Cartooniphile

The revamping of Cartooniphile

2010-11-07T00:57:00.003-04:00

As you may have noticed, Cartooniphile has been pretty...empty for a while now. I found that making a solely personal blog about animation, drawing and my own projects wasn't as interesting and entertaining to make (or to read), so I have decided to revamp my style, mixing my interest and personal projects with more cartoon industry news and reviews. I also learned WordPress and like it a lot better than Blogspot :)

Visit the new site at www.cartooniphile.com. See you there!

Quiktip: Opacity Masks

2010-05-26T09:54:00.008-04:00

I haven't done a quiktip in a while, but I discovered this just the other day and can now fix a lot of my highlights and shadows in my work! It uses opacity masks in Illustrator.

First, I've drawn a square. I'll be putting a highlight on the upper right hand corner, as if a light is shining on that corner. Open the TRANSPARENCY panel to see a thumbnail of the selected square.

Next, I double click the empty space next to the thumbnail and a black square appears. This hides my red square from the artboard, until the next step.

Taking the pen tool, I draw a simple shape across the upper right side of the red square's hidden location on the artboard, revealing the corner.

Now for the important step: I DESELECT "CLIP" and SELECT "INVERT MASK". This shows me the red square, along with the pink shape I created over the corner.

Zooming in, you can see that the "highlight" goes right to the very edge of the red square, but does not go over. This makes it very simple for putting a shadow or highlight on a more detailed object, like a persons face or any shape with a lot of bends or curves.

More posts coming soon.

New animated shows

2010-05-19T16:34:00.014-04:00

New shows are being announced from the major networks and cable channels, so I figured I'd post some info on a few of the big ones:

(Image and italics from CinemaBlend.com)

Bob's Burgers (FOX) - Bob's Burgers is a new animated series about a man, his family and a burger joint. A third-generation restaurateur, BOB BELCHER (H. Jon Benjamin, FAMILY GUY, Archer) runs Bob’s Burgers with the help of his wife and their three kids. Bob has big ideas about burgers, condiments and sides, but only a few thoughts on customer service and business management. Despite his greasy counters, lousy location and occasionally spotty service, Bob is convinced his burgers speak for themselves.

This one sounds pretty interesting, but at the same time seems like it could just be "Family Guy" at a burger joint. If they make the restaurant entertaining enough, it will be a nice change of pace from the standard guy-and-his-family shows.

(Image and italics from TBS.com)

Neighbors From Hell (TBS) - When Satan learns that Petromundo, a huge global conglomerate, has created a super-drill that could potentially burrow to the center of the earth and expose Hell, he sends one of his demons to eliminate the problem. The demon is Balthazor, a good-natured, low-level torturer who has amassed an encyclopedic knowledge of the human condition thanks to his love of classic TV sitcoms.

This one looks kinda cool, but it's hard to tell yet. It could end up just evil characters being "out-eviled" by regular people or freaking out the neighbors with the same stunts all the time. We'll have to wait and see.

Good Vibes (MTV) - In 2008, the show was said to center on two surfer dudes living near the beach in southern California. One was Mondo (Gad), shaggy-haired and out of shape who wants to become a killer surfer to win the attention of Jeena (Thirlby). His best friend is Woodie (Brody), and there’s also Turk (Busey), Mondo’s rival. Lonnie (Tudyk) was an old surf bum who narrated the show.
(info from SlashFilm)

This one looks pretty bad. The fact that I can't even find an image of what it will look like makes me wonder what's going on here. It sounds a bit too obvious (surfer guys in California) and it's an MTV cartoon, which haven't been good since Beavis and Butthead.

Those are the major ones I found so far. Looks like all the FOX Sunday shows are returning, along with South Park and Ugly Americans on Comedy Central, so we definitely have some good cartoons to look forward too (and hopefully some new good ones coming).

What do you think? Which shows look good and which one's don't? Any new ones missing from the list?

LinkLove: 38 ways the film industry is failing

2010-05-12T17:36:00.003-04:00

I found a good article on the film industry today. It has a lot of good points about why people aren't going to the movies, why we have so many sequels and other stuff. Definitely worth a look.

Ted Hope: 38 ways the film industry is failing today

New poll!

2010-05-11T22:35:00.002-04:00

I posted a poll question, asking your favorite adult animation on the air today (too man good ones are gone already). Feel free to vote on the right side of the screen over there ---->

I'll post some new ones sometime, as I think of good questions.

