Mr. Pixel

A new day, a new post. I'm on a roll already. I'm part of a company that does web design and development, among other things, called Pixel Nation. (check us out at http://wearepixelnation.com/) Anyway, every time I think "Pixel Nation" I always imagine a country full of people with pixel-esque cubes for heads... Since we are shifting into some inside work over the next couple weeks I figured I better get the idea out of my head so my brain can move on when I think Pixel Nation. Viola:

So I guess he is walking through a desert and some other people have been long buried in the sand. I was gonna do footsteps and add some more detail, but then iI realized this image has served its purpose. Maybe a mascot could come somewhere from this.

Zombie Character Study

A couple of rough zombie illustrations I did, trying to narrow down a character style for a client project. 

I really like this one, so I might do something else with these cube-lite type of characters. And another:

This one was a later design. You can tell the order I did these in, because when I work with the same subject matter over and over, I start making things more and more silly as I go to keep myself entertained. So this one makes me laugh. I like the colors and his ribs popping out, but it's not my favorite.

New Look

I'm in the process of changing the look and aim of up of this page. I had stopped using it so I thought changing gears would get me back in it. Here is a larger image of that new icon I just made for the header as part of the change.

 

Character Types

Been busy. Made a bunch of character types to pitch to client for a thing... 8 of which I can't share yet, but here are 2 less sensitive ones.

Blocky baby. Looks like he has a boom-box for a head, and

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Running Lady. These characters were all shaped like a bars of soap. This ones got some high-wasted jean shorts on. Ha. All that retail experience is coming in handy!

Kickball Team Design #3

HAHA!

Kickball Shirt Design #2

Here is the second design I did for a friends kickball team. They kept alluding to guys balls so I but these lil guys in briefs and told them that this is about as close as I am gonna get to that allusion. They ended up going with this one

kickball

First design I pitched to my a friends kickball team. I really liked this one, but the team name turned out to be UNTOUCHA-balls so this slick retro logo got scratched.

Accent Chair

ANOTHER CHAIR! This one is the same color as the last one. I must be putting a living room together.

Vintage Couch

Vintage couch. Trying to make something for Sami and this is part of it.

Kansas City Web Idea

Haven't posted in TOO long! I've been trying to learn some new stuff, so I started a project where I can work on several things at once:

1. Learning how to make better websites
2. Getting better at working with illustrator and photoshop
and 3. Getting to know a little bit more about the city I live in

So here is what I've been doing in illustrator in my spare time, and then I'll explain for my own benefit below, because no one reads this.

 Alright so I'm thinking about making a site of an illustrated Kansas City. Each building or icon or whatever it is, will have a pop-up with a brief history of the area or site on it...
I'm playing around with a few different ideas.

a. STYLE - The orange buildings above get less proportioned starting from the kauffman and going counterclockwise. I'm trying to decide how "cartooney" to get with these.

b. COLOR - So most of these are orange because i was thinking about having a white background and grouping areas of town into certain colors (downtown sites are orange, rivermarket sites are red, etc.) But now I'm thinking as I get further I may want different types of places to have different colors, for example architectural landmarks are purple, historic sites are green, and residential areas are blue.

c. GETTING ABSTRACT - Some places I want to have icons representing the site or area, especially when the idea of the place is more meaningful than its actual appearance. That is why the Disney house above is just a generic house with a fantasia hat on. So Im trying to decide if whole areas should get icons, like one that wraps up 18th and vine, or power and light...

d. GEOGRAPHY - most of KC is in a pretty good north to south line, but there is some good stuff east to west from us, like the Truman home, the sports complex, kansas speedway, blah blah blah. I don't know how I wanna deal with this yet, since I want this to scroll up and down. hmm.

Thats all for now. Kinda wordy, I know.

Wood Eames

Another chair. This is an Eames. Love the shape of these chairs, especially from the back. I've been really wanting to get outside of my box on Illustrator, so I made the wood grain, and had to use the clipping mask. I can't believe I've never used that before.
I should probably start a separate blog for chairs and lighting. Ha.

Modern Lounger

Update! Came back to this one. Added The light fixture, shadow, and rug. Feeling PREEETTY good about it. Drawing furniture might be my new thing (for a couple weeks). Here ya go!

