I recently created this pinup Santa girl illustration for a local company that produces home-brewing beer kits. The client was developing a special holiday/Christmas blend, and wanted to also include an incentive in the package — in this case it was to be an empty 24 oz. beer bottle with a pinup Santa girl silkscreened on to the bottle.

The artwork was first sketched out so we could get the look of the girl down. My instructions from the client were to be quite risqué with the art, as they have a predominant 20-30 year old male age range as a demographic.

My initial sketch was rejected for being a bit too risqué — they didn’t want the suggestion of her being nude, and thought the girl was a bit too sexy when they were going for more of a cute pixie look for the pinup babe.

I have to agree that the final art is much better and more appropriate for the bottle. The original sketch has her maybe a bit too trashy!

So back to the drawing board I went, and worked up a new sketch based off of the original overall look of the first — the client liked the general direction, but wanted to change the look of the girl.

You can see from both of these sketches that even at the rough stage, I work pretty detailed. I tend to work out ideas within a drawing, as opposed to coming up with a bunch of half-assed variations for the sake of having variations.

Usually this rough concept sketch is the culmination of 5 or 6 individual sketches as I work out what is successful and what is not.

For this revised sketch, I just dropped the opacity of the original down and worked on the revisions on a new Photoshop layer. If you look carefully, you’ll notice the positioning of her legs as well as the canday cane has changed from this rough sketch to the final. It looked more natural and the design flowed better to have the space opened up.

This rough sketch was then cleaned up even further in Photoshop, where it was then placed into Adobe Illustrator as a template layer. There was very little question about the quality of the line work at this stage, which helps the vector creation process go much more quickly.

One thing that had to be addressed was the handling of the dark areas so that they weren’t lost when they met the outlines. Also, the consideration of the overall rhythm of the light and dark areas was a concern. I knew I was going to be adding a pattern to the background so I could keep the dark outlines. The bottle is actually an amber brown, and the ink printed is white, so this played a part in the overall design considerations.

The background is just a simple tapered line which was duplicated and then both lines were combined as a blend, which allowed me to easily control the number of lines and the spacing until I got it just right. Too thick and it would overpower the linework of the main art; too thin and it would get muddy when screenprinted.

The lettering was also created in Illustrator, and hand-arched using the Envelope Warp tool. I don’t have the fancy plugins that make this easier (and are worth it) so I had to make do with what I had. Illustrator’s built-in Arch warp just doesn’t do the trick. Try it for yourself and you’ll see the warping doesn’t keep the vertical lines straight, and it ends up looking like crap.

The back of the bottle also was part of the project, and it really is not much more than a repurposing of the lettering from the front with an oval with design flourishes to give it that “beer label” look.

The “barley” wrapping the bottom half was hand-created (again using the Blend tool for the diminishing shapes) and then the blend was expanded and the resulting barley grains were then made into a custom Art Brush so I could smoothly wrap them on the oval — the oval was copied/pasted in place, then divided up to leave just the arcs I needed, to which the “Barley brush” was applied.

Unfortunately I have not seen the final product, even though it was requested from and promised by the client. I dropped a line recently but have not heard back. I was looking forward to having one of these in the studio, but I guess it’s not going to happen.

This artwork was actually created over the summer, but per the client’s request I have not posted it until now as they wanted it to be hush-hush in case their competitors were checking up on them.

Hope you enjoyed this artwork as well as the work behind the scenes that went into creating it.

a

Santa’s Helper

Related posts

• The Girl In The Moon (0)
• Sexy Cartoon School Girl Pin-Up - now avaialble at MyPSPTubes.com (0)
• News Hound (0)
• Monk/Friar With Beer Keg - Cartoon Mascot Illustration (0)
• Hot Mom Cartoon Illustration (0)

The information presented in the various tables in this document indicate examples of fees charged in relation to particular jobs or services, based on the AOI’s research and recent survey of the industry. The tables provide information about the variables in costs and gives examples of what factors should be considered as illustrators and clients negotiate fees. It should also be borne in mind that illustrators and clients have agreed fees outside the ranges surveyed here.

There’s a lot of great info here (and be sure to adjust the numbers in your head to your local currency — the pricing on the AOI Report is in UK pounds). It’s always helpful to get an idea of what others in your field are charging for their services to determine of you are charginot too little or too much.

I also reference the Graphic Artists Guild Handbook: Pricing & Ethical Guidelines which has some general pricing guidelines, but I always feel like I can’t find the exact area for the work I am doing. Still, it’s a handy resource. The AOI Report isn’t that much more detailed than the GAG book, but the AOI Report is free!