Characher 2 update

2010-05-07T21:22:00.003-04:00

Finally, I have a big update on the character drawing:

I added a background and some lighting on the ground and wall to add a little more to the whole thing. I'm mostly done at this point, but I may tweak some of the shadows and refine the shoes. Any suggestions are welcome.

South Park Episode Review - 1407 - "Crippled Summer"

2010-05-05T10:57:00.001-04:00

And now for the final SP review of the new season (until October):

Episode 1407 – Crippled Summer

Summer has arrived and it’s time for handicap camp at Lake Tardicaca for Jimmy, Timmy and his (newly declared) enemy, Nathan. Two teams of handicapped kids compete in various summer camp games, all while Nathan and his friend Mimsy continually try to sabotage Jimmy’s team, only to fail time and time again. Meanwhile, Towelie has gone too far with his drug addiction. From weed to crystal meth to crack, he has angered and abandoned his friends, his former girlfriend and even his son, a washcloth.

It was great to see a Jimmy-centric episode once again, even if the concentration was mainly on Nathan and Mimsy’s failed plots to kill him. Nathan and Mimsy were fun to watch, playing the classic “genius and idiot” routine done in tons of cartoons in the past. It was also interesting to see the various Looney Toons cartoon references in the other campers.

Towelie and the “intervention” parody were excellent, following him around as he got high and continually got into trouble. The intervention itself was great, especially Cartman’s rant against Kyle and Jews, simply because “in interventions, we need to let people finish”, even if it wasn’t Kyle’s intervention.

Overall a very good episode, although the “intervention” style cutaways to screens of text got old after a while. It’s going to be very odd seeing Towelie cleaned up in the future, that is, if he doesn’t relapse.

An update on my character should be up this afternoon.

South Park Episode Review - 1405 - "200"

2010-05-04T23:58:00.003-04:00

I'm not sure how I missed this one, so I'll post it now:

Episode 1405 - "200"

After 200 episodes of South Park, all the celebrities that have been insulted by the town decide to sue the city for their slanderous remarks over the years. The only way out of the lawsuit is if the town agrees to present the prophet Mohammed to the celebrities, who want to harness his inability to be ridiculed. Unfortunately, things take a turn for the worst when the gingers rise up and demand Mohammed for themselves. Meanwhile, Cartman escorts “Jennifer Lopez” to the celebrity meetings and later reveals to him that he has been lied to about the identity of his father. All of this and more in a half hour.

An insanely jam packed episode, but a great story for the 200th. It was nice to see so many old faces come back and get re-insulted by South Park once again, including Barbara Stresiand, having been rebuilt since the destruction of her “Mecha” form in late season 1.

Tom Cruise threatening to sue after Stan calls him a fudge packer while he is in the act of packing fudge was almost too identical to the issue in “Trapped in the Closet”. Same goes for the majority of the episode centering on the reveal of Mohammed, the basis of “Cartoon Wars” from season 10.

Overall, the episode felt a bit recycled, yet perfect for the story being told. And a very nice build up to a climactic ending that never arrives. Maybe next week we’ll find out what happens? Or not? Either way...

Quiktip: perfect edges

2010-05-03T14:21:00.012-04:00

This week's quiktip covers the problem of perfectly aligning one piece of art on top of another, without ruining the edge of the lower object. I run into this a lot when I put highlights and shadows on top of an object. It's far too difficult to try and curve the line flawlessly to match the inner edge of a stroke line, but luckily, I've found a much easier and faster way to deal with this problem.

First, I drew a red ball with a 5pt thick strokeline. This will be the main object that will have a highlight drawn onto it.

Here I've drawn the highlight, a sharp white shape that will sit on the upper left corner of the ball. However, the white overlaps onto the black strokeline, cutting into it.

This step is hard to show in pictures. I selected the ball shape, copied it, clicked away from all objects (important), then did paste in place (CTRL + F). Now I have a red ball on top and on bottom, with the highlight sandwiched in the middle.

Remove the fill color from the newly pasted object and we will see our highlight again. The difference now is that we have an extra stroke line on top of the whole picture. This allows us to hide part of the highlight underneath the strokeline and make it look as if it doesn't cut into the circle at all.

Bend the highlight in anyway you wish, and lower it's transparency to 50% or so, making it seem more reflective.

Our final picture. We know that the highlight is overlapping onto the circle's strokeline, but it's ok, because we've added an extra strokeline all around the circle. This way is much easier than trying to curve the highlight perfectly without overlapping.

That's all for today. This week I will post an update/finished project of character 2, so stay tuned!

Artwork - leopard

2010-04-29T12:12:00.003-04:00

Here's another piece to look at :

Here I outlined a close photo of a leopard, then filled the outline with differing sizes of spots to accentuate different areas of the cat's face. Later, I removed the outline, allowing the spots alone to unify the work.

Stay tuned, I'll be posting more art i nthe future, including an update on my 2nd character.

South Park episode review - 1406 - "201"

2010-04-24T11:10:00.006-04:00

Episode 1406 - "201"

With the gingers on their ass, celebrities making demands and real-life death threats, Trey and Matt returned this week with episode “201”, continuing last week’s cliffhanger. The gingers demand to see that it really is Mohammed in the bear costume and Santa is forced to step out, revealing it was a trick from the town all along. Meanwhile, the celebrities have released Mecha-Striesand, who proceeds to destroy the city (and kill Pip, who we haven’t seen in years). Meanwhile, Cartman and Mitch Connor find themselves searching for the truth on the topic of Eric’s father and end up in the lair of the head ginger: Scott Tenorman, who has the answer. Meanwhile! The super best friends are fighting to keep Mohammed safe from all terrorists and pick a fight with the gingers and celebrities after Tom Cruise uses the goo machine to become permanently censored. MEANWHILE, all groups involved eventually meet up in the ginger lair and find out the identity of Cartman’s father: A Denver Bronco. The same Denver Bronco who had a one night stand with Lianne Cartman while married to Mrs. Tenorman. Cartman and Scott are half brothers! Finally, Stan cracks a gay joke on Tom Cruise and he becomes uncensored, as the goo machine didn’t work. After a completely bleeped “lessons learned” speech, the town is cleaned up and all is well once again in the little town of South Park.

A fantastic end to a great 2-parter, though this one was twice as heavy with old references as the first. The story flowed really nicely and things made sense, but it may have worked better if they stretched it to 3 episodes and had more time to cover everything in more detail.

Mohammed was censored again, including every utterance of his name and the final speeches at the end, as Trey and Matt received veiled death threats form a Muslim website early this past week. According to them, all the editing came from Comedy Central. The way it mixed into the episode, however, worked very well, making it almost seem as if the bleeps were on purpose.

Overall a very good episode, tons of stuff going on throughout, even if there wasn’t a moment to breathe. A great twist to the Cartman’s father story, making him his father’s killer (see “Scott Tenorman Must Die”) as well as making him half ginger, but also half Bronco. Another great commentary on censorship, completely bleeped out, making it even more important and hilarious. The only downside to episode 1206 is that we only get one more episode before the summer break.

Only one episode left, hen a long break from SP :(

Artwork - Cartman / Batman

2010-04-20T16:20:00.002-04:00

Here is a fan piece I created a while back :

South Park’s Eric Cartman meets Batman’s Joker in this piece. I used a few highlights and sharp shadows to imply a light source to the right. Two rows of outer glow street lamps give a sense of curved depth to the road, along with the blurred and tilted buildings on either side of the street. A few dark clouds and a blue tint over the entire work help to create an overall sinister feel to the picture. Enjoy!

More updates on the character coming soon, so stay tuned.

Charcter update - guy #2

2010-04-18T14:29:00.004-04:00

So I finally got around to finishing up an early version of my guy and posting it here, so here he is :

No shoes yet, I haven't figured out how to make a good dress shoe. Any suggestions?

More updates coming soon.

Quiktip: Filters vs. effects

2010-04-18T14:15:00.011-04:00

This week's quiktip isn't much of a "tip", but is more of an explanation of the basic difference between filters and effects in Adobe programs.

Here I have a circle. I'll use this to show the difference between filters and effects.

Here, I used the FILTER -> DISTORT -> TWEAK option. This is an option available as a filter and as an effect. When using the tweak filter, the circle itself changes shape. Notice the blue line and anchor points are no longer in a perfect circle.

Here is the other option. Taking the original circle, I used the EFFECTS -> DISTORT AND TRANSFORM -> TWEAK option. With the tweak effect, the circle shape stays intact, yet we can see the visual change that the effect creates.

Depending on the situation, filters may be better, or effects may be better. If you want to make adjustments later on, effects work better. It really depends on what you are looking to do.

Next, I'm gonna finally post a basic sketch of my new guy! Finally!

South Park episode review - 1404 - You have 0 Friends

2010-04-13T10:56:00.005-04:00

Time for another South Park episode review!

