Final Portfolio

Well, as fun as it has been, it is now time to wind down the semester.  This is my final portfolio.  The requirements were to pick our 4 best from a list of eight.  Here's my first one:

This is my three image gouache montage, I probably spent the most time out of any on this piece and I wish it showed a little more.  It shows in the iguana's eyes, but not on the mouse.  I think it's more of a  scan problem, I have tried to rescan, but to no avail.  Looking back, i think i coulf have made the background a different color, i was looking for something neutral, and that seemed to fit.  however, i feel it clashes with the iguana.

Next is my product illustration, as you may or may not recall, I had some problem with this project starting 3 different times!  I finally got a winner and kept it.  I did go back in and work on the cord some more, but I found the gouache a little harder to reactivate, so it just did not flow quite right.   I think the hamburger part itself came out nicely though...I am espically proud of the little shine by the mouth part and my detail work on the dialpad.  I used my pin-striping brush for that, it's got a longer tip and is really good at getting little details out.

Third is my album cover.  I blogged about this recently.  I think this is my favorite piece from the whole semester.  My only real concern was the name of the album at the bottom, it does not sit quite right.  however, i really like the composition, and this is one of my better pen/wash illustrations.

Lastly, i have my book jacket.  I am actually not a big fan of this piece but it's probably one of my better projects.  the guy just looks too orange.  If i had more time i would have done more line work on his face.  I think the layout is pretty decent though

For the next part of our portfolio, we had to pick out our 10 favorite exercise/technique works.  things we did, but wern't projects.

Well, apparently blogge won't let me post on the side of the pictures anymore, ugh.  Anyways, this is the first one i selected.  It was one of my very first watercolor works.  I think i did a really good job on the clouds (which don't show up too well, but still)  I think this was the one i finall loosened up on.

Next up is my hen.  I did this one when we had to do watercolors and then put line work on them in photoshop.  I really liked how my hen turned out so i decided it would be a good addition to this portfolio.  the angle is not too interesting, but i think i got a really nice texture and feel for the surface of this particular feathered friend.

This one also came from the photoshop line art assignment.  I really enjoyed how the different colors came together to make something new they couldn't make alone.  This is the piece that made me enjoy water coloring more then i had at any other point. 

I had painted this gouda-looking watercolor when i was working on the poster illustration assignment.  I had chosen a small-scale cheese making event and did not quite know what goat cheese looked like, so i painted this.  This is the first piece i did in watercolor i felt i really got some good depth to and did not look completely flat.  Did you get my cheesy pun?

This was not part of any project, it was merely practice.  I was going to work on something and decided it would be a good idea to practice a bit before i started.  I turned to a page where i had started to do a wash (the big yellow stroke) and wanted to paint something quick, but i didn't know what.  I saw an article in the paper nearby and decided to follow it and paint a horse.  I think horses can show some really good movement, and i think that's present here, i tried to add to that by creating the splatter at his feet.  Although it was just a practice, i am very proud of this one.

I did this one in the same breath as the previous one.  I was really struggling to find something to paint so i just took my brush into my paint and put it on my paper.  I had a bigger brush, that's how the biggest mesa came to be.  I looked at it after i did that and said this looks like a mesa, i'll take it.  So then i went with that idea.  I'm very proud of my sky and texture on the mesa. 

We were tasked with painting a large scale watercolor and i was still really struggling to come up with something to paint.  I decided to paint a larger subject matter to match the size of the area we had.  This was my first real work with line art in combination with watercolor.  I really like this one, it's probably in my top 5 best of the semester.

Oh my avocados.  This was my first gouache project, i spent quite a lot of time on it and it really helped me get the techniques down.  I almost picked this for my best of the semester, but i still think Shark Sandwich has it beat. 

This is a practice work from when we were working with airbrush.  We had to make a planet and put it in space.  I really liked how the space part came out.  It was also probably my best remasking job.

 And finally, out best marker comp.  I was having a tough time finding one i felt was up to the task of being the best, but i think i found a winner.

This is my marker comp for the Ryle Hall cafeteria mural.  I think all my marker comps had the same level of detail ,but i think i put the most amount of planning and though into this one.  As it could actually be considered to be done, i took my good sweet time coming up with a concept and executed it.  I really wanted to show these really dynamic angles leading up to the Earth, but it was harder on the left side.

So all-in-all i had some good fun in ARt 219, Illustration, and would gladly take it again.  I think the one thing i took away is that line art can save just about anything.  I will be continuing illustrating if no other purpose, for fun.  It can be an asset to designs and will hopefully boost my portfolio.

