more bloomin’ illustration friday

I re-worked that last Illustration Friday entry a bit more. I really wasn’t happy with it. It was calling me out.
I went back to the original Illustrator file and tweaked it a whole bunch. I carefully meshed in complex gradients and added a whack of transparency’s to give it an almost photographic look. I’m impressed that I did it all in Illustrator.
Not quite a 3D rendering, but I hate the way those look anyways. They are impressive from a technical standpoint, but they manage to suck the life right out of even inanimate objects not to mention what it does to living things.
I’m very pleased with this now. It is, yet again, a bit of a departure from my normal more cartoony style, and a lot more time intensive due to the huge file sizes and dozens of tiny pieces. So I don’t think it’s something I’ll do often.
It’s just nice to prove I can toss out something realistic looking.
That’s not usually required at the paper, since we print very low resolution on newsprint. A simple vector cartoon is usually what will look the nicest in print.
My little brother went home yesterday. He whined about being bored while he was here but I know he had fun goofing off with Liam, and playing with the cat.
We had a almost entirely pet free home while we were growing up (except for a few carnival prize goldfish that lasted a few weeks, and a unsociable gerbil that we mostly ignored) so any friendly animal is a novelty for us.
However, I have a mounting stack of work to get to.
I love being busy with illustrations to do, but I need to get to it.