Episode 1404 – You have 0 Friends

Facebook fever has hit South Park and everyone is collecting virtual friends. But some kids are having a tough time with the new technology. Stan has no interest in the whole thing while a kid named Kip is left feeling sorry for himself and his 0 friends status. Kyle decides to friend Kip, who immediately latch onto his internet friend, but at a price for Kyle: lowering his “Friend stock”. Meanwhile, San reluctantly joins the band wagon, friending all his real friends and their friends until his profile becomes larger than life and must be battled to the death in a “Tron” style fight.

A very fast paced beginning, establishing Stan’s lack of interest, Kyle’s obsession and Kip’s loneliness all in the first few minutes. Once things slowed down, each story was able to develop and made more sense overall.

Cartman played a great background character, impersonating Jim Cramer’s “Mad Money” by driving home the idea of friend stocks. Stan played a great role as the guy who just doesn’t care about the new fad, but gets sucked in (literally) anyway. And Kyle does a great job of sympathizing with Kip and making friends with him, only to reject him later to keep his friend stock good.
Overall another great commentary on a piece of pop culture, and nice to see an episode that didn’t attach directly to any one recent event.

And next week is the 200th episode! Be sure to watch! (Another good article here)

Quiktip: Differing outlines

2010-04-11T12:07:00.021-04:00

This week's quiktip will show you how to make a more interesting outline for any object you draw in Illustrator.

Sometimes adding an outline to an object will make it stand out against other items, but it's very limiting when you have to choose the same exact thickness of the outline going around the entire object. Sometimes you can add an interesting effect to your work by changing the thickness of the outline from one area to another within the same object.

Here I've drawn a star shape and set it to have no outline at all. What we will be doing is placing another star behind it and using that as our outline.

Simply copy the object and go to EDIT->PASTE IN BACK. This places the same exact object behind the original, and will look like nothing has happened. Be sure to keep the newly pasted object selected.

Working with the transforming squares that surround the object, stretch the background star in any direction to make it bigger. Also, change the background star's fill color to black to make it more visible.

To even things out for now, select both objects (original star and new black star) and align them both HORIZONTAL and VERTICAL center.

Now for the fun part. using the white arrow (direct selection tool), click on any anchor points within the black star and move the points anywhere you wish. This will allow you to change the thickness of the "line" in one area of the star while the other areas stay the same.

For more flexibility, add some anchor points to the edge of the black star by simply clicking on the line with the pen tool. Bend these points around to make even more frequent changes to "line" thickness.

Smooth these points out with the curve anchor point tool to make them flow a bit better, unless you want sharp differences.

This is a very useful technique for adding something special to your work. You can simulate a light source by having a thin outline around the side closest to the light and a thick outline in the dimmed area. You can show depth by choosing thick or thin for close objects and the opposite for distant objects. Any number of reasons can be used, but the more consistent you are with the differing outlines, the better.

That's all for now. I'm still working on a new character sketch and should have an update this week. Cya then!

(slight) rebranding

2010-04-09T16:41:00.005-04:00

I've finally come up with a little more direction and a new name for my blog and write a little blurb here :

Cartooniphile: From the philes of an aspiring cartoonist

A blog for anyone interested in cartooning, drawing and vector art. Learn tips and techniques for creating digital art, explore useful design websites, blogs and forums, and meet other designers. Beyond computer graphics, reviews of television shows, films, and other visual media keep the conversation going between readers. If you are interested in a career in graphic design, cartooning, television and film, or are just looking for some nice visuals, this blog is for you.

I've also added a few RSS feeds to the sidebar, from some good websites that cover animation, television and media in general. I'm still looking into the other options available on blogger, so more may appear soon.

Hope you lik it, and welcome to Cartooniphile!

South Park episode review - 1403 - Medicinal Fried Chicken

2010-04-06T20:13:00.009-04:00

Here is my review of the latest episode of South Park :

Episode 1403 - Medicinal Fried Chicken

With medical marijuana being legalized in a few states across the country, Trey and Matt have finally weighed in on the matter with “Medicinal Fried Chicken”. When Colorado legalizes weed for medical use, Randy gives himself testicular cancer in order to get his hands on the stuff. Many of the other men in South Park follow suit, microwaving their balls until they grow big enough to serve as a bouncing mode of transportation, as well as providing the men with legal marijuana. Meanwhile, KFC is made illegal throughout the state and Cartman goes on a “Scarface” style journey of chicken trafficking for South Park.

Randy Marsh outdoes himself yet again, showing how truly insane he can be when he wants something badly enough. He plays himself perfectly, finding nothing wrong or dangerous with giving himself cancer and enjoying his legal marijuana anywhere he likes.

