My second week at doing Illustration Friday! This is quite fun.
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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…
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Brilliant! What a great idea, and very well executed!
Have fun with your tablet (I’m sure you are already)! I love mine.
wicked! those wacoms become more and more tempting. i really like the swapped background, fun stuff!
Is Illustrator 9.0 the same as Illustrator CS? Just askin ’cause that’s what I use too. Nice work!
I like the horse, and I like the fact that you made the viewer the rider.
You make me want to purchase a Wacom! Great Idea
Wow, thanks for the lesson! Have had Adobe Suite for one week, and still trying to find the right tools after ten year break from Illustrator. Tablet next! Enjoyed your horse’s travel from field to town. Will see me back for another lesson:)
I definately like the first one best. It feels very free and wind-in-my-hair.
Ooh, I’ve been coveting the Intuos3. I’m still on a 9×12 v1 which is still great of course, but still!
Oh, I *love* the paper effect! This reminds me of the horse from Lord of the Rings, Shadowfax…yes, I am a nerd. Love your illo!
beautiful. i love the “riders” perspective, that is very clever.
Great horse idea…makes me want to go riding now!
;~) Sharon
nice and windy. love the way you did the horse’s hair.
i’ve been wanting a tablet for a long time now… argh, the want is intensifying!
Really like this!…great idea and composition…
i do like the hills in the 2nd composition…reminds me of cut paper…
enjoy the tablet…i’d be lost without mine!
oooooh! That’s beautiful!
Thank you all for your comments. The tablet is an amazing thing. I don’t know how I drew anything with the mouse before! Just a big ol’ clunky thing that is so cumbersome now.
Bertha: I’d not thought of that… maybe I should put the head on a background of LotR movie still.
Knottydon: No, Illustrator CS is the latest version of Illustrator. They’re going to be coming out with a new version called CS2. I’m going to wait to update my home version till that comes out and hope that there’s a great student discount!
I like it the first way…it reminds me of sort of murals at roller rinks in the 1970s and things like that. Which is GOOD. xo L.