A Better Tomorrow is now selling the tee whose sketch I posted previously. In its finished form, it’s a good mix of cartoon and gore. A little more lighthearted than my Medusa design, but more appropriate given that it’s a riff on A Better Tomorrow’s logo. I wanted to create a relationship between the bird and ape that made sense in the context of halloween. I think I succeeded in that. Below is the image ABT created to promote the shirt on their blog.
The title for this post may sound a bit cryptic or, worse yet, pompous. In reality, that’s the title the design was given over at ABT. Holy hell, I can’t help but relay how awesome it was to see FRENDEN HALLOWEEN on their site. I mean, who doesn’t want their name directly associated with the only holiday worth its weight in amassed candy goodness? Rad-fucking-tacular. Ray Frenden: doing his part to spread childhood obesity and diabetes. I’m such a humanitarian!
For posterity (aka my own unrestrained ego stroking), this is how it showed on their site, heh:
In addition to the shirts, their blog has the design available as wallpaper. The wallpaper is the desktop kind, not the drywall adherent kind. I will not be held responsible for people pressing their monitors to their bedroom walls only to see them plummet to the ground and shatter.
Right before I left for New York for the weekend (and most of Monday), I figured out the first of two new brushes in Manga Studio. It approximates a dirty brush look using very condensed, large airbrush dots in the airbrush tool. Overall size is set to pen pressure, and random dots is unchecked. Keeping random dots checked seems to create a weird effect, injecting a lot of whitespace into the stroke.
I’m still trying to find the sweet spot in Manga Studio that will inject a lively, organic feel to brush strokes without sacrificing brush control. Using a large brush and creating a softer, cushioned pressure curve seems to go a long way. The strokes feel a lot like using a real brush to me. Well, as close as I’ve found digitally. Often, though, I make these sorts of adjustments and can’t deal with the lack of 1:1-size-to-pressure.
I have more control with a real brush. For the ease of production, reproduction, and a few other factors, I still prefer working digitally for most commercial projects.
Well, I just sent off this sketch of a tee design for A Better Tomorrow. I was asked after I assume they saw Medusa Tless Select. So far, so good. I’m really liking the rough sans a few wonky chest-meet-arm issues.
I like to drop in approximations of color schemes pretty early when working with limited color and spots. These colors tend to change by the end of a project, but it really helps when vetting a possible design against a client. I may have a clear idea of where the piece can go, but you really can’t ask an art director to make that leap of faith.
Even the best art directors aren’t mind readers, heh! Alex Wald, a recent acquaintance and all around nice chap (in addition to a swell artist, art director, colorist, etc) left me a bit of advice in regards to keeping a well rounded portfolio.
Expecting a potential client to extrapolate that, due to the level of skill of the pieces shown in your portfolio, you can do things that aren’t explicitly spelled out isn’t a good idea.
IE, you probably can do great retro-style cartoons, but that life drawing isn’t going to help you convince anyone.
Mike Segawa invited me to participate in the FLISTgroup show at Happy Dog Gallery (1524 N Milwaukee) this Friday.Lots of great people involved. I hope ya come!