I found this over at illustrator Heather Castle’s blog, and she has a lot of other great biz tips and links over there, I recommend browsing her site for more great illustration freelancing & business information.

via Illustration Castle

a

AOI Report: Illustration Fees and Standards of Pricing

Related posts

• Can A Solo Freelance Artist Make A Real Living? (1)
• Wacom Intuos3 Graphics Tablet Review for Cartoonists & Illustrators (12)
• Tips For Freelance Illustrators: Nate Williams (0)
• Ten Essential Low-Tech (and Cheap!) Tools for Cartoonists & Illustrators (3)
• Superexpresso: One Two Three (0)

The “Oblong Ogre” is my most recent entry for the weekly Monster Monday monster art sketchblog.

This artwork was created entirely in Adobe Photoshop CS4 using a Wacom Intuos3 graphics tablet. As per my usual process, the rough sketch was worked up very loosely, then that Photoshop layer was flipped. A new refined sketch layer was then created where I worked up the sketch in more detail, using the two previous sketches as a guide for both the line work and for a symmetry guide.

Once the line art was finished, I added a flat color layer, with additional shading and highlight layers above. The shading layer is set to the Multiply blend mode, and the highlight layer set to Screen blend mode.

I have recently found that you can get pretty good results by just using the exact color you are shading or highlights and just using the appropriate shading/highlights layer. In the past I was selecting specific colors, but it seems the blend mode does the trick pretty nicely. I do find that I need to add multiple shading layers to get the proper darkness for some of the shadows though.

a

Oblong Ogre

Related posts

• Monster Monday: Monkey Bat (0)
• Monster Monday: Goblin (Green) (0)
• Monster Monday: Blue Beast (3)
• Monster Monday: Cartoon Ogre (0)
• Monster Monday: Cartoon “Igor”-style Character Sketch (0)

I recently needed to explain to a client the basic differences between Raster and Vector graphics, and came across this handy Raster and Vector Graphics overview at Mike’s Sketchpad.

While the explanation there is a nice summary, I would recommend any Adobe Illustrator (or other vector graphics software) users out there do a bit more research into vector art.

However for a quick explanation for a client or a non-vector graphics friend, the overview linked above pretty much sums it up as much as a non-vector art geek wants to know about the topic.

a

Raster and Vector Graphics — An Overview

Related posts

• Free Vector Logo & Brand Art - Brands Of The World (5)
• Cartoon Art & Halftones Tutorial: From Inkjet Printer to Photocopier (0)
• Tip: Increase Productivity Using Adobe Illustrator’s Layer Masks (0)
• The Creative Guy Is Now The Graphic Mac (0)
• Surfboard Logo Library (0)

So this is a pretty crazy story: Scientists have developed a method of generating an image by analyzing the blood flow of a person’s brain!

One of the things that becomes apparent when you read the article closely is that the images they’ve extracted are actually based on an image the person was shown while they were doing the extraction.

As the image to the left shows, they were looking at the image of the text “neuron” and then the computer was able to determine the visual pattern.

On one hand, this is a far cry from printing out your imagination, but on the other hand, looking back over the acceleration of technology advances, especially in the recent decades, means that this could be just the black-and-white television version of what soon could be a full-blown mind’s-eye printer. It’s still amazing either way.

I have mused over the nature of mental images for some time now. As a visual artist, I would find it extremely handy to have crisp mental imagery which I could manipulate before sketching. I have on occasion, just as I was falling asleep (the half-awake/half-asleep hypnagogic state), had experiences like this so I know my mind is capable of it. However I cannot seem to control it consciously at all.

In fact, my mental imagery is quite vague and undefined; I rely heavily on the sketch stage to tease out the ideas in my mind’s eye. I usually get glimpses, notions of what I want something to look like, and need to work to get it in physical form. I wonder how effective this “mental imager” would work for someone like me who would be interested in getting a sketch concept out of my brain. For me it would be pretty useless since my mental imagery is so vague.

If you find these concepts interesting, you might enjoy the thread I started over at Ask Metafilter [How detailed is your mental imagery / mental visualization?] on the subject. Lots of good discussion and experience on the subject including the level of detail other people have with their mental imagery. Some in fact do have almost ‘photographic’ imaginations, but curiously it seemed the people in creative professions were the ones with the most vague mental imagery. Very interesting.

I’d be curious for readers to sound off in the comments section below about the degree of clarity in your mental imagery, and whether or not you are a visual artist.

via Pink Tentacle

a

Imagination.eps

Related posts

• No related posts.

