Cha-ching!

When you don't feel like drawing all that money, I have two words for you: MIXED MEDIA. Kind of a cool effect, I think. Not something I'd try all the time, but I think it helped punch it up a little because otherwise, it's really pretty plain. Which was good this time around because I had very little time to pull this together, despite being given the idea a bit earlier in the week than usual.

Oh, and the hand dipping INTO the money was a happy accident. In my original sketch, the hand kind of hovered above the building (which, for some reason, had a skewed angled roof. Don't ask, 'cause I have no answer). I was stuffing the money into the building and hand turned the hand layer off, for some reason. When I turned the hand back on, it was "in" the money... PERFECT. It just clicked and made the whole thing work a lot better.

SIDENOTE: I like the shadow and proportion work I did on the building. I almost messed up the bigger windows; they were originally going to be half as wide, but then I realized the correct proportions would mean they should be longer than the "squares" on the end, which are "shorter" because of perspective. Yes, occasionally I get it right even on deadline. Go me.

I could have a little better making sure my outline strokes were even throughout. I think I've got three widths up there. A little schizophrenic for whatever reason...

CREDIT WHERE IT'S DUE: Incidentally, this original concept for this illustration again came from the reporter on the story. Kudos to you, man. I don't think I'd ever get these things done if I had to sit there and come up with ideas from scratch. Could be worse, though... could be illustrations about SPORTS topics. That would just be beggin' for trouble. Anyway... thanks again, Matt!

On cloud... three?

I have a label cloud! NEAT!
(It's on the right, three items down.)

I've wanted one of these since I first laid eyes on one on someone else's blog. Yes, I covet thine Label Cloud. So, in my ongoing efforts to triumph over technology, I did what any respectable geek would do:

I came. I saw. I conquered.
OK, in reality... I Googled. I backed up. I copied, pasted and poked around in the coding.

If I can do it, so can you. Someone else has already done the heavy lifting. (Thanks, Phydeaux3... whoever you are...) It's up to you to break it apart to get it to conform to your own preferences. Oh, and like I mentioned above, don't forget to back up your blog before you go tinkering with all that coding.

Good luck, and have fun!

Illustration 102: Follow your gut

This is another illustration for a Business story. The original concept was the reporter's idea (thanks, Matt!). His story was about banks having a difficult time after the fall of IndyMac. Lots of banks have been working to distance themselves from the troubled financial pariah.

Shoulda followed my gut and kept it in play, but my day was wearing long at that point. Live and learn. And keep drawing... even if you hate homework.

Upon reflection, I kinda wish I would have done this particular illustration in another medium, like rough sketch, or even given charcoal another go. This subject matter screamed for something grittier than I gave it. But I did learn a lot about Illustrator in the process; mostly that CS3 is far superior to the CS2 version (next time, I'm definitely brining in the laptop... or working from home).

Everything I do starts with a sketch; this time, I just chose the wrong path for that sketch. This looks too clean and tidy for the IndyMac cloud to look very menacing. Maybe I could have held onto the "tidy" banks, but kept the grittier original IndyMac cloud sketch (below) either as is or in charcoal above it.