Year 1 Illustration - Law and Order

Thursday, 6 December 2012

Rick Deckard Illustrator

I had never used Illustrator before, but since learning some of the basics, I could see how it is an effective tool for creating dynamic images. I used my chosen detective, Rick Deckard, to try out some techniques.

I am quite pleased with the outcome seeing as I have very little experience with Illustrator. I built up the face and clothing using various shapes, implying shadows and definition. I chose these colours because I felt they reflected the mood of this particular character, who is at times a fairly morbid and solitary person.

This illustration was done by Matt Taylor, and I drew influence from how shapes can be used to create objects and shadows rather than starting with outlines. The colour pallete seems to suit this image, and I believe they were chosen carefully and with purpose, which is what I tried to recreate with my image.

Sherlock Holmes Photoshop

I have produced an image of Sherlock Holmes in photoshop in the style of Mark Smith using a colour palette from one of his designs, i scanned in an image i created earlier in black biro and painted over it using a multiply layer.

Here is the original image i worked from, i chose key colours and incorporated them into my work.

I normally use this effect with landscape pictures but thought i would try it out with a face. I like the over all picture - which is done with water colour pencils - but i think as there are some many think black lines the detail of the face is a little lost.

photoshop poirot

Mark smith style

more Mark Smith style

Original photoshop trace

i have looked at mark Smith for my artist reference, he focuses a lot on the negative space being used to block colour the image and then he creates this print effect on top of the line work to pick out detail and various important features. the top image i have done of poirot mimics this style as i have left his hands and face un- coloured and used different layers of his jacket to give this ripped effect, i also used various rubbers in photoshop to erase certain sections. the block colour in the background was just a few shades lighter than his tie, there are a lot of blues in his suit and tie so i thought the background should reflect this and it also will help to compliment the image.

messing around with backgrounds in the style of mark Smith, i like colouring him with this messy style because the background line work really shows through the weak colouring yet you are still able to make out the correct colour pallet.

Friday, 30 November 2012

Ace Ventura in biro

This is a 10 minute sketch in black biro pen, I've chosen

it as my favourite as I enjoyed the process, I find drawing in biro

is good because it is less time consuming, you cant rub out or undo any mistakes.

I also like this image because I think I've captured Aces expression quite well.

Sherlock Holmes In Pencil

I did a pencil sketch of Robert Downey Jr. as Sherlock Holmes as part of my Law and Order brief from photo reference, I wanted to study his features accurately to get a good likeness in this drawing. It took a considerable amount of time to get it to the point i was happy with. I would like to re-create this image again if i had the time and re-work it to make it perfect, i used hair-spray to preserve it step by step so that it wouldn't transfer onto the other pages in my sketch book but this meant I couldn't erase and re-work certain areas i wasn't happy with when i decided i wanted to have another go at them, next time I would try to get everything to a point I could work more detail into and that i'm pleased with before spraying it. I have created other portraits like this one, and they take me a very long time to create, i would like to look into some loose pencil sketches next and not focus so heavily on detail.

Poirot on Illustrator

Using Illustrator, I created portraits of Poirot with textures by clip masking outlines to create each section to the textures, and then by using the pen/ pencil tool to add details. These portraits are inspired by the illustrator, Alvaro Tapia who uses textures to create images.

Thursday, 29 November 2012

Guess who workshop

best attempt

Ben's Guess who project. My three words were Melancholy - Alien - Warrior and these are some ideas i had for it.

not really

Sorta angry looking

Sherlock: On Illustrator

This is Benedict Cumberbatch as Sherlock Holmes. I used crazy colours in this image to try and portray his sometimes crazy character.

Another version of Sherlock, mixing up the colour palettes and trying to see what tones work best for showing character.

Holmes Portrait

Poirot using Illustrator


This was my first attempt at using adobe illustrator. I have traced the lines and then used blocks of colour which i have moved slightly to the right and above the lines to give the effect of motion in my illustration.

I have used this image by Fernando Juarez, as my colour palette as i enjoy the blue tones throughout. Image from http://www.illustrationweb.com/artists/FernandoJuarez/view

Digital Lessons

Portrait done in Illustrator. First real try with Illustrator.

Poirot vector image

illustrator and photoshop

Illustrator/Photoshop Portraits

Today, you are to attempt to develop two detective portraits. One on Adobe Illustrator and the second on Adobe Photoshop. They may be from the same reference photograph, or a completely different image.

I would like you to consider the styles of the following Illustrators as inspiration, and consider how their images are made:

Alvaro Tapia
Paul Blow
Mark Smith
Matt Taylor

Tuesday, 27 November 2012

Funny News - "Woman who eats Sponges"

I found this while researching for stage 2 and couldn't resist doing an illustration and posting it here...

"A woman has told how a rare disorder has led her to eat more than 4,000 washing up sponges."

Kerry Trebilcock, 21, suffers from a condition called pica, which causes victims to crave non-edible objects.

The disorder has also caused her to eat more than 100 bars of soap.

Miss Trebilcock, a dental nurse from Mylor, Cornwall, told The Sun: "One day I will beat this and be able to have a shower or do the washing up without feeling hungry.

"I have been very particular about the type of sponges and soaps I'd eat and how I'd prepare them.

"If I went out for the day I'd carry a small plastic bag of cut-up pieces of sponge with some tomato and BBQ sauce in Tupperware. I was never without a 'snack'."

Taken from the Telegraph (Published: 29th February 2012) URL: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/9112388/Woman-eats-4000-washing-up-sponges.html

Seriously...how could I resist? - Tom ;)

Monday, 26 November 2012

Ace Ventura - Pet Detective

This is my - so far - favourite Ace Ventura piece. I took the original image from a still from the film and worked on it in pencil, when I was happy with the finished sketch I painted it using water colours, and then used a Ink pen to define my lines. Justin Madson, creator of 'Just Mad Books' was my inspiration for this piece of work, I really love his crisp style of drawing and tried to show this within my work.

Friday, 23 November 2012

Visual Communication - Guess Who (Visual Shortcuts) Task 2

Two Adjective- Victorian, Creepy
Noun- Beast

As a group we came to the conclusion of creating a beast for our noun, as we felt we could experiment a lot with its body features/shapes and colours. We chose the colour green for the body as that colour represents the phrases creepy, slimy and abstract looking. The two adjectives we choose were Victorian and creepy, we felt these meanings could work well together due to the props/objects in relation, e.g walking stick, moustache and top hat.

A Victorian top hat, as its sophisticated and a very recognisable fashion statement from that era.

Below is gathered images from the web we have taken inspiration from...

Beast influence (google search cartoon beast), we liked the creatures feet, and positioning of the actual beast, and really liked the antennas which we thought of making as the eyes.