OC3 2018 Poster

THERE IT IS! :)  I had the great job of designing the poster for Oldham County Comic Con for 2018!  The reading kiddo is based on a kiddo that I know (though when he was this size he was much more interested in climbing everything than reading).

I will also have a table at OC3 in February.  It might well be the only comics convention that I have a table at for 2018; I'm still debating SPACE.  I've talked about this in person to some comics friends over the last couple months but not online - I'll be taking a vacation from the breakneck art schedule of convention tables for a year to try and finish up a couple long-term projects that have languished for most of 2017 because I burned myself out for many months doing 6 shows almost in a row this past spring.  With the additional health and stress issues that have resulted from that, I don't want to push myself more anytime soon.  Not that I don't like painting Pokemon, but it really has become a hindrance.

During 2018, I will continue to be on social media and can always be reached that way or via email. :)  I hope to come back refreshed and with an amiable vengeance (and hopefully a new book or two) in 2019!

Bart Bruinsma Concert Poster!

Oh man, I suck at writing blog posts when I'm stressed... Which is probably why I often don't do it at all. But I NEEEEED to post this one - if you're located in the Netherlands, read closely!!

It sounds like an awesome show, and is next week!!!

This was a REALLY fun project.  I enjoy working with musicians a lot, and have done several album designs, but this is my first concert/tour poster design.  Bart had a lot of cool ideas that I was able to incorporate, and I. Love. How. This. Project. Turned. Out.  I made several other concepts for this poster, these are some favorites (sketched traditionally ink/pencil/watercolor pencil with some digital enhancements/text):

One goal was to make use of the negative space of the paper, to make that space intentional, since Bart would be printing these himself without trimming. I had a lot of other ideas for the poster's palette, too, which were a LOT of fun because Bart wanted it to be somewhere along the lines of a COLOR ASSAULT, which I rather enjoy making... :)

UPDATE 2013-04-16: I got a question from @DannyMonzillo about which parts of the poster are traditional and which are digital, and figuratively smacked myself in the face because I had originally intended to talk a bit about that but forgot in my sleepiness.  In the final design, the drawing of Bart's face and the background illustration of someone getting shot were drawn traditionally with ink, and integrated digitally.  There is supposed to be nothing flat in the design, so I went traditional for these elements to get the texture of a brush in.

There are also several textures (photos/scans) layered in, which I got from my own homemade texture archive and these STELLAR people: lostandtaken and Simply Textures!

Here's a PRO TIP: Bart wanted some secondary imagery in the background of the poster, something you'd notice on a second look. Hence, the illustration of someone getting shot layered in like a texture in the largest dark-blue part of the final design, around Bart's face.  Here's a section of the raw scan:

Looks pretty funky, huh?  You can even see the seam where I had to tape on another piece of paper.  But there's a method to the messy odd-colored madness: I used the select color range tool in Photoshop to pull the black sections and the green sections out of this drawing onto their own separate layers, and then manipulate their color independently. You can use any second color, I just had a brush pen with green ink on hand.  I used this trick a bit in the drawings of Nick and Eli previously. MY SECRET IS OUT! Hope someone's able to put this method to use in their own situation, it's VERY useful for digitally integrating hand-made elements. :)


IN OTHER NEWS.  I'm currently working on illustrating a comic book issue for the indie series "The End" by Shawn Murphy, which is really kicking my butt... HOWEVER, it's coming along nicely and I hope to finish it within the next 3-4 weeks so I have time to prepare for HEROESCON!!!

Alligator Running Shoes is a band over in The Netherlands! I created this logo for them as an initial online identity; hopefully they'll get to use it in an album design as well. :) Here's the initial logo:

The background above is all watercolor; here's the alligator skin layer:

I'm going to try to stay away from logo designs in the future, because most often the amount of interest they have for me vs. the amount of time they take up in revisions and nit-picking is just not worth it.  But these guys were great to work with. :)

Logos for Sparkses

Have I ever posted my logo here before?...  It's on my current website, and the new website design I'm making is based around it!  Yaaaaaaay.  That's assuming I'm ever able to finish it. 

My husband has been trying to come up with a logo for his own works for many months, and yesterday/today we worked together and were able to come up with something AWESOME:

The fonts used in Matt's final logo are both from the Lost Type Co-Op (SHOUT OUT) which has a bunch of AWESOME fonts available.  YAY INDIE TYPEFACE DESIGNERS!

Allez oup!

Business card for a guitar player

For this guitar player. :) I could watch this kid play all day.
Also, go listen to this song by Lord Huron. BECAUSE.

