Friday, July 31, 2009

iStock Punctum Day Awards - August 19th

2009 Worldwide Punctum Day Awards will dish out $45,000

Please vote for any of my illustrations here. Thanks!

From the iStock site:
We all love images: it's why we're here. We love photographs that stop us in our tracks, make us forget whatever we were just doing, and force us to just sit and stare. We love getting lost in the world of a video, losing ourselves in a sound, marveling at an illustration. Some of us even love a good Flash drop-down menu. (Really.) We all know the feeling, even if we don't know the name for it. That'd be Punctum: to be punctured, wounded even, by an aesthetic moment. It's a sharp metaphor (courtesy of Roland Barthes). It's the perfect word for the feeling we crave when we turn to art.

Around these parts, Punctum is something else: our very own holiday. Join us on August 19th for our 3rd annual celebration of all things arresting and puncturing here at iStockphoto. It's your chance to vote for your favorites from each of our file-families. So the next time a photograph, illustration, Flash file, video clip or audio file makes you forget what you're doing, give it a vote. You’ll see the VOTE button on any file close-up page if it’s eligible.

We'll record all of your votes and then pass them on to a panel of judges – some real honest-to-goodness celebrities. The winner in each of the 6 categories will receive $5,000 US. You can follow along at home on our Top Picks page, where you'll see a random selection of the current top 100 vote-getters every time you stop in. So it'll be changing all the time – F5.

Worldwide Punctum Day Voting: July 6-24, 2009
Winners will be announced: August 19, 2009

Exposé 7 - Now Available

Check it out... view all of the art with the book previewer on the site.
Go to the Exposé 7 site

"Celebrate the world's finest new digital art. EXPOSÉ 7 showcases the year’s best artists and art from a record number of entries. With 391 inspiring images prepared by 288 artists from 51 countries, you will discover the very best work across 20 different categories."
Exposé Magazine

CGSociety Feature Tutorial - Painting Realistic Eyes

This is a very detailed tutorial that has greatly helped me when it comes to painting eyes.

CGSociety Feature Tutorial
Painting Realistic Eyes
Linda Bergkvist, 4 October 2005

The CGSociety in conjunction with Ballistic Publishing is pleased to present a feature tutorial by Linda Bergkvist, renowned in the digital arts community for her gorgeous portrayal of characters. In this tutorial, Linda shows us step by step how she paints realistic eyes.

View the tutorial here.

The Art of Aly Fell - aka poshspice

Visit Aly Fell's Portfolio


Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Welcome to MereKat Creations... home of the peanut butter mustard salami sandwich!


"Counter Strike: Source" Copyright Kristen Perry 2009

"HL2 Cop" Copyright Kristen Perry 2009

Merekat (a.k.a. Kristen Perry) has created character concepts and cover art on numerous games such as:
ArenaNet.
Guild Wars 2 <— Current Project
Guild Wars: Eye of the North
Guild Wars: Nightfall
Guild Wars: Factions

VALVe Software
Half-Life 2
Team Fortress 2
Counter-Strike: Source
Day of Defeat: Source
Half LIfe: Source
Counterstrike: Condition Zero
Counterstrike: Xbox
An unnamed project
Also designed poster and packaging illustrations for Day of Defeat

A very gifted artist with an incredible portfolio and resumé.

Visit her site here.

Longboarding in Duluth

Bad-ass video.

Longboarding from Alex Horner on Vimeo.

United Men Divide "Darkness" Music Video

Very creative videography and storyline.

More music on their myspace page.

Darkness Music Video from Alex Horner on Vimeo.

Great Digital Art Sites - Resources

All of these sites are free to join and are loaded with killer tutorials for everything under the digital sun. They also have forums and download areas to get custom Photoshop brushes, custom Illustrator brushes, etc. All sites have extensive galleries with some really impressive and beautiful artwork.


CGSociety
http://www.cgsociety.org/
ImagineFX
http://www.imaginefx.com/
Pixelbrush
http://www.pixelbrush.net/

Drawing a car using Alias Sketchbook Pro

First off, this is not mine. The youtube user "cuberone" did this. Unbelievable speedpaint of a car using Sketchbook Pro. If the film was not sped up, this would have taken forever to watch. Soundtrack: Daft Punk - Revolution 909

Another Tangent

Ahhh... many late hours of perverting this image of Eric (=WFC=Rifleman). Even a bigger tangent than the ORLY series. Pointless? Sure. Funny? Yes.




















