Experimentation and Play

It is often difficult to get in enough time to do the art I want to. I usually try to stay up on industry trends by following a couple of blogs and painting when I can. Lately, I had the desire to do some work with Adobe Illustrator largely under the inspiration of a site called VectorTuts+. I remembered how much fun I had creating art with it before my son was born.

With that in mind I decided to see what I could do. I feel a little like I have gone back to school artistically so I thought I'd apply those ideas to a piece I had already created but develop it in Illustrator.


Though I love the piece Hi Gs, I have never been completely satisfied with how it came out. The coloring and how the planet looks always bothered me. After importing it into Illustrator as a template, I began a process of pulling out shapes and defining forms.

Illustrator helped me to slow down and plan better and to that end, I feel like I have been able to accomplish more of my original intent with the art. The image below is a work-in-progress snapshot but the progress has been phenomenal.


It is easy to get into the rut of doing the same thing over and over and I often have to remind myself that I need to try new techniques once in a while. I think my next step with this piece will be to finish off the major elements and then do some subtle rework in painter to build up texture.

I am also doing this to get an idea of how I want to approach my children's book. So far I have the story and rough layouts but I want to have a couple of finished pieces to show publishers.