Belle Isle

Who exists?

ME. 

I do. Really.

For the past few weeks I've been lurking in a corner at my desk, working on a few projects, and developing that fine transparent skin tone I've always longed for. As evidence, here's one of those projects (skin transparency to be debuted at graduation).

As a sort of continuation of the Corktown series I did last semester, I'm making maps of different Detroit areas. So first up this semester is Belle Isle.

I've already started the next few, so WATCH OUT. 

Corktown Map

Finals, guys. I have one class left, and then I'm done with the first half of my senior year. Here's one of my final projects from the semester.

This project was to create a body of work--a main illustration, a supporting illustration, and then a series of patterns (with some alternate color schemes). I chose to base mine around one of my favorite Detroit eating areas (and historical areas), Corktown.

A map of a few Corktown places: Slow's BarBQ, Astro Coffee, the old, no longer present Tiger Stadium, Mudgie's, Green Dot Stables, the old train station, and Mercury Bar.

My supporting illustration with one of my favorite Corktown restaurants, Mudgie's.

Then a version of my map with an alternate color palette. And finally, my patterns, in two different color schemes, featuring lovely Corktown homes and the brick road of Michigan Avenue.

So there you have it. 

And yes, I do accept donations of food from any of these places. Particularly Mudgie's.

P.S. I have a Behance page. If you're into that. Click it!

Sketchbook Buildings

I rediscovered my personal sketchbook, and paid it some much-needed attention. I have buildings on the mind.  

Chicken

For a project that was killed. Based off of this project: Rooster.

Yes, I did restrain myself from calling it something else. It took extra effort this time, too.

Typewriter

So, I sort of forgot about this. Good thing I had critique today to remind me. I'm taking a class on "web media" (is that the right term? internet-y stuff? whatever), and for the first assignment we had to illustrate an article and create (design, code, cry over) a web page for it.

Here's a little slice of that business:

Nifty new skills.

Bad Ad Redesign: Boob Goggles

Everyone reacts differently to art.

So, the task was to take a poorly designed ad, and revamp it into something that doesn't make your eyes bleed when you look at it. Just leak milk, instead.

I selected the ad for the Dirty Show (an annual erotic art show in Pontiac). After making the remaining pages of my sketchbook into what can only be considered porn, I landed on this. Tits for eyes. Or boob goggles, I guess.

I replaced the glitter with some bodily fluids, applied some hand-drawn type, and here we are. 

Space

Just trying to stop the space between my ears from getting larger.

Decided to get a little Illustrator workout. Here's a little simple something for Illustration Friday this week--an astronaut for the theme of "Space"! 

Meat and Skin

For some reason, the colors are odd on my screen unless you click on the image. I don't know about you guys.

Anyway, let's see what happens with these.

Sketch and Society 6

hey bby

I started getting that feeling I should update my blog. Why? I don't know and I don't have to explain myself! I'm an adult!

The bundle of line above started as a study of a piece of bread (in the middle of my ongoing love affair with ink) but I plan on pushing it beyond it's current state.

In other news, I have a Society6 page going! Click this: My Society6 Shop ! I have 4 images up (for now! more to come!), but you can buy it on a variety of products: t-shirts, laptop cases, iPhone cases,  and just oh so much more!

CHECK IT OUT.

Because I said so.

Please and thank you.

Books and Music

Who's sick of this piece? DEAL WITH IT.

To continue to add to the design side of my portfolio/beef up my design skills, I made a little mock-up of a book cover using my James and the Giant Peach piece. I'm going to make it into a hardcover sleeve. I typed that because I just thought of it, and you should always type exactly what you're thinking at that exact moment, right?

 Lunchmeat. Car Alarm. Cereal.

Is it dinner yet?

PART TWO

"In the towers of your honeycomb"

Album art! What's an album? Who knows. MP3s, iPods, internet, bro. 

Anyway, I decided to take a drawing I had (the one-eyed deer, in case there's any confusion) and apply it. I thought I'd play off of Bon Iver's music, with it's Midwestern/woodsy feel, feeling of loss and calm, and then the hexagon pattern playing off of a lyric in "Towers".

You know, explanations.

More stuff to come since I've been working not unlike how I would during the school year. Except the time that I would be in classes or at one job or another during the semester, is now filled with sandwiches, friends, [craft/snob] beers, and trips around the city.

Astronaut

Don't let the helmet fool you.

Astronauts also appreciate silence.

