HZ-14: Coffee

After a short hiatus, the HOWiezine is back and to the theme for issue 14 was Coffee. Personally, I'm not a coffee fan, but I couldn't miss a chance to participate, so I signed up without being inspired as to what I'd do.

I did something thinking and I figured I could use my aversion to coffee as a part of my concept. I've also seen more Star Trek than I'd like to admit. The Borg are a great enemy and they have an awesome line they use when they encounter civilizations who try to beat them as they go around conquering the universe: "Resistance is futile." Now we're talking...with that in mind, I began to sketch.

After getting the coffee beans down, I wanted to create an old-school "hypnotic" effect with a coffee at the very center. Sure, I could've used lines spiraling inward, but the idea of using a coffee "stain" as the rings seemed better.

Since I don't drink coffee, I substituted hot chocolate to make the rings. The original rings were a bit light, so I had to darken them a bit in Photoshop.

I then converted the "coffee" stain to black and white so I could better blend the rings into the background in Photoshop. Here's an early stage composite of the layout:

Next up, I took my coffee bean sketches and digitally inked the best one in Illustrator. I added color for the bean. I also added a red "eye" like a cyborg to give it a more menacing feel.

I layered in the coffee bean, added a background texture, duplicated and blended the coffee rings into the composite image. I decided to add in the type "Resistance is futile." It started out bold, but I gradually blended the type so it was a bit more "subliminal". Here's how it looked before I finished blending and adding the lighting effects:

Next I added blending and lighting to create the final image for page one:

Now my dilemma: I had a great page one, but no clue as to what to do for page two! As I was working on page one, I kept thinking of how I could tie in the second page. My previous 'zine entries had a poem as the second page, but it didn't seem appropriate for my chosen concept.

I had finished page one and still hadn't had a good idea for page two yet. I went on to work on another project and let the idea marinate in my subconscious for awhile. When the solution came, it was so simple I should've thought of it sooner: take the cyborg coffee bean and duplicate it to fill the entire back page. I had considered making several different coffee beans for variation,but in keeping with the cyborg theme I simply used the original bean. Here's the resulting image for page two:

Another fun HOWiezine project under my belt! Can't wait for HZ-15!

Behind the Zines: HZ-13, Phobias

“HOWiezine is a limited edition, handmade collaborative book project created by HOW forum members, also known as HOWies. There is a theme and participants create two pages based on their interpretation of that theme. Only participants are eligible to receive a copy of the HOWiezine, and when they're gone, they're gone.” (quoted from www.howiezine.com)

As soon as I saw the theme for this zine, I knew what I would be doing. In 2002, I had written a poem about a bird that had acrophobia (I have it too, the poem was cheaper than therapy). And that vision was still strong in my head, so I had to illustrate it for this issue.

I also wanted to do more of a “sketchy” style that is truer to my pencil on paper thumbnail images. I felt this would convey a bit of the nervous energy that usually accompanies any particular phobia.

I tried a few different thumbnails before finding one that seemed appropriate and conveyed the idea of being acrophobic. I created the bird and tree separately from the background, as I wasn’t sure at this point how I wanted to do the background.



Once I scanned in the bird and tree part, I masked out the white areas where the background would show through on the final image. I then scanned the background image and then started to add color. The original plan was to simply give the image a watercolor look with my pencil sketch overlaid to define the outlines.



As I started laying in the color, I quickly found that the image in my head of a light watercolor/wash with pencil-like outlines was not going to cut it. So I amped things up a bit and tried various blend modes until the pencil lines blended into the colors better and it appeared more oil painterly. I did short, quick strokes with my Wacom to convey the energy and heightened nervousness usually associated with phobias.



I originally tried the background blurred and upside down. And I was content to leave it as that. But as the image progressed, and as I found a way to create a beautiful grainy texture that worked well with the image, it ruined the blur. So I thought about what it was like to be up high and how dizzy one feels when they are acrophobic and they are high up. So I started experimenting with how I could “swirl” the background like a person with vertigo.



For the poem side, I gave the background from the first page a watercolor look and added the bird flying away. I keep the text simple and solid, grounded if you will. For the title decided to put “phobia” lower (on the ground) than “acro” (up in the air).



I intended to give more of a perception of depth between the background the foreground, however as time grew short and I was not coming up with the answer, I had to leave it be. I’m not sure now that I look back that I’m completely happy with the end result. I feel that I could have done more to convey depth/height within the image that would have give people more of a feeling of what it is like to be acrophobic.

I am pleased with how the “sketchy” look turned out and I believe that I will explore this aspect of my style to see where it can lead…

For your viewing pleasure, the final images are below. And if you like what you see, you can purchase them over at imagekind.

Making A Zine: The story behind the covers for HZ-12: Nightmares and Dreamscapes

This is my fourth entry for the handmade HOWiezine (or 'zine) as it is affectionately known, made by members of the HOW Design Forum. After building up my confidence and style on my three previous zines, I decided it was time to go for the gold and ask for the covers. This theme is very near and dear to me, as I have always been fascinated by dreams.

While I was looking for inspiration for the covers, I noticed a great painting while waiting for my haircut. It was pretty abstract, but I could make out some figures and within those figures, I discovered more figures. I had found my inspiration: a sort of hybrid Dali/Escher style where there were images within images. Silly me…art doesn't work that way…as I began my preliminary sketches, I soon discovered that this simply wasn't going to work with my style or patience. So I began concepting some more.


