I’ve been focusing lately incorporating more digital collage elements into my work, which helps me to communicate difficult concepts in a much more effective way while developing a style and approach that is more unique to my true creative vision.

© Thomas James 2012

I asked Philippines-based illustrator Dan Matutina to create the artwork for the course and to add some further depth to it. The brief was in creating a futuristic space-world that encapsulated the features of Google’s new social network Google+ as a professional tool.

This meant representing ‘Google+ Circles’ with planets and ‘Google+ Profiles’ with spaceships and zany control panels. The results, as you can see, were nothing short of fantastic, and I’m pleased to show them to you in the run up to the launch of the online course, which is available here.

Cover Image:

‘Part 1: Getting Ready!’ Cover Image:

Part 2: ‘Setting Up Your Google+ Hub’ Cover Image:

Part 3: ‘Taking Action!’ Cover Image:

The instantly downloadable e-course is available to buy here.

© Dan Matutina, 2012

“My work usually originates as pencil sketches with varying degrees of detail. Everything after the sketches is done on Photoshop. Some sketches I work from and others I scan in and work on top of.

By this stage I normally have a loose frame to build up and I lay out shapes with the polygonal lasso. I use a Wacom tablet and custom brushes to make textures or refine the shapes. I’ve also got a bunch of scanned textures, which I sometimes bring in, and on recent projects I’ve blended the white and light greys away, cut bits out and rearranged them.

At the end, I like to merge everything and blend it with a texture, or drop very low transparency colour layers over the top. The picture seems to sit better as a ‘whole’ afterwards— I think that’s just to satisfy myself and make it easier to leave it alone.”

© Will Long, 2011

“Topher MacDonald is an illustrator and avid sketchbook keeper who just moved his studio from Milwaukee, WI to New York City. He uses pencil, ink, Photoshop and Illustrator to create his illustrations, portraits, zines and comics.”

© Topher MacDonald, 2011

“I read a lot of mythology, or tragic stories online. If I read something I could translate into an illustration, I instantly brainstorm in my Moleskin with a Staedtler pencil, or sometimes a Sharpie pen. When I find that I’ve accomplished the story told in its simplest way, I transfer that onto large sketch paper. When the drawing is finished, I scan and color it in Photoshop.”

© Juan Chavarria, 2011

“I’m an illustrator and graphic artist and my work covers editorial, advertising, greetings cards, art prints and apparel graphics. All of my work is produced digitally but is made to give the impression, to varying degrees, of hand made printing techniques.

I try to combine halftones and textures with a bold, conceptual and stylised approach to create a contemporary take on mid-century aesthetics.”

 © Dale Edwin Murray, 2011.

“I’m interested in mid-century abstract art (William Scott, Ben Nicholson) and Franco/Belge clear line comic artists (Yves Chaland, Hergé). These are my two main visual influences.

I also draw inspiration from walking around the town where I live in Normandy, France, which is full of beautiful old buildings. I’m interested in history and I enjoy old objects and images as  they all have their own stories, and that touching or seeing these old objects I’ll make a direct connection with the past.” 

“I enjoy drawing musicians too, as I love the sound of acoustic instruments, especially old ones. I can play a few instruments but one day I hope to learn the clarinet, my favorite sound!”

“My illustrations always start with a rough drawing on cheap copy paper, to which I then add layers of tracing paper, neatening up the lines as I trace over. This gets scanned and traced into Photoshop, although until very recently I used vectors, but now I find painting directly into PS more fun. As I go along I scan textures, found or homemade which I place in PS over an element in my illustration and the cut to size.”  

“I spent a long time just working in black and white because I didn’t feel confident choosing colours, but it’s getting easier with practice. I notice colours more now when I’m out walking, and if I see an interesting combination of colours I remember them and note them down for later. If ever I feel really lost choosing my colour palettes, I sometimes look at a book by one of my favorite painters, like Edward Hopper or Juan Gris for inspiration.”   

© Andrew Lyons, 2011.

Have a read of his interview with Ape on the Moon to find out about getting started as an illustrator and designer, and incorporating the things you love into the work you do.

Can you tell us a little about the kind of work you do?