Cartman holds his own in a great side story, getting involved with an underground chicken ring. Unfortunately, he gets in a bit over his head when he orders too much chicken directly from the Colonel and gets on his bad side. Cartman does a great job as a mirror image of Tony Montana, getting into the illegal drug world and bringing himself down by getting addicted to his own stuff.

Overall, another great episode from South Park. With medicinal marijuana growing more common throughout the country, it was about time we got to hear from Trey and Matt on the matter.

And as always, you can see my posts on the #SouthParkLuvlub page at DeviantArt.com. And while you're there, be sure to check out all the fan art that people post. Some of it is really good, and includes some of my own stuff :-)

Quiktips : Vector hands

2010-04-04T13:37:00.008-04:00

This week's quiktip is how to make a cartoon style vector hand. This is one of many ways to do it, but this seems to work pretty well for me.

First, I make a tall oval shape for the fingers, and make 3 copies of the same shape. I put them one on top of the other and overlap just a bit. Then I select all of them and VERTICAL ALIGN CENTER to line them up evenly.

For the thumb, I paste another copy of one of the fingers and tilt it 45 degrees and line it up near the other fingers. I know there are only four fingers, but that's how a lot of cartoons draw their hands, so I figured why not stick with that.

At this point, I select all four fingers and choose ADD TO SHAPE AREA from the pathfinder palette.

Now that all the pieces are one shape, I also click EXPAND from the pathfinder palette to get rid of all the inner lines that we don't need.

Once that is done, I choose a skintone to fill the shape and bend the anchor points and bezier curves to create (some form of) a wrist at the top. I also add a few curved lines using the pen tool to add the thin space between fingers.

And of course, if you don't like your wrist too much, you can always hide it behind a sleeve.

That's all for now. A new character is in the works and the basic trace should be up in the next few days. Stay tuned!

Big changes

2010-04-02T20:31:00.004-04:00

Since my last post on my character project, I've heavily changed stuff around. I made the guy shorter, chose a different hairstyle, changed the shape of the head, and added a bunch of shadows. Here is the newest version :

At this point, I'll prolly just keep tweaking little things and move on to another character. Comments welcome.

Quiktips - Live Paint

2010-03-28T22:57:00.010-04:00

This week on Quiktips: Live paint.

So what exactly does Live Paint do? It's kinda hard to tell when you select some objects and hit "make" under the Live Paint options, as nothing really looks any different. What it allows you do to is to color in any shapes or lines as if you are working in a raster program, such as MS Paint. Basically, choose the section you want to color and fill it in, without worry of accidentally filling in the entire shape if you just meant to color in one part.

In this picture, I've drawn a circle and a line going through it. If this were created in a raster program (like MS Paint) I would instantly be able to take a paint bucket and fill both sides in with two different colors. However, in Illustrator (a Vector program), filling in any part of the circle would fill the entire circle. Live Paint lets us go raster.

Simply select both objects and go to OBJECT--> LIVE PAINT--> MAKE to create a Live Paint group.

Now that I have a Live Paint Group, I can select the Live Paint Bucket from the tools and fill in both sections with different colors.

This technique can be used for almost any piece of art, as long as your lines are overlapping at some point. It helps simplify situations where you would otherwise have to redraw a shape and carefully outline part of it to hide behind another object.

ONE WARNING: You can move lines around in a Live Paint Group, but if the divisions are broken, so will be the color applied to the sections involved.

Enjoy Live Paint! And stay tuned for a (very) updated character drawing.

South Park Episode Review - 1402 - The Tale of Scrotie McBoogerballs

2010-03-28T15:48:00.003-04:00

Here's my review of the newest South Park episode :

Episode 1402 – The Tale of Scrotie McBoogerballs

A light commentary on the passing of author J.D. Salinger in January, the kids at South Park Elementary are assigned to read “The Catcher in the Rye”. Learning that it has been banned by many schools for vulgar language and crude themes, the kids are excited to read it, until they find out that it doesn’t live up to their expectations. Using this as inspiration, the boys decide to write their own crude, disgusting, and ban-able novel. Once the book is found by Stan’s mom, the kids worry they will be in trouble and claim that Butters wrote it. But when everyone loves the writing, Butters rides a wave of unearned fame, angering Stan, Kyle, Kenny and Cartman to no end.

Another great episode, this time serving as a commentary on commentaries (if that makes sense?). Many books, films and TV shows (including South Park) have been wrongfully interpreted. Trey and Matt have been called both liberal and conservative due to the themes in South Park, while both men deny perfectly subscribing to either ideology. Throughout the episode, readers of “Scrotie” claim the book to be conservative while others call it liberal, pro-life while others say pro-choice, and so on. The boys spend most of their time fighting the idea that the book goes any deeper than simply trying to be as disgusting as possible.

