Happy Family

This was a Christmas present for some friends.  

24 hours in Photoshop and Illustrator

Corbin

I'm trying to learn how to use Illustrator for all our illustration needs at work.  This one was fun.  I kind of miss my feathered-looking shadow edges, but I suppose the crisp shadow edges have a place.  This illustration was a fun caricature I did of a friend.  It probably took 2 or 3 hours as I was playing around in Illustrator.

Grrr.....

I sketched this guy a while ago and tonight I had fun inking and coloring him in Illustrator.  About 3 hours.  Learning from online tutorials and experimenting along the way:)  Summary:  Bring in a pencil sketch and dim the layer to 10%.  Use a 3 pt size brush with pressure sensitivity for the linework.  Because Illustrator doesn't have a rotate art board tool, do a Ctrl+A select all, then hit R and rotate until you're ready to continue (I'm used to drawing in Photoshop and Toonboom and Painter where I can rotate my artboard to capture my hand's natural gestures).  After doing this a whole lot of times and the linework is basically done, select all, Expand, Live Paint Make, Live Paint Release, now use the lasso and push delete to clean up all the lines you overshot.  With clean lines, select all,  and use the pathfinder to combine all paths.  Now, Object>Path>Cleanup.  Next, draw a colored box behind your lines.  Select all, use the pathfinder Merge command to flatten the lines into the color.  Use Direct Select tool to select color outside of character/ negative space.  Delete those areas and any other interior negative space areas.  Now, use the magic wand tool and select the linework.  Cut and paste it on new layer above the colors layer.  Use the Direct Select tool to select color regions and fill them with rough color, grouping like-color regions as you go.  After getting the flat color layer done, duplicate it.  Darken all the groups of colors where you want to add shade (such as the face in my case).  With the darkened face color group selected, open the Transparency toolbar and double click to the right of the thumbnail of your color region.  It should create a black box/ mask and the dark face color on the screen will disappear, leaving the color of the face on the screen normal from the flats layer below.  With the black mask thumbnail in the Transparency menu selected, paint white or black with the brush tool using a 6 pt brush with pressure sensitivity.  White will reveal your dark face 'shadows'.  Black will remove them again.  To get out of painting on the mask layer, click your mouse on the thumbnail of the dark color skin image in the Transparency menu.  If you want to add more shading to other color groups, do it the same way.  Finally, add a few gradients, add a highlight layer on top and then let your computer (and yourself) rest.  If anyone has any questions on the process, I'd be happy to explain it more thoroughly.

Tribal Mask

Fun times  playing with Adobe Illustrator.  

About 2 hours.

Standard Bearer

Playing around in Illustrator for a couple hours.

Mouth of Provo Canyon

Want something fun to do?  Get a buddy who loves to draw, grab some pencils and paper, find a beautiful spot outside and sketch together.  40 minutes 12" x 9"

Payson Lake Pier

That's one of my best friends fishing on the pier.  My brother and I thought it would be fun to paint while he enjoyed the fishing.  He treated us to a fun campout with electricity, games, running water, beautiful nature, fresh fried rainbow trout, fried potatoes, onions and a yummy yogurt cone.  Had a GREAT time!
4 hours 10" x 8" acrylic

Campground Moonrise

It's so relaxing to sit in the cool of the

evening on a lawn chair, sketching nature.

25 minutes Prismacolor Markers 3.5" x 6"

Payson Lake Grotto Waterfall

I started playing with my prismacolor grayscale markers

on a campout this last weekend and it was a LOT of fun

to sit in nature sketching God's beautiful creations.  It

was also really nice to have patient friends hiking with me.

 30 minutes 4"x 7"

Grape Spiders

Show this to your kids and see if they still like eating grapes;)

3.5 hours Painter and Photoshop

Gesture Drawing

I don't post many of these, but I typically warm up every day with some 30 second to 5 minute gesture drawings.  These were about 5 minutes each. Photoshop

Nikki

Here's a friend going through a very rough spot in life.

I hope this brightens her day.  1.5 hours Photoshop

Cute Little Guy

8.5" x 11" Charcoal. 2.25 hours

Willie & Momma J

My in-laws from Louisiana.  2.5 hours Photoshop

Say "Cheese!"

What's Mother's Day without moms and cameras?

About 2 hours in Photoshop

Tooth Parade

And the winner is... GOLDY!  

For best of show and for consuming the most candy.

60 min Photoshop sketch.

Brother Paul

My friend Paul has done so many nice things for our family, 

that I HAD to do something for him.  I hope he likes it.  

60 min Photoshop.

Creepy Guy on the News

Ok, so this probably looks creepier than what he really looked like, but that's what caricature is all about right?  Pushing the first impression you get.  There you go!  30 seconds memorizing his face on the news in the morning...  40 min in Photoshop later that night.

Sketchbook

Any other artists out there have FIVE sketchbooks they're currently working on?  This is all stuff I've done since August 2012.  It's so fun for me to cartoon people I see as I'm biking, watching TV, listening at church or creating out of my imagination.  People can look SO DIFFERENT from eachother!  I find it fascinating.  I used to only care about mutant animals and monsters when I was a kid, but my perspective has changed a lot.  Anyway, almost all of these were sketched in pen, some while I was walking.  I thought it would be fun to experiment on the lady with the frilly hair in Illustrator.

Motley Samurai Logo

My friend Jeff Bean is doing a biking marathon for his son who has Multiple Sclerosis.  He's got a team named 'Motley Samurai' and this is going to be their logo and back-of-shirt design.  Check out their blog if you'd like: http://motleysamurai.blogspot.com/ Good stuff.  6 hours in Photoshop and Illustrator.

Priesthood Line of Authority

Jesus Christ  8.5" x 11"                                 Jesus Christ 11" x 17"

Peter the Apostle 8.5" x 11"                              Joseph Smith 8.5" x 11"

"Then he called his twelve disciples together, and gave them power and authority over all devils, and to cure diseases. And he sent them to preach the kingdom of God, and to heal the sick." 

-Luke 9: 1-2, Holy Bible KJV.

We live in an amazing time when the priesthood authority Jesus Christ gave to the apostles has been restored to the earth again. Peter, James and John bestowed the priesthood upon Joseph Smith in the early 1800's and he passed it on to others until I feel so blessed to hold that priesthood today. I drew these pictures so that I could have visual depictions of the first three people in my priesthood line of authority. I might post my complete line later on. I drew these because most of the illustrations of these people are copyrighted by their respective artists. These are completely new images I had people model for so I could have references to work from. They are totally free for anyone to use for personal purposes as long as it's in a respectful and uplifting manner. (If you find them useful, please use them in your own priesthood line of authority, Sunday School lessons, posters for school, etc.) No commercial use is permitted unless you work it out with me.

Time it took to draw these charcoal pieces:

11" x 17" Jesus Christ- 6 hours

8.5" x 11" Peter the Apostle- 1.5 hours

8.5" x 11" Joseph Smith- 4 hours

If you want to know more about living prophets (with the same type of calling and responsibilities as Isaiah and Moses) and apostles and the legitimate priesthood authority of God on the earth, visit http://mormon.org/joseph-smith  

Letting the Cat Out Before Going to Bed

I have been DYING to have some fun time in Photoshop with cartoon characters and critters lately.  At the end of date night, after typing in my journal, I found the desire unquenchable, so I had to do something.  There you have it, a little cat that took about 35 minutes to crawl out of the Photoshop litter box.