So much good stuff on this guy’s site, I just went with Spidey since he’s my favorite. Be sure to check out his blog for tons of awesome character design.

Spider-Man illustration by artist Sean Galloway. Art created by & © Sean Galloway.

a

Inspiration: Sean Galloway

Related posts

• ‘Hairy Canary’ T-Shirt Illustration (0)
• Wacom Intuos3 Graphics Tablet Review for Cartoonists & Illustrators (12)
• Wacky Packages: The Book (0)
• Ten Tips for Cartoonists to Overcome a Creativity Slump (4)
• Ten Essential Low-Tech (and Cheap!) Tools for Cartoonists & Illustrators (3)

Bob was stuck trying to figure out how to accomplish a technique with Adobe Illustrator, and sent out a plea for help. I dropped a line and we hooked up via iChat to work through his issue.

Bob mentions in the podcast how he was instantly sold on Twitter after the experience. Twitter is a great resource if you follow other illustrators and socialize with them - tapping the collective creative community can be a great resource if you are stuck on how to do something with your software.

Chris Wilson has helped me with one of my Photoshop cries for help, trying to do something with duplicating Layers.

Follow Bob Ostrom and his podcasting partner-in-crime Chris Wilson on Twitter. And of course, you’ll want to follow your humble author as well.

Answers for Freelancers! - Creative Independence - Experiencing Technical Difficulties.

a

Twitter: The Creative Collective

Related posts

• Wacom Tablet: Scroll Click (4)
• Wacom Intuos3 Graphics Tablet Review for Cartoonists & Illustrators (12)
• MAD cartoonist Tom Richmond’s Coloring Tutorial (0)
• Digital Coloring Tutorials by MAD Magazine cartoonist Tom Richmond (2)
• Creative Bits poll - Concepts: Sketching vs Computer? (0)

I am a big fan of illusionist Derren Brown. For those not in the know, he’s a magician / mentalist in the UK with a pretty big following over there. His television series Mind Control has aired in the U.S. on the Sci-Fi Channel.

Derren’s main celebrity is based on his television and stage performances which revolve around a blend of magic, hypnotism and mentalism (or NLP). His shows are very interactive with the audience and great fun. Brown is a bit of a smart-ass and doesn’t take himself too seriously, which I think adds to his appeal.

Brown also likes to do James Randi style exposés on psychics, faith healers and the like (his UK Channel 4 special “Messiah” is amazing). It’s very interesting to me to see how he is able to replicate these so-called paranormal effects using his blend of psychology, misdirection, NLP, hypnosis and other techniques.

But did you know he was a talented caricature artist as well?

I have recently been reading his book Tricks Of The Mind which is fascinating so far. It goes into some of the background on how he does his illusions (to some degree). Right now I am really enjoying his mnemonic techniques for memory enhancement.

In the chapter on memorization techniques, he off-handedly made a mention about his being a caricature artist; this was something I was not aware of. I headed over to his website and sure enough, he had an “Artwork” section which I had assumed was poster art from his performances or something.

Upon entering the portfolio, I was amazed to find that Brown is a very talented caricaturist and painter. While the image I chose to include with this post is a caricature of a lesser-known actor (James Mardsen from the X-Men films), I loved the sense of lighting, exaggeration and detail in this artwork and decided to include it to demonstrate his artistic talents. There are plenty of über-famous celebrities in his full gallery.

At this point in time Brown only paints celebrity caricatures, his reasoning being the caricatured aspect of celebrity — how the public is shown this distorted version of celebrities, filtered through marketing and PR to create a “brand” for the actor. In his mind, it’s a caricature of who the real person actually is.

If you are a fan of Derren Brown but weren’t aware of his painting prowess, be sure to visit his website and check out his art. If you aren’t a fan, you can enjoy Brown’s art without knowing who he is. I would however suggest doing a YouTube search for Derren Brown and checking out some of the television bits he’s done, if you’ve never seen him before.

Personally I am a bit more open to the idea that some of these paranormal talents may in fact be real in some people (I have had some personal experiences that I can’t explain), but I would have to agree with Brown, Randi and the rest of the skeptics that most likely a big percentage of those claming otherworldy skills are either misrepresenting or deluding themselves as to the real cause. Brown’s demonstrations are pretty mind-blowing and present a strong case for mundane explanations. He shows how these so-called paranormal events could in fact be replicated with readily available tools and techniques.

