I've been teaching myself concept art. I recently got hold of a few books describing how to achieve the kind of marker pen style this kind of work has. The most helpful is a book by Doug Chiang called Mechanika. This guy was the art director for the Star Wars Episode One film. He shows a very efficient workflow in the book and I have adapted this to create the image above.

I'll be adding this to the Concept Art section of my website soon www.rikdesigns.com

This is a logo by Creative Sponge. I love the intricacy of the dragon and the way the text works with it. The g of daragon being one of the serifs of hall. All in all a beautiful design.

I thought I'd list a few of my inspirations, first up is the Matrix, a film that redefined how action films look. If the amount of parodies and homages are anything to go by, then the impact of these films on the world cannot be overlooked.

Next up is Salvador Dali, a true genius with the requisite madness thrown in. I've always admired his style of painting, depicting a surreal subject with a classical look.

The Red Hot Chili Peppers. A band that has experienced so much tragedy and yet never given up. They deserve to be at the top of their field and combine excellent musical style with a surreal presentation. Always putting more thought into what they do, than they needed to. They had trouble being understood during the early years, but their persistence has paid of. There's a lesson here :-P

This one is eyes. There has always been something interesting about eyes. How did they evolve? How did the steps necessary to lead to a pair of eyes offer an evolutionary advantage to the creature? Yet nearly every creature has them. I chose this picture to represent eyes because like the cat I have heterochromatic eyes. I'm also inspired by cats, a more self obsessed animal is hard to think of, and yet they are loved and adored by many people. If a company could inspire such devotion from it;s customers it would be very successful.

WEBSITE ALERT!!!

Hi there all,

Just a short note to let you know about my new website, it has some examples of what I am and have been working on, check it out and let me know what you think. Please bear in mind that it is a work in progress, so still some glitches to iron out, it is always helpful to have these pointed out in case I have overlooked anything! So thats the website and along with all my other projects, I am gearing up for that last push to the end of term, and the course!

URL is http://www.rikdesigns.com

Cheers

Rik

Here is another drawing done with my Wacom tablet. This time I used Photoshop and I have to admit that the results are better than when using Autodesk's sketchbook. The tools in Photoshop do need to be set up properly though.

This is an image by Radim Malinic, I love the vectors mixed with photography. It creates a vibrant, interesting image that makes me look for longer. The colour scheme work beautifully and the typography blends with the composition perfectly.

As promised one of the first drawing done with

Autodesk's Sketchbook Express and a Wacom

tablet.

Hi, I've just received my new Wacom tablet, woo hoo.

It's an amazing bit of kit, and far more natural to use

than I had imagined. Everything from the packaging to

the device itself is very well designed. Installation was

a breeze, Including installing the software. This tablet

works very well with Photoshop. Although setting up

photoshop to work with the pressure sensitivity when

using brushes, took an extra five mins. Not too difficult

though. I got a software download of Autodesk's sketchbook

express from the Wacom site when registering the product,

and this is a very good package. You have to wonder if there

is any room in the market for a painting program outside

of Photoshop, but this program really impressed me. the

tools are based around the media used in traditional artwork,

and therefore create work that looks like traditional

drawings with the bonus of an undo feature.

Overall these two things combined create a very

powerful art working system

I'll upload some work when I finish something.

I saw this on the Creative Review website.

It sounds really interesting.

It's a great idea combining graphics and sound

in a wallpaper creator.

Most of the iPad apps we've seen so far have been along the

lines of digital magazine apps.

Granimator, a new app by ustwo, refreshingly, looks to make

the most of the interactive touch screen and let users be

creative with that functionality - rather than simply swiping

a screen to get to another "page" (yawn).

The idea behind Granimator is that iPad owners using the app

can play around with various graphic and illustrative elements

onscreen to create musical wallpapers. ustwo has teamed up

with a host of in-demand imagemakers – including Airside,

James Joyce, Jon Burgerman and Pete Fowler – to supply

graphic and illustrative assets for the app. Each of these

collaborator's Granimator assets will be available in signature

artist packs, which will be released in packs of six on an

ongoing basis through an in-app shop.

