How They Did It — Ed Emberley Edition
For this week’s How They Did It, I had to share another great gem from Lynda.com. They have produced a fantastic documentary about artist and author Ed Emberley. He is an icon for children and adults around the world. I love his books and they are an inspiration to all artists of all ages.
Watch more at http://www.lynda.com/tutorial/86560?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=viral&a…
Award-winning children’s book author and illustrator Ed Emberley is truly a national treasure, having drawn nearly 100 books. The warmth of his family and his 17th century home are an essential part of his work. In this installment of the lynda.com flagship documentary series, we go to Ed’s home in Ipswich, Massachusetts, to meet him and all of the members of his talented family, including his wife and author, Barbara; children, illustrators Rebecca and Michael; and granddaughter, recording artist Adrian Emberley. A generation of children have learned to draw using Ed’s drawing books and we watch as a new generation puts crayon to paper. At 80 years young, Ed is pushing ahead and we meet with his team as he works on his newest iPad app—with graphic artists that, as children, learned to draw with his books.
Friday Freebie: Illustrator Cocktail Glass
New Years is just a couple of days away, what better way to celebrate that with a free drink! Or rather a free Adobe Illustrator vector cocktail class. Remember, if you’re designing, don’t drink and if you’re drinking, don’t design.
Download the cocktail glass here.
Free to use for personal or commercial projects. Just give me a shout out if you do.
How They Did It — (The Daily Monster Edition)
This week’s installment of How They Did It will focus on the extremely talented artist Stefan G. Bucher. He is the artist who has created hundreds of monsters and released them on to an unsuspecting world. Don’t worry his monsters are created with ink and creativity, not weapons and discarded body parts. This modern day Dr. Frankenstein of art has created amazing work. Check it out, you’ll be glad you did!
A part of the great documentary about his work from Lynda.com
Some other resources about Stefan G. Bucher:
How They Did It
I thought I’d share some more cool videos that show the behind the scenes process in some great design and art projects. Note these aren’t how to videos, they are more artful than hands-on, so sit back and enjoy, because they are still worth the time. They give you a greater appreciation of the skill and craft that goes into creating these works, which will help us all a being better at graphic and motion designers.
Taras Lesko builds a 7FT Gundam Mk-2 out of paper.
This is fun, watching Taras Lesko build his model of a 7FT Gundam Mk-2 (okay, I have no idea what that is, apparently some kind of robot) created with paper is pretty cool, I am not sure what you uses something like this for, but I sure enjoyed this video. His paper model was made up of 1250 parts on 720 pages of paper, for a total paper weight of 10lb (4.5kg)!
“7FT Gundam” — Ultimate Papercraft from Taras Lesko on Vimeo.
Tattoo artist Shawn Dees shows how he creates his art
Shawn Dees does great work in this video. The Samurai is pretty sweet.
John C. Thurbin creates a cool illustration in time lapse/stop motion.
This is pretty fun, the song is awesome and so is John C. Thurbin’s work. The illustration reminds me of The Illuminatus! Trilogy by Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea.
Chris Van Allsburg Interviews
I am a huge fan of American Illustrator, Chris Van Allsburg. His books are amazing in their stories, technique and skill.
In this interview, Chris Van Allsburg talks about his big breakthrough, his books, and their transformation into movies. You can see full the full interview here.
Here is a nicely made version of one of Van Allsburg’s great books, “The Wreck of the Zephyr.”
How They Did It
Here’s another assortment of videos showing the hands on execution phase of the design process. Yes, I know that a good magician is not supposed to reveal their tricks, but I love videos that show how great artists weave their magic spells.
Please note, these aren’t how-to videos, they are more artful than hands-on, so sit back and enjoy, because they are still worth the time. They give you a greater appreciation of the skill and craft that goes into creating these works, which will help us all a being better at graphic and motion designers. For hands on training check out my favorite sites, Lynda.com or the Tuts+ Network.
