Ape on the Moon: Contemporary Visual Culture » Photoshop

Uniquely Structured Contemporary Portraiture by Charles Williams

Philip Dennis — Fri, 18 May 2012 04:47:44 +0000

Charles Williams has carved himself out a unique little niche in contemporary graphic portraiture. While being realistic depictions, his work has a strong, graphic quality that combines collage and digital design.

The individual way in which he constructs his imagery has made him popular among big clients such as Nike, Adobe, VW, and Google. It has also gained him notable recognition, with this ‘Mad Men’ image winning the bronze award in the ‘AOI Images 35′ design category.

The faces in his portraits are gently built up from intertwining, decorative shapes, that each represent different depths and tonal qualities. Sometimes the forms are sharp and structured, creating gorgeous, crystalline surfaces. Sometimes, the are smooth and seem to form organically like the topographical contour lines of a terrain.

However, portraiture isn’t the only facet to his work. He also does a lot of design and typographical work, with an equally impressive portfolio and list of clients. You can check that work out on his other, separate site here. Below, he tells us a little more about what he does.

I am a freelance illustrator based in London. I studied at Liverpool School of Art and Design, after which I worked as a graphic designer for several years. Since focusing on illustration, I’ve worked for clients including Adobe, Converse, Google, Nike, VW, Seat, GQ, ESPN and Uniqlo, and have had work shown at several exhibitions in London and Europe.

My latest work involves creating handmade versions of my geometric digital work. I have a Staffie called Maisy who helps me to manage my workflow. I am represented by Agency Rush.

Kali Ciesemier Playing with Colour and Negative Space

Philip Dennis — Fri, 11 May 2012 12:56:39 +0000

We were a little surprised to hear that Kali Ciesemier’s work is completely drawn digitally using a graphics tablet, that’s why it’s always so interesting to talk to artists about how they work.

Kali’s illustrations have a nice hand-drawn look to them, the kind where you can almost feel the ink moving against the paper in the edges of the shapes and the style of the brush marks. However, that, as we now know, is not the case, with her process predominantly taking place in Photoshop.

The way in which her illustrations are made aside, we like the use of and play with colour. As you’ll read below, she says that the experimentation with different palettes in her work in one of her favourite stages, which results in some fun combinations.

Where colour is absent is also worth taking a look, Kali is a pretty adept user of negative space. We particularly like the way in which the figure is created with white space in the image below, and how the background of the text bleeds into the illustrations and body of the characters in the following zodiac illustrations. We asked her to tell us more about how she works.

I’m a freelance illustrator based in Baltimore, where I also teach part time at the Maryland Institute College of Art. All my work is drawn exclusively in Photoshop with a Wacom tablet, from sketches to finals, though sometimes thumbnailing on paper is easier for me.

I’ve also found that it’s easier for me to build up my images using shapes to define form, instead of linework. As a control freak, I take full advantage of Photoshop’s capabilities for endless tweaking. It’s not uncommon for me to spend an hour dragging color sliders around and shifting hues until they’re just right, but working with color is my favorite part of the drawing process!

Karan Singh’s Lucid Colours and Character Reinterpretation

Philip Dennis — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 06:31:21 +0000

Karan Singh has created his own visual language that clearly and easily stands out as his own. I always enjoy seeing designers reinterpret well-establish character designs because it highlights their ability to convey a recognisable icon in their own way.

Here are a few examples of Karan’s reworking of Spongebob Squarepants for Nickelodeon/MTV for Spongebob’s 10th birthday. He uses lucid colours and digitally painted textures and shading to create his identifiable look, which easily translates through his other work seen here.

“I’m an Australian illustrator of Indian origin living and working in New York City. Illustration has always been something that I’ve been drawn to as a kid but never properly nurtured until I went to uni. I studied Interaction Design but am a self-taught illustrator and have been working professionally for a little over five years. I’d like to think my work is eclectic and vibrant taking cues from retro futurism to that cool thing I saw on a street the other day.”

