Peyton Illustration

Figure Drawings!

2010-12-08T22:18:00.000-08:00

So I've been slacking on figure drawing lately and when I did it last night it definitely shows. I did a 3 hour session at a gallery in the city and it was soooo refreshing. I want to do it at least once a week (maybe twice) depending on how much cash I have.

At first I used my usual techniques for going for proportions and correct shadowing but after a great conversation with another artist there I worked on blind contour lines and emphasizing only certain parts of the form. I'm going out to buy some figure drawing books so I can improve as quickly as possible.

Present Colored WIP

2010-12-04T17:18:00.000-08:00

Hmmm...so I think I'm satisfied with the front figure but I'm still not sure how I feel about the back. I want to keep it muted but I keep changing my mind. I'll just come back to it later when I have time so my mind is fresh.

Birthday Present WIP

2010-12-03T03:30:00.000-08:00

So I'm doing a painting as a present for a friend of mine. It shows her in the foreground with her partner in the background. They're both pretty into Star Wars so I figured it was appropriate. I'll hopefully have time tomorrow to get the color in and then have it printed.

Yaaawn!

2010-11-28T19:09:00.000-08:00

Another kitty! A quick paint job for a new friend in Brisbane. I used a cobbled together photo montage of his cat as reference.

"Host" page for Decay Comics

2010-11-21T18:24:00.001-08:00

Demons! So I've been doing a little work for Decay Comics in Melbourne. This is a "host" page where the host, my demon, introduces the reader to the next story in the comic. I really enjoyed working on this so hopefully I'll be able to continue on similar projects. And it gives me an excuse to draw intestines and hey...everybody loves intestines!

Portrait Process

2010-11-10T13:08:00.000-08:00

Man, I haven't updated in so long! I've been super busy with contract work lately but as soon as I'm allowed I'll be able to post everything I'm actually getting paid for. Fortunately, I've had time for personal painting as well so I've focused on portraits.

Besides quick exercises to express emotion in faces I've been experimenting in different ways of painting in PS. This portrait was done entirely in grays at first and then overlaid with color. I used a variety of layer filters to achieve the color I needed as well as just layering detail upon the original image.

Mini-Paint

2010-09-15T23:38:00.000-07:00

So I decided to go ahead and paint my zombie. Kept it pretty simple. I'm still not sure what kind of style I enjoy while painting digitally. This falls under the "make as many small dashes as possible" category. At first I tried copying Leyendecker's style but failed miserably. Maybe next time.

Quick Sketch

2010-09-14T21:38:00.000-07:00

So I've been wanting to do a zombie lately but I keep getting distracted by other projects. Did a quick sketch to fill my need temporarily.

A figure...again.

2010-09-12T01:13:00.000-07:00

So I wanted to paint a plain portrait just onnnne more time. Did the figure without a background at first and then quickly added in a cave...for some reason. I would like to explore a cave location more...with tons of different light sources, reflective light, water, everything. I would be a good challenge for me. Why do I always paint massive hands?

Kitty!

2010-09-03T03:50:00.000-07:00

Just a quick warm up before I get into a long piece. Based it on a photo of a kitten playing in a field. It's funny that something that took less than 45 minutes is better than most of my portfolio right now. :( This must change. Quickly.

Redo!

2010-09-02T01:08:00.000-07:00

So in my daily quest to overhaul my portfolio as quickly as possible I decided to redo one of my old pieces. It originally was a mock book cover and while it makes me cringe looking at the original, I like the composition. So! Below is the touched up version. Underneath is the original to give you an idea of where I came from. On to more stuff!

Wedding Present

2010-08-10T18:58:00.000-07:00

So here's a fantasy illustration I did as a gift to my friend (the groom). The final was giclee on canvas at 20" x 24". It was gallery wrapped with a 1.5" red border. The colors came out great and looked way better printed large and in charge. I only paid $94 in total (forgetting the amount of time I put into the actual painting) which was crazy cheap for the quality I received. I'll post a pic of the actual print itself when the photographer gets back to me.

Maybe next time I'm invited to a wedding I'll remember to bring my business cards!

Halo Minis...

2010-06-25T12:43:00.001-07:00

So in my free time (outside of paying projects) I've been drawing some Halo fan art. Pretty simple, but they make me laugh. It's nice to relax with a cartoon style instead of doing everything realistic all the time. Enjoy!

Character Study...