I’m a freelance illustrator/ designer, I’ve been working in the industry since 2009, starting off working a lot in the music industry for bands such as Deerhunter and Yo La Tengo. I got these early commissions as I also run the Middle Boop mag which is a music and design site (in 2009 it was still a blog) so got a lot of contacts through the site. I now work for a whole range of international clients with projects including movie posters and DVD covers, editorial illustration, large scale illustrations and even a customised bottle of Malibu!

The work I do is pretty colourful. I’ve always had an eye for colour so that’s the first factor. A lot of my work has an old school look and used to contain a lot of found imagery from old sci fi comics and ‘How To’ books but as my work has evolved, I’ve found myself leaning towards stock imagery and using my own photography. On top of that I mix in a load of vectors, effects and filters to create a modern twist on organic collages …  or something like that. 

Would you consider yourself to be a purely digital designer?

I wouldn’t like to say I was totally digital, I mean, I still start off everything by hand, sketching things out and still consider a lot of my imagery by consulting old school magazines and books but I would say by the time the finished product is out there, the main bulk of that was done on the computer so … maybe I’m 70% digital designer, 30% hand rendered?

What kind of software/hardware do you use?

Most of my work is done in Photoshop but I do integrate a number of tools from Illustrator, such as the Blend tool which is really useful. Also, if it’s for print, I always finish the artwork off in In Design. Apart from that, I’ve been known to use Cinema 4D and After Effects. Apart from that, I’ve got my Canon A3 scanner, Canon Sx200 digital camera, a Wacom tablet and believe it or not, I’m still a PC man despite having used Macs for as long as I can remember.

What would you advise someone was an essential piece of equipment if they were interested in getting into digital design?

Well, essential equipment for me involves my camera and scanner. Without those two things I would have a real hard time trying to create the type of work I want to create. So, a bit of investment in a good scanner and a half decent camera is a must! On top of that, depending on what type of work you do, a Wacom tablet is a pretty vital piece of kit. It’s a tough one to get used to at first but once you’ve got there, it can be a real help too.

You’ve worked with a lot of great clients since starting out in 2009. Have you been busy from the start or is self promotion something you’ve worked hard at?

I’m not sure any designer (successful or otherwise) can hand on heart, honestly say things have always been great and they’ve always been busy (even though I’m sure most would lead you to believe they were) 2009 was just where I was starting out, so I was busy but it wasn’t always busy with glamorous work, it was more, getting used to myself and my style and learning the hard way all of the rest of the guff that goes into freelance. 2010 was when things started to get commercially busy, for instance, amongst other projects out, I had a Digital Arts cover and Computer Arts tutorial out the same month.

This year has been generally tougher as budgets have been cut even more so but I’ve literally always got something on the go. Whether I’m busy or not though, the key to getting your name out there is definitely self promotion. If you can’t face the idea of picking up the phone and hounding prospective clients in a polite and memorable way than, quite frankly, you’re in the wrong job. Good self promotion and marketing is just as valuable as the work, if you can get the attention of the right people then you’re sorted!

I spend probably more time than I should self promoting my work and have certainly invested a fair bit of money in various promotional materials, such as my Middle Boop fold out promo packs which I brought out earlier in the year. This has won me numerous commissions and gained a lot of attention in magazines so was well worth it.

Middle Boop magazine seems to be going from strength to strength. How did it come about?

Why thank you! Well, this was one of the first things I did when I started out. I formed a blog, which was basically used to promote my work and write a little about albums that I had bought. Somewhere down the line people started reading it and the blog quickly became a popular starting point for new bands and some of the major independent labels. This was all down to developing trust that with labels and promoters that we would deliver great copy on time. As it grew, my role for the site changed greatly and we took on more writers.

Now I oversee everything that goes onto the site and concentrate on the design side, interviewing illustrators etc. and the music side is run by my deputy editor Freddy, who in the year or so he has been working with me, has been the crucial part in helping the site get really popular in a fairly short space of time. At the moment, we’ve just taken on a few new writers so have about 30 people reviewing for us. The Mag is a lot of work to keep running but the benefits totally out weigh the work. For one, I’ve met most of my favourite bands and subsequently ended up working for a lot of them. The idea from here is to re-develop the site over the next six months incorporating a whole load of new features and hopefully it will continue to grow in popularity.