“I recently completed my Daily Quickies, an illustration projection where I created a simple illustration every weekday for a year. I also really enjoy writing and run a neglected side project called ‘Pig Bimpin‘ where I write articles about design and interview creatives.”

3D Generated Landscape Sculpture Illustrations of Timothy J. Reynolds

Alex Mathers — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 14:01:52 +0000

I’ve been seeing Milwaukee-based Timothy J. Reynolds‘ mesmerising creations coming through Dribbble for a while now and am always refreshed and pleasantly surprised with the sophistication in which he makes these cool computer-sculpted fictional landscapes.

Apart from being great examples of work by someone with a good eye for shape and colour, these get me excited about what can be done with 3D computer tools in the context of visual art and illustration.

The series here is part of various experimentations Timothy is doing, that we can now learn some more about…

What by way of experience/training have you had?

I went to school for architecture. Self-taught in 3D, I started out on SketchUp 4 before Google bought the company. I’ve been a 3D illustrator for the last 5 years, mainly working for marketing firms designing exhibits for various clients/brands.

Moved over to Cinema 4D for a job about 2 years ago and absolutely love the software. I’ve learned a lot through my professional work which I like to think helps me push ideas late at night for my own personal work. Most of my work on Dribbble is all self-initiated explorations.

How do you normally go about creating these particular works?

I usually begin with a plane [or any other primitive] and just manually push and pull the points until I’m happy with an initial layout.

Then start adding more details with other smaller shapes. I play around with lighting a lot, usually lighting a scene in at least two different variations until I’m happy enough with one to keep.

Materials are sometimes added, almost always with some subtle texture like paper or simple noise. Finally, some light post-work in Photoshop to enhance the colors and overall feel of the image.

What are your plans from here on?

I’m currently working on an iOS game I’m pretty excited about. Other than that, I’d love to get into storytelling, illustrating children’s books, making short animations/cartoons, more video game design, and I’m completely addicting to taking sketchnotes at any and all meetings/keynotes I attend.

I would like to push those forward as well, maybe traveling more in order to take them. I’ve also got a moleskine full of ideas for some new 3D series waiting to start too.

Sam Brewster Composing Scenes in Brush and Ink

Philip Dennis — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 08:24:24 +0000

Sam Brewster creates his bold and tactile work by mixing his drawing, printing and computer skills. With a good grounding in brush and ink drawings, he works with a light box to create layers in a similar way to working with transparencies for screen printing. We like the handmade feel this technique brings, even in his larger, more arranged compositions.

He tells us more about it and his interesting homemade light box.

I always start with pencil & paper, to get down as many ideas as I can in a rough and rushed way.

Once I’ve managed to come up with an idea and composition that I like, I’ll clean up the drawing and then trace several layers with a bespoke light box (cannibalised computer monitor), using ink and a brush to get the appropriate feel to the drawings.

These then make their way into the digital world to transform into the colourful scrawlings that you can see in my portfolio.

Sci Fi and Fantasy Characters and Gifs of Darwin Yamamoto

Alex Mathers — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 09:57:59 +0000

I’ve been recently following the fun updates of personal illustrations and short animated gifs of Darwin Yamamoto. I’m always intrigued with the cool stuff he comes up with, especially the things inspired from his love of playing video games.

As a former designer at Microsoft Bing, currently working at Google, his work is executed with a clear sense of design too. Can you recognise any of the characters in the profiles?

Delicate and Surreal Pencil Drawings by Brooklyn-Based Langdon Graves

Philip Dennis — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 14:16:06 +0000

Originally from Virginia, USA, Langdon Graves is now based in Brooklyn, where she creates these beautiful, ethereal drawings, while also working in sculpture. Her drawings have a nice, calm stillness about them, possibly fromt the tone of the brushed-on graphite or her reduced, simple arrangements.

