Final Creative Project

My idea for my project was to create a series of designs to represent my pretend company. I used
photos of my own tattoos and incorporated them into my designs. I wanted all of my designs to be colorful and stand out. I used a combination of Photoshop and Illustrator. I made of the backgrounds, the flowers in the first design, and the bones and the sunburst effect in the second design all in Illustrator. I used some different brushes and layer effects in Photoshop. I also created all of the text in Photoshop and added some effects to that as well.

Original Tattoos:

Creative Project: Preliminary Round 2

I figured out how to do the sunburst tutorial I mentioned in my last post and I changed the layer to overlay over my green background. Then I used the Eraser tool and a decorative brush to 'cut out' the shape in the background. For my zombie girl, I used the Cutout Filter to give her a more cartoon-y appearance (trying to use the pen tool to make her a vector was just not working out). I used the bone I had made in Illustrator and used the Transform tools to get them into the shape that I wanted. I put in each bone one by one which was a bit time consuming, and then merged all of those layers. I am still trying to figure out how to make the bones sort of 'blend' more with the rest of the design. Then I just added some text with a Stroke and Drop shadow effect.

Creative Project: Preliminary Round 1

My idea for this project is to create a series of vector-style designs for my project. The plan is to use my own tattoos (which were drawn by me) and then use Illustrator/Photoshop to make them into cartoon-y vector designs. I ultimately want to make these designs be advertisements for my own pretend design company. This would still be 3-4 seperate designs, all 8x10. 

I hate to say it, but I'm moving pretty slowly with this project. I have been working through a lot of Illustrator tutorials and learning a lot of new things. I have had a breakthrough with the pen tool in Illustrator though, and it is becoming a lot easier for me to use. 

My first design is almost completed. I still have to work on the scorpion part of it and make it look more vector-y. I found a great tutorial for the flowers here and it was actually pretty easy. The zebra print is from a picture I took of one of my sweaters. I did a gradient overlay in Illustrator, which is a little different than making one in Photoshop.

This is the next design that I have started working on:

I am working on the background for this design, also made in Illustrator, and I am trying to create this sunburst effect (tutorial here) but it isn't turning out the way I want. I also made these little bones using the rectangle and ellipse shape tools in Illustrator to recreate the bones in the tattoo, and I am working on making them more three-dimensional.

Design Competition: Final

So, my final composition ended up being completely different than my preliminary ideas. My project is for the Conqueror Typographic Games 2012, the website can be seen here. I took Heather's advice from my preliminary round two design and tried out a duotone on my background image. I tested a bunch of different colors and finally decided that the picture looked best using black and green. For most of the text, I just used Times New Roman and I used two other decorative fonts for 'what' and 'conquer' because I wanted those words to stand out more. I also created an outer glow for both words. My design is still very simple, but I think the duotone background with just black and white text looks much better.

Design Competition: Preliminary Round Two

To start, I duplicated the background layer and changed the layer mode to overlay at 85%. I used the Brightness/Contrast to make the picture a bit darker. Next I added text in two portions, and used a gradient overlay to make the Olympics colors. The text needs something extra to make it really unique, but it is still a work in progress.

I also had an idea to make a gradient overlay just on my friend, and keeping the text all one color. But this is also needs to be more thought out if I decide to go this route.

Design Competition: Preliminary

It was really hard to pick a competition to create a design for. There were so many to chose from and so many of them seemed like they would be really interesting. I ended up choosing the Conqueror Typographic Games 2012. I have always been intrigued by typography and this competition seemed like it would be the most fun for me.

The goal of this competition is to "Create a typographical poster about sports, using the phrase, "It's not what you win, but how you conquer it." The Conqueror Typograpica Games website can be seen here. The winner of the contest gets two tickets to the 2012 Olympic Games in London (I'm not sure if the winning poster will be used in any way for the games though).

I am going to use a picture of a friend during one of her marathons (she is a runner). I'm sure if I want to leave the background the way it is or create something else.

So far, I have made the picture black and white and edited the Brightness/Contrast.

Other pictures I am using for inspiration only (found on Google Images):

Redesign an Album Cover: Final

My final ACDC album cover remake:

 

I chose to redesign this album cover because I really like the original artwork, but I thought that I could do a lot of things with it to make it really unique. The original cover didn't really represent the title Black Ice in my opinion, so I wanted to create something that did. I did want to keep the format of my cover similiar to that of the original. When I think of 'black ice' I didn't think of the kind of ice you see on the road when the weather is really bad, but I thought of a really cool cave in the middle of Antarctica. I also overlayed it with a grunge background to give it some texture. Next, I found a sketch of ACDC, deleted the background and overlayed it onto my ice background. I used the pen tool in Illustrator to cut out the letters and the lightning bolt from the ACDC picture and then edited them in Photoshop. (On a side note, the pen tool is becoming easier to use with more practice). I used the Bevel and Emboss and Outer Glow tools to make the text stand out from the background. I just added 'Black Ice' in a simple font and used a Gradient overlay and Outer Glow effect. I added a grain filter and then I just played around with the Brightness/Contrast, Curves and Exposure tools to create the exact look that I wanted.

Original Album Cover:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Ice_%28album%29

Recreate Album Cover: Preliminary

For my album cover, I decided to recreate ACDC's Black Ice. I really like this album cover, but I think there are so many things that could be done to it to make it really stand out.

This is the original album cover. It looks cool, but it can definitely be taken to another level. When doing a Google search for this cover, I found some similar covers that gave me some more ideas for my design. I have some great ideas for this cover and I can't wait for everyone to see my finished product.

Recreate Using Illustrator

This project was my very first attempt at using Illustrator and I can already tell that I'm going to have a love-hate relationship with this program. I really struggled with the pen tool and trying to trace my object. No matter how many tutorials I watch, I just can't seem to grasp the concept of using the pen tool. I have learned how to work around using the pen tool in Photoshop and if I could do the same in Illustrator, I totally would. Regardless, I tried my best and I am posting what I made in Illustrator even though it is a little embarrassing (any advice about using the pen tool would be greatly appreciated).

Original (found on Google)

My Illustrator Version

My Photoshop Version

Artist Statement

I have had an interest in art for as long as I can remember. My earliest memory of my love for art is from when I was about 6 years old and I was forced to go to summer camp. All I wanted to do was draw or paint or make boondoggles while all of the other kids were playing games. I took art classes all throughout school and I loved them, but I never really felt like it was great at art. In high school, one of my art teachers pulled me aside and said she was mad at me. I was in shock, because I never got in trouble at school. She wasn’t really mad at me, but she was disappointed that I didn’t sign up for the art program in school and it was too late for me to do so at that point. She said I had talent, and it was at that moment that I realized I was good at art.

I used to enjoy drawing a lot, but now that I have more experience with Photoshop, I prefer to create digital artwork. When using Photoshop, there is really no limit to what I can do. There are so many tools that I can use to create whatever I want.

A lot of my inspiration comes from things that are a part of my daily life, like what I see on tv, the type of music I listen to, pictures I see when I’m blogging on Tumblr. I am a very visual person, and things that I see have an impact on me. The digital art that I create reflect things that appeal to me (mostly because I am a student working at Walgreens and the only art I create are for my classes).