Users can select and drag different graphic elements onscreen to

create interesting looking wallpapers.

Each element in the composition represents a different sound

that can be played by tapping it on the screen. A pinching

action can tweak the sound's pitch, thus enabling

you to fine tune your wallpaper composition – both visually and

melodically. Once you're happy with your creation, you'll be able to

save it as iPad or iPhone wallpaper and share it with your friends via

Flickr, Twitter and, but of course, a dedicated website at

granimator.com

"Granimator is the perfect blend of everything ustwo stands for:

creativity, passion, motion, sound and style," said Mills,

co-founder of ustwo, which has spent £55,000 to date

developing the app, with a further £75,000 set aside for

further development. "This is an iPad

app designed to enable users to create something beautiful,

while being fully engaged with the creative process."

Hi again, this is a logo I designed for a Uni competion. just wanted to know what you thought of it? I have to pitch it to them after easter, so any input would help with that. Thanks

This is one of my favourite images by Chris Achilleos, an illustrator I admire greatly. It shows a castle under attack being protected by a wizard. The dragon is a wizard who has transformed himself and is transfixed by the glow from the other wizards staff.

Chris always put a huge amount of detail in his work, and the images have a beautiful quality. He does a lot of airbrushing, a skill that seems to be a thing of the past. Photoshop and a graphics tablet have superseeded this.

Great Design and Illustrations work from Atila Meireles

I found this while looking for great graphics. I love the combination of images that create a curve of interest. The colours work well and the images combine to form a flow of the eye across the image.

I found this on a blog called "a girl named fred" she wrote

Do you read Veerle’s blog? Her main focus is web design, but her blog is filled with great information and inspirtation for designers of all stripes. The poster above is the winner of her “what is graphic design” poster contest. I’m totally digging the ITS style, and the use of colour is just great. I can see why it’s a winner.

I have to agree, it sums up design quite succinctly, whilst still looking attractive and grabbing attention. Well done Veerle.

Stupid advertisements

A while ago I was following a bus, and it had an advertisement on the back about a new camera. This was very standard, but it also highlighted a feature of the camera. This feature was the cameras ability to work up to -10 degrees c. Fantastic I thought, if it's -9 degrees c then the camera stops working?

Another annoying advertisement is the Direct Line adverts, they used to have a telephone that played their tune at the end with the keys being pressed. Now the mouse plays the tune as its buttons depress. Instead of going Da Da, Da Da Da Daaa, surely the mouse would go click click, click click click cliiiick. God this type of thing irritates me

Smoke double image

Hello again, just thought I'd post a picture I'm working on. It's a response to the anti smoking campaigns of recent times. let me know if any of you have a similar image or know of one.

In an ad agency free collaboration, filmmaker Justin Anderson has made a film with lingerie brand Damaris. The film, called Chore, features a girl going about her regular cleaning routine at home, whilst also trying out a whole range of Damaris lingerie...

The film - which is set to live and air online only, rather than on TV - came about when Anderson approached his friend Damaris Evans, founder and designer at Damaris with an idea to create a film based around the rituals that women apply to their domestic chore routines. "Almost everyone I spoke to had a certain particular way of cleaning," says Anderson, who started researching the idea early last year. "I asked girls about their cleaning routine and the answers I got were as hilarious as they were varied. High on the list was wearing underwear whilst doing the cleaning and ending up in the shower."

As well as doing the ironing, scrubbing the floor, taking out the rubbish and a spot of hoovering, the girl in the film also reveals some bizarre aspects of her domestic chore routine. She makes time to relax under a rug and at one point is seen with a bucket on her head (above). Warning: partial nudity and frilly knickers feature prominently in the following film...

The above is taken from the Creative review website. It's an interesting take on underwear

advertising. A refreshing change from the dark, sultry images usually used in this kind of advertisements. It also reflects the fact that humble ordinary things are also done in underwear. Other people have given the director some stick for showing shots of bums, but that is the subject of the advert after all. I like this, it's bright, refreshing and for me it works. Not that I'am the customer demographic.