Public - RED Album Design

I said I had some album designs coming up - here's the first!  This album was released a few months ago by the local Cincinnati band Public.  (I have some videos of them to upload to my Youtube account...)

Here's the original concept:

The band used to be named Crown, and this concept was originally created as an idea for a T-shirt design.  They went with another idea, but still liked this one...

And ended up using it on the cover of their first EP.
I created the imagery for the album in watercolor, and composited the images together digitally for flexibility (Loin on one layer, Lion's background on another layer,  a couple different versions of the inside cover which were combined, etc.)

Here's the outside cover without the text (all of which was hand-written):
 

And here's my autographed copy of the final album.  BE JEALOUS.  :)

There have been a couple album designs now in which the musicians have asked that I hand-write their text.  I can't help but  be amused to see my own handwriting both in comics and on stacks of CDs. :D

LATAHZ

CROWN

Recently did a T-Shirt design for local Cincinnati band CROWN. 

Initial concept:

After printing a larger copy of the concept and doing a very light lightbox trace, WATERCOLORING commences.  Obviously, my work area is very high-tech and fancy.  Warm Colors first:

 Cool colors second:

And the final ink last.

One other concept created in preparation for this design may be used for a future project for this band.  Wait and see.  :)

Storms

Spent some time in the basement of the office yesterday, with the tornado warnings. Saw a bit of the damage on TV today... So horrible. If you want to help some of the people affected, here are a couple ways to do so.

Drew this while I was stuck down in the basement - characters for a hopefully upcoming story, three siblings. Added a splash of color today. They look a bit too old, but hey; first time they've been put to paper (outside of the script).



Also, working on the program for the Savannah International Animation Festival!!! And hopefully I'll get to go, too. :D

Sorry for two posts in one day - some quick design work for the Northern Cincinnati Youth Orchestra. :)

The Grasshopper Band

A fictional band that totally exists!!!



Watercolor, 12x18.
Lovely lady on the right is Carter Calvert, whose babysitting money I will use to pay for my wedding dress. <3 THANK YOU!!!!

A lament we all share

Not that I have any time for freelance lately. ;______;

Portfolio book cover

So... it turned out pretty nice.

Makes me want to design some orange/blue theme buttons. :)

Youth Orchestras of Northern Cincinnati

is an organization/kids orchestra that my mom and her friend Carolyn Quinn run. and they're darn good, so they deserve a darn good looking brochure. :)

the wonky violins were fun to draw.



in other news, I'm watching "The Spirit" movie, and it's GORGEOUS. Gorgeous LOOKING. the first 5 minutes and 30 seconds are all right, but after the opening credits are over... well. nobody can deny Frank Miller's a genius for layout and cinematography. it just can't make up for the awful story. doesn't mean my eyes can't be inspired though. :)

does graphics do.

yeah... been doing some design work lately, so thought I'd post a bit. :)

(designs in ink, finished in photoshop) - the best string quartet in cincinati. Not biased at all. :)




for the company I'm currently employed at.

DUCK HEART TESLACOIL

WOOHOO poster design. and not just any ol' poster...
but a poster advertising TYLER doing a flash workshop at the next CAS meeting!!!!

I was able to see Tyler's film "Duck Heart Teslacoil" at this year's SCADanimate program, and it is AWESOME. Tyler is a great filmmaker. this is his website, Base14. his film isn't available online, but if there happens to be a showing of it (or any of his other films) near you, GO AND SEE.

also, I made an awesome poster for this week's meeting. yay. :)

SBOC + 2

I like how these turned out too. so here they are. YAY

SBOC

logo/tshirt design for a student group up at UC! :) I'm doing a couple more designs for them; might post those as well once they're finished.
(fonts: philly sans/bee marker from dafont)

also also, BACK AT SCAD. so there will be homework appearing up here soonish, assuming it's worth posting. whee!

New2You

our church out in Clifton started a thrift store next door, part of the new2you chain. they hired me to do some shirt designs- thought I'd post them here, even though with the printing process they've decided to use I'll have to modify them a bit and change the shirt colors. oh well. :)

spring string fling

yeah, say THAT one five times fast. :)

just posting this because I finally got to do something inspired by the Blue Note Jazz album covers I've gotten to love so much. this poster/program design is for my mom's last orchestra concert this year with her students. did it in about an hour.... because she told me at lunchtime she needed it today. :P
heh, I love the textiness.

SAS poster!

poster for the sequential art society! if you've been following along, you'll recognise the arachnid slayer by me on the right. the lightning man in the middle is drawn by my friend Samir, and Wonderboy (Dave Wheeler's character) on the left drawn by my Matt. woot woot!

once I get permission from mine presidente these should be up all over the campus. hooray!