2010-05-28T10:47:00.000-07:00

I've started to do character designs lately and this is my second try at this guy. I've been trying to increase my speed on these but its difficult for me to create a design that I like while doing a sufficient render. I'll also probably reboot this blog since the stuff down below is complete crap and from a year ago. Cheers to the present!

International

2009-05-17T05:26:00.001-07:00

So here's a logo I did for an Australian website. I had it approved this morning so I sent 3 color versions. Probably one of the fastest logos I did and it was nice to do something outside the workplace.

Tyranids!

2009-05-14T18:57:00.000-07:00

Did a quick sketch today of a Tyranid (kind of) since I've had a lack of monster lately. Poor poor monsters. :(

2009-05-11T18:42:00.000-07:00

Here's a few sketches I've done lately. I've been focusing more on vehicles and bikes since they've always been a weakness for me. Really nailing a good design is pretty hard and understanding everything (interior and engine a BIG plus) takes a lot of research. It's fun though. :)

No matter what you think...

2009-04-30T16:17:00.000-07:00

...the customer is always right. Above is pretty much the final design for the poodle sign. I'm a bit uneasy about it but its what they wanted and hey that's great.

One thing that I've learned and have quickly accepted is to not get attached to my work. Especially commercial stuff. I mean, yes, you need to have passion. You need to work as hard as possible on each one to come up with the best solution to the problem. But you just have to accept that some people won't like anything that you think is "good" cause everybody has an opinion. Which is fine. You just need to give the client what they want.

And Ben, you're totally right. A good designer is somebody that can take a bunch of crap (or lollipops!) and bring the same level of interest and passion to it as their own stuff. On to more!

Oh, and they picked the pink one!

Bad Design part 2

2009-04-29T16:24:00.000-07:00

So I was pretty busy today and only had a little bit of time to work on this project. This is the next iteration and while I think its an improvement over the original there are still a lot of things that I will need to change.

I decided to keep the same color scheme because I really wanted to make it work. That and I didn't want to bother with getting new colors to match. I added two photos of poodles (ones that are actually toy poodles) that the client gave me and made them gray scale, ran the PS cutout filter on them, separated the colors with paths, brought them into Illustrator and cleaned the edges, and then finally into CorelDraw.

I did what I could with the title but I still need to make some tweaks. Maybe the spacing for "companions" and the font for "poodle". I'll also play more with the inner box since the description is a bit too small. The phone number I'm not sure about. It juts off the sign when everything else is uniform so I might make the outcropping even (just a line instead of following the numbers) or bring it up. I'll see the reaction from the client.

Overall I think this one is on track. I like it way more than the last and I'm glad its not symmetrical. I have to finish one other layout (it has a poodle silhouette as the sign/ client's request) and then I'll email 'em out.

BAD design....

2009-04-28T14:37:00.001-07:00

This is kind of a self-reflective post, but I'm beginning to realize more and more the differences between good and bad design. One thing that's really hard for me to do is find faults in my own work (whether it be design, drawing, or painting). Not because what I'm doing is necessarily good but because I get stuck in this "bubble" with the piece I'm currently on. To remedy it I really have to take it and put it side by side with stuff on conceptart.org to get my brain going again so I can finally go, "Ahhhhh....I'll change this and this and this".

So when I was at work today I was in a similar situation. Take for instance, this sign I'm designing. Cool colors, symmetrical, nothing too fancy, and utterly horrible. I was doing variations on this piece for a while until my boss finally changed my perspective by saying, "damn Nate...you suck so much I want to kill your babies" (well not in those words). So what's wrong with it?

First, with good design you need to get your point across in 5 seconds. That's pretty much the rules on the internet, and definitely the rules for when you're driving by something at 60 mph. You need to express what's important. Saying your message in a digestible form that sticks with your audience. With this sign, its a business about breeding poodles. So having the name of the business as all the same font, size or style is a mistake. "Cuddly", "Candy", and "Companions" aren't really that important. "Poodles" is the most important while "Chrissy's" comes in 2nd.

So a potential solution for this is to make "Chrissy's" and "Poodle" larger while downplaying the other three words. Also, the type needs to change. While script does come across as pretty, for readability purposes, its on the bottom of the barrel. That doesn't mean you need to have extreme bold on all the time, but you can achieve the same "style" by using a type that's a little thicker and more vertically balanced.

