Wednesday, August 4, 2010

The Nun





































This is a nun...
Quite a lot of fun to do, took me about a day or so.
The nun herself is a pen and ink illustration, on top of which are multiple layers of images, that have been pinched, punched and distorted. The ripples are actually the result of leaving a sheet of paper alongside a sputtering pot of beetroots. The rain is a Corel paint filter, but I think it would have looked better if I had used a texture instead. Next time...
I added some "glows" to her head and body to try and give things that effect one gets when you look at a light through a rain-wet window. 

Available as a giclee print on Hahnemuhler paper.

Monday, August 2, 2010

Nanoscience Brochure

 After a month of work and several weeks of research, I finally handed in the official nanoscience brochure for the MTN Sciencentre in June. The aim of the project was basically to inform school kids about nanotechnology in an accessible way. I ended up doing  not just the artwork, but also a lot of the copywriting and research, which I think makes a better product at the end of the day... one always does a better job if you know what you're on about!

The most time-consuming thing about this task was the VAST amount of visual research I had to do for every image. It is actually quite hard to draw an abalone from memory... you think you know what one might look like, but when you sit down to draw it, you end up with something that looks like a hat with eyes. Thank goodness for the Interweb! 
I still need a way to figure out how to do get people to pay me for visual research--usually ends up being a freebie service, very few clients actually appreciate what it takes to produce what seems to be a simple illustration.
Anyways, these are the double page spreads for the brochure:


Quick intro to the nanoscale


Bacteria are cool to draw... 
the scale... quite a lot of research went into this.


Learnt a lot doing this pic!


sadly, most of the info on nanotechnology out there tends to revolve around washing powder and sunscreen.



big words...



the soldier took waaaaay too long to draw and colour...


The "Dangers of" illustration was probably the most fun to produce: pen and ink sent through multiple filters in Corel paint, most notably the "Plastic" filter.

I got a little carried away with the artwork on this one... had to try and make it more child friendly...


who doesn't like robots?



Bacteria. Gotta love them.