Project
Come up with an illustration for “Alone” for Illustration Friday. I wanted to use the tablet more and try a different program like Paint or Photoshop.

Mechanics
I used Photoshop 7 with my tablet. I tried the free Paint that came with it but I just didn’t get it. So, maybe next project.

As usual, I had ideas but they were tossed aside. Most of them were so depressing like an older woman at a grave (alone for the first time in 40 years), two people in bed not talking (“being” alone), and an animal in a cage at the SPCA (“left” alone). But being alone can be good. I love my alone moments, but I decided finally on how alone a person can be in a group of people.

I used the brush tool to paint it.

(click for larger image)

I used some blurring to make it “smooth” but I’m not sure if I like it.

I also thought the black lines on the face were too harsh even with a lower opacity, so I just got rid of them. Yay for layers!

And then…
I can really tell I don’t do humans much. It was hard. I think she might need some more contrast, or not so blended. Not sure.

And on Flickr. I thought I’d try it for my illustrations since I saw others were doing that. Only problem is that I’m already at 5% of my limit and I just set it up yesterday! Well, maybe I’ll just put the finals there so that there can be a group of Illustration Friday or such.

click for larger image

Project
Come up with an illustration for “Travel” for Illustration Friday .

Mechanics
Illustrator 9.0 with an amazingly wonderful recent gift — brand spanking new Wacom Intuos3 9×12 tablet! Raar! Anyway… wanted to use Illustrator CS’s scribble effect but did this over the weekend so no access to CS at school. (Makes me want to update…)

I thought long and hard about this week’s theme. At first, I had an image of a horse with rider walking away from the viewer. The rider is parallel with the horse but her head is slightly turned to show a profile. But then I simplified the idea even more so that the viewer is the rider.

I then tried putting a shadow on the bridle and realized there’s a drop shadow effect. I selected all pieces and applied it as follows:

I think I like with shadows more. It gives it a pieced together paper feel.

And then…
Maybe if the shadows were tighter, it would look more like paper layering. I like how the grass hills look with the dropshadow. But the horse head gets a little busy with all the pieces, but it adds depth and variety. Neat thing is that since it’s on layers, I can swap out the background with all sorts of things…

(click for larger image)

Project
Come up with an illustration for “Crowded” for Illustration Friday. I have been looking at the site for a while and kept putting off doing anything because everything there is so amazing. But. One gets better with practice, right?

Mechanics
Illustrator CS. I reused the fish from another project. I drew in the people with a pencil and filled in with black. Why pencil and not pen? Maybe because my last Illustration project was with pencil. I made the fish really big because goldfish grow to the size of their container, but this one grew bigger. I put a crowd of people in front for… well, another crowd!

And then…
I want to turn the fish so he’s looking at the crowd. Like “Hi, I’m watching you too…” but maybe next time. Heh.