Well, here’s to making a new post after saying I’d do so forever ago haha.
College is going great. I’m learning a lot in Art History and am reenforcing my Design Elements in 2d Design. Not much to say but that! I finished up our “line” project and it was interesting to struggle with something I could *easily* do in Illustrator (inking with a bamboo calligraphy pen is no fun some times…). But this week we are moving onto SHAPE.
Anyway, the poster in the thumbnail was something I did for my cousin, Ali. Her beauty school is doing something with awards or something and she was put in charge of doing the poster. So she did the smart thing and commissioned me 
That’s the finished version, but if anyone has anything to critique I welcome it!!…
My first attempt at kinetic typography. It’s only six seconds long, and has terrible audio, but it’s a quote from WWE that made me smile sooo, I’m going to use it as my first try. I’ve had a rough day today, my eyes hurt like crazy and it’s hard to focus on anything. But while I was working on this, I seemed to forget it all, and I got “in the zone”, if you will. I’m sure this is one of the many tries at this, because, besides the headache it gave me, it was actually pretty fun, and I would mind even expanding to longer clips (like a song) and trying new things with it.
I made this with photoshop cs5 and imovie. Crazy right? Why not use after effects? Well because I’m ghetto and use the cheap free program made for dumdums that’s why. Maybe that can be added to the challenge. Master the art of Kinetic Typography and After Effects!… That will take longer then a whole summer I can promise you that.
Speaking of summer, it’s been going great (besides today). I’ve been drawing for myself, and it’s actually very relaxing. I’m still pushing myself to improve, but in a chilled sense. I’m going to Grossmont for college this year, to knock out some GE, and then I can decide where to go from there.
It’s funny, I have been making all these comics nonstop since school got out, and I never once realized how happy I was doing them. Yes, sometimes a page can kind of be hell, but the overall outcome that is created from that, I love that feeling. And that’s why I want continue in that direction as an artist. Obviously I’m still an illustrator (I can do as much typography as I want, it’s not my true calling), and as a comic book artist I’d do just that. Thinking about my future in this business, I’m actually excited. I wasn’t as excited when I wanted to be an animator, no no. I need to do what makes me happy, and seeing my cousin (who transferred from a business major to a theatre major) made me realize that.
audio from the video was taken from a wwe segment on youtube (:
My uncle is coaching the Rancho San Diego Pop Warner Midget team and he asked me to make a poster to help spread the word. I immediately jumped at the chance. I mean, I think it’s fun. Why shouldn’t I? He didn’t specify a deadline, so I took it easy and pentooled some football players (one of them being my brother) and slapped on some rough text before stopping to do some personal work (*cough cough* my portfolio *cough*).
Now I come back from vacation to find out I needed it done by friday. Well, this is what I got so far after nonstop editting. My mom says it needs some black in the poster some where. But I have no clue…
Any help would be awesome!
Thanks.
EDIT: After posting this, I woke up to find that I had 17 spam comments… really? Really?… Wow. I am shocked. (Only if they were legitimate.)
EDIT 2: Whoops make that 25. 8 new spam comments added today.
So awhile ago, the “official” facebook page for SmackDown! uploaded a picture of one of the wrestlers with a little caption on it. Everyone was commenting on it stating how excited they were and how much they loved that wrestler…
But, all I could look at was the atrocity sitting before me on my computer screen.
You’d think if it was an “official” facebook, you’d have professionals making the content they post on their page. Apparently not. I was baffled at the lack of… pretty much everything graphic designers apply to make their images look “pretty”. I’m not considered a graphic designer, but there was no way I was going to let this slip. I had to atleast ATTEMPT to improve this… garbage.
So I immediately took it into Photoshop. First thing I noticed was that it was a dinky 698×462 jpeg, and the pixelation was intense. Not much you could really do to help it there, though (they didn’t have a higher resoulution anywhere). Next was to rid this perfectly fine image with the horrific text scattered mindlessly around it. Using the skills I learned today actually, I used content-aware fill to remove a bulk of the pixelated trash and used the clone stamp to clean up. (It took forever though, Adobe made a pretty magical tool, but there are some glitches they need to fix…)
Pretty good so far.
