Cameron Giles (Drawings)

[cgdrawings]

Stapler Illustration (3/3)

For this week, I wanted to try a digital painting style, with more realism to it than my previous techniques. I worked in Photoshop using Kyle brushes, and my Wacom tablet. I used a few greens, and just kept building up the shadows and highlights to add depth, until I was happy with it. When I was about halfway through, I couldn’t find out why it looked flat and not quite right, but I built up the shadows and highlights to be much stronger, and it really added the depth and detail that I was looking for. I tried to use some brushes that would have a sort of gritty and textured style to keep the image interesting and have more of a painted look to it. 

[cgdrawings]

Stapler Illustration (2/3)

Lately, all of my work has been done digitally, and I wanted to try something physical for a change. I thought making a collage style of depicting the stapler would be a fun and different idea. I started by buying a few magazines, choosing a colour (red), and cutting out any pictures with red in them. After that, I divided them by colour, and started cutting them out into smaller pieces and glueing them on my stapler template to give it a collage look/feel. I think being a collage made it fairly abstract, but I also think it still resembles the stapler enough, especially alongside the other renditions of it that I’ve done. I wanted to present it on some cardboard to keep the physical/collage vibe to it. I forgot to actually take pictures while making it, so hopefully these will suffice. 

[cgdrawings]

Stapler Illustration (1/3)

Over this week, and the following 2, the task is to create different renditions of the same object using different techniques/styles. 

I chose to use a mini stapler that was on my desk because I liked the curves and shadows on it, as well as the contrast between the smooth blue surfaces, and the hard-edged metal “stapler” part. 

For this illustration, I wanted to get a feel for the curves and shadows of the stapler I chose to draw by using the pentool, and a lot of different clipped gradients. I also wanted to add some texture to give it a more finished and stylized look. I was suprised how much the gradients transitioned it from some basic colour blocks, to a depiction that looked like it had depth, and was complete, as I added and finessed them. 

[cgdrawings]

Bill Gates

Portraits are hard. I have numerous versions of numerous portraits on my computer, that I scrapped. I wanted to try out making something more realistic with brushes, but my tablet was acting up and kept disconnecting.

Soooo... I ended up here with a portrait of Bill Gates. Lately, his name was the only one I’ve seen in the news with anything positive related to it. I’m not super satisfied with how it turned out, but I think it almost worked. I had lots of trouble capturing his eyes right, as they were quite closed and wrinkly, but still portrayed lots of personality and happiness in the reference photos that I looked at. Overall, I just tried to use a limited palette of natural colours, and simple shapes, to try to make it a good mix of simplicity but with personality and resemblant details. 

I looked at tons of different portraits for inspiration and to see their techniques, and I also watched lots of different speedarts and tutorials. I’m really satisfied with the knowledge I’ve gained, and I think that moving forward, I’ll have the ability to keep working on portraits, and ultimately make them better. 

[cgdrawings]

Halloween Exploration

For this illustration, I wanted to focus on a composition based on elements, lighting, and negative space. I chose to theme it around Halloween because that’s coming up, and also, has a spooky and dimly-lit aesthetic. I wanted the street light that’s about 1/3rd on the left to do a good job of focusing the attention on the candy/bag/pumpkin, and the scene. I also wanted to add a flashlight which would bring the attention to the right and out of the scene (where someone in this scene would be looking), to add some more interest and grounding. I also decided to quickly make it into a flickering-light in an animation to make it a little more dynamic. Overall, I’m pretty happy with this composition. 

[cgdrawings]

Moose Silhouette

For this week’s illustration, I wanted to challenge myself to try a different style of composition and colouring than usual. I wanted to try to make the primary subject of the image have the least colour and detail, but still grab the attention. I decided to put the sun near the middle of the composition so everything could be built around it, and it would grab the initial focus. Because I wanted the moose to grab the attention also, I put it’s antlers so they slightly intersected with the sun, which gives a good contrast between the lightest yellows, and the darkest black in the image, and really bring the attention to the moose. I also decided to put some mountains and a river so the curves and lines draw your eye into the middle of the composition and the moose, and make the image a little more interesting. 

[cgdrawings]

Isometric Grid

When I was looking for inspiration, I came across an isometric grid template, so I decided to give it a go. I wasn’t sure what to make, so I used the word “colour”, as that is what our designs were supposed to be based around. I thought that using just the outline would be cool, and I felt that it looked kind of retro, so I added a cyan-magenta gradient. I also added a glowing effect, and some noise so it would further have the retro vibe to it. I really like the look that the colours and effects gave to the piece.

