This week I finished the tiger. I adjusted a lot of the values within him and some of his stripes and a leg that I wasn't completely satisfied with. The tiger's value scale is actually a lot more subtle than what you see in the picture at the left, but my scanner just doesn't pick the lightest values up. After that I reworked the outline of the flames.
The bottom of the flame outline (under the tiger) stayed the same. There was a lot of revision above the tiger to make the outline more balanced. Both drawings are done to scale so fitting them together won't take much time, then it's onto the color.
The Farewell Society CD has been sent to press. What you're seeing here is the cover and the inside left panel (when the CD case is opened). The inside photo is another that our bassist shot while in the studio; I believe it's some sort of compressor that was attached to his rig. Most of the time spent with this image was on rearranging how it filled the frame. Some subtle modifications needed to be made to accommodate the text, too. If you notice in the original here, there's a small, orange LED light glowing over to the right of the compressor. I liked the light, but it happened to be cut off against the right side of the photo and its location was interfering with the text. So after a little fixing and moving, the LED was dropped in above the compressor. The X-beam border that I'd mentioned in the last update was also continued along the top of this panel- continuity remember?
I shot the cover photo in my apartment and I'm really happy with coloration overall. Here's the picture that he's holding in case you're curious. The name of the EP is Reaction- make your own decisions about what it's all about and if it means anything at all.
This project is: Private Commission – G. Cesario – Tattoo design
Time this session: 1.25 hrs. | Total time on this project: 6.00 hours.
and
This project is: a TTH Studio Project – Farewell Society- CD design and layout
Total time on this project: hours and hours and hours.
Posted at 1:37 PM on Sunday, November 23, 2003
Here's the finished drawing of the tiger. Not entirely finished, I still need to tweak the linework and shading a bit, but then he's good to go. I'm gonna start to tighten up the outline of the flames in the next act.
I also worked on the Farewell Society CD artwork. Over on the right there you're looking at the traycard (the traycard is the backside of the CD). The main image is from a pic that our bassist snapped during one of our recording sessions. It's a picture of the small, monochrome closed circuit t.v. that sits in the control room (so that the engineer can see what's going on in the live room). In this pic, Tony was playing some drums. From the original to the traycard, you can see that there was some adjusting of the contrast involved, re-formatting how the image filled the frame, and alot of balancing of blacks.
The side and lower borders were created from the pic of the X-beam train bridge that I shot (these also appear on the inside of the insert if you remember). The borders also run over and across the two spines (the sides) of the CD. Design continuity through repetition of form, ya dig? Yeah, I thought you would because you're cool like that. I also finished the layout for the cover…coming soon.
This project is: Private Commission – G. Cesario – Tattoo design
Time this session: 1.25 hrs. | Total time on this project: 4.75 hours.
and
This project is: a TTH Studio Project – Farewell Society- CD design and layout
Total time on this project: hours and hours and hours.
Here's the finished drawing of the tiger. Not entirely finished, I still need to tweak the linework and shading a bit, but then he's good to go. I'm gonna start to tighten up the outline of the flames in the next act.
I also worked on the Farewell Society CD artwork. Over on the right there you're looking at the traycard (the traycard is the backside of the CD). The main image is from a pic that our bassist snapped during one of our recording sessions. It's a picture of the small, monochrome closed circuit t.v. that sits in the control room (so that the engineer can see what's going on in the live room). In this pic, Tony was playing some drums. From the original to the traycard, you can see that there was some adjusting of the contrast involved, re-formatting how the image filled the frame, and alot of balancing of blacks.
The side and lower borders were created from the pic of the X-beam train bridge that I shot (these also appear on the inside of the insert if you remember). The borders also run over and across the two spines (the sides) of the CD. Design continuity through repetition of form, ya dig? Yeah, I thought you would because you're cool like that. I also finished the layout for the cover…coming soon.
This project is: Private Commission – G. Cesario – Tattoo design
Time this session: 1.25 hrs. | Total time on this project: 4.75 hours.
and
This project is: a TTH Studio Project – Farewell Society- CD design and layout
Total time on this project: hours and hours and hours.
Posted at 3:41 PM on Thursday, November 13, 2003
So most of last week's artistic energy went into completing my Halloween costume. And what was I? Hmmmmm...I really don't know what I'd call it. Maybe you should leave a comment if you have some idea what I was supposed to be. Well, here's how it came about anyway.
