CreativeJUUS

Creative Mondays 19 – Stickers

// April 2nd, 2012 // No Comments » // Creative Mondays, Illustration, Illustrator

“What is Creative Mondays?

Monday’s are always a drag. The start of a new week, you have to go back to that routine of going to bed early/get up early. If (like me) you have to commute then you prepare for that long journey into work and that long journey back for the first time after a nice two day break.

So to kick off those lousy Mondays, I’m going to get my creative mind flowing in a positive way. Creative Mondays. A chance for me to show off something unfinished or finished that I’ve been working on throughout the previous week.”

This week’s creative work was part of a competition that I entered (a bit last minute) and something I thought would be a little fun to do for a change. I discovered the competition on the always inspirational Abduzeedo site and in partnership with Sticker Robot and Hydro74 the task was to simply create a black and white sticker design. The sky’s the limit!

I wanted to try and flex my illustrator muscle here and went with two very different styles. The Geek was fun to create just letting the concept flow after an initial sketch and the detail in the dragon took me right up to the deadline but for a first attempt I’m pretty pleased with the results. Even if they don’t get selected I’d like to see them as stickers so I may get them printed.

I find it’s always a good idea to take part in these community competitions as it pushes you to see what you can come up with to a deadline. Also there’s a ton of inspirational work from the other artists entering their designs/illustrations!

Oh and you can check out all the entries on the Sticker Robot Flickr pool. Some really top notch work!

Creative Mondays 3 – Illuniverse Planets

// December 12th, 2011 // 2 Comments » // Creative Mondays, Illustration, Illustrator, Inspiration, Photoshop

This week’s Creative Mondays piece comes from a project I heard about on Twitter earlier in the week. The project created by @ph7labs entitled Illuniverse enables artists/illustrators to submit their own created planets onto a website showcasing their work. The aim is to create an entire universe with a variety of different styles.

The project seems to have taken off pretty well and you can already see a nice selection of styles from artists around the world. As an added bonus, each planet links back to it’s creator’s website and serves as a brilliant resource to explore a very creative collection of people!

What’s great about this project is that it’s an open idea. The brief is very open leaving you to create pretty much anything you want!

My first planet (I call Reddy) was an exploration from scratch. I sketched out a circle and drew whatever came into my head. I then worked on fleshing the planet out in Photoshop and the result seems to be some sort of red dripping spotted planet with a double halo ring!

The idea for my second planet was an homage to a scene from The Empire Strikes Back where Han Solo and his companions land the Millenium Falcon on an asteroid in an attempt to escape from the Empire. I created this planet in Illustrator as I rarely work in this program and wanted to expand my knowledge. Watch the clip below to see the scene that I’m talking about.

So I hope you enjoy these little guys and be sure to check out the entire collection over at Illuniverse.com!

Big Brother Poster

// September 24th, 2011 // 1 Comment » // Graphic Design, Illustration, Illustrator, Photoshop, Posters

Not that I’d like to promote or in any way put focus on this reality television show but my recent poster design is in fact all about Big Brother. Or rather my problem with it.

Not since the first series had I managed to ‘enjoy’ the format of shoving clashing personalities in a house for the summer, so imagine my delight when last year I heard that it was to be terminated! Fantastic I thought, we’ll never have to worry about constant updates on Facebook or Twitter about who said what to who and what they did next! Oh but I was wrong, the lovely Channel 5 (UK based) decided to take the reigns and deliver us the same drivel that we’ve seen for the last ten years.

So now that I’ve finished ranting and believe me I could go on, I decided to put pen to paper (or rather mouse to Photoshop?) and create my word of warning to all those persistent in watching people sleep until the wee hours of the morning.

Enjoy, but let it serve its purpose!

Spider-Man: Web of Night Poster

// July 7th, 2011 // No Comments » // Graphic Design, Illustration, Illustrator, Inspiration, Photoshop, Posters

I’ve always wanted to do a poster featuring my favourite web-slinger and I can now show you the finished piece! I like to make sure at some stage throughout each project to learn something new and this poster was no exception. I’ve never really gotten into illustrator before so I decided this was a good opportunity to dive in head first.

The entire poster was created in illustrator (all except a few touch-ups with lighting and the text) starting from a sketch I’d scanned in. As Spidey is frequently seen swinging through New York’s amazing cityscape I felt I could take advantage of Illustrator’s new ‘perspective tools’ and create a convincing backdrop. It takes a little getting used to but once you let the perspective do the work for you, you’ll get a better idea of the composition you’d like. Within Photoshop I added a few textures to the buildings, added his webbing and created the glow effect you see around him.

I’ve always sketched out comic book characters as a kid and it’s really where I started in terms of my interest in drawing so to be able to transfer those skills to digital art was a really fun experience!