartoon 3456
Originally uploaded by speartoons

Caption reads: "I must be the first second grader to ever be downsized."

Yes, I've been downsized before. When it happened, It got me thinking how when I was in school, I would have loved to be downsized. Wouldn't that be an elementary student's dream? That's what snow days are all about-it's a chance to be downsized for a day.