Illustrator and some brushes

Here is a video on using the Illustrator Art Brush:
Art Brush Video


Here is a video on using the Illustrator Symbol Tools:
Symbol Tools Video

Final Week

Hello All,

This next week is our final week of class. I have copied this from our schedule for your benefit here:

Week 6

For the final week of class you will make a proposal and plan for personal integration. Putting it all into perspective. Getting all of your digital tools and online resources to work for you. You may use this time to research additional tools or further develop a technique or process from previous weeks. Will you develop a webpage for self promotion? What online tools would you use to get freelance jobs? What communities will you join and participate in? What connections will you make with your peers? What will you use to continue to learn?

Final Day

Present final findings and conclusions for personal application on blog.

So, what to do.
During the previous weeks of the course you have had the opportunity to try out a lot of processes. What will you take away from this class? Has there been some great discovery/discoveries that will change the way that you work? This doesn't mean just a singular technique or brush. How will you approach your future artworks and what role will the computer play in those projects? This is your opportunity to teach.

Make sure that you create a blog post that includes a reflection on the class and what you have learned.

Option 1: Create a detailed tutorial that another student could follow. Walk them through a process of digital techniques taking time to describe not only the technicals but the "whys" behind what you do.

Option 2: Present and discuss your professional digital arsenal. Do you intend to continue to use a blog as a professional illustrator/designer? How will your blog help you get jobs? Would you post technical tutorials on your blog? Would you showcase sketches and works in progress? Would you have downloadable portfolios? Accessible Picassa Slideshows? Can you show and evaluate other professional illustrator/designer blogs and how they use them effectively to get work. What role can social bookmarking, links to other sites, and followers play? Do you have a companion portfolio website? How can you go about setting that up? Are there free options?

Option 3: What is the big perspective view of your process? How do you research an idea? Do sketches happen manually or digitally? How do you gather reference images and how do you use them? How do you create the elements of your piece? How do you present a work in progress? How do you get critiques and feedback on a work in progress? What communities and forums do you participate in? How do you get help with a problem or a question? How do you present a finished piece? How do you promote your work and yourself as an artist? How do you find and get freelance work or commissions? How do you communicate with clients? How do you deliver your work? How do you get paid? Of all of the previous points how many of them are digital, what tools and techniques are involved?

Here are some finals from last year:

Jessica Pine
Final and Reflection
Website
Dustin Williams
Proposal
Part 1
Part 2
Karman Thompson
Reflection
Examples
Joe Trotter
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Reflection
Mike Freeman
Proposal
Research
Reflection
Progress
Jeff Porter
Website Progress
Website
Ryan Valle
Proposal
Progress
Portfolio
Jacob Gorman
Post
Tutorial

Spatter Bunny

Using the Spatter Filter to help break up photoshop painting marks.

Adjustments Ferris

Texture and Light!

I believe I used this brush for clouds, angle jitter 100% and opacity pressure:

I also copied the red channel, adjusted its levels and used a blending mode. Did similar thing with the blue channel.
Very little additional strokes besides the cloud with the orange for the fire.
Also did a blurred copy of the image with a radial mask letting a crisper fist show through.

Adjustments Gorman

Jake,

Things were looking a little distorted so I selectively copied small sections from the original and used Edit/Transform/Warp to adjust them and then mix them with a mask. I also did a little smoothing. Sorry if I did too much, it was a fun image to work with.

Texture Test for Blake

I did this texture test to see if I could get some of those crazy grainy watercolor textures. Seems like it works. The secret is to have a very open brush that you can mess with.

These are two of the images I made into brushes:


If you save these images you can open them in Photoshop and "define brush presets" from them.
Click here for a short video on how to load and use these brushes
I also did a little bit of reticulation/spatter/blur for texture in flat all-over areas.
Click here for a short video on how to do the over-all grainy reticulation based texture.

face for Bennett

Don't be afraid of texture in your brushes!
Watch a quick video on textured brushes

Here is the brush image: