Vanilla Sky, a Digital Painting

Finished digital painting.

Stats: 

Canvas size: 4200x3300 pixels

Brush: Custom-made paint brush (Krita RGBa)

Program: Krita 

Reference: Photo taken by me

I snapped the reference photo for one of my wife's pet geckos in March of this year. I loved the look, lighting and pose so much, I decided to paint this as an exercise. As I progressed I decided to execute a fully rendered digital painting

Reference Photo of Vanilla Sky

As always using Krita and the custom brushes within the program are amazing. The interactive feel, that balances smudging and applying paint all within the same stroke, feels so natural and intuitive.

Below are a few detail images at 100% zoom.

Detail at 100% zoom

Detail at 100% zoom

Christmas Card 2017

3D rendering of the card

Hello everyone! Merry Christmas. I decided to create a Christmas Card that I ended up printing and also used as a digital card.

The sketch

Out of the recesses of my mind I sketched then scanned the below drawing into the computer.

Colorizing in Gimp

In Gimp 2.8 I created a gradated texture surrounding the figures. I did this by creating a circular gradient, Cubism filter, emboss, and changing the layer mode to Grain Extract. Then on another layer I painted the figures, achieving what you see below

Laid out in InDesign

I finished laying this out in InDesign. On the cover I placed my image with some text at the top. Inside I found some text in the Holy Bible and used a version of the figures without the textured background.

Front of card

Inside of card

Fake money holder for cub scouts

Highlighted in this post is a money holder for my wife's scout store. Anyone familiar who with 8-year-old boy's behavior, know they can be precocious and unruly. This is especially true when trying to teach them things they deem less than interesting. As a means of reigning in their behavior, during the 1-hour den meeting, Bronny created a scout store. She shops and finds bargains on items she thinks the boys will be interested in; Then sells them to the boys using fake scout money. They earn the money based on good behavior during the den meeting. Needless to say, the store has been a huge success, for the most part (Some boys have no price).

I have already highlighted in a previous post the money I designed for the store.



The problem has arisen, that some of these boys insist on saving much of their money. This makes using flat paper sleeves unsuited for the task. So Bronny asked me to design a paper money holder of sorts. Below you can see the design and the final result. It turned out rather well.

Resources if you want to try

If you're interested in printing these for your own scout store the pdf for this can be downloaded from this link.
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BxeybFoTNkf2V244TGRQdjRoUVk

If you are interested in printing the money for the above holder download from this link:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BxeybFoTNkf2ZlZJYnVFRlVnUU0

Design for the money holder. Was able to fit 2 to a 8.5 x 11 page

Process and construction

As is the case with any custom-made paper box, measurements had to be taken of the money. Design was executed using Adobe InDesign. Several versions of the holder were printed and tested to make sure they would work as intended. Duct tape or masking tape work well to bind them together.

Here is the Money holder. Notice we use flat tacks to pin it to the board

Here is the Money holder with money.

Money holders as they appear on the Cork board. Notice the older flat sleeves at the bottom

Sept-Oct Graphics in Review

Wont go into too much detail on any of these. The first bunch are the ones I liked the most for the months of September and October. Click on the 'Read more' link if you would like to see nearly all the graphics I created for these months. Hope you enjoy

'The Nones' Illustration

Created this for the cover of Deseret News National Edition. The article, written by Chandra Johnson, focuses on what the reality is of people who are unaffiliated with any religion.Though their may be many of these, so called "Nones"; the fact that many of these people still have faith in a higher power should not be discounted.. In short the polling numbers are far from being simple in regard to people and their faith.

The process

So they wanted an illustration that showed a lot of graphical imagery combined with someone appearing to worship or pray. I selected 4 or 5 from our archives, opened them in Illustrator and changed all to white, with an outline appearance. Then I copied and pasted them one at a time into Photoshop.

Then, using an image mask I composited the graphics with the Shutterstock image. I used a gradient

My Photo was published!

Not everyday a person gets a photo published in a newspaper. Thought I would show off. I took the original Mid-October of last year in Downtown Salt Lake. I love macro shots of insects.

