Amazing Banner Design by Jacqueline

So I normally don't do shout outs 'cause it's not like I've got a million subscribers and hits each day, though I should work on that. But recently, a good friend, Jacqueline Pytyck, and me were both competing for the same job: to create a new banner header for a book blog, The Book Smugglers, which is a really good book blog/review site. I lost out and there's no hard feelings at all. I honestly don't think I could do anything half as amazing as what she ended up creating. I personally love the smoke and flame effect as well as how the ribbon flows and helps define the body of the figures. So check her out: Jacqueline Pytyck and I'm curious to how her career will develop.

Make Believe (Finished)

So I have a grand total of 343 layers, which is probably the biggest file I've ever worked on. I will admit that some of those layers are "helper" layers I create so it's easier to highlight certain areas. I have an odd way of working, but I've gotten use to it. I really liked how the illustration turned out. I tried out some lighting effects, nothing terribly complex 'cause I wouldn't venture to try high contrasting lighting. That's just one of those things so easy to mess up and ruin the whole illustration.

Make Believe - WiP 3

This has been a lot of work, but interesting too. I haven't built a complex scene like this in awhile and it's a good exercise 'cause I have to figure things out. So far this is about 250 layers in Photoshop and I sort of wish I had a faster computer so when I save the file it won't take a bit, but seriously it's not that bad. I'm still playing with the lighting to give it a bit more dramatic effect and I'm not sure if I'll include the rain or not in the final piece. It was just an idea and there's a final balance so it's not tacky and cheesy. Now the goal is to finish it by tomorrow afternoon to submit it for the art show.

Make Believe - WiP 2

This is surprisingly more complex than I like to work on, but it's good for me to go outside of my usual stuff. There's still the whole texture stuff and then there's additional lighting affect I still need to add to the piece. It's a lot of work to be done by Friday afternoon.

Make Believe

Just an illustration I'm trying to finish up for a contest. Not sure if I'll have the time to finish it up, but it's based on an idea I like playing with: make believe.

+ 1 Heart

I think I need to do this more often; just combine different objects together in an illustration though my fear is that I'm going to get lazy and just repeat the same layout over and over again. We'll see how it goes, but I liked this little illustration. Now to find someone to get it tattooed on themselves.

Heart + 1

I really am not sure why I added the "+1" within the heart. It honestly felt right when I was fiddling with the illustration so there it is. Sometimes our creative instincts are odd.

Bird, Heart, Flower (WiP)

So I was channel surfing, for once, and someone was talking about how "birds", "hearts" and "flowers" are all symbolic of "love". Yes, that is a lot of quotations so I wanted to do something fun with that though I didn't change the heart. I should have changed it, but I enjoyed the how the design turned out. I feel like I should have some fancy type for "love" in there, but I think I'll leave it as is for now.

Artist Trading Card

I decided to redo all of the old artist trading cards I drew. There's something fun about working at this smaller size. Now back to more drawing.