Do you find it difficult to balance being a graphic designer and an illustrator or are they easily interchangeable?

I don’t find it too hard balancing them. I mean, it’s a bit of a different train of thought between the two, say for instance doing a full scale illustration or a full branding guidelines is completely different but in terms of balancing the two, they’re pretty easy to work with.

I think the hardest part of doing both is actually getting across to prospective clients the fact that I can do both. That’s why with my new website I’ve got that handy little bar on the right hand side so that you can filter the different types of work I do.

“A view of Epsom Downs which is about 10 minutes from my house. A very relaxing place (when the Derby’s not on!) a great place to chill out and think. Maybe even get inspiration.”

© Middle Boop, 2011.

Pleased to announce that the winner of the Great Book of Fashion Illustration is Claire Kearns. Well done! The book will be heading your way shortly!

Thank you to everyone who contributed and took part in the competition!

–

We’re lucky to have partnered with Anova Books to give away a free physical copy of the brand new ‘Great Big Book of Fashion Illustration’, published on September the 16th, 2011.

Written by Martin Dawber, an internationally acclaimed author on contemporary fashion, style and image, the book provides a range of fantastic illustration images from around the world. From the publisher:

As the scope for today’s fashion illustrators is ever widening, the artists and illustrators featured here relish the opportunity to embrace a multitude of techniques and values that challenge the accepted ‘rules’ of traditional fashion expression.

Digital masterpieces as well as traditional drawing and painting are included along with styles and sketches using techniques such as drawing, painting, collage, photograph and watercolour. Further details are below.

Shiho Matsubara. Personal Work, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator.

Victoria Kim. ‘Lovers 2′, Pastel

Kerstin Wacker. ‘Flower Dress’, Watercolour, Ink, Pen, Adobe Photoshop.

To be able to win, you’ll need to do one of the following:

Tweet this line, exactly as it is, on Twitter:

Win a copy of the Great Big Book of Fashion Illustration, on Ape on the Moon > http://su.pr/2IfQj6 < RT for a chance! (via @moonape)

…Or write a comment in the comments area below this post!

The winner will be announced here on Tuesday 4th October, 2011 and contacted individually. You have up until the afternoon GMT, on the 6th to tweet or comment.

Bob Kessel. ‘Roger Federer’, Adobe Illustrator

More details from the publisher:

Fashion illustration is an almost lost art, with our digital age providing endless alternative sources for creating and crafting new art forms amid limitless boundaries. Full of fresh, cool and creative artwork – every kind of fashion is covered here, from women’s couture to tweenies, from lingerie to lipstick, swimwear to separates.

New for this edition, a range of fashion sketchbook work for insight into the creative and technical process is also featured. With over 1000 illustrations, this is the must-have sourcebook to have on the shelf of all those involved in fashion and graphic design as fashion illustration continues its onslaught on today’s media.

Good luck!

Each artist has put their own twist on the Absolut canvas they were given, resulting in a collection of unique and interesting designs. Here are a few examples and a little information from the Absolute Blank press release.

© Mario Wagner, 2011.

ABSOLUT has always challenged conventions through creative collaborations with artists such as Andy Warhol, Keith Haring, Damien Hirst, and more recently Ellen von Unwerth and Spike Jonze. ABSOLUT BLANK is a daring new chapter for ABSOLUT.

“In ABSOLUT BLANK, ABSOLUT has boldly made its iconic bottle into a blank canvas to inspire artists throughout the world to collaborate and fill it with creativity. We brought together creative collaborators from a variety of disciplines and watched the journey from pure white canvas to exceptional pieces of art. The result depicts how artists and creativity are inspired through ABSOLUT,” says Mark Hamilton, Global Marketing Director at The Absolut Company.

© Kinsey, 2011.

© Morning Breath, 2011.

© Eduardo Recife, 2011.

© Good Wives and Warriors, 2011.

© Fernando Chamarelli, 2011.

© Ludovica Gioscia, 2011.