Hey. It's summer. This is some of what I have so far. This isn't what I intended on doing tonight, or even what I was originally working on, but this is what happened. A little one-night stand. Whoops.

Serpent

Another project!

The assignment was to create a vector iPad poster and vector iPad rendering. 

With copy and iPad.
You see that little iPad in the corner?
All painstakingly recreated by yours truly with that sass of a program, Illustrator.

Without copy.

It was great to apply all my new Illustrator knowledge to my own concept/idea/sea serpent. 

I had some other ideas for the project that I'm looking forward to pooping out finished products for this summer. Think: body hair and spacesuits.

I'm so close to the end of the semester and finals I can almost taste the nap I will be taking. It tastes like a beer.

Sins 5, 6, & 7

Here's the last of my Seven Deadly Sins! 

Lust

Sloth

Wrath

The whole crew!

Finals are coming to an end, so there's more work to come. I mean, I've been absent for a reason!

Gird your loins. Hold onto your hats. Keep your shirts on.

It's almost summer, guys.

shel

What the WHAT. It's a traditional painting. Oil and acrylic BABY.

For my portrait class, we had to do a portrait of a dead person (not like the person in the picture is dead, but just of someone who has died). I jumped at the opportunity to do a portrait of my favorite illustrator, Shel Silverstein.

Just how I like my men--
bald, pantless, and with hairy, skinny, pale legs. 

The idea here is to show his two sides. The kid-friendly and the inappropriate.

He's probably most famous for his children's books--The Giving Tree, Where the Sidewalk Ends, Falling Up, and so on. He got his start, though, in more adult work---working as a world-travelling cartoonist for Playboy magazine (where some of my favorite work by him comes from) and writing gems like Uncle Shelby's ABZ Book.

So, from this a pantless Shel Silverstein emerges. Playing guitar in front some little kids. Super cute.

It's what I aspire to.

Painting leg hair is tricky.

Rooster

Hey look.

For my Illustrator class (or Digital Graphic Illustration, but that's a bit of a mouthful, and I'm clearly too busy and important to be bothered to say it) we had to make a t-shirt design for Product(RED). 

So I put a bird on it. 

Original drawing.  I had too much fun working on it. Really!

Or a rooster, which still qualifies as a bird. We had to make it traditionally, then live trace and paint it. So I did just that.  

This shirt isn't a lame joke attempt for a serious cause. Cough, what?

SOPA, Not Soup, Google

The one in the 3rd row on the far right is the cutest.

What? Again? Sorry. I just happened to finish a few things at the same time/remembered a few things I had forgotten to post.

This here is a mock-cover for Time magazine based on the whole SOPA business for my digital painting class. I definitely had the classic Soviet propaganda posters on the mind (Maybe it's the time of year. At this time last year I wrote a paper on it. Some people think about Valentine's Day. I just think about Eastern European/Asian politics of the 20th century?) and wanted to play around with pattern and repetition to convey some sort of overwhelming and uniform force.

Look at me trying to explain my thought process.

A Bug's Life

This here is my final final that I'm posting. I also had a paper about early 20th century women's' fashion (which I don't even want to look at again, so I'm sure none of you want to look at it even once) and a portfolio website I designed and coded. I think I want to tweak that though and actually use it, so you champs can just WAIT. 

Man has terrible life. Man becomes bug.
Man has even worse life. Man dies.
A real uplifting story for the holidays. You're welcome.

We had to design book covers for the Kafka story The Metamorphosis. I wanted to keep it simple and a little dark. I also wanted to combine graphic and rendered elements (I know, big surprise). I tried a different palette than usual, which was a nice challenge (Where's the yellow? WHERE'S THE YELLOW?). So here you go.  RESULTS.

I did this in acrylic with the exception of the lettering, which I hand-drew digitally.

Business Time

Check it out--I'm professional! 

All of my work is printed, cut, and ready to go for tomorrow (NOEL NIGHT), Beth and Brian picked up our calendar books and they look AWESOME (Beth, Brian, and the calendars), and I just picked up these sassy little buggers from the mailroom--my business cards!

Business in the front

Party in the back.

OOH. DAT. ASS.

What it really looks like.
I'm sure I'm blowing your mind with all the sexy

It's even hotter when it's not a Photobooth picture.

Brian and I will be working at the JD table tomorrow, so come check out my work, his work, and the work of other JDers tomorrow from 5PM to 9PM at the College for Creative Studies during Midtown's Noel Night!