Butters initially seems to be the fall guy for the boys terrible book, but when the adults love it, he gladly takes advantage of the situation. At one point he mentions being sick and tired of being taken advantage of, and has no problem taking credit for someone else’s work. Perhaps he is learning from all his time spent working with Cartman in recent years.

Sarah Jessica Parker and the Kardashians serve as pop culture targets, all being killed by the end of the episode. The Kardashians element works really well, as Butters is a fan at the start, and eventually his second novel gets them all killed, tying the stories together.

Overall, a very good episode and it was nice to see Butters take advantage of others instead of the other way around for once. A very nice commentary on reading too deeply into some media, as sometimes the point really is to be as disgusting as possible.

New blogging job!

2010-03-26T09:04:00.007-04:00

I am officially the South Park episode blogger for #SouthParkLuvCLub on DeviantArt.com! A few people tried out and they liked my blogging the best. Here is a copy of my review of episode 1401 :

Episode 1401 - Sexual Healing

A great start to the new season of South Park, episode 1401, titled “Sexual Healing” covers the Tiger Woods story that broke last November. Trey and Matt jumped right into current events with this episode, commenting on the state of celebrity infidelity.

The episode revolves around Tiger Woods and his cheating scandal. A medical group determines that there is a “disease” going around, making rich men desire sex with many women. After performing a simple test at South Park Elementary, they determine that three of the students are “infected”: Kyle, Butters and (of course) Kenny. After Kenny fittingly dies of autoerotic asphyxiation, Kyle and Butters are sent to therapy for their disease. Kyle proposes that perhaps there is no disease, making the leaders believe that he may be immune, and thus the perfect candidate to fight the alien wizard that obviously brought the disease to Earth.

A Kyle and Butters-centric episode. We follow the two boys through their journey, with both kids in perfect character. Kyle plays the role of the only one with common sense, while Butters is as innocent as ever, becoming intrigued by the “bush between the ladies legs”. Butters rides a running gag, asking about the “bush” every chance he gets. Another gag shows all the men looking cautiously over at the women in their lives, concerned about their reaction to their comments on this “disease”.

Stan and Cartman ride a side story, playing the new Tiger Woods video game, featuring him and his wife fighting with each other. By the end, Tiger returns to golf and the kids suddenly realize how boring the game really happens to be.

A few old episodes are referenced in “Sexual Healing”, including “Timmy 2000”, where a simple study was done and quickly used to diagnose all he kids with ADD. In a similar style, a simple, one-question test “proved” that many kids throughout the country have been affected by the disease of sexual deviance. “Red Hot Catholic Love” is also referenced, in that the celebrities determine that they problem isn’t their infidelity, but rather from the fact that they were caught.

Overall, this is another fantastic episode from South Park. A great start to the season and another great commentary on a common issue.

By the weekend, I'll have a review up for episode 1402, and I'll post a copy here, so stay tuned!

QuikTips - Illustrator Shortcuts

2010-03-22T14:51:00.005-04:00

I'm a day late with my quiktips, so I'll post now.

This week, I want to show some of my favorite Illustrator shortcuts. You wouldn't think that a few shortcuts in a program like this would save much time, but if you use these tools often enough, they'll come in handy real quick.

1) Use the keyboard to switch between tools
When switching between tools, it's far quicker to just hit the right key on the keyboard, rather than moving the mouse all the way over to the tool to select it. Just mouse-over the tools you use most and notice the letter that shows up. For example, placing the mouse over the pen tool will show a box that says "Pen Tool (P)". That means, if you click "P" on the keyboard (As long as you aren't typing into a textbox) the pen tool will be activated. Some useful ones include:

V for selection
A for direct selection
\ for the line tool
N for the pencil
G for the gradient

Learn the keyboard shortcuts for your most commonly used tools and watch your projects speed up instantly!

2) Duplicate an item
A real quick way to make copies of an object is to simply click on it, hold down ALT, and drag the mouse. The original will stay in place and a new copy will appear and land wherever you let go of the button.

3) Choose specific options for your shape.
Drawing a star, but you want more points? Just select the star tool and click once on the artboard. A window full of options will show up, allowing you to customize the object perfectly. This works with almost all the drawing and object tools.

4) Quick Zoom
Don't waste time clicking the zoom button, or even clicking "Z" to get to it. Just hold down ALT and scroll with your mouse's scroll button. Down to zoom out and up to zoom in.

