Still in Progress

Despite other little projects, I've still been working on this car. I think I have the car finished but I'm still not sure on the color. I seem to be in a monochromatic rut. I love it. I don't Nissan ever offered this car in either of these colors.

Behold the Grape F50 Cima...

 And, Orange Dreamsicle F50 Cima...

Maybe once I start working on the background I can decide on the color of the car. 

Original reference image supplied by: All That Low

Sketching

Since I finally bought a new sketch book I've been trying to at least draw something once a day. Doing this has been harder than expected and  even though I've been trying to keep it up, I usually want to trash everything I put down on paper. I only keep my sketches so that hopefully sometime in the future I will be able to see how much I've improved.

Since I have a tendency to doodle I thought I would scan some of my "trash" and see if illustrator could help me out.

This is my original rough, and I do me ROUGH sketch.

 I scanned this into photoshop just to darken it up a bit. Then dropped it into illustrator to trace. As you can see a left some things out.

 I haven't made a final decision on the color yet but these are growing on me.

My attempt at making this a pattern. I am really liking how this is turning out. Still editing.

Looks like doodles might be able to work

Nissan F50 Cima

Ok, I'm back in what feels like full force. After about a week of radio silence I've started working on something new.

But first...

I wanted to say thank you to my dear friend in Japan for inspiring me to start this blog and get back to doing what I love. He is an amazing photographer, family man and friend. He's been wonderful enough to allow me to use some of his work for my personal projects, which leaves me very excited.

The majority of his photographs are taken at drifting events in Japan. Once I get on a regular blogging schedule I hope to be using many more of his photographs as references. All of the cars posted on his site are amazing. 

I'm still working mostly in illustrator with the pen tool. Practice makes perfect right?

Original image courtesy of All That Low - Nissan F50 Cima

All That Low

Here is peek of what I've got started. These are just bare bones but I have big plans for this beautiful F50 Cima.

Side note: I've been dying to get my hands on a Wacom tablet. It's been years since I've used one but I feel the need to paint! Any suggestions on what works best with a Mac Book Pro and CS5?

Sweet Dachshund

I've been working on a new project for the past week or so and I'm just finishing up tonight.

I have a wonderful little dachshund named Sophie and I thought it would be fun to work on a vector portrait of her. Little did I know that I would be taking on a long and tedious task. 

First of all, isn't she a doll? This is the original photo I was working with btw.
I took this with my trusty iPhone 4 right after a fun trip to the vet. I've been kicking myself for not cropping it closer to her face.

I brought the photo into Adobe Photoshop and simplified it to shapes. Then I brought that into Illustrator to complete. This took me a couple hours a night for about a week.

I could have added several more layers to this vector of my dachshund, and I lost a bit of one eye but I'm happy with the end result.

I went with blue because I thought it was fun but I ended up saving the original with all my layers in illustrator so that I can change it up if I choose to later.

There were a lot more layers and line work in this one compared to my last project but I'm glad I took the challenge.

Comments are welcome.

Rediscovery

My love for art started with the influence of my parents and grew from the art classes I took all throughout school. Only having drawn with pencil on paper, graphic design college really opened my eyes to other forms of creative expression and soon I fell in love with Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator. Throughout college and especially after, I needed money. Since I wasn't brave enough to put myself out there and promote my art, I had to find a "real life" job. I started working in an office and never looked back.

Fast forward to today: I've taken several unintentional years off from using my creative side. I feel the need to get back on track with something that makes me truly happy, art.

On this blog I plan to explore my own personal creativity and attempt to push my artistic abilities further than I have in the past. I am basically re learning everything, so you'll be seeing the good, the bad and the ugly.

Since I'm still working a 40 hour work week I plan on starting small, building up my abilities.

Proceed with caution folks.
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Lately I've been fascinated with vector portraits. I know these take a large chunk of time and patience to create but I wanted to get my toes wet on the subject.

I've been working on this vector image of my eye to use a my first blog post.
Enjoy/or not