Graphic as it appears in the August 5th, 2015 edition of the Deseret News on page 2. I photoshopped the highlitght bubble.

This is the graphic out of context of the paper.

March Deseret News graphics in review

Here, again, is my top 10 picks for graphics done for the Deseret News for the month of March. Enjoy!

1. Big business verses local business

This graphic shows starkly how local chains stack up against national chains in how much money is recycled back into local economies. Couldnt find this story online, which leads me to believe it was only published in print. Sorry 

2. Timeline on depictions of Christ in media

I found this interesting for how many different ways in which the Master is depicted in our culture. Obviously some more accurate than others. Her is link to the story by Deseret news writer Mark A. Kelner.

3. Orthodox Jews are stalwarts

This is one of those rare times in which I was able to incorporate a visual element of the story into a graphic in a practical and pleasing way. This is a great faith-promoting story by Kelsey Dallas for the Deseret News

4. We still want better and bigger things

This really shouldn't come as a surprise to any of us. Who doesn't want to improve their quality of life? I certainly do. But where does too much become too much, and too big become too big? This is a Great story on Money and happiness by Lane Anderson for the Deseret News

5. Print! Its Alive, Alive!

Had fun with this graphic. Though perhaps a little cluttered. This is perhaps proof that books, you know, those dead tree sheets you can hold in your hands and read from, might be around for a very long time.

6. Fun Layout

Yes, I know it promotes Disney, but I had fun doing a small cutout of this air surfing whelp from Disney's Treasure planet. This is still one of my favorite Disney films from the early 2000s. Overall I think the layout turned out quite well.

7. Low pay in Salt Lake for sitters

I am not terribly surprised by this. Freelance work in general, is lower in Utah than the national average. Is this a result of savvy business dealings or just plain cheapness? I have no idea. Here is the link to the story by Matthew Jelalian for the Deseret News.

8. Death for those who deserve it, still favored in America

This graphic was published in an article that focuses on the 6th commandment. This and other articles are part of a series on the Ten commandments and what they mean to us in modern society. This article was written by Eric Schulzke.

9. Single parenting

One of the greatest indicators, in my opinion, of a failing society is how many children grow up in a single-parent household. I have personally seen how much more difficult it was for children to grow up without a father in the home. At best many turned out OK, at worst many go off to prison or worse. While  father is no guarantee that a child will make all the right choices, fathers are an undeniable stabilizing force for boys and girls. This transfers into the greater society. This is the link to the story by Lois M. Collins

10. Making babies better through genetics

Is it morally right to genetically alter babies? As medical technology and processes advance this question will need to be answered. Being a Star Trek fan I can't help but wonder if genetic manipulation could be used to create super-humans (Star Trek II, Star Trek: Into Darkness). Would said super-humans seek to eliminate who they deem unsuitable to continue the human race. Who knows. Here is the article by Kelsey Dallas.

Here is the rest of March Graphics. Enjoy!

February Graphics in review

Following is the top 10 graphics I created for the Deseret News in February. Also included are pretty much the rest of the graphics I did in the month of February.

So without further adieu, here is my top 10 for February 2015:

1. Battleship Bismarck News in Education page

Top graphic for February goes to this charticle on the battleship Bismarck. I created all the graphics for this, and wrote all the text. Was a ton of work, but well worth the effort. I absolutely enjoyed learning more about this vessel and the conflict it was a part of. Click on the image to the image in more detail. 

2. Religious persection increasing

This is a tremendously important topic of our day. Recent violence against Jews and Christians is growing stronger. I highly recommend reading this article, by Mark Kelner, at the following link.

3. Extremely dry in the state of Utah

While everything East of the Rockies has been getting blasted by record snow, Utah, and most of the west, has had record dryness. Crazy weather to say the least. Is it global warming? Cooling? Man-made or part of the Earth's natural cycle? You be the Judge. Here is the link to the story by Emilee Bench

4. Depression among the youth

Simple graphic with tips for helping youth with depression. Not a bad read by Leslie Corbly at this link