5) Layer visibility / locked-ness
Have a few dozen layers and want to turn off all but one? Just click on one eyeball and rag through the list. All layers will switch to whichever setting they were NOT on before. Same goes for layers being locked / unlocked.

These are just a few great tips to make your work fly by. Try them out, and check out another blog post with TONS more : http://www.webdesignerwall.com/tutorials/adobe-illustrator-shortcuts/

And remember, for Mac users, switch ALT with OPTION.

Character 1 - rough sketch

2010-03-19T21:53:00.006-04:00

I finished a basic sketch of my character and here it is :

Overall I'm happy with it so far, but he doesn't look nearly like I originally planned. In fact, he kinda looks like someone I knew, which is kinda weird, too.

I'm not sure how to fix the hands, as one of them kinda looks like a lobster claw (which happens in most of my people drawings, actually). Also not sure if I should soften the colors, he seems kinda vibrantly painted. It's RBG right now, so I might try a CMYK mode later.

Any feedback is welcome.

NEW FEATURE! Sunday Quiktips

2010-03-14T15:00:00.028-04:00

I've decided to add some basic Illustrator tips to my blog, something that I'll post every Sunday. For now I'll be sticking with Illustrator, but if I find a nice useful tip for another program, I'll be sure to post it. So here it goes!

Quiktip #1 - How to make a vector cloud in Illustrator

There's tons of ways to make almost any object in Illustrator, but here is a very simple and quick way to make a fluffy cloud shape.

First things first, make a sky background and a few white circle shapes on the canvas. Here, I drew a blue rectangle across the canvas, then created one perfect circle (holding the SHIFT key while I clicked and dragged the circle tool), and copy-pasted the same circle a few times. Make the circles overlap and decide on how you want the cloud shape to look.

Next, select all the circles (be sure NOT to select the background) and open the PATHFINDER palette. One of the options in this palette will be ADD TO SHAPE AREA. Clicking this will make the circles combine into one complete shape.

Now we have a cloud! At this point you can change the stroke color, fill color, or do anything else you want. However, the shape itself is still made up of the old circles from before. To make it truly one shape, there is one more step to do.

Selecting the cloud shape, go back to the PATHFINDER palette and select EXPAND. This will remove the inner lines from the shape, making it one, true cloud form.

Although the inner lines would not show up in the final artwork anyway, sometimes it is easier to simplify your shapes as much as possible, in case you plan to make changes later.

That's all for now. I am still working on my character sketches and should have one up in the next week.

Thanks for reading!

New plans

2010-03-10T17:32:00.007-05:00

So my original plans for March included another full size vector scene, like the one I did last month. However, I also want to create 2 new vector characters, which is taking more time than I expected. So my new plan is to skip the full drawing and just work on making these two guys, making sure I don't do a crappy job just for the sake of getting more work in my portfolio.

So for now, I'll post an old piece of work I have :

This is a stylized American Flag I drew a while back. I was messing around with different flowing, 3D shapes in Illustrator and began stacking them up, and noticed a red/maroon back and forth thing going on that kinda looked like stripes on the flag. A few minutes later, I had this.

Comments welcome!

Monthly Goal Meet-up for March

2010-03-02T10:51:00.012-05:00

So last month I began setting goals in this group on Brazen Careerist. I set out to finish my drawing (see previous post) and was able to get it done on time. It was very helpful to be reminded to keep going with my goals, so I'm gonna set a few more for March:

1) Do another drawing - Not sure what to draw yet, but I like the 'theme park' theme I have going (as I kinda have a TV show idea to go with it - something else I want to develop soon). Any suggestions of what to draw?

2) Design two characters - I want to get better at hand drawing, too, so I want to try and design 2 cartoon characters (potential stars of my show?) I'll try and do some sketches and maybe post them here.

3) 3 episode outlines for the show - Right now, I'm finishing up a script with a friend and I want to work on a few more soon. But I need ideas first, then I need outlines. Hopefully I'll get those done by the end of the month as well.

4) Do more networking - I kinda have this one already, as I found a networking event set for Thursday, and another in NYC on the 24th. I also have a part time job interview set for the 8th (wish me luck!) and if I get that job, I'll have tons of chances to meet new people.

That's all for now. To get involved with the goals group, just follow these steps :

1. Post a list of your career/life related goals for the current month, along with your checked off goals from the previous month if you'd like, on your own blog
2. Come back to this group and leave a link to your post in the comments (*If you don't have your own blog, feel free to share your list of goals in the comments section of the post to join in!)
3. Then, check out everyone else's lists as they leave comments - click their links, visit their blogs, say hello, meet, greet and support each other because that's what it's all about!

