DMF Poster Project

When I heard that our latest assignment was going to be the creation of posters, I couldn't have been happier. In my career as a graphic artist, I have been professionally commissioned to create promotional materials for such names as Carol Channing and The Moody Blues. As far as I am concerned, the creation of a poster is one of the most existential forms of expression in the graphic arts medium. People become informed by posters about just about everything from rules to events they want to see.

When choosing a concept, I decided to sidestep the familiar territory of music and go towards concepts that I have worked the least on. The concepts I chose were for a movie and for a fictional event. For my first piece, my movie poster, the timing could not have been better. I had been commissioned by an independent film maker in Racine, Wisconsin to create a promotional poster for his zombie film, "Becoming Undead."

When commissioned to create this piece, I was allowed to view the short film prior to its release. Since the film regarded the macabre subject of becoming a zombie as opposed to an all out assault of the undead (a la Dawn of the Dead), I wanted to capture the nightmarish feeling of the movie in the poster. This came to me in the color red. I employed red shading to screen captures that I had taken from the film itself and edited them accordingly. One of the tools I found most useful in this project was not only colored layers and overlays, but the eraser. In order to get the fine lines and cuts, such as in the figure holding a gun to his head, I had to employ the use of the eraser to allow the figure to blend into the background. Also, the eraser allowed me to have that figure jump off of the apparent canvas and into the lower marquee, drawing attention to the name of the film as well as the director.

Also, as far as the text was concerned, I used the tagline of the film right next to the garish figure at center. Since there was some empty space that would have seemed awkward and attention grabbing if left empty, I decided to place the tagline there in order to even out the piece.

Looking at the gestalt, I see that the motif of the poster will capture the attention of those who are truly horror fans since I emphasized much of the overarching emotion within the poster itself in a macabre fashion.

For my second, more jovial, piece. I decided to create a poster for a fictional event. This event would be an all out Grand Prix style race through the heart of Downtown Ashland! I chose to go with this concept, not only because of the absurdity, but also it allowed me to utilize a photograph of my car in a piece of my artwork!

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I once again employed the eraser (which is a tool I never really used in the past) to cut my car out of a photograph. The eraser came in handy here because simply lassoing it gave it incredibly obvious cutlines. In order to eliminate the "photographic quality" of the car image, I applied blur and filters to it. Since the emphasis of this piece is speed, speed and more speed, I created a duplicate of the "descending cars" and applied a heavy motion blur. Now, at that point the background seemed plain, so I applied an off center gradient stripe to allow the eyes to have a guide to the name of the event at the top. But, a simple color gradient background seemed plain, so I decided to add a picture of a freeway in the background. Thankfully, I was able to find a slow-shutter photo of a freeway that had a right turn in it, and it framed the cars in the foreground perfectly. Now, the name of the event is placed along the lines of the lights to draw the eyes in a full circle around the piece. The usage of these shapes help emphasize the excitement of the event, as well as create a shape framing that creates a circle within the piece without it being an immediate circle. 

DMF Photography Assignment

Prior to getting started on this assignment, I was struck by serendipity. I was able to get my hands on a fairly decent camera, a Kodak EasyShare Z740. Since part of this assignment was to establish a handling of the camera and my subjects, I found myself facing a large, yet welcome, challenge. Unlike any other camera I've ever owned, it is possible to manually set the aperture, ISO and shutter speed. I have had experience with this in the past on other cameras (mainly Canon), but I had never had experience adjusting them on this camera. So, in short, I found myself gaining more control of my camera as I took more and more photographs. Even though I did not have this camera for all of my field work (some days I forgot to take it with me), I found it interesting to see the differences between the camera on my iPhone 3G and my Kodak. 

When out in the field, I found it much more of a task to take the pictures of the objects. For one, it challenged me to observe every part of my surroundings to see if anything within them looked like letters. I soon noticed, upon putting everything together from concept to photograph, that the environments were the most difficult thing to utilize. Sure, my eye can see them as the letter, but to formulate a replica using the camera was another task in and of itself. On the day I went out shooting, the weather was far from optimal for utilizing the outside light. So, with that in mind, I had to find angles in which I could keep the "letter" in tact as well as have it properly lit. For example, the "X" photograph was perhaps the most difficult.

In order to fully accentuate the letter, I used layer masks to veil the color of the background and alter the yellow around the arrows. A contrast to this would be the picture of the letter "R," taken with my iPhone. Though the conditions were much more pleasant for this photograph, the colors that surrounded it again made it difficult to isolate it, so I decided to use masks and curves to bring it out in the most fantastical way possible.

