Tulsa Project

This is our final version of the citiplex towers for our Tulsa landmark assignment. As said in an earlier post, Jessica made the background and clouds and i made the buildings and then we brought it all together when we were done. To make the buildings i used the pen tool to create the outlines and then used the draw inside feature and blob brush to give it the organic, flowing appearance. We decided to use Futura as the typeface for the word Tulsa because it closely resembled the type for John Van Hammersveld's piece. After playing with the word "Tulsa"'s positioning we decided to put it at the top to help fill some open space.

CitiPlex Update

Since our last presentation I have gone in and added more detail to the building and began to play with type to use over the image. After sorting through some typefaces we decided to use Futura because it resembled the original font from John Van Hamersveld's poster the most. We haven't decided on a final place for the word "Tulsa" to be since we have yet to combine our work together, but think it will probably end up on the bottom half of the piece.

Citi Plex Towers

This is our progress so far on the Tulsa landmark project. Jessica and I decided that i would work on the buildings in the foreground and she would make the background and clouds that will surround the towers. When making the buildings i used the pen tool to make the basic outline and then went in with the blob brush and the "draw inside" option in order to keep clean outer lines. My next step will be to go in and fine tune the the buildings by adding details and anything else that is needed for the success of the piece.

For our Tulsa landmark project Jessica Medina and I choose to illustrate the Citiplex towers on 81st and lewis. These skyscrapers can been seen from almost anywhere in Tulsa and are known for their golden color. We decided to use John Van Hamersveld's poster from an Eric Clapton concert to use as our reference for the piece. The two pictures have a similar subject matter shape which will help to finalized piece to be comparable.

Portrait of Marshall Mathers

This is the final version of my portrait of Eminem. I choose to depict him on a pill bottle because in recent years Eminem was addicting to prescription sleeping medication which nearly cost him his life. Since then he has had a full recovery and continues to make music and run his record label. For my approach, i wanted to it to look as real as possible and also have a sad and lonely feeling to represent the darkness of addiction. I decided to make a simple background in order to place the emphasis on the pill bottle in the foreground and keep the attention on Eminem. To make the pill bottle i used a combination of the pen tool and the line segment tool to create the the outline and then filled it in with the appropriate colors. To make Eminem's face i created a full page of text and placed it over and art board with a gray scale picture of his face and used a clipping mask to trim the text. After that i went in and manually changed the boldness of select areas to create a more realistic look. My original idea was to make the words in his face a variety of keywords that represent his attitude, music and past. After making multiple versions of his face i decided to go with the more simple version that only has the word "Eminem" because its clarity was much better than the other and i wanted the viewer to know right away what they were looking at.
 

The version on the left is the one i decided on for multiple reasons. First, the one on the right is much lighter even though i used the exact same technique for both. In addition, the left face better holds its structure when you look at it up close compared to the one on the right.

Above is my reference photo.

John Van Hamersveld-Jimi Hendrix

After looking at John Van Hamersveld's website I decided that I would review his portrait of Jimi Hendrix. As a fan of Hendrix, I think this picture really encompasses his musical style as well as the culture of the time. Hamersveld gives Hendrix a very organic look that is very pleasing to the eye and keeps your eye moving through the piece. The wavy lines lines used give the picture a feel of the counter culture design style of the seventies.

In his Video "Finding America", John Van Hamersveld says that his ideas and reference for his artwork come from his mind as an abstract idea rather than using a physical model or picture. I found this interesting because i often do the same thing when creating my art. Below is a link to "Finding America".

http://www.johnvanhamersveld.com/coolhous/videos.html

NA NA NA NA NA NA NA BATMAN

For my illustrator tutorial i chose to make the Batman symbol. This was a rather easy tutorial but i choose it because it showed me how to make a form by subtracting away from the original ellipse. i have never made anything this way as i am used to just building on top of what i already have.

Portrait Background

This is my background for the our portrait assignment in Illustrator class. My original idea was way different but the more i thought about it the more i liked this idea. My plan is to make Eminem's face out of type using words related to him and his music and place it onto the label of the bottle. Eminem's face made of words will serve as the "prescription" that would normally be printed on the label. I have never made a face using type before so it will probably be a long process of trial and error, but i look forward to the challenge!

I dont always listen to rap, but when i do i prefer Eminem. Throughout his life and career Marshall Mathers has had to overcome many obstacles to get where he is today. As a child his father left and he was raised by his mother who used drugs on a regular basis. After years of struggling to get his career off of the ground, he was finally discovered by Dr. Dre who signed Marshall to his record label. Around this time Marshall's marriage was failing and his daughter hailee was just a baby. After almost instant success, Eminem became a recognized name all over the world. In recent years Eminem tragically lost his best friend and slipped into a depression that almost cost him his life. While trying to deal with his depression he turned to drugs for an answer. He became addicted to sleeping pills and would take them multiple times a day to induce sleep. One day he overdosed and was found unconscious on his bathroom floor and was rushed to the hospital where he barely survived. After this incident Marshal decided to turn his life around and get clean. To this day Eminem is still putting out albums and is very active in the rap industry.

1. Slim Shady
2. Marshall Mathers
3. Eminem
4. D-12
5. relapse
6. Sleeping pills
7. Detroit
8. Rap
9. music
10. crazy
11. Hailee 
12. Kim
13. Proof
14. 8-mile
15. Dr-dre
16. Rap Olympics
17. Freestyle
18. Controversial
19. his mom
20. addiction
21. rap battle
22. please stand up
23. Berzerk
24. chainsaw
25. Chicka chicka
26. lose yourself
27. bleach blonde hait
28. white rapper
29. Curtain call
30. Friday 13th
31. lyricist

This is my completed signage project. I enjoyed making this piece and learned a few new tools in the process. I had never used the perspective grid tool before and found that it was very useful and will definitely be used in the future!