The light looked cooler before I rasterized it... I had one of those fancy filament bulbs in there, and you can still kinda see the bean shape of the the glass lamp, but it's all a little washy now.

I also made the shadow (of the chair) cartooney looking and I like the way that turned out. Normally I copy the image and twist it to where I want it, but I'm just gonna draw it from now on. This and the swivel chair below make good desktops.

Modern Chair

I drew a chair.  Not child oriented hmm? Maybe I'll do a kids guide to modern furniture, or modern art called "My kid could do that". Ha!

(P.S. HI SAMI! What you think?)

So here is most of what I've done the past few days in illustrator (If it doesn't load right away, the files are pretty big...) It's a comic book type of story I am going to run with, and use to better my abilities in a couple of ways. Here is a "cover" and the first two pages:

So the book is called Mitasi after the main character. He is a friendly little TV/Monitor box with a cast of friends who follow him on adventures. In this particular story Mitasi misses the country (the hills), and invites his friends to a sleep over at a house outside of the city, where the house will undoubtedly have some fun surprises waiting for them. I really like the way this page turned out. Originally I was going to do each panel of each page one color scheme, so I made each layer leading up to the hills and sky a different solid color. I finished the first page in this theme (which I posted days ago), but I thought it would be harder to follow a story this way, so I've since changed it.

I'm happy with the decision I made to keep the colors consistent. It is really fun to do the interiors and helps me hone in on color schemes I like. Another thing I played with a lot was the text. I only have so many fonts on my computer that I like so I've always had a hard time with this. I also haven't laid out text much so I have some learning to do to make it look as if it's in place.
Also, even though I can write well, I've had a hard time in the past writing for stories I've illustrated. I figure this will help me get more comfortable with writing stories and conversation between characters. So it may be rough as I start out, but I think I'm already getting better at it. I have to keep telling myself to keep things simple!

In the previous page I introduced all of the characters I have so far. Mitasi is smiley T.V. with the M on his head, Bidi is the second character seen, with the squiggled line coming from the top of his head. I think he is going to be Mitasi's #2.
The tube is Poli, who I'm planning on being the cute/daft one, and the big rectangle with the T on is head is Werner. Haven't thought about this character much, but I'm sure in the next few days I'll have an idea.

So I'm gonna make another blog just for all this business so I can keep this one as a variety/trying new things type of portfolio like it has been, but I need to play more with different website/blog features so I figured this would be a good personal project for that. If anyone I know reads all this WOW! Look at you!

So I kept playing with those characters and I'm loving it. I love architecture and design so I've been having fun drawing interiors for the few pages I've completed, and playing with colors. Here is a kitchen, probably the most detailed frame I've done for this so far.

I also drew a little USB disk for a couple frames later. This ones got a sleep and awake mode, both displayed below!

Been drawing in real life with pens and markers, so tonight I got back on Illustrator. I made a page of the characters I drew the other day. I might keep going with these in my spare time, because it hardly takes any time and I really like the way they look. I think the text is weak, but I'll figure it out after a couple more.

 

When I do another page I'm not sure if I wanna keep doing a single color for each panel or mix it up. I might try to make a blog just for these guys and figure out how to make a wordpress site along the way. blah blah blah! See ya!

Just drew some more characters. I used to draw the box with the M on his head all the time in my old sketch books, and I thought I'd do some more stuff with him that was really simple and my style. So I'm gonna work on a little story with this guy and his friends. In this picture the group is on a country vacation. The two on the right are excited to get out of the city, while the two on the left don't appreciate the living quarters they see.

Get this. I just drew a made up word, and FYI, words (especially cursive ones) are pretty tough to draw from scratch on Illustrator with just a track pad... So I'm feeling preeetty good.
WITHOUT FURTHER ADO, I give you Mitasi!

Its just my first and last name put together.

UPDATE: Also Mitasi Man. A polite tv/microwave businessman.

Pretty much done with the Community Garden picture. I'm gonna let it sit for a couple of days, then I might change some stuff. Kind of want to do a strip of shops or some apartment buildings instead of just the house, and then have the text go above everything. And I still might change a bunch of colors...

