My Class Project - Josh

I’ve been taking a Commercial Illustration course in the evenings since the beginning of February. It’s been really helpful to have something like a class to push me and make me work on my drawing skills. The focus of the class is more on the process of illustration then on the final pieces, so we take a lot of time focusing on the development process. In commercial illustration, the client and/or art director want the artist they hire to keep them well informed on the development of the piece. They don’t like surprises, so the artist will send thumbnails, value comprehensives, color roughs and other areas of refinement so the client can give feedback along with their approval or disapproval every step of the way. I’ll show you some examples of these steps from my first class project.
The assignment was a black and white Anthropomorphic Animal illustration done in the style of a children’s book drawing. Anthropomorphic Animal basically means an animal imitating humans appearance and/or behavior (example: Disney’s Robin Hood). Each student drew three words out of three hats. These words were of an animal, what the animal is and an adjective. From these words we had to create our illustrations. I pulled the words Tattooed, Baboon and Queen.
We started by drawing thumbnails of ideas, and these are what I came up with:
From the feedback and criticism of the class and teacher, I choose a combination of the last two as my final.
From there we had to come up with different value comprehensives (AKA lighting and shadow).

After more feedback I choose the last value drawing for my final piece. The final was drawn using black colored pencil on coquille board. This is the first time I’ve drawn on a coquille board, and I rather liked the texture. The piece did not turn out as good as I hoped, but I was really rushed to finish it after being sick for over two weeks. I basically had two days to draw it in time for the due date.

Aside from taking this course for practice reasons, I’m also using it as material for a mentorship with an animator from Disney. I don’t want to share his name without permission, but I can let you know that he directed most of the episodes of one my favorite cartoon series, Animaniacs! I’ve been running all of my work by him for more valuable feedback and criticism.All in all this has been a good experience and I really hope I can grow from it

Trekkie’s Log, Star Date -314892.30418943544

On Saturday (2/9) Katie, our friend Susanne and I went to the large Dome building at the Queen Mary for Star Trek: The Tour!Finally, a place where I could unleash my inner Trekkie!Yes, I publicly confess that, although I consider myself to be a sci-fi fan in general, I am specifically a Trekkie.No, I have never dressed as a character nor have I taken the time to learn Klingon and vacation at a Klingon language camp, but I have seen all of the movies and almost every episode of the shows (except "Enterprise" of course), and I have attended a few Star Trek Conventions. Star Trek: The Tour was not nearly as geeky as a Convention, in fact it was more Non-Trekkie friendly in that it was more like an interactive museum then a nerd fest.They had all kinds of sets, costumes, and props on display, including a few shows and motion simulators.There was an audio tour available for rent but I assured the girls that there was no need for one as long as I was with them. I proved this by being able to explain just about every prop, costume, and set that we looked at, whether they asked me to or not.I proved my Trekdome even further when we took two different trivia quizzes and I was able to correctly answer every question 100% correct to confirm my status as a starship captain. (And Jesus wept.) But hey, it was more fun than a Jem'Hadar drunk from Romulan Ale on Dabo Night!We had a blast, and I loved being the one who knew more than Katie and Susanne (the honor students) for once in my life.I don’t want to discredit Katie and Susanne, they are Star Trek fans, just not "Trekkies."For about 200 bars of gold pressed Latnum (that’s Ferengi for $17) we were able to buy a photo we had taken of us on the original Enterprise Bridge set.As usual, we needed to dress for the occasion, so Katie made the really cool T-shirts you see us wearing in the photo. And, yes, she does have Vulcan ears! She got them at a costume shop a couple years ago because she played a North Pole Elf at a children’s Christmas party, good thing she never throws anything away! The camera setup is made for group pictures so there is a large gap on the right side of the image. Instead of trimming the image and cutting off some of the set, I decided use my own cheap effects and added some Tribbles to fill in the composition.We also took a picture on the Next Generation/Enterprise D bridge, but we didn’t pay for it so we don’t have any proof that it happened. There was also the option to purchase a holographic beaming up photo that was pretty cool but it was way too expensive for our taste. We also shot a really goofy video where we were "green screened" into a 5 minute scene with Captain Kirk and the original Star Trek series cast. Ours was so fabulously entertaining that we exited the glow of the spotlights to thunderous applause but, again, it was ridiculously expensive to purchase the DVD of said scene so, we passed. We ended the day by watching the famous Trouble With Tibbles episode from the original Star Trek series.

Set a course for the unbridled glorification of hot green alien babes, and the Captain who loved them. Engage!

(Kenfield Trivia: In case you’re curious, yes, that is the correct start date for 2/9/08 10:00AM. Yes, we are that geeky, but not as much as the person who made THIS site.)