I Love Photoshop

So Photoshop has all these neat filters and effects that are supposed to do all these cool things for you like make lens flares, make things look chrome (that's a fun one), etc. If you can't tell I am being fairly sarcastic, the filters usually make things look lame. Until recently, though, I couldn't figure out another way to achieve the look that I wanted any other way; that has all changed. With this piece I just used some custom brushes, custom textures, and a lot of layers to achieve the aged photo effect. I am particularly pleased with the wood behind the photo, however. None of that is a photo that is all brushes and textures. All told this piece consists of 4 photos composited together : The dancers, the foreground, the background mountains, and the sky. All the other elements were created.

Character Designs

I should have posted this a long time ago. These are some character designs for a story that I wanted to pitch to Disney as part of a storyboard class I am taking at BYU right now. The story and characters were later scrapped and we went another direction, but I still love how the style looks. I'll add all the character sheets to my character page on my site if you want to view them.

Presidential Race 2008

So I was just doodling and it wasn't until I was finished sketching this guy out that I realized how much it looks like Mitt Romney. Even though I am not a Romney supporter, much to the dismay of the majority of my right wing Republican extended family, I liked this picture so much I thought I'd post it.

I may even do caricatures of all the front runner candidates.

Family Portrait

I drew a picture of my Brother-in-law Robbie during Thanksgiving. It's simple, but I like it and I think I may do the whole family.

Bored

Here's a sketch I did on my Brother-in-law's tablet PC one day a while back when I was bored. I don't know why the fat guy is dressed like French aristocracy from the 1800's, but I bet that's the reason that the skinny guy is freaking out.

I call him Lavell

Here is a sketch I did recently in my sketchbook. It's an old guy that seems to vaguely resemble someone that most BYU Football fans should recognize.

My Amazing Class

I am teaching a class of 5th and 6th graders art twice a week at a local elementary school. Some of these kids are just amazing. I gave them the assignment to use simple shapes to create recognizable animal silhouettes and they did fairly well. Then I gave them the assignment to make Halloween decorations for the school party and most of the class promptly forgot everything we had talked about with shapes and went back to trying to noodle out details and shading on a really poorly drawn skeleton or jack-o-lantern, but one girl surprised me. She did a simple paper cutout of a mummy in a coffin that was so fantastic because of it's shape that I had to draw it in my sketchbook. Here is roughly what it looked like. I think it's pretty sweet (especially since it was designed by an 11 year old).

Hillbilly Character Design

I did this hillbilly character design for a class that I ended up not getting into. I like it, though, so I thought I would share him with everyone. Let me know what you think.

Emergency

I wanted to do a new illustration for this week's Illustration Friday, but this one was perfect and I don't know if I'll have time to do a new one.

Dance Illustration

Here's an illustration that I did recently for a dance magazine. Since Illustration Friday's topic is "Moon" I thought this might work seeing as how it does have a moon in it. I am working on a slightly more "Joe-flavored" piece for this topic as well, though.

A Doodle

Here's something that I originally started for an "Illustration Friday," but I didn't finish it quick enough. The topic was "Discovery" and it reminded me of my daughter and how everything about her body is so fascinating to her. Anyway, it was a quick sketch (despite the fact that it took me 2 weeks to finish). Hopefully I'll be a bit more regular about getting new stuff up from now on.

Tablet PCs are cool!

I just got back from a Writers and Illustrators Workshop at BYU in Provo. It was pretty fun and very informative. I hope to start doing some freelance work in the near future.

While I was at the conference I met a guy named Tracy. He had a tablet PC that had a built in Wacom digitizer in it so it was basically like a Cintiq. He let me do a little doodle on it and it was so much easier than trying to coordinate my hand and eyes separately like I normally would with a Wacom tablet. The image above is the doodle I did. I think I am sold...don't tell my wife, but I definitely want to get a tablet PC or a Cintiq.

T-Shirts

Mike Laughead is always creating T-Shirt designs and it looks like a lot of fun. So I tried one as well. You can click here to view it. If you like it enough you can buy one I guess, but I think if enough people like it I might find a cheaper place to have them printed and then I'll just start selling them on my website.
Let me know what you think!

Finally Finished

So I finally finished my Led Zeppelin piece. I originally did it as an assignment to illustrate an article. The article was a history of "The Gods of Rock" (Led Zeppelin of course) in Rolling Stone magazine. It was a long time coming because I got caught up doing my BFA final project, but I am fairly pleased with the outcome. Let me know what you think.

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