Illustration: Final Porfolio

The things I chose for my final Illustration portfolio are:
1) Fruit Airbrushes- First time using airbrush, besides the exercises. I think both of these pieces turned out realistically, especially for the first time.
2) Guoache Illustration- First time using guoache, tricky to work with, which is why I only used it in one other assignment.
3) Overheard Conversation- photoshop project. People had trouble knowing what the story was befor marker comps and such, but it is for sure clear now.
4) Cheesy Airbrush- Another airbrush, trickier with so many blocks of color to keep from running into the other area, but turned out good.
5) World Record Poster- Used watercolor into InDesign. I like the concept I came up with sheep jumping through scissors, despite some people thinking their cutting the sheep, I think it's obvious what's going on, especially with the text.
6) Missouri Postcard- Depicts in the sense of storytelling from a grandparent in a rocking chair, watercolor, easier working on smaller area.
7) Sound Illustration- crickets, the end result was much better moving the cricket
8) Book Cover- I am happy with how this turned out. I felt I was taking a step out there by doing a face, being able to not make it look flat but 3D.
I feel I improved through out the course. I have discovered more so that I like using watercolor; however, I was hating it in the beginning of the semester, but working with it more helped. It's funny I liked guoache in the beginning and hated watercolor, but this idea changed quickly after the guoache montage. Airbrush is alright as well, it's an interesting media to work with.

VisComII: Final Portfolio

The things I chose for my final portfolio in VisCom were:
1) Rock Climbing (campus poster) -even though it was done more in the beginning of the semester, it was one of the last poster's we re-designed and I was starting to show improvement. Time approx. 1 hour.
2) Professional Photograph Magazine Ad Layout- The approx. time for this was about 2-3 hours for this particular piece. This layout was stronger than the other spread. The spread needed more attention grab, the ad does that and is still simplistic.
3) October Magazine Layout (Using own Photography)-Time for this project was between 4-5 hours. I liked being able to shoot your own photography, this way you can capture exactly want you want/need, as oppose to looking for bad images on the internet. I feel this layout is when things were starting to click for me.
4) Rapala 2-Page Magazine Ad-Things were continuing to click for me and getting easier as we had done a lot of spreads at this point. Time was beween 3-4 hours.
5) Society of Illustrators Direct Mailer- This project slowly came along for me I like how it turned out, after coming up with the theme of 'smell the opportunity.' Overall time about 7 hours.
6) Red Barn Campaign- I spent 6+ hours on this entire campaign project. I feel the pamphlet was my strongest piece, it finally came along structurly.
7) Joe 6-pack- By this project it was easier to come up with a concept. From rev 1 this project didn't change much structurally, the only things that changed were the fonts and labels. I really liked this project, being able to design something that was of what we liked (design wise) and could help when designing another self promotion piece. Total time for this project was 10+ hours.
8) Audio Book on CD- Even though we had much less time to work on this project I am happy with how it turned out. I was stuck as to how to design the inside and something really clicked on this project and came up with the idea of the picket fence instead of the suggested paintbrush for the cd holder. Time was about 6+ hours.
I feel I definately improved a lot throughout the semester. I'm getting more of a grasp on things and it got easier towards the end to come up with a concept on each project, it's like something clicked for me right at the end, but better late than never right?

Illustration: Book Cover

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

My marker comp for my book front cover, I am also going to use it on the front of my audio cd case for viscomII. I had trouble trying to figure out what to put in the background, I was thinking blue to contrast the image of Huck Finn, it's as if he is in the cave.

Final. The title is bolder and bigger from what I turned-in in class. It looks better and more like a it is...a book cover. Watercolor illustration, scanned, and took into indesign for the text.

ViscomII: Audio Book

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

For the first rev, I have found I need to move the front to a different page and I've forgotten about the inside...I'm going with the theme of Huck Finn's clothing textures. The front is his shirt, cd is a straw hat, and the others are his pants. I plan on using a stick along the side edge in place of his walking stick, and more texture. I also plan on using my illustration as seen above.

