I did some graphic design work for college 🙂 The first two examples are simply practice for A3 magazine facing pages. The third one is the cover (left page = back, right page = front) for a magazine I designed for the course. It got printed and was part of the final exam for the 4th semester (non-commercial and for personal use only). I won’t upload the whole issue because of the personal data it includes.
All creature concepts are very rough (but I kind of like that about them). By the way, *Chann* is my favorite 🙂 There’s a reason for the name but it’s hard to explain with text only. Let’s just say it’s a sound it makes *chann*
In our third painting session in class we were supposed to paint objects of the “same” color.
My group picked the color “blue” 🙂
Acrylics. I couldn't finish this one in class, so I took a photograph and finished it at home.
The “Painting” class is all about traditional painting with gouache and acrylics. I painted a few times with gouache some time ago (for my application portfolio) but I wanted to get more used to the material. In my opinion painting and learning to see colors and experimenting with them is really beneficial for artists, even for digital paintings!
Here’s a short description covering some details:
- only gouache and acrylics allowed (opaque pigment colors, so why not oils? because they need very very long to dry and because of the toxic aspect)
- (almost) no photographs allowed for reference (sometimes you can make a photo of the object you are drawing in order to finish the painting at home)
- we mostly paint in class (about 2 hours), but of course we get homework too 🙂
- we do cover some theoretical aspects but in my opinion not enough…
But enough talking, here are my first results painted during class one and two only (I haven’t touched them at home BUT my scanner let out some soft color shades I couldn’t really recover digitally):
Gouache on watercolor paper. It's not as opaque as expected from the prof... I'm still thinking the watercolor-way 🙂
Gouache on toned cardboard. The blue rectangle was my cooling pad for the fish 😀 I actually ate this exact same fish a few hours later. It was a strange feeling but I didn't want it to go to waste 🙁
Three days ago I had my last exam! We had to present everything we did during the last semester and the presentation was extremely important itself by the way! We had ONLY 10-15 mins. I had my brand new laser-pointer so I was happy no matter what 🙂
Here’s the short summary PART I
Illustration Basics (reminder) (grade 1,3 / A):
If you’re interested you can find the rest of the characters for the Character Design task here.
Well I didn’t upload all of my work but I think you get the idea for the Illustration Basics classes: a lot of variety!
In my next posts I’ll sum up the rest of the semester for you 🙂
Perhaps some of you remember my older post about training composing your images with the “compo-game”. Well I have to admit it can get boring after a while, so here’s an alternative from which your skills can profit double!
The next time you paint something simply scan it (or take a picture and print it out, if you don’t have access to a scanner). Now open it with any program that can process images and zoom in (you could use a magnifying glass for the printed pic, I guess). Now scroll around and search for interesting parts. If something catches your eye don’t hesitate and copy just what you see on the monitor in that very moment (the zoomed-in part). Gather all parts in a different file and when you feel like there’s nothing more to add start freely moving them around. Your aim is to create a good balance between the parts themselves AND in regard to the negative space.
Here’s an example:
At the end of the day you’ve created a painting, used it as a basis for a second image and you improved your composing skills. WIN! WIN! WIN!
Finally I feel like I can take some time for updating my blog!
I decided to focus on illustration and theory for this (3rd) semester and since I’m still rather slow when it comes to effective drawing I had the busiest four months of my life so far! Lucky for me I got used to sleeping less than 6 hours a night during the week (with an occasional all-nighter now and then). But I guess that’s normal for this branch…
But let’s skip to the classes:
- Illustration Basics: Every week you get a new assignment covering everything from cover illustrations for books and magazines, posters, comic, storyboarding etc. NEW: For the first time the students have to commit to a bigger project during the last 1,5 months of the semester. One has to choose from 24 scientific topics and create so called “scientific illustrations” explaining the subject. I picked “white”, covering colors and light on a physical and physiological basis.
- Illustration Techniques: This is where the students are introduced to a variety of different painting techniques. This semester’s choice is: Watercolors, acrylics, digital painting, vector graphics. I especially enjoy this seminar 🙂
- Illustrator’s Survival Kit (optional): Very time-consuming but effective class! Mainly we are working on visual storytelling and character design. At the beginning of class everyone presents his homework to the other students and the prof (sometimes even in front of a recording camera) after which he/she gets a profound constructive criticism. Then follows a theory presentation followed by a practical working phase. Additionally workshops are provided on a regular basis.
- Research (optional): Here’s where the students (not only illustrators) can learn research techniques including market research, book research and deep space. After an intensive theoretical phase every student has to do a profound research on a chosen design-relevant topic.
- Extra lectures: Every student needs at least 2 extra (one-time) lectures in order to qualify for a theory class exam (in my case that’s “Research”).
During the Christmas “brake” we have to improve ALL of the homework assignments so far + the new assignments 🙁 At the end of the semester we are going to present all of our work for the last months in all the classes.
For the past two weeks we worked on Chinese slums in Drawing Class and I decided to share three digital drawings with you 🙂
The second and third images are interior images portraying the inhabitant’s depressing situations. We were told to use limited light sources and keep to a dark ambience.
Event info: This Thursday we’re going to visit the “Zeche Zollverein Essen” (coal mine in the city of Essen) and draw down some impressions 🙂 Here’s the original handout:
Lots of images and bits of text, I know 😀
The second and third images are interior images portraying the inhabitant’s depressing situations. We were told to use limited light sources and keep to a dark ambience. Event info: This Thursday we’re going to visit the “Zeche Zollverein Essen” (coal mine in the city of Essen) and draw down some impressions 🙂 Here’s the original handout: