Illustration Friday: Worry

Illustration Friday: Worry
Originally uploaded by speartoons

This is based on an article on a $175 hamburger. The link is...

$175 Burger: Do You Want Fries with That?

I would worry if I ate that expensive burger even if I could afford it. I'd worry about what a waste of money when others struggle to feed themselves

Illustration Friday-Electricity

Illustration Friday-Electricity
Originally uploaded by speartoons

The word for Illustration Friday this week is "electricity." In the USA, there's been a lot of talk about energy, fuel and the price. Gasoline keeps hitting all-time highs for us. In Indiana, there is talk about liquefying coal since we have plenty here.

As for me, I'm saving all my power for my PC.

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.