Haven't posted anything for awhile. Been trying to learn Visual Web Developer, and it has been keeping me busy... So here is something different from what I typically post on this blog. A friend and I are planning on doing a comic book project in our spare time, where we trade off on every couple of pages, and try to make the change in art style work with the story if we can. Here is half of my first page without the text laid on top.

Another portion of the garden done this morning. This one is about done. Gonna draw some squirrels and rabbits running around. Maybe some more leaves and weeds. What a diverse city!!!

A while ago I was working on a community garden poster. I made a handful of characters for it, but I was over it by the time I was ready to start putting it all together. I decided to try to pick it back up again today, and do about an 8th of it at a time.

I'm going to change the plants in the plant box, a lot of colors and some layout, but for the most part this is how this portion is gonna look. I'm not crazy about it yet, but by the time it's done it should be a really fun picture.

BOO-YA! This was an kids book idea me and my buddy came up with when we were joking around, so I ran with it. So the premise is that BOO-YA Grandma is an extremely cool Grandma that just shatters all Age Discriminating stereotypes. She drives fast, voted for Ralph Nader, can drain the rock from downtown, occupied Wall-street... The list goes on. Shes a little pale under this spot light so I need to give her a tan. Maybe I'll wait for "Boo-Ya Grandma Hits the Beach" for continuity sake.

I drew some (made up) book covers for a website I'm making for a (made up) publishing company. Since I haven't made a site in a long time, and I'm looking to get into programming or web design, I thought it would be a good idea to refresh my mind a little before I start trying to learn anything new. Some of the images I drew today, and others you can find on the blog in older posts.

So, I wasn't very happy with the bulldozer I drew below. It seemed a bit overdone, and it took too long to make. So today, I tried to make something simple, quick, and fun, and I think I'm getting back on track. This is a little monster bulldozing on the moon.

Drew another vehicle today. I picked a Bulldozer. Kids love these! To be honest I'm not all that happy about how this one turned out. It doesn't look child-oriented or fun enough. There are just too many sharp lines and more dimension than it needs. At the same time this took me a while so I gotta post it. This whole blog is about me learning and getting better anyway right? Here it is:

If you are looking to get into illustration for children you just can't ignore automobiles of any kind. Drawing cars, trucks, cranes, bulldozers and some of the like are still on my to do list, but I took a couple hours to draw this lil' bus today! I always kind of cringe when people make "Short Bus" jokes. I know of some, but I haven't seen many kids books about being accepting of peers with learning disorders. Since the bus is a symbol of what sets them apart to a lot of younger folks, I thought it would be a good subject of a short story. SO here is my first attempt at an automobile!

Getting warm outside. That means bugs are coming to life. I have two pictures of Bees to share.

This first one I made for a little cute rhyming picture book I gave to my girlfriend. In all I had 12 or 13 pictures for it. Each Illustration had an opposite page with text.. "You're the honey, I'm the bee" and so on. All very minimal. I tried to use just a few colors on each, but got carried away on some. The simpler the better!

The next one I made for a site my buddy has, where I send mostly hand drawn stuff. I did several in this vein for an upcoming theme. The bee and the cone flower together are supposed to shape the letter 'B', but I bet you could gather that on your own... I hope. This is probably my least favorite, but I haven't posted anything drawn on this blog yet so why not!?

HAVE A GREAT DAY!!

Another book idea?! Yesterday I drew a picture of a bunch of ball shaped Sharks on boogie boards. I really like the drawing, there is a lot of fun stuff going on. For this picture I just traced one and repeated him a bunch, kind of like you would see in an end page on a kids book. I was trying to think of a fun story for these guys. All I know right now is that they live near the board walk and love funnel cake. I was thinking that some of my characters would make for a fun little game or app if I can figure out how to do that stuff eventually. Anyhow, here is the pic.

I've done a bunch of stuff over the last couple days. A lot of drawings. Some I may play with on the computer and see if they go anywhere. I need someone who can write for free so I can work on a book! Speaking of book ideas, I had one called Good Elephants Stay Put in Bed, but I drew about 5 pages and realized it wasn't going anywhere. Here is my favorite page, where Baby Elephant has waited long enough for Momma Elephant to fall asleep and is ready to party.