Next, I used the marque tool to make a feathered trim around the edge to really make it pop. It took less then a minute.
After that back breaking work, it was time to enhance the image. It was so dull, I used “curves” and “hue/saturation” to really bring the color out of it.
Then the text. Looking at the original, I think it’s biggest flaw was color choice. Red, green, black, and white on a blue background… there’s not much consistency there… So I stuck with white, since it’s easy to read on the background and goes along with it as well. Another flaw I saw was that it was random typefaces, so I chose a single font “Boycott” and used only that and dropped in a drop shadow to help readability.
I know it isn’t “perfect”, but I think it’s a huge improvement from the original…
(I edited the text just now. Hopefully it’s easier to read!)
(I edited the quote to what he actually said, so hopefully it makes sense now!)
Filed under: blog
I decided to upload the drawing process that I went through to make this image (you know, the one that inspired my blog theme).
I’m still unsure what to do for my tutorial videos though. My digital arts teacher makes it look so easy. I stumble over myself and get tongue-tied a lot… but I’m learning! I tried making a quickie on the polygonal tool for coloring as well as clipping masks for shading. Should I combined the two into one video to make it longer? Or should I keep them really short? Stuff you honestly don’t think about when you see a tutorial online until you have to do one yourself I guess.
Maybe it’s the 2 mile jog, maybe it’s the coffee, or maybe it was the Mac Lab Tip of the Day; But I feel completely inspired and FULL OF ENERGY. On top of drawing a full page of day of life drawings, I also want to try my hand at recording tutorials. I don’t even know what I would record myself doing. I mean, I already record myself drawing at hyper-speed… but I want to show certain steps I take to draw those pictures.
Just a quick blabber out of overly energized Julia, or maybe an epiphany…
WHO KNOWS.
I have links to add, but I’ll do it later because I am currently in class right now! I put in some amazing links to amazing things!
I also fixed up my blog to get rid of the junior feel to it and replaced it with my senior aesthetics. I hope you like it as much as I do.
This update was brought upon by my New Years Resolution. On Christmas, one of my gifts was a moleskine like sketchbook for me to draw in. I’ve decided I’m going to put in as many life drawings I can into it. In order to do that, I figured I’d do one every day of 2011, I think there should be enough pages.
Why did I decide that to be one of my main resolutions? Well, the other day I went with my cousin and saw Disney’s “Tangeled”. When I was going to see it, I figured it would be one of those mediocre 3d movies they’ve been coming out with recently. I was second guessing myself if I really wanted to work for them in the future.
And then I saw the movie. It was so beautifully done. All the backgrounds were beautiful and I couldn’t help feel inspired. Especially this one scene that made me want to draw the picture in the thumbnail. When I saw it, I could really feel the warmth coming from all the oranges emanating from the floating lanterns. The scene was just ultimately moving. So I attempted to recreate something similar, and although it wasn’t entirely as beautiful as the movie, I’m happy with it.
This movie just pumped me up for college in the future. I’ll be attending a JC for some life drawing classes for a year or two, and then transfer over to one of the MANY art colleges I’ve been looking into. I’m also planning on working on that portfolio next year, I… just hope it will look as good as it hopes so I can ONE DAY work for Disney.
Filed under: blog
To better understand and improve on certain things, I’ve began to move out of my comfort zone and practice on anatomy and junk. Mostly horses, since, well, their anatomy is so “???” it’s crazy. I’m also practicing on more realism. Because as much as I love disney and anime, I really need to get the fundamentals down. Plus all the colleges that I’m looking into are requiring portfolios with a lot (and I mean a lot) of life drawings. Ringling even includes the statement, “Please do not copy directly from another artist, or include such things as anime, tattoo designs, dragons, unicorns, etc. At least half of your portfolio should consist of drawing from direct observation.” Oh how I wish I was eighteen so I could go to some life drawing classes!