During the course of my research and sketching, I remembered my very cool Egyptian Book of the Dead. So I began playing around with the wedjat eye, the emblem for the falcon sky god, Horus. While the of of Horus doesn't really a direction relation to dreams (the right eye is active/solar and the left eye is passive/lunar), I decided to develop my own two eyes that would be tied more closely to dreams for the covers. I also decided that if you were to put both the front and back cover together, the two eyes would be a complete illustration. I initially thought about doing the inside pages on vellum that were glued to the front cover and the the pupils on each eye would be cut out so you could see the image on the vellum backwards (like how our eyes capture images), however I soon realized that printing to vellum was not a good solution, it was going to be expensive, the ink didn't seem to stick so well and the paper curled horribly, so to keep production sane (as I knew I'd be finishing up at the last minute), I stuck with my tried and true double sided paper for now. (I know, I know, I need to be more paper adventurous!)



The front cover eye is the nightmare eye and is wide open and bloodshot due to the lack of sleep from the nightmares. I used the color red here to convey, anger, madness, energy and unease. The swirl pattern reflects the wedjat eye, looking into the pupil into the nightmares that haunt this person. The burned in stars show the scars that the nightmares have left (see the inside front cover for more about this).



Then I realized I was only halfway done! My standard two zine pages have been side one: illustration, side two: poem tied to illustration. How in the world was I going to cram a poem and an illo together on the inside covers? I experimented with several placement options and decided to "book end" the poems: inside front cover would be on the left, inside back cover would be on the right. I decided to connect the inside cover pages too, so that they could be put next to each other as a diptych.

So I began work on the poems in between thumbnails for the front covers. The poems both seemed to come pretty easily while I was listening to my creative mix on iTunes,which was good, I could spend more time on the illustrations. The dreamscape illo was pretty easy: an image of a serene sleeper underneath the moonlit sky. I added in a few little dream elements: an Egyptian style boat, a couple in love, and a forest of trees that are ghosted into the image to hint at the fertile imagination of dreams.


The nightmare illo was a bit tougher. I had trouble finding the position of the dreamer for this one. And since I decided to mention Morpheus (Greek god of dreams) by name, how was I going to depict him/her? I drew a dude in a dark cloak, kinda a tribute to Neil Gaiman's Sandman and felt that I could work with it once I got it into Illustrator and Photoshop.



Now that my sketches were done and I scanned them and placed them into Illustrator, where I went over them with the paintbrush tool. I used the paintbrush tool and my Wacom tablet to create a variable line width that mimics drawing by hand for the outlines. I then go back in and "fill in" flat color (as a separate layer under the outlines) using the pen tool. I tend to build my files with a lot of layers to the Photoshop end of things go a bit smoother. So I built the eyes (outside covers) first and they came together nicely.

I then worked on the dreamscape illustration and it came together quicker than I planned. Which means only one thing, the nightmare illustration gave me, well nightmares…

I created the dreamer first and then I worked on Morpheus. Morpheus looked horrible! I tried several variations and each one got progressively worse. And with each day ticking away, I knew that I didn't have much time left to figure out how to render him. I decided to let the piece sit and I'd think about it for awhile. That did the trick, I realized that Morpheus did not have to appear as a person. Since I used the crescent (light) moon as the "protector" of dreams, why not use the "new (dark) moon" as the "tormentor"? And instead of a more traditional cloak, why not use those cool twisted stars from the front cover to make up the cloak? This idea worked out extremely well. The stars have nice jagged edges and when I put them into the shape of the cloak, they had the appearance of either being painful and/or bugs crawling across the dreamer's skin.



Now for the type. I originally wanted to have a cool ambigram for the front cover done by my talented friend Nikita. Alas, due to time constraints, it just was not possible. So I went with plan B: I winged it. I had already chosen two different typefaces for each poem. I tried a few different fonts for the title and eventually settled on my old friend Zapfino, which I blurred a tinted a bit, like a dream coming into focus. I then looked at the type for the poems and decided that it would be best to use the same typeface for both poems and use color to distinguish the nightmare from the dreamscape. I then brushed in white behind the type to resemble "clouds" or comic book style "dream bubbles" on each poem to maximize the illustration as well as tie in the type.



That's basically it, thanks for taking the time to read through this, and if you have any questions, just ask!

Welcome!

Hello there! So you've found me. Whether that is good or bad has yet to be determined. :) I'm a Graphic Designer based in Dayton, OH with about 10 years of experience under my belt. While I don't consider myself a great writer, I figured trying a blog couldn't hurt.

So what will I talk about here? Oh, pretty much anything. I will do my best to keep it design related, as that is my passion in life. But as with all of us ADD, er, artsy types, my attention and topics might wander off course.

Sit back, enjoy the posts and let me know how I'm doing. (But only positive comments please, I'm frageelay. Just kidding!)

So this week, I'll start out with a simple teaser for all my HOWie friends…here's a top secret photo of the covers I'm doing for the HOWiezine issue 12. Spies went to great lengths to capture this image, so please forgive the poor quality. Enjoy the teaser and keep your eyes peeled for my full write up and reveal of the finished covers coming soon!