I am a big fan of learning about both sides of any argument, and giving each side it’s time to defend their stance. While I may have a healthy curiosity in the paranormal, I also make sure I spend time with the skeptics and the debunkers. Derren Brown has a clever blend of debunking (by performing the feats himself) while at the same time allowing you to enjoy the effects of “believing” in them — at least for a short while.

a

Derren Brown: Caricatures

Related posts

• Zombie Presidents! (0)
• Rejected CafePress shirts (0)
• James Groman: Madball Paintings (0)
• Inspiration: J.R. Williams - The Hitchhiker (0)
• Inspiration: Are Mokkelbost (1)

Cartoonist and illustrator extraordinaire Tom Richmond has an excellent in-depth guide to drawing hands over on his blog. As per usual with Tom’s instructional articles/blog posts, he goes into far more detail and insight than one could possibly imagine he would have time for, even down to supplying illustrated diagrams explaining everything.

Here’s a quote demonstrating the level of insight you’ll find:

Many people think the knuckle of the finger rests directly behind the crease that represents the base of the finger right under the bottom finger pad. Now turn your hand around. That main knuckle is SIGNIFICANTLY lower on the hand. In fact it’s below the upper pad of the palm that curve below all the fingers. A lot more of your finger resides inside the palm/body than you might think. Understanding that is a big part of figuring out hands.

At some point I can see Tom collating all these posts into a book of some sort. His blog tutorials are better than any book on cartooning I’ve ever seen, and this one is no different.

Probably one of the more difficult parts of the human body to draw, and Tom is a master at the cartoon hand. Head over there and learn from the best.

a

Tom Richmond’s ‘Drawing Hands’: An In-Depth Tutorial

Related posts

• Sugar Frosted Goodness: Community Illustrator Blog (0)
• Podcast review: The Illustrative Designer (0)
• MAD cartoonist Tom Richmond’s Coloring Tutorial (0)
• Digital Coloring Tutorials by MAD Magazine cartoonist Tom Richmond (2)
• Cartoon Character Icon Video Tutorial at FastIcon.com (0)

Cap’n Clobber is my robot gorilla pirate creation for this week’s Monster Monday illustration.

This entire drawing was created using Photoshop CS4 and a Wacom Intuos3 graphics tablet. The initial rough sketch was worked up as I was fishing for ideas for this week’s creature.

You can see he’s quite different from the final artwork. At this stage I was just working up an overall look and proportions for what I thought the character should look like. I took this rough concept sketch, dropped the layer’s opacity and started working on refinements:

The details on the skull were fleshed out (no pun intended), and the hand and sword were added.

This next sketch has a dramatic change in the overall body proportions. Once I realized I was going to give him pirate props, I needed to have more definition in the leg area for the details. The sketch refinement layer was duplicated and flipped, and the legs added.

The line work was then cleaned up some more, and then a new layer added below the line art layer for the flat color.

Next, a shading layer was added above the flat color area. This layer is set to the Multiply blend mode. A highlights layer was also added, with it’s blend mode set to Screen. I jump between these two layers as I am working — in other words the shadows layer is not done in one pass and then the highlights, but rather I will work on both simultaneously going back and forth as I refine the details.

At some point the red glowing eyes came to mind, and these were added as well.

A simple flat color background layer is then added, and then a flat oval of a brighter tint of the same color is added to a new layer. A gaussian blur is applied to this oval layer.

Final step is to add the shadow. For this illustration I experimented with a shadow created from the actual character artwork. This was done using the “Copy Merged” menu item as it will use all visible layers for the selection, not just the highlighted/active layer.

I pasted my “merged copy” into a new layer, used the Magic Wand tool to select the areas outside the character and then inverted my selection. I then filled it with black by using the Option-Delete key combo (fills with the foreground color). Had I remembered, I could have used the Option-Shift-Delete combo, which only fills the non-transparent pixels with the foreground color. Swap the Command key with the Option key to do the same with the background color.

The layer was then distorted using the Transform command, and then squashing the height as well as a small bit of foreshortening (Command-Option-Shift click one of the top-most control handles when in Transform mode to achieve the foreshortening).

I then set this layer to multiply, and reduced the layer’s opacity to 60%. I then duplicated the layer. One version was given a Gaussian blur, and the other had a Layer Mask applied using a gradient to feather it out as it receded, letting the blurred copy take over.

Requisite copyright notice was then embedded in the image, and the artwork is complete.

a

Cap’n Clobber

Related posts

• Oblong Ogre (0)
• Monster Monday: Monkey Bat (0)
• Monster Monday: Goblin (Green) (0)
• Monster Monday: Cartoon Ogre (0)
• Monster Monday: Blue Beast (3)