Also, I just joined some of my buddies on another blogger site @ Sharks Eat Meat. Some really talented people post here, so I'm pumped to be a part of it! So far I've sent them a few scans of my hand drawn stuff, poster and shirts designs and ideas. I'm all over the net!

Stayed up to watch BRUUUUCE on Late Night, and one of my favorite artists, Wayne White, is on Last Call tonight! I drew something silly with geometric shape tools in illustrator to keep me busy while I waited. HERE IT IS:

I love looking at buildings and modern homes. Mostly just for their shape, but I can appreciate some nice decor here and there. I would have liked to have been an architect, and I may have pursued that if any of the handful of people I know who went to school for architecture had jobs. ANYWAY, thanks for reading my blog!

I've been trying to teach myself some programming, so since I haven't drawn in a couple of days, I took an hour to make something. Here is a teenage bear playing video games.

I need to finish my community garden picture. I am doing way to much at once!
3/9 - Every time I scroll back to look at older posts, I hated the colors of this bear so today I made him black and got rid of the trees. Who plays video games outside anyway??

Drew a KC hat a while back. I've got it tiled on my desktop.
All I can think about is baseball.

Also! A while ago I drew some baseball cards. I was going to make a series called National Treasures, (National league players in front of landmarks from their teams city/state). I wanted to do one for each team with backs and everything, then get some printed, but I got bored with the idea before I finished. This one is of Albert in front of the arch.

Outdated now. Albert is in the land of the DH, so we'll still get to see him here in KC. 

Drew these monsters in bed last night. They turned out okay for the amount of time they took.

I keep saying next time I make something I'm going to try to shade it, or give it a shiny look. Here's the thing, I'm so used to my little characters being so simple I kind of don't like any undefined shadow. On top of that, I have a hard time figuring some of the more advanced (to me) Illustrator and Photoshop stuff out, not only because my brain is aging, but because my computer slows to crawl when I even try to rasterize an image. Maybe I'll give it another shot with these guys and re-post. 

UPDATE:

Hanging out with some friends at Mud Pie. Put some gradient mesh on these guys. I'll get better at it if I keep playing with it, but I'm not crazy about the look.

 

Just started working on the garden for my community garden poster. Not much to post because I just have bushes and sidewalks now... but here are some more people & creatures. I don't know what direction I am going with the style yet, so it will be time consuming as I try multiple things.

These characters are in between crispy clean and hand drawn. There is a lot of geometric shapes so far in the garden so it looks a little too clean to mesh well with the characters. Hopefully the busier I make the surroundings the more natural it will look.

Hello! I made a new banner for this here blog. Way better than some tilted 3D letters I think. I was gonna have the letters of my name chasing after me down that path, but the composition looked SO BAD, so I just left the path and put a kite string in my hand... and I really like it. There are a lot of happy accidents in illustration I've found.

Anyway, it bothers me to leave a post without a picture so here is something I played with a while ago.

I really like this old school Jayhawk. I wanted one on my desktop, but I couldn't find one bigger than a one inch gif on the internet, so I traced it and built one. I made few different desktops. With this one I was just playing with some of the colors.

I've been a Knick fan since I was a little kid. Amare Stoudemire just came back to the team, so since I had a lot of fun doing the baseball pic below, that I thought I'd do a basketball one. So here is cartoon Amare.

I did some shading and reflective type stuff on the court, but lost the effect when I applied the grain texture, but I like the way it turned out anyway.

Excited for baseball season?! I am. Kansas City is home of the 2012 All-Star game, so hopefully a couple of Royals get voted on to the AL-team. Our Golden Glove winning left-fielder Alex Gordon made a run at it last year. This morning I drew a cartoon Alex fielding a ball at Kauffman Stadium. Just realized I forgot the beard he has been sporting. Details! Oh well. Here it is:

I've been playing with filters, and man are Illustrator filters bad. This grain one is one of two I found and liked. I think they are the same as the filters in the version of Photoshop I have, but next time I make something, I plan on playing with some of the effects in Photoshop and seeing what happens.