Second rev, not much changed.

Final. Time was about 5 or so hours. Cutting out the fence and putting the inside 'outfit' together took majority of the time.

Illustration: Sound Illustration

My pencil comp for a sound, crickets. A night landscape over a lake.

My marker comp. I need to move the cricket over a bit more to be further out on the limb, as well as fix the legs of the cricket.


My final production for the sound of crickets. I like the end product, the placement of the cricket and the colors.

Illustration: Cheesy Airbrush

We had to choose something 'cheesy' and use the airbrush to illustrate it, not as cheesy but cute too. I took advantage of being able to use photoshop after scanning this image in: 1) I couldn't fit the entire image onto my scanner and I put the images together and 2) to clean up the edges a bit. It looks just like the original image, as well as my marker comp. I feel I have progressed with the airbrush a bit and I like working with it, outside of it being so time consuming right now. I may use it on the last projects for class. This illustration took about 3 hours or more.

VisComII: Packaging Project

Concept: At first I was going to go with something along the lines of a Sundrop, citrus soda, but I've come up with Lola's Lemondade-variety pack. Lola is my nickname. I'm going to have different flavors of lemonade; regular, strawberry, raspberry. Right now I want to have the images of the bottles on the outside of the box and on the main side of the box I'll have an open cut so you can see the bottles that line up with the images.

Rev 1.

To the left is the front view of the box. The gray rectangle is a cut out of where you'll be able to view the bottles themselves. Right now the images of the bottles is [obviously] a stock photo, but I plan on using images of my actual bottles. Then you'll be able to see part of the labels on the bottle for the front view of the box; back, I want to have the back image of the bottles and there will be no cut out.

To the right are the labels I have made thus far. There is no color behind the fruit because I only had enough time to edit all the fruit and text fairly quick. I'm thinking making the green from the box would look best and still look as if they go together. Overall time for this rev was about 2 hours.

Rev 2.

Not much changed. I wasn't sure what more to change on my case, besides adding things on the sides and one thing on front. As for the labels, I added the green color from the box for the label color and fixed the COB's on the fruits. This rev took about an hour to an hour and a half. Up to about 5+ hours total this far. I plan on changing a lot for the next rev, then I will have very little to change before the final productions.
Rev 3.
A lot changed, font, sides of box, and labels. It's looking a lot better. Another 2 hours went into this rev.


Final.
My final art production for the Joe 6-pack. Everything turned out good, it holds the bottles, of course I'm going to be nervous that any glue won't hold the bottom and the bottles will fall through. But I can't recall any problems I had with printing and having 3 revs made a big difference for this project. Overall time spent on this project...probably close to 10 if not more hours.

Illustration: Missouri Postcard

Color comp for the Missouri postcard project. I just come up with a concept of a grandparents old rocking chair in a house on the farm or country, where they would tell stories from the past and in Missouri. I am going to make the window bigger and add a window sill to be able to read like a window better and not a picture.


Final production for the Missouri postcard project. Making the window bigger made a big difference, it helps out a lot. Didn't take too long to paint, being that it was smaller canvas to paint. I found it easier to paint a smaller area, outside of the small details.

Illustration: Fruit Airbrush

Airbrush was difficult at first but practice takes perfect right? I'm getting the hang of it. Above was our first actual assignment besides little practice airbrushes. For the first image (apple slice) I didn't have mask paper so I didn't have any crisp clean edges, but I am happy with how it turned out. For the peach slice, I had mask paper and it bled through the edges a little bit, as well into part of the peach. I did not use watercolor brush, it was all masked, though I did use colored pencil to define some of the texture at the top of the peach. Each piece took about an hour.

VisComII: Red Barn

Assignment: to create a brochure/pamphlet, web banner, 1/2 page newspaper ad, and a poster.

For the first layouts of Red Barn Arts and Crafts Festival, I was trying to go with a theme of homeade things; however, I didn't have a tagline yet and my main image(s) were coming mostly from the farmers market. I plan on switching it up, but I'm keeping my logo I created of Red Barn Arts and Crafts Festival. Therefore, it needs a bit of work.