Finished project!

2010-03-01T16:00:00.006-05:00

I wrapped up the roller-coaster-at-dusk (or whatever I'll call it) and here it is :

I tweaked a lot of small stuff, like the brightness of the hill highlight, highlight color and shapes on the guy, and fixed the clouds up a bit. Here's a closer look :

Feedback is more than welcome!

Once I figure out my March goals, I'll be sure to post them. Cya then!

Drawing Update

2010-02-25T17:00:00.005-05:00

I'm back with an update on the project. It's moving forward pretty well, and I'm happy with most of the drawing, but I want to get more detail on the guy. Here's the new JPG :

And here is a zoomed view of the guy.

I still can't quite figure out how to make the highlights look more realistic. Maybe a blur to soften them? I know a few of those spots wouldn't even be highlighted due to the angle at which he is sitting, but I figure I should mix them in to show more of the form.

Any suggestions will be appreciated. Thanks for looking!

Goal!

2010-02-19T12:03:00.004-05:00

So I recently sign up for (yet another) social network, Brazen Careerist. It’s kinda like LinkedIn, but just not there yet in popularity.

On the site, I found a great group that seems to have a great idea: set goals, tell everyone, and hold yourself accountable. All you have to do is tell the group your goal(s) for the month, then the members keep tabs on your progress and encourage/bug you to live up to your promise.

So, I’ve decided to try it out. I have a new vector drawing I’ve been working on, and I want to finish it completely by the end of February. I’ve posted where I am on the drawing so far, an will post a new finished copy by 2/28. And if I don’t, please bug me to do it! Thanks :-)

Social sites

2010-02-13T12:47:00.006-05:00

Like so many others, I, too have dived head first into social media. Some sites are better than others (more useful, more fun, ect.) but either way, I've signed up for plenty and I try to stay active on as many as I can. Here are a few links to my profiles throughout the social media world :

Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/mike.leins
LinkedIn - http://www.linkedin.com/pub/michael-leins/9/827/276
DeviantArt - http://magicfan89.daportfolio.com/
Artician - http://mikeleins.artician.com/
MySpace - http://www.myspace.com/117580965
ArtBistro - http://artbistro.monster.com/member/mikeleins
CoroFlot - http://www.coroflot.com/public/individual_details.asp?individual_id=261360

So if anyone wants to connect, feel free to contact me on those pages, or right here on my blog.

So, what sites do you use to connect with people online? Which do you prefer? All-encompassing Facebook-esque pages, or specialized topic sites like DeviantArt? I'd love to hear you opinions!

Artwork - Sunset

2010-02-11T13:44:00.003-05:00

Here is another project I created a while back. Just a simple sunset drawing :

In this scene, I used the warp tool to create ridges on the mountainside. I added a light gradient in the background, along with a radial gradient on the sun to give a feeling of sunset.

I'll keep posting my past works as I find/tweak them. Stay tuned!

Artwork - Jack-O-Lantern

2010-02-08T12:10:00.005-05:00

Time for some art!

I figure I should post some pictures in my portfolio, so I'll start with this one from last Halloween.

In this work, I created a jack-o-lantern using sliced pieces of an oval, allowing for slightly offset gradients in each division of the pumpkin. I added a light source within the pumpkin to illuminate the facial features, and created a shadow between the pumpkin and the eyes, bringing the eyes out in a more sinister fashion.

All the work was done in Illustrator.

Hopefully I'll post some more work in the next few days.

Welcome to my blog!

2010-01-22T15:28:00.000-05:00

Greetings!

I figured it's about time I jumped on the bandwagon and made a blog. A little about me, I'm a 24 year old computer artist, with a degree in Computer Art from SUNY in Oneonta (Go O-state!). Right now, I work at a high school in Pennsylvania, teaching computer art, but I'm always available for freelance and part time work, and always on the lookout for the right full time job.

As implied by the name (subject to change - once I think of a better one), this is a portfolio / cool links / random opinion blog. I'm not pretending that anyone should really care about the day to day life of a stranger like me, so you most likely won't hear me talk about what I had for breakfast or what I'm planning for dinner. Instead, you might find some interesting stuff to look at, like articles on tv, film, art, and of course whatever I'm working on.

If you want to connect with me, feel free to post a reply, email me, visit my website (www.mikeleins.tk) or connect with me via any number of social sites (I'm on most of them by now).

Hope to hear from you soon!

- Mike