The familiar is mixed together in unusual combinations to make these delicate, surreal compositions. Check out her website to see her sculptural work, too.

“What I do isn’t only about what I end up making— I do a lot of reading & research, and synthesising the information I find to be interesting is a considerable part of my process. The hands-on part takes the form of either drawing or sculpture. For the drawings, I work mostly with graphite and pastel on mylar.

I like .3mm mechanical pencils best for line work and I also use loose graphite applied with brushes to create very smooth textures. Intricacy and exactness are important to me because I’m asking the viewer to accept unreal relationships of real things.”

Jan Avendano Overlaying, Editing and Manipulating a Grid to Make Rich Patterns

Philip Dennis — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 02:04:03 +0000

Jan Avendano’s project, “The Same but Different” has created some both wonderfully rich and delicately clean patterns by playing around with variations on a theme. The theme, in this case, being a singular grid pattern. By overlaying, re-editing and manipulating the grid, Jan creates depth and texture in an otherwise restrictive layout.

We like the experimental feel to the project. The pencil doodles around the edge add a nice, unfinished look to everything. It’s good to get the feel that it’s an ongoing, evolving thing, meaning there’ll be even more great designs to come. In Jan’s own words, “An ongoing series based off one underlying grid structure and made into individual pieces through the reinterpretation of said structure, colour and shape.”

“I’m a graphic designer who incorporates illustration, collage, random mark making, scribbles, music, doodles and rearrangements into my everyday practice.

I like using a variety of tools but I’m particularly fond of the good ol’ ball point pen and a sheet of paper for getting ideas and concepts down and worked out. Then it’s off to the computer for further experimentation and finalization.”

Melanie Matthews’ Animal Friends with their Custom-made Brush Marks

Philip Dennis — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 10:54:36 +0000

Melanie Matthews creates these energetic and brightly-coloured animal characters from her base in Melbourne, Australia. With a mixture of expressive marks, she gets their personalities to pop out from the page, perfect for captivating her young audience.

We like the wide variation of mark making found in the details of her illustrations. You can see some dry, grittier marks at times, while elsewhere, the brush flickers around delicately. She tells us more about how she mixes it up and adds these lovely, tactile elements.

I work in a variety of fields but a lot of the work I do is for kids books/toys/games and advertising. My process starts on paper, where I sketch/write out ideas for whatever I am working on, and once I come up with something I’m happy with, I’ll take it onto the computer and into Photoshop to clean up the sketch. Then, depending on what my client needs, I’ll start laying out flat colours in either Photoshop or Illustrator.

Once the flat colours are all filled in I go back in with textures and line work.

The textures in my work consist of lots of different things, but most of them are scans of paint splotches. I use black acrylic paint to fill a sketchbook with all sorts of blotches, textures and shapes, and once they’re dry I’ll go through them and pick out the ones I like best.

Then I scan them and convert them into Photoshop brushes. I’ve also made brushes from photographs of textures too. Adding them to my illustrations is then a matter of ‘painting’ them in and blending them together until I get the look that I want. After the textures are all added, I’ll start drawing over the top of everything and adding all the final little details.

I work from a small studio located in the southern inner-city suburbs of Melbourne, which I share with an architect.

Neil Webb’s Editorial Illustrations Full of Playful Metaphor

Philip Dennis — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 12:44:09 +0000

Hove, UK-based Neil Webb uses a clear visual language full of playful metaphor, which lends itself perfectly to editorial illustration. They are exactly what they need to be, quick and punchy, getting the idea across immediately.

Aesthetically, we like the reduced shapes and limited palettes he uses. They present the meaning without distraction, in a nice, clean way. As he describes below, he uses most of his time on a project to arrange his ideas, which makes total sense in work that is so heavily concept-driven.

In terms of my process, it’s roughly 80% mind curdling idea generation and 20% making the image. Once the idea is there, I try to work out an idea of a composition in a rough sketch and then build up the image mainly in Photoshop, using photo ref or drawing directly within the application.