-Erik La Londe 

All that and a bag of chips

Well, everything was due today: Cheesy Airbrush, Book Jacket, and Album art.  Not much to say: here they are

The Red Badge of Courage is......a secret, read the book

Soooooo, here is my in-progress art for my book cover "The REd Badge of Courage."  I am a little hesitant to put this into production because the lines are kind of bugging me.  I am planning on putting some more work into the lines because I am not getting the definition I want right now.  Hmm, line work really has helped me out before so hopefully it pays off now.

Oh my, has it been a long time since i've blogged!

Oh my, has it been a long time since i've blogged!  Well, I have been hard at work on both my album art and my book cover.  My plan is to spend a lot of time on those and try to avoid doing the cheesy airbrush as long as possible.  Not really, i am just not looking forward to doing it.  I feel like we should have to do the cheesy project on the side of a van, or a t-shirt given out to tourists in Miami or something.  Know what I mean?  I see them all the time, I was at the Jersey boardwalk one time and they had a whole stand for these lame shirts.  Perfectly good space wasted!  And it's not that the airbrush makes it looks cheesy, it's a big part, but the subject matter is really cheesy too.  It's usually like characters, i see a lot of names too.  Do people actually thing these are quality shirts?  I think for the price of a plain white tee, cost of dyes, airbrushes, and a vendor's license I could make a pretty good living as an airbrush artist. These shits were selling at around $15 - $20 each!  EACH!  So let's see: a cheap white tee is about $2 (max), dyes are maybe $50 for a bigger set (i'll say average one or two bucks on a single shirt, we'll say one because most are one or two color), sold at an average $17, THAT'S ABOUT $14 PROFIT!  UNBELIEVABLE!  What was i talking about, oh right progress. Well today we had to show progress on our album cover.  I did a simple wash and then beefed it up with line art.  I will be putting in a ocean-like background.

Airbrush Practice

So, we've started working with airbrushes for some reason or another.  I really see no point in learning to use them, unless one of the projects is retouching a large-scale image; which i hardly doubt.   So for today, we had to paint a planet; with a space-like background on it of course!  So i did this little number, the planet is okay, just okay.  I like the background better actually.  I think scale could have helped here.  I think i was more free to work with the airbrush on the back because i was not working in such a confined space.  I will have to keep that in mind.  Well here it is, I also added a few variations on it as well, because they just seemed to fit in well, enjoy:

The one on the farthest right was my first attempt at the airbrush, it did not work out as planned because my aribrush needed some serious cleaning!  We've only just started working with them and already it's filthy!  Either did a really bad job cleaning it to begin with or someone just left gunk in it!  I think it's the later one, i mean when i pulled the cap off, purple ink fell on my hand!  Who does that!  I looked to see who had used purple the next day.  The other blue one was my first shot at a planet.  I think it's just okay.  I think scale would rally help as well as making it look a little less flat.  the orange ones are just practice again.  

The way I see it, airbrushing can only go up from here.

Comps comps and more comps, actually just two comps.

So for today we were showing off our marker comps for our book cover and cheesy airbrush.  For the book jacket I decided to go with The Red Badge of Courage.  Since most of the really good covers were taken i decided to go with something a little more standard, but slightly modified.  While looking at what most of the other covers look like, i saw a lot with the guy holding a flag in a depiction of the final battle.  I thought this image really sold the idea of the book, so i decided i'll try my hand at it.  However, I am going to have the illustration wrap around to the back so it's not quite as, ahem . . . stale as some others might be.  Take a look:

And for my cheesy airbrush I thought of someone/thing with a cigar.  I came up with a cat or a used car salesman.  I will most likely use the cat.  I will have to work out his legs because they look a bit awkward as is, but then again they should because cat's legs don't rest like that.  I thought orange was a good cheesy color, I don't know why It just is.  I'm also trying to get him to not look like garfield.  Remember, this will be in airbrush, so it can only look worse. Look at this:

Everybody needs a montage!

I have been working on this one for a while now hence my lack of posts.  It is my 3-image gouache montage.  The images are apparent due to my excellent gouache-ing skills.  The scan does it no justice, the mouse has lost all value, but my excellent shading on the front of the mouse shows up.  It's a lot darker than it actually is, despite my effort to adjust it in Photoshop.  Oh well, I'll keep working on it.  It was pretty hard to paint, i kept wanting to add an extra layer of depth into my iguana, and spent most of my time on that part.  Since i spent so much time on it, the other parts look less developed.  Perhaps i'll work on it some more one day.  I also ran into the strangest problem: I had painted my hot dog bun but it looked kind of green so i scrubbed it and then reapplied a better brown, but painting along the edge of the new bun was difficult because the paint would not stay on the illustration board.  It was like it had a layer of laminate/or like i was painting on plastic.  Super weird!  I also think my mouse lines look odd, though very close to my image, still looks out of place, perhaps a lower value next time.