This seems to be a recurring theme in this blog, where I stress about college. I’m only a junior, yet I am so dead set on finding a place to go to after I graduate. I feel like now is the time all kids in my class know where they’re going to go, and I’m just really slow. I want to go somewhere nice. My mom insists I go to an “art university”. But I can’t find any near home, and I don’t think I could afford a place out of state and I feel like I’m not worthy enough to receive scholarships. If it really came down to it, and I’d have to go to AI or something, I wouldn’t even go. The question “Would Disney really accept someone into their studio if they graduated from Art Institute?” goes through my head, and then I quickly answer “NO. NO THEY WOULDN’T.”
At least, that’s what I recall from their website.
Just looking at the Disney Animation site is unsettling. I feel like I am not worthy enough to work there. I feel like I am so below par with the artists who make all those great movies. I just might be super modest, but then again I just might be right. When I was younger, and I was drawing stuff like this, I thought “One day I’m going to work for Disney because my art is that good!” But then I stumbled upon places like DeviantART who has some users making stuff like this. It made me think that art wasn’t just for fun anymore and it dashed my self confidence as an artist, and that it was a chore of improving now or Disney will never hire you. Maybe that’s my problem. Maybe I’m overworking Disney and making it sound like this elite company where only the best of the best could work.
Oh well, I still have a year to think about it.
And I hope you enjoyed my long, annoying rant where I pretty much stressed myself out haha.
Few this has been a hectic week with CSTs.
But the greatest thing happened this week as well. My teacher had entered my picture in the District Art Show for Grossmont Union. I was nervous at first since, well, there’s some big competition and since this week was CSTs I wasn’t able to read the blog everyday to see the updates on the contest. (I checked every morning before school, but he wasn’t updating until after I’d go in to take my tests) ANYWAY, yesterday I went in for my digital arts class and I of course, checked the blog. Not expecting much, I sort of… took my time reading the updated post. My friend said, “Oh Julia! Second place!” and I didn’t really know what she was… talking about? And then Skocko came over and told my friend something… And, then I read that I won second place in my category in the art show!? I was so surprised I didn’t really know what to say?
Well eventually I was wondering what I won… and it was money…? I was super excited to go to the art show (which was today…) But.
When we got there, there wasn’t too many people or anything and me and my cousin were looking at some of the competition and I even found the picture that got first place in my category. Then the award ceremony happened and my name got called and of course, my family was cheering me on when I went to get my award. I was ugh, so happy, I got 50 dollars and an a little ribbon… I’m just really proud of myself for being able to make something like that.
And it even got me out of this art block I went into recently. Either way I was super happy and now I am sitting here with a full stomach of panda express from the food court :p
Thanks for reading,
~Jewels
Here I am again. I’ve been seriously neglecting this blog. I’ve been busy as ever with personal issues and school work. I just happened to finish a history project that I’m trying to get ahead in the game on. I finally finished minutes ago, it can be viewed here. I had to draw a picture to show how America was impacted from either WW1, WW2, or the Vietnam War… so I chose WW2 because I love WW2 a lot more than any of the other wars (I watched the week long marathon on the History channel on World War II, it was love at first sight). I tried to show that women were impacted socially and economically because it was socially acceptable for women to work in the new jobs they began taking on and that they received higher wages from it. It’s just a propaganda poster though.
Also, I have a youtube account that I recently discovered to with. A lot of artists on you tube would record themselves drawing, and I was always curious how they did that. So I asked my teacher how he records all those wonderful tutorials he makes, and well he told me it was Snapz Pro X, which costs money so I downloaded the free trial. So far I have four videos up (soon to be five), but you can watch them here. If you click here you can watch me draw this propaganda poster!!
Well, thanks for reading.
~Jewels
