martin leon barreto

Makes me want to learn! Go here to see more lovely pics.

pinterest and rob hodgson

loving rob hodgson

I recently got suckered into Pinterest (nobody's fault but my own). It is SO addictive (the downside), but it is a fantastic way of seeing current trends (the up side). Naturally I gravitate towards the Illustration images which can be both depressing because there are so many amazing image makers out there and SO inspiring because it makes me itch to have a go.
Life is kind of crazily busy at the moment, (I know most people will say the same) but now that College is almost over for the year I am determined to use the time to make things for fun and because I feel like it, and not because there is someone with a box I want them to tick. I'll let you know how it goes.
Oh, I remember why I started this rant... I came across this fab chap thanks to Pinterest.

britishness - a dissertation in the making

For anyone who would like to follow my progress as  write my dissertation, you can follow it here.

ice cream - work in progress

work in progress, a photo by only lucy on Flickr.

If you have a look at my flickr stream you will see I am having a go at working on an ice cream poster idea I had recently. I am in need of some help though, both from a graphic design perspective and from a technical (in this case Illustrator) perspective. I am want to add texture to the image but I suspect that I would be better doing that in Photoshop, shame I killed the computer that had Photoshop on.

illustration futures - the end

the end, a photo by only lucy on Flickr.

With a bit of playing with the frames and timing I have finally finished the animation. Well, I say a bit, basically I lost all I had done in the previous session and had to start over.
Although I was quite pleased with the beginning and the ending (from the contact frame onwards), overall if I had time I would start over. 
At least I have learnt the limitations of animating in Photoshop. 
You see, once the animation was done Jason showed me how to make it into a Quicktime Movie. Unfortunately the Quicktime file and the animation in Photoshop run at different speeds. So if my tutor looks at both and reads this - I was aiming for something in between! Also I would have done the frame and the "about" text again, more in keeping with the rest of the animation. I think the concept was fairly sound though! 
I am so pleased that I have finished this project. It has been a long one, and although I have learnt a lot, because I am not in love with the outcome I am happy to be moving on. 

illustration futures - start leaves

This was definitely a good news and a bad news kind of day. So the good things were I decided to add a few more bits of animation, basically I wanted all the labels to do something, and a start sequence (in the picture above) and an end sequence. This took some serious time to do them all, but they went well and I love the new beginning and end.
So then all I had to do was place the new bits in. This I did, (again it takes so much longer than you hope) and I sat back for a final watch through. But, (and this is the bad news in case you are struggling) the desk top DIED!!!!! 
Naturally it is the only computer in the house with Photoshop. Fortunately I have internet on my laptop so that I can this updated but now I have a nerve wracking wait until Wednesday to see how much of the final changes have been saved. Not much I fear as I don't remember saving it.

socket studios

from here

I am plodding on with my website/animation design for the Illustration Futures module at college. As part of my research I have been looking at the sites other people use to promote themselves or their work. I came across Socket Studios because I spotted the image above at The Post Family, anyway, I was really impressed by how slick and simple this site is. Unfortunately it is a bit to late for me and this project, but it might be of interest to you?

illustration futures - about

I have done this bit slightly tongue in cheek as it references John's picture on his Facebook page. Obviously if this was genuinely for an employer I would do something more sensible (even if it is true)!
I wasn't able to cut out the text and get it scanned in due to my lack of time in College, but I am regretting not having done it sooner as I think this lets the animation down. 
I am worried that it is all looking a bit clunky. I was having to guess how much time to leave for the mouse pointer to travel around the page (I was going to do that animation last, to fit in with the rest) out the animation is getting so complex, if I have to shift something at the beginning because I miscalculated the pointer moving then it will know all the other timings out, which means I will have to redo them. Also I think that the animation will flow better without the pointer. Basically instead of it looking like someone navigating around the page, the animation will just act like a digital calling card and gallery in one.