This is a pretty amazing illustration, Chad Pugh spent roughly 40 hours working in Adobe Illustrator creating the amazing illustration “Science Machine.” Over that time, he took a screen capture every five seconds. Enjoy the creation of this information dense masterpiece! By the way, the 36″ x 24″ print can be purchased at Chad’s online store: store.thebigpugh.com
Science Machine from Chad Pugh on Vimeo.
T.J. Thomson designs a center spread for his College Newspaper
Chadron State College’s student T.J. Thomson waxes poetic about design and we are treated to a time-lapse video of his production technique.
Glennz Illustration Process — Mr. Tree by Glenn Jones
Last week I showed his great video Northern Celebrations. This week, watch master illustrator, Glenn Jones as he makes a cool T-Shirt design based on Mr T. He’s compressed 45 minutes of design goodness into 3. It’s hard to catch but I like how he uses the roughen filter to make his vector Mr. T Chia Pet look organic. A good trick to remember!
He sketches the design with a Wacom Tablet and then he turns that into a guide layer, then he goes over it with the Pen Tool in Adobe Illustrator. He must have a black belt in Bézier curves for sure! Be sure to check out all of his videos on Vimeo, they’re awesome!
Glennz Illustration Process — Mr. Tree from Glenn Jones on Vimeo.
Digital Ephemera
It’s Wednesday, so that means ladies and germs it’s time for another installment of digital ephemera. Which is a collection of interesting bits and bytes I’ve run across on the information super highway in the past week.
Mid-century Modern & Tiki
- Retro Cocktail Hour: A great weekly radio program from Kansas Public Radio. Host Darrell Brogdon spins Ultra-Lounge, Exotica and cool mid-century tunes. Simply amazing! Mr. Brogdon has an encyclopedic knowledge of the topic and his digressions are almost as good as the tunes.
- Monsters Attack! 26 Epic Retro Horror Movie Posters
Good Design resources, tips and tricks
- 50 Powerful Timesavers for Webdesigners. A great collection of tips, graphics and other digital goodies from the lads and lasses at Smashing Magazine.
- Have designer’s block? Check out this helpful article on how to have an idea from the ever useful How Magazine blog.
Freebies
- Shameless Plug… my tree bark textures.
- Humpback Whales PhotoShop Brushes… insert Star Trek IV or Moby Dick joke here.
Illustration
- Vintage Children’s Books my Kid Loves… a fabulous blog from Burgin Streetman
Great sites worth exploring
- Harvard’s Michael Sandel’s amazing course in Moral Philosophy can be watched for free. Not design related, but well worth checking out and investing time in this thought provoking work.
Finally something really cool: the video for the song “Cardboard Houses” by IG88 from Kurt Lorenz on Vimeo
. I love the archival imagery juxtaposed with the cutting edge music.
“Cardboard Houses” by IG88 from Kurt Lorenz on Vimeo.
If you have any cool design, art, tiki or mid-century links or thoughts let me know. Leave a comment.
Design Somethign Every Day 22/365
A silly doodle of mine combined with an even sillier show in Las Vegas! Donny & Marie, again? $255 per ticket… seriously?
Design Something Everyday 20/365: Star Wars Kids
When I was growing up I loved watching cartoons, I still do, but their power seemed much more intimate when I was younger. I watched all sorts, but I began to notice that an entire sub-genre of cartoons became all the rage when I was growing up. It would take a popular series and re-imagine the characters as either babies or children. I remember thinking that this was rather odd. Perhaps it was my first burst of critical thinking about pop culture.
One example of this sub-genre that I always found particularly weird was the show The Muppet Babies. Imagine the infantilizing of Jim Henson’s brilliant Muppets as diaper clad t0ddlers. Many of my friends enjoyed it, finding it irreverent, but I always found it rather creepy.
In this vein, I imagined what “Star Wars Kids” would’ve been like. It’s Luke Skywalker embellished with a Wiki Commons image of the home world of the irascible Skywalker clan, Tatooine.
In case you’re wondering here’s the Muppet Babies, in all their glory (please note the Star Wars reference at the :16 mark, talk about synergy!):
Here Comes the Sun…
A little illustration I did in preparation for spring. Though in Seattle with our rain, spring seems very far away.
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