As far as lighting was concerned, the most difficult was actually in the bar I worked at. To create the letter "V", I decided to use the sliders on my soundboard to form it. Since I also operate dance lights, and the board is often illuminated by them as well, I decided to simulate that with effects. I couldn't take the photo otherwise, since lighting in bars is generally low. Since I was able to simulate the color the dance lights give to the board, it helped to bring out what I see on a regular basis when I'm working, making this piece much more existential than the rest (without a human subject, of course.) This one has to be my favorite piece.

On the subject of bar light often being low, my subject for the "other" was in similar lighting at another bar. However thanks to the lights above the bar itself and the lighting of the Video Poker machines, I was able to get a decent photograph without much contrast editing. 

On a personal level, I don't see people as much different. We're all human, we all bleed red, we're all born, we all die. So, trying to point out differences between me and a potential subject were fairly difficult. Also, since I was in a bar, I had to be careful not to offend anyone in case the person I asked was inebriated (especially a total stranger!) So, I had to wait some time for the perfect subject to come along. For this picture, I went to a bar I used to work at some time ago. Since it had been some time, and the people that file in and out of bars change like the seasons, I knew I'd find someone I didn't know. My subject, who was more than happy to allow me to photograph him, was also friends with the bartender that used to work with me back then, so it made the ability to ask much easier. He asked if he should smile for the picture, and I declined since I have always hated photographs like that. I wanted to have this shot just be of a normal guy (though older than me) just doing what he normally does when he comes to the bar, which is gamble a few dollar and chat with the bartender.

Lighting for my letter "C" had to be the easiest. Pool tables are often well lit in order to make the play much easier. What I did here, was I used a color mask to match the reflection from the neon sign. Since the pocket was made out of a matte plastic, it did not have much reflective property, so I decided to simulate it here.

Though the tools available in my Kodak allowed me to compensate for the conditions around me, the iPhone did not. When taking a picture of my friend Silas performing at Johnny B's, the lighting from the stage caused the photograph to have some grain and seem a bit washed even though it looked fine on the phone's screen. Upon seeing it on a much larger scale, I noticed that a lot had to be done to make the photo seem a lot more lush. So, some curve work and some contrast adjustment was necessary.

When photographing myself using my iPhone, I found that the natural light was perfect. Having parked under a shaded tree, there was not much glare on me or even the background, so little editing was necessary. The only thing I did here was slightly alter my eye color.

The alteration of color was another thing I found fun in my picture for the letter "Y." Since the electrical apparatus was broken on my car key, I removed it. This caused the subject to take the shape of a "Y" when extended. Once again, taken in my car, but taken in similar light as "X." However, in order to make the picture not seem as though it were monochromatic, I changed the key-part itself to appear golden using masks and curves. Considering how much I love my car, it only seemed appropriate.

DMF Assignment 4: Alphabet Soup

Upon starting this project, I took into account one specific detail in the instructions. Or, maybe I should say what was not present: a limitation on alphabet. Considering the myriads of different alphabets that exist on the whole of the planet, and beyond if you count Babylon 5 and Star Trek, I saw limitless possibilities to do unique pieces. However, when I went to find a typeface for the Cyrillic characters of "D" and "Zhe," I was limited since not all fonts have Cyrillic support.

The lack of typefaces that support Cyrillic did not deter me. So long as I was able to find one that suited the idea I had in mind (like the Euro-styled retro Zhe that features a sans-serif), I was not hindered. However, the typeface style came heavily into play when I did my piece regarding the English letter "F." After scanning through a few various fonts, I found that the cursive styled Edwardian script provided me the chance to do a piece with a letter that would veil the fact that I was merely using one letter at all. As far as expansiveness, this has to be my favorite piece.

Determining completion of this piece was rather difficult. Each manipulation and attachment seemed to take on a life of its own, each fitting upon the next in its own sync. In this piece, much like my "A" and "W" pieces, rasterization was key to making the whole thing possible. The commonality between these was pattern. Each one started from a pattern that required manipulation beyond the scope of the text tool (this is most apparent in the "A", shown here.)

 Though the final product of "A" seems to have little synchronous pattern, the piece started this way before I manipulated each layer by cutting, color manipulation, smudging and airbrushing. Since I was feeling somewhat sour when composing this piece, I allowed that to show. Using the letter "A" (since my name starts with it), is a further placing of this piece upon myself. Perhaps the organized disorganization of it may be oxymoronic, but it holds a specific existential bond to me. Especially when I wake up in the morning. If this is chaos, the "W" is its organization antithesis in the fact that the rigid cuts and interweaving form a digital chainlink.

 Though the letters "F" and "W" have no emotional ties to me, and the meaning of the "A" has already been mentioned, the usage of the Cyrillic letters has a link to me since I am learning Russian right now. Also, the usage of those letters allowed me to find a loophole in the parameters of this assignment which allowed me to experiment further in my own artistic endeavors.