The second layouts I think are a lot better than the first, of course it still needs work, but it's improved. Changed my tagline to "Sing and Dance Your Way to the..." Red Barn Arts and Crafts Festival.

Third rev, not much needs to change before the final productions. Again I have changed my tagline to "Sing and Dance Your Way to a Great Festival." I need to add more crafty side, as in show more photos with crafts in them rather than going so much with my theme of sing and dance, but to show the crafts (obviously) as well. This project took about 6+hours.

Above is the final pamphlet...left is outside, right inside.


Above is the final poster.

Above here is the final newspaper ad.

And above here is final web banner.

VisComII: Society of Illustrators

First layout comp for the Society of Illustrators 53rd Annual Exhibition, took between 1 to 2 hours. The big illustration is the poster side and other is info side. It's only a comp so I only know mostly where which body of texts are going to be. And I know it needs lots of work.

For my second rev for Society of Illustrators, had more imagery, but still needs more work, I have already started working on it and forgot to put up what I had saved for this second rev. This second rev needs more attention on the inside and better front cover. Time took about another 1-2 hours.



The third rev. The poster obviously on the right and inside info on left. I still have to print it out; not sure how the green and black and white images on the top left panel will look, as well as the smell trail at the far right of the panels. These changes took about 2+ hours from the second rev, with a total for the whole project of about 5-6 hours.

Final production. I am happy with the turn out. The total time was probably around 7+hours for the entire project. The image on the poster side needed to be scanned better originally from the get go, and yes, the black speckles in the image are really part of it, I just went and looked at the original image in Communication Arts. I definately feel I am improving, give time to work on things and 3rd revs make a big difference to me. Those last few small details make a good difference.

Illustration: Guinness Book of World Record

My pencil comp for the Guinness book of world record project. A guy shorn 50 sheep in 8 hours by hand with scissors.

Marker comp.

Final production, took about 2 hours or so to complete, with the painting, scanning, and adding text, etc. I had to change the sky and clouds to be able to see them better and allow the sheep to pop a bit more.

Illustration: Redone Gouache Montage

This turned out much better than before. I went with a concept for the colors from the color wheel, which helped out the colors to look a lot better together. As well as using a different brush for the background yellow color made a huge difference. Although these colors a slightly more vivid from the original, my scanned image(s) weren't good and the image above slightly blurry up close, as it would have been printed.

Illustration: Overheard Conversation

Here is my pencil comp for the conversation 'cartoon'. The story is that the [Kirksville] water makes this girls strawberry blonde hair green. Things to change is the prospective as it has already been sketched to be changed and move the view up of the girl so we see more of her and know more that the water is clearly making her hair green and no confusion.


My marker comp for the story. This is my second comp, I moved her view up and changed the water to blue so it doesn't seem like someone didn't just put food coloring in the shower head, and to clear it up she's looking at her hair worried and confused at why in the world is her hair turning green?!


My final art production.

VisComII: Time in the Woods (own photography)

Layout #1: from what was shown in class, I had lightened the photograph up and added color to the subheading. Things I need to fix, maybe darken the image slightly to be able to read 'time' in the headline and add a drop cap. I need a better photo, add another photo to the body of text on the right, 'design nuance and flare' and maybe move the subhead into the body of text so the copy is started off with the drop cap.

Layout #2: I moved somethings around and added another smaller image. I can see on the computer screen that 'time' in the headline is slightly hard to read, I need to move the whole headline down a bit to be more readable, as the 'in the' is slightly hard to read too, because of the limbs behind it.

Final layout: Time was about 4-5 hours.

Illustration: Midterm Portfolio

I chose this assignment for my first portfolio piece. The top image is pen and ink and bottom was watercolor and pen/ink. I feel I was finally getting a better grasp on how to work with each/both of the medias.


