Boy, am I ever behind on these. I just haven’t felt like working in illustrator recently. Or doing my traditional cutsey cartoons. I think this makes up for a recent lack of both.

This one took a while to come up with for some reason.

Ick. I feel illustratively rusty.

I am not a sporty girl. I’m just not, and never have been. So since Illustration Friday‘s topic this week is sports, I’m gonna use an illustration whose concept was assigned to me by the sports desk when I worked at the Brock Press, and subsequently published. So it’s not new. Again.
But it’s still pretty neat, and it’s a work I’m really proud of. I think it is both kinda pretty, and fun for an infographic (which can be notoriously stodgy and boring – pie chart anyone? How about a line graph? No? Really?).
Although I am definitely not as much an expert as Annie Bissett. I personally think she’s awesome.
Then again, that one up there is an older illustration. I must’ve completed it a good few months ago, and my style is growing and changing by leaps and bounds. Maybe I could have reached true infographic nirvana back then, if I knew what I know now about texture.

The Illustration Friday topic this week just happens to be: hero, and I just happen to have posted a illustration of my personal favourite superhero, Batman, just the other week.
So I’m wimping out and posting a link back to it (along with my review of the totally awesome new movie), instead of doing something new.
I suck, I know, I know.
But I’m sick and I don’t feel like working.
Nah.

Argh. I used to scoff at the concept of texture. I would see other people obsess about it – fashion designers, antique dealers, faux finishers, and of course my fellow artists and illustrators.
I was all about colour and form.
I did not care for texture.
Now all of a sudden I find myself obsessing over just how in the heck this dude manages to squeeze the most beautiful water-colour, gouache, ink and chalk look-alike images out of lowly little Adobe Illustrator. I mean, I’ve been really trying, really hard to replicate stuff so that it looks like it has a human touch to it, like it was created using traditional medium. I’ve even gone so so far as to re-introduce myself to the real stuff, but this guy comes along and makes me feel completely inadequate.
So if my interpretation of Black and White for illustration Friday seems a little simplistic, it’s because I spent a long while just trying to get the textures to look halfway decent.
I have come to believe that Steve Mack is either a liar, a magician or a genius. Or he at least needs to share his techniques. With me, preferably.

This weeks Illustration Friday topic is Summer, and boy has it ever felt like it this past couple of weeks.
It’s only just now started to cool down with a good dousing of thunderstorms. I can’t believe it snowed in April, and was 40 degrees (celsius, with the humidity) by May.
But enough about the weather. Check out my illo, yo.

A simple little image this time. A little cleaner and more minimal than I’ve been working recently. But I like it. It’s sort of an ode to imacs (I love that particular model, it’s soft curves are much fun to work with) and Diesel Sweeties, the creator of which was at TCAF. Which was kinda cool. Although I don’t keep up with webcomics as much as I should (other than Travis and Joe).
I was actually going to maybe attempt something non-digital, but then the theme itself was digital, sooo…

Recently, I have been threatenting the talented people around me with brain stealing. My behavior may have something to do with the fact that my brain is in not-too-good shape (I could use a nice transplant), or possibly just because I am in the midst of a sudden burst of inferiority.
So, if you click on the brains above, you will be taken to see a few of the talented girls whose brains I envy.

Evil mutant octopus with a ray gun!
Don’t ask why.
Just run.

I’ve noticed a theme in these last few weeks topics: reinvention, daring, ambition… I finally gave in to it this week. I did Madonna. Mostly because my brain was a bit blocked, and I couldn’t come up with anything else.
Early Madonna though. Quintesential Madonna. “I want to rule the world,” Madonna. In other words, Madonna at her most ambitious.

It turned out very Andy Warholish. Which I’m not sure is a good thing.

I had a bunch of ideas for this one, but found the simplicity of this little tightrope walking girl, to be the most appealing. I was thinking up all kinds of way’s to make her doubley daring, but I kept it down to the bare minimum in the end. Although I did keep in mind that for women to have jobs at all in the earlier parts of this century was definitely daring, so her vintage look is certainly on purpose. Actually, one of my discarded idea’s was for her to be wearing some kind of suffragette sash, which would have been neat, but would have cluttered up the image. I like to keep it subtle.

Here’s my version of reinvent. I thought this one would be tricky at first as it’s more of an abstract concept than usual, but then I came up with a killer concept.
Can you tell I’ve been watching the first season of Alias for the very first time?
Graphically speaking though, hair is always perfect to work with. It’s so fluid that you can do pretty much anything with it and still have it look like hair (so long as it’s on top of someone’s head). Everyone in the world knows what hair looks like (because they hopefully have some) so it’s universal.
Its universal. Its versatile. It’s instantly recognizable. Perfect. Illustrative. Concept. Boo-ya.

I spent a lot of time alone, waiting for buses in my youth.
I tried to capture a bit of that Frank Miller/Sin City style, and mesh it with my own . It took forever for some reason.
I’m not entirely sure I’m happy with it. I started out with something much more complicated and colourful, and I kept having to remove stuff to keep it graphic, and visually minimal. I’m pleased with her face, and not so sure about anything else. I think it would of helped If I had any kind of modeling or reference images for any of it, instead of just guesswork from memory – but I really wanted to just get the image in my head onto the screen without any outside influence (other than my Big Fat Kill graphic novel).

This weeks Illustration Friday topic is (as you can probably tell) travel.
I missed last weeks so I decided to get this one out of the way early before the conference.
Oh, and last night the cat managed to drag a duck leg bone (our delicious dinner last night) out of the closed garbage can and into our bedroom where she proceeded to gnaw and feast until I woke up and heard her (and had to take it away).
She’s a talented, mischievous little gourmand.
Now I must go pack.

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.

I am very happy that penelope is now posting the illustration friday topics on friday, so I can work on them on the weekend. This way, I actually spend my time doing something constructive on the weekends, and I don’t let it interfere with my real work.
This is my “bloom.”

I went with a diffent style this week.
I’ve always had trouble painting flowers realisticly for some reason.
They always come out too fuzzy and soft.
So to replicate paint, I tried out that vector/photoshop combo that’s so popular.
I made the flowers in illustrator, and gave them some pretty gradients. Then I opened up photoshop and texturized it with a filter or two. Then I went in with the paint brush and the blur tool to loosen it up a little.
I am happy that I was able to replicate my painting style digitally, but I still managed to make the darn things fuzzy and soft.
This is why I stick to vector cartoons… Oh well, it’s pretty anyways.

I’m early for Illustration Friday this week. Inspiration is coming to me easily today for some reason. The topic is “fragile.”

What’s more fragile than an egg in a falling tea-cup? It’s not as personal as it could be, but I’m happy with it’s simplicity and quirkyness, as well as my hot, comic book style, aerodynamic swooshes.

This weeks Illustration Friday subject was “ancient.”
It sounded trickier than “jazz,” but a steady trickle of ideas turned it into one of the more satisfying projects I’ve recently undertaken.

I started out with a classic Grecian urn, but got bored of black and terra-cotta, so I turned it into (the equally ancient) Chinese celadon. Then I stuck a bunny on it.

This illustration is my very first foray into illustration friday. I’m not sure I got it done in time to actually submit it to the site, but I’m just proud I actually got around to participating so I don’t think I care.
This weeks subject was jazz, so I did a bit of an ode to my favourite kind: mid-century be-bop.
In other words the classic trio (think Charlie Brown): piano, bass and drums.