DMF Toy Design: Chibi Lenin! ^_^

For starters, this was my first venture into doing anything in the actual 3 dimensional realm. Even though the website (cubeecraft.com) provided quite a few excellent examples, the way I ended up getting my bearing for this was by looking at character skins for the game “The Sims.” Looking at how some of the characters were constructed, I was able to use that as a reference on how all the detail I was going to add to the template would work.

When it came to ideas for the toy, I was so excited that I started jotting them down during the lecture in which we were given the assignment. Of course, a lot of the standard pop culture references came to mind such as Darth Vader or even Takamura from the anime Hajime No Ippo. But, I wanted to do something that nobody would ever think of. So, I decided to go the Sylvester route and do an actual person. That person was Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, more commonly known as Lenin. I know questions would arise as to why I would choose Lenin of all people, and the answer to that is simple. Put bluntly, I’ve read a lot of work and became a fan of his writings on revolutionary theory, anti-racism, anti-sexism and his statements on equality for all people. Especially when I learned that during his era, the USSR had the greatest record for women’s and workers’ rights in the entire world. Of course I could have done a realistic interpretation, but due to my somewhat disturbing love of anime, I decided to design his paper avatar chibi style.

The work with the colors came from a painting of Lenin by Alexej Konstantinovich Nesterenko. What attracted me to this painting in particular was the subtle contrast between the tones. Although the color palette was warm, it allowed me to get a start on what colors to use. Of course, with the colors being so warm, I had to turn up the saturation levels and use the brightest colors in Nesterenko’s palette in order to make the toy more cartoonish. I did this for every part of the piece, from his tie to his eyes. Now, in order to do such deep effects, I had to change the value on certain details. Those details were his eyes and his hair mostly. This allowed for the illusion of depth to be more apparent, and to allow for the toy’s details to not be too flat.

With the colors armed and ready, I was set to begin the drawing. After I filled in the color for his head, I began drawing Lenin’s eyes. To give them life, I utilized a lot of airbrushing and blur effects to eliminate the sharpness of the lines from the shape fills I had to do. From there, I drew his mouth. Not too difficult, considering a simple triangle was all that was necessary. Going back onto depth, you will notice that on the top of his head that there are airbrushed glare marks. Considering he was bald on the top, I figure that the extra detail there would keep it from being too bland. After drawing the hair with a mixture of fills, blurs, airbrushing, burning and line value changing and warping, I drew his ears. In order to do this, I created an oval selection. I then traced the oval selection with the paint brush tool, moved the selection over and deleted the fine lines. The crescent shaping allowed to show some depth, which ended up being a total surprise to me.  In further ventures in which I have to do cartooning, I will definitely make use of this “accident.” For his suit, I used similar techniques as previously listed.

Coming up with a three dimensional piece was definitely a challenge, but it allowed me to experiment with a form of depth and color work that will prove beneficial to me in my future works. The handling of perspective and detail, in color and in drawing, showed me a lot of new ways to use the techniques I have picked up over the years. By far, I’d have to say this was one of the most fun projects I’ve done on Photoshop to date, despite its simplicity. 

DMF Homework 1 Reflection

Upon entering this course, I had done digital art and graphic design professionally for a number of years for such clients as Carol Channing and The Moody Blues. Prior to that, I had studied many programs and techniques regarding digital art since high school. With practical and professional experience in the field and in the use of Adobe products, my usage of more complex technique took dominance over more basic techniques. That much so that I took the basics for granted.

When given the specific parameters for this assignment, I had to dive far back into my own history. Over the years, I had forgotten the capabilities of some of the more basic tools available in Photoshop. However, as I progressed in this assignment, I found myself rediscovering many of the basic preexisting tools that the program had to offer. For example, in my clear shapes image, I discovered that using the elliptical selection tool in conjunction with the airbrush tool allowed for me to come up with an interesting form of shading. This allowed for the holes in the cheese to look semi-realistic. Also, the airbrush tool over the tile pattern I used allowed for the appearance of glare, helping establish the perspective. By far, the clear shapes piece is my favorite. Not to say that the other parts I didn't enjoy doing, but I saw them as a warm up for this piece in retrospect. I can say with full confidence this project help reignite my love for Photoshop.

All in all, I didn't attack this project with a set plan in mind. Any form of art starts off as improvisation, in my experience. One of the honest benefits I saw that I got from this project was a reawakening of myself to the basic power of Photoshop. After years of importing elements into Photoshop and manipulating them with the tools, it is easy to forget just how capable the program is on its own.

DMF Homework 1

Flat Color: My idea for a matchbox design

Limited Palette: The progressive states of nuclear war: Blast To Winter 

Clear Shapes: Cheese in a Kitchen. The Cheese Stands alone!