Tuesday, July 28, 2009

ORLY? WTFBBQ Photo Manipulations

Yeah, I know the Orly owl has been beaten to death, but I just had to post these ones that I did a while ago.









Heart: Radio (Live from Doc Watson's)

This band sampled the audio from a video on the Mayo Clinic site (http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/circulatory-system/MM00636). The sampled audio is in the very beginning of the song. Pretty darn cool!

Heart:Radio (Live from Doc Watson's) from controlled Storms on Vimeo.

MayoClinic.com - Answers You Can Trust

Recent Mayo Clinic Advertisement.

Casey Jones - Comic Artist Extraordinaire

http://www.caseyjonesart.com/

Lines With Illustrator Program

Elias Chatzoudis demonstrates in this cool tutorial video how he inks his drawings with Adobe Illustrator.

Elias Design

http://www.elias-design.gr

Speed Drawing Girl Illustrator CS3

Monday, July 27, 2009

Pepsi vs. Coke Logo Evolution



I ran across this image on EatLiver.com today.

Very interesting in the fact that Coca Cola has not changed its logo since its birth in 1885, 13 years before Pepsi came about. While Coca Cola's logo remained the same to this day, Pepsi went through numerous logo changes and yet they are still equal competitors in the soft drink oligopoly. Judging by Pepsi's first logo (which was poorly executed in my opinion), recreating the logo could only have helped them. They could still even get away with using the 1973 logo today which, to me, is the most recognizable.
Speaking of pop that has gone to the wayside... whatever happened to Royal Crown Cola? Barrelhead Root Beer? Why did Faygo change Moonshine to Moon Mist?
The 2008 Pepsi logo is a direct Obama Change logo ripoff.

Andrew Parfenov Photography


image copyright Andrew Parfenov Photography 2009
Absolutely beautiful photography taken by a friend of mine. Check out his work here.

Taken from Andrew's site:
Andrew Parfenov is Russian/American. He was born and raised in Rostov, Russia and currently lives in Rochester, Minnesota. His interest started in videography and then switched to photography because he wanted the ability to capture the moment in a still frame. He is a freelance photographer who enjoys photographing weddings, events, scenery, and portraits. Working in both color and black & white, his photojournalistic style is modern and distinctive with a timeless, classical edge.

Equipment:

Cameras:
- Nikon D300 + Battery grip MB-d10
- Nikon D50

Glass:
- Nikkor 80-200 f/2.8 ED AF-D
- Nikkor 50mm f/1.8D lens
- Nikkor 18-200mm VR
- Sigma 150mm f/2.8 Macro
- Sigma 2x Teleconverter
- Sigma 10-20mm f/4-5.6
- Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8

Lighting:
- 2 Westcott Spiderlite TD5
- 1 Westcott Spiderlite TD3
- Speedlights SB-800/SB-600/SB-28
- Pocket-Wizards Plus II
- Westcott Umbrellas
- LightCube, Softboxes, diffusers, reflectors.
- Lightstands
- Tripod Giottos MT-8360 + Bogen RC2 Ball Head

Software:
Adobe Photoshop CS3
Nikon Capture NX

Wacom Cintiq 21ux in action... way frickin' cool

If you have the means, I would highly suggest picking one of these up.

Recent iStock Uploads

Here are some of my latest vector iStock uploads. With all of the medical marijuana hype lately, I figured I should make some relative images. I also really enjoy fly fishing and tying flies, and since there was a lack of them on istock, I came up with this fly assortment. More to come.

Buy this illustration



Buy this illustration



Buy this illustration

Recent Photoshop Abominations

Ok... I had to do this to my coworkers (all in good, clean fun of course). Left to Right: Matt, Wes, Tom, James, Brett, Kyle. Click on image to view full-size.

Kick Off


image copyright Cris DeLara 2008
Click on image to see full-size


Greetings... I figured since this is a blog about digital artists, I would kick this off with a few of my favorite from the CG Society website.

Michael Daschow (walrus)
http://walrus.cgsociety.org/gallery/

Henning Ludvigsen (henningsen)
http://henningsen.cgsociety.org/gallery/

Cris DeLara (crisdelara2007)
http://crisdelara2007.cgsociety.org/gallery/

All three are tremendous artists that have really unique techniques using color, lighting, and composition. There are many more artists that I admire on the site, but these three consistently stand out in my mind.