Another big problem with this sign is the color choices. While not bad together (see the palette) they don't really provide great contrast to each other as well. You don't need stark contrast for everything, but on a sign you need the important things to pop as best as possible. One problem with the sign is that the most contrasting colors are the background and border color while the main title's colors mush together. One thing that exacerbates things is the over use of outlines. It works fine with the phone number but the "breeders..." type is muddy and the title becomes confusing. Changing this, I would put the high contrast colors between the main font and 1st outline while making sure both colors pop against the background. Overall, I think the colors need more saturation and intensity.

For the poodles (the bitmaps) I'm on the fence about whether to just have silhouettes or to actually have detail. I do have photos of poddles (the client gave me this "family portrait" of about 8 demon poodles staring at you....claiming your soul) Generally though, I've never liked signs that use real photos. I suppose I could make it work but photos always seem to stand out way too much (well when surrounded by vector objects).

Oh....and just forget about the little design in the middle. It's an okay spacer but probably unnecessary. Soooo...that's that for right now. I'll post the new and improved tomorrow and do a compare and contrast between the two.

New Logo

2009-04-22T16:51:00.000-07:00

So here are some concepts for a new logo I'm working on. The company is currently being sued by the Red Cross for their old logo (yikes!) so they decided a change was in order. I'll probably do one more and then send 'em out to see the direction they want.

Logo Design Walkthrough

2009-04-17T14:51:00.000-07:00

So I've finalized the logo with Black Horse Group. Took a few alterations but it all went through rather quickly. What I'm showing is the concepts that I showed them first, and then the following updates that lead into the final logo design. It all really happened within a few hours because as soon as I would send out an update they would call me with changes.

The process itself was also pretty straight forward. I based a few of the logos off of what the already had (just a black rearing horse) and then kept going. I probably did too many concepts at the beginning (really 3 good ones are enough) but they appreciated all the options. Since the final is basically a copy/paste of 3 different logos its a good thing I submitted so many. What's exciting (for me anyways) is that the final is going to be put on all their hardhats, trucks, signs, and advertising. I'm hoping I left a good enough impression that they'll come back for any other design work.

Also the price for a logo like this is a few hundred. Since its going on so many things though you could easily charge over a thousand.

Sketchez

2009-04-14T19:03:00.000-07:00

Hmmm....haven't updated in days. So I randomly am! Crap stuff for sure but I needed to do something. Unfortunately my job has got me running 24.7. Fortunately I just got Painter X for free (a gift) so I'm experimenting with that. It's...amazing. Update will follow shortly!

2009-04-09T19:58:00.000-07:00

Got into bed, remembered how I love "The Secret of Nimh" (its amazing) so I did a quick sketch! *Yawn*

2009-04-09T14:55:00.000-07:00

So I finished up the moose today. Added some more "sparkles" (ooooh!) to the water and generally more contrast. My boss went in at the very end and added some things (the orange flowers, some darker darks, and whiter trees) but I'm pretty happy with what I did. I wish I had had more time but I was under a pretty strict deadline. Fortunately though, Enamel is definitely getting easier to use. Also, the picture of the sign is what the painting is going to be fastened to...that was done by Larry (told him I'd give him credit).

I also have 2 more logo concepts that I quickly did up today. Sorry about the low resolution but if I had brought them into CorelDraw then I would have lost those fonts.

Work!

2009-04-08T16:13:00.000-07:00

So I managed to bring some stuff home that I worked on at....work...today. The first is the start of a moose painting for a sign. I really haven't begun to put detail into it but the lighting is pretty much there as well as the color. I'm kind of not sure about how much detail to put in because its going to be put up about 7 ft high and you'll see it while driving by. The most important thing is making sure it "pops" from far away...need to work on my contrast. It was done using enamel paint, which is used the same as oils except it dries in about an hour. The fumes were ridiculous. Tomorrow I'll finish it up and then post the final.

The 2nd is just some logo concepts for this construction business. I still have to come up with one more (I really only like the one on the left) and I'm kind of competing against my boss :). Unfortunately, I don't have the fonts that work has so I had to use my crappy ones...which takes away from the design.

Quick Sketch

2009-04-07T20:25:00.001-07:00

Did this quickie before going to bed. I might paint it if I have the time. Seeing as most of my work now I do for a business I'm going to start posting my studio work as well. Hurrah!

Motorcycles!

2009-04-05T17:13:00.000-07:00

So I played around a little bit tonight with motorcycle design. I've never done it before so it was good practice...and I busted out my dusty copy of Jet Moto 2!

Testing....

2009-04-03T22:50:00.000-07:00

So instead of posting a rather informative and insightful look into what I create I've decided to skip that and....do absolutely nothing. Testing....commence!!