Be Alert.

Here I am fooling around with warning signs. I created a custom pattern of hexagons for the sign to create the reflective coating effect seen on modern road signs. I just created the pattern as black with no fill, a slight blur and 25% opacity. The other detail I added is a sign number in small text at the bottom of the sign. This detail is also often seen on modern road signs.

The rest of the sign follows the common techniques for creating a realistic looking sign. Tutorials for this are all over the web. The text of course is the common alert pun, because of course the world needs more Lerts.

Rotoscope.

I have been trying a rotoscope test over the last few days. For those who don't know rotoscoping is tracing frames from a film to create an animation. I downloaded an avi from the Internet Archive Prelinger Archive. It is a good source of movies that can be used without copyright issues. After I got a source movie I exported a clip as jpg images. The process I used was to take each jpg and open it as a layer, create a new layer with 45% opacity, then traced the main lines of the image. It is a slow process but the result was interesting. The next step is to test other open source programs to find the easiest and quickest workflow for rotoscope animation.

Back to Basics.

Today I spent some time getting back to basics. I spent an hour outside in the garden pencil sketching. It was an enjoyable change of pace from digital art.

Fruit Crate Label.

This image was created in 2 steps. The first step was using Inkscape to create the label following the style of some labels that I own. The main letters were broken into individual paths and a radial gradient was applied to each letter individually. The label was exported as a png image.

The second step was to open a wood texture in Gimp. The label png was imported as a layer and some weathering and a drop shadow were added. Text was added to the wood to create the effect of a stamp on the crate.

Vector Art Noveau.

This was drawn in Inkscape using the spiro function instead of the bezier function. The spiro functions make smoother curves simpler to draw. The flourishes in this drawing were created by adding interesting curves together and mirroring the results to produce the four corners.
The colours used help produce the retro feeling of the image. A white hilight was added to the gold portions of the image. These hilights were created by making a copy, changing the fill to white and the stroke off, adding a dynamic offset to reduce the width, and adding a blur. I still need more practice to consistantly produce this style, but it is a fun style to play in.

Ideal Workspace.

I have been thinking about all the posts on various blogs about ideal workspaces. So I present my take on what needs to be in the ideal creative workspace. The first thing that should be prominently displayed is your Artistic Licence. The full list of items needed for a fully functioning space are: Creative Juices, Liquid Courage, a pair of rose colored glasses, Elbow Grease, brass tacks, Gumption, bootstraps, a thinking cap, circular file, Pearls of Wisdom, Nuggets of Truth, Seeds of an Idea, Reality cheques, and a full deck. Any space that is stocked with these items will be guaranteed to be a good workspace.

Hungry Skull.

This is a quick drawing that I did using Inkscape. I was playing with the idea of replacing one of the bones in a pirate flag with a half chewed chicken leg. I think it turned out kind of fun. I didn't use any transparency or gradients. I am still not sure if the final image is a warning sign for trans-fats and fried foods or a bad logo for a fried chicken restaurant.