I chose this for my second piece. I was happy with how it turned out I was having trouble with getting textures in the bushes without making them look flat, but I think I finally got them. This painting looked very close to the photo I had taken (last summer). Working with watercolor is a lot different than gouache mainly because you can move the gouache around and watercolor you can just take away.


This is my third piece, my second time working with gouache. With the gouache I was able to take away/move the paint around and get the 3D effect and glares on the glass bottle.

My fourth piece for the portfolio. This was my first time working with gouache, I was frustrated with it at first, but then I got the hang of it the further into the painting I got. I was surprised with how it turned out because I was so frustrated with it, but after coming back to the piece after finishing it, it looked better.

For my final piece I chose my gouache montage. I had a bit of difficulty with this painting, being that the images that are in front are lighter colors and the background is the dark contrasting color. With that it was hard to cover up the green background from the images, but I think I pulled it off well. I am happy with how it turned out overall, however if I were to do it again/ if there's a next time, I would rather do a lighter color in the background and use darker images( which apparently now we have to, did you read my blog before illustration today?) I had more difficulty with the gouache for this project but I think the gouche looks more bold and better compared to what watercolor would have looked like, more "pastelly" and transparent. The illustration looks better on-screen and the actual thing than the print out.

VisComII: Midterm Portfolio

I chose this poster for my first piece in my portfolio because I feel it's the first layout that I was able to look decent. From the original I straightened the headline out and changed the font, as well as minimized the margins.

I chose this as my second layout, because I think from the original it looks better. I took out the pill border from the top and I agree it works a lot better without. I moved the image of the pills up from the margin and gutter, by scaling it smaller, wrapped the text, but didn't let it go below the image. I also change the font in the headline to times from garamond, it looks cleaner might be the word or sleeker and tightened the spacing.

I chose this for my third piece because I like how simple and basic the layout is. I shot the image myself and yes I agree the lighting could be better, I had other images with better lighting but I liked this angle on the objects better. From the original I added a drop cap, moved the headline up a bit and tightened the spacing, as well as moved the page headers to the top.

I chose this fourth layout, simply because I had needed not to make any adjustments from the original. I feel I am getting better at layouts, I remember in DSP last semester you had said that magazine layouts was not my strongest thing, but I feel that I am improving.

My fifth and final layout for the portfolio. I changed the image of the wind generated windmill, it has a lot better resolution and you are able to tell what it is this time.

I think the order I placed these layouts shows my improvement throughout the semester.

Illustration: Gouache Montage

My initial pencil sketch for the gouache montage of three random images. I need to make the flower bigger as well as the jumper(slightly bigger).



My marker comp after fixing the flower from the first original marker comp, I also changed the background color to go better with the color of the images.


My FIRST final and the painting of my gouache montage. It looks a lot better on-screen and the actual illustration itself than it does printed. As I stated my thoughts of this one in the illustration midterm portfolio. As well that we have to do this assignment again?!

VisComII: Professional Photograph

Advertisement

Layout #1: My ad spread, promoting windmills on target.com. I have centered the body of text since posting this already, I didn't realize how off it was until it was printed. Things to change: add a COB of a generated windmill.

Layout #2: Make pull quote more distinguished. Find better logo, it's lo-res.

Final: I changed the wind generator image, added a drop cap, and added color to my pull quote.

Magazine Spread

Layout #1: My 2 page spread, a how to article. Things to change: enlarge the body of text in the sky of the image on the left and maybe add an image of a generated windmill.

Layout #2: Find a better image of a wind generated windmill, add color to my layout, and maybe re-crop the main image to how it was in the first layout.

Final: I added color and CIOB'd the blue sky from the photograph, I think I like the blue sky in it better tho...

Poster

Layout #1: My poster promoting NAWG (National Association of Wheat Growers). Thing to change: something to go along with the dinner.

Layout #2: Maybe enlarge the photograph. Things I did between layouts, added an image of a dinner bell and moved the body of text with the dinner bell more to the right.

Final: production, I think the only thing I change from the previous layout was enlarging the photo.