Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Cleverancisco

The same musician friend who I mentioned in last week's post 'Jazz is like Jello Pudding' commissioned me to do another cover. He told me, neglecting not the slightest detail, what he wanted to see and this was my best attempt at capturing it:


He had asked, specifically, that I switch two buildings from each city's respective skylines and fuse them in the fold of the CD jacket. It is somewhat busy, but overall, I'm pleased with it.

7 comments:

  1. ...EPIC, the ocean in that piece is fantastic, how did you go about drawing it?

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  2. I found a couple nice reference shots of Lake Erie frozen in winter, The San Francisco bay and combined them in my head according to the parameters that my friend Josh described.

    I used a winsor newton brush and speedball ink.

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  3. It looks amazing, I've not yet had the call to draw water in that amount of detail. I have one last question if you would indulge this still learning artist, did you decide to draw the darkest and lightest parts of the water and ice or how did you decide where to put the blacks?

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  4. I think the thing to remember is that you have the freedom as an image maker to decide where you want to put the emphasis. Consider where you want to draw the eye and spot your black areas there. There is a great section on this very thing in "how to draw comics the marvel way." That might sound silly but it is a great book and that part is the most overlooked-from what I can tell.

    I try to keep atmospheric perspective in mind and use line weight instead of contrast to achieve that effect. Don't forget that you aren't taking a picture: you are constructing one from the 'ground up' and, as such, you can manipulate every aspect. You just have to know "to what end" as my friend Justin would so often query himself.

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  5. Much appreciated, I do have "How to draw comics the Marvel way" and it seems I have indeed overlooked it. I also really like your quick sketches of fight scenes, I was actually looking that up on google and happened upon your blog.

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  6. Thanks Alec. I'd be glad to offer you some of my thoughts on your work. Thanks for reading the blog.

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