I'd decided that I wanted to be some sort of two faced thing with a mask facing towards my back. So I started out with a clear plastic mask that I picked up for a $1.39. I painted the entire inside of the mask with cad red medium acrylic- no mix, no medium, just paint. Since the mask was made of some rather glossy plastic, the mask was now a very high gloss red when viewed from the front. Cool.
The plastic that this mask is made of is extremely thin, almost as flimsy as paper near the top. My plan was to secure this to the backside of a top hat by stapling it directly to the hat. To prevent the mask from tearing away from the hat at the slightest movement, I stapled a strip of plain old corrugated cardboard at the top of the forehead inside of the mask. No chance of the staples tearing through and it's all secure.
Back when I was teaching, I happened upon a store called American Science and Surplus which sells all sorts of odd things. It's great for arty types and teachers, but otherwise I'm not sure who this store might appeal to. One of the bins that caught my eye was filled with glass eyes. The kind used by taxidermists, for... well, taxidermy-ing animals. It was like $10.99 for a half-pound of glass eyes! What a steal! So I bought a pound. I ended up using them on a project when I was teaching so most of them were used by the students on that project, but I did manage to have about 15 or so mismatched eyes left over that I kept for the right project.
Using some Sculpey, I roughed in the what would be the sclera (or the "white part") of each of the eyes. I picked the two glass eyes that I wanted to use: one red, one large oversized brown and pushed those into the sculpey sclera. Throw those in the toaster oven and wait a few minutes until hardened.
Now I just needed to fit those eyeballs within the eye sockets of the mask. Wait there are no eye sockets!? Hmmm. When in doubt: use Duct Tape. Basically the eyeballs were taped into place against the back of the mask like so. After that,I just accentuated and added to the line work on the front of the mask using an enamel paint pen. My shirt and cape were fashioned from a single long black robe that I cut apart and re-styled.
Add one long black wig, a white rope belt, and a walking stick and there you have it. What you have...I still don't know....More CD and tattoo designs next week.
I has originally planned to hold all of the galleries until they were all finished, but I was persuaded to launch the Tattoo Gallery. You can find that linked over there on the left in the sidebar.
This project is: a TTH Studio Project - Halloween Mask
Total time on this project: 2 hours.
So most of last week's artistic energy went into completing my Halloween costume. And what was I? Hmmmmm...I really don't know what I'd call it. Maybe you should leave a comment if you have some idea what I was supposed to be. Well, here's how it came about anyway.
I'd decided that I wanted to be some sort of two faced thing with a mask facing towards my back. So I started out with a clear plastic mask that I picked up for a $1.39. I painted the entire inside of the mask with cad red medium acrylic- no mix, no medium, just paint. Since the mask was made of some rather glossy plastic, the mask was now a very high gloss red when viewed from the front. Cool.
The plastic that this mask is made of is extremely thin, almost as flimsy as paper near the top. My plan was to secure this to the backside of a top hat by stapling it directly to the hat. To prevent the mask from tearing away from the hat at the slightest movement, I stapled a strip of plain old corrugated cardboard at the top of the forehead inside of the mask. No chance of the staples tearing through and it's all secure.
Back when I was teaching, I happened upon a store called American Science and Surplus which sells all sorts of odd things. It's great for arty types and teachers, but otherwise I'm not sure who this store might appeal to. One of the bins that caught my eye was filled with glass eyes. The kind used by taxidermists, for... well, taxidermy-ing animals. It was like $10.99 for a half-pound of glass eyes! What a steal! So I bought a pound. I ended up using them on a project when I was teaching so most of them were used by the students on that project, but I did manage to have about 15 or so mismatched eyes left over that I kept for the right project.
Using some Sculpey, I roughed in the what would be the sclera (or the "white part") of each of the eyes. I picked the two glass eyes that I wanted to use: one red, one large oversized brown and pushed those into the sculpey sclera. Throw those in the toaster oven and wait a few minutes until hardened.
Now I just needed to fit those eyeballs within the eye sockets of the mask. Wait there are no eye sockets!? Hmmm. When in doubt: use Duct Tape. Basically the eyeballs were taped into place against the back of the mask like so. After that,I just accentuated and added to the line work on the front of the mask using an enamel paint pen. My shirt and cape were fashioned from a single long black robe that I cut apart and re-styled.
Add one long black wig, a white rope belt, and a walking stick and there you have it. What you have...I still don't know....More CD and tattoo designs next week.
I has originally planned to hold all of the galleries until they were all finished, but I was persuaded to launch the Tattoo Gallery. You can find that linked over there on the left in the sidebar.
This project is: a TTH Studio Project - Halloween Mask
Total time on this project: 2 hours.