[cgdrawings]

Geometric Pattern

I saw some tutorials for patterns, and got inspired to try to make my own. I noticed some geometric patterns that I liked, so I created one that was similar. I chose a colour palette on Adobe Color. I wanted to create a palette with a lot of colours, but ones that were somewhat desaturated so they’d work well together and wouldn’t be too distracting. Actually lining up the shapes to make a good pattern was more challenging than I thought (I’m still not satisfied with the relationships between some of them). Overall, I like how it turned out, and I would like to try to create more complex patterns in the future. 

[cgdrawings]

Tiger Illustration

For this little drawing, I wanted to implement as many different colours as I could to make sure that the composition would be bright and fun. I really like how it looks with all the different elements that have different hues and saturations to them. Overall, I think all the bright colours make it look very fun and lively. 

[cgdrawings]

Colour Palettes

When I was checking out http://colorsupplyyy.com/, I thought it was super cool, and I especially liked the gradients that they showed. I wanted to test out different colour palettes using different colour rules, and see how they were all different, and what these differences mean. From my experimentation it is clear that all the colours in a triad really stand out from each other, whereas analogous colours are all similar and look united. You can see how the colours always work together for each colour rule, but they all do so in very different ways. This website will be really helpful going forward in deciding colour palettes for projects.

[cgdrawings]

Car Outline

Due to the fact I was vectorizing the outlines for my colouring book page this week, I wanted to experiment with trying an outline of something, and using different angles, relationships, and weights within the stroke to see what looked best, and how different everything was with small changes. It was a lot harder than I thought it would be to find a good stroke weight that worked well for everything, but it helped me learn a lot about linework, pentooling, strokes, and the width tool. I wanted to make sure the lines on the car made it look like it had some motion, and almost a futuristic and sleek look to it. 

[cgdrawings]

Brain Fart

When I was flipping through my sketchbook, I came across some concepts for a “Brain Fart” related illustration. I decided it would be fun to clean up and finalize these ideas into some cool cartoon-y designs. I think it would be really fun to vectorize and colour these sometime in the future. 

[cgdrawings]

Digital Brushes

I wanted to test out digital brushes that mimic real art tools. I took a composition based off my colouring book page, and create a very basic outline (using a pencil brush, but for my use of it, it really could have been anything). I then coloured it once using ‘Claude Monet’ brushes, and another time using ‘Watercolor’ brushes. I was super impressed with how realistic these brushes were and acted using a drawing tablet and using different pressure and strokes. Even though my uses of them this week weren’t the most advanced or stimulating, I think they could be used for lots of really cool things, going forward. 

[cgdrawings]

Calgary Skyline

I chose to draw the skyline of Calgary because that’s where I was born and raised. Over my drawings, I’ve noticed I care a lot about perfection, so I wanted to try drawing in pen. To make it even more “final” in my application, I did it so I never lifted the pen off the paper. I found that with the one-line-only application of the pen, it had to appear somewhat abstract and flowing. Also half my buildings ended up on an angle, but I guess that’s what happens when you’re me and you do everything in one take. Also, because I never lifted my pen it forced me to keep making quick decisions about placement and details because I couldn’t really stop and think about it. Overall, it was nice because it forced the creativity to flow out without being stopped for lots of decisions, or modifications.  

[cgdrawings]

Word Generator

I was spending a lot of time thinking of what to draw, and I couldn’t find anything. So, I decided to open a generator and use every word it generated, in groups of 2 (much like the first exercise, but challenging myself with completely random words). 

After sketching some word combinations, I decided to draw ‘climbing freeze’ larger. I wanted to challenge myself with a different medium, so I used some prismacolor markers. Since I was learning them, I wanted to experiment with all sorts of application, strokes, blending, overlapping, pressure... to see fully how they could be utilized and how they act, so I’ll know more going forward. 

[cgdrawings]

Space Train

For this project, I wanted to make something that merged physical and digital mediums. I started with by drawing a basic subway train interior. I wanted to make sure it looked hand-drawn, so I kept in construction lines and messy strokes. After that, I merged various space images I found on Unsplash to create a surreal space background for the outside of the train. The design didn’t feel complete enough, so I decided to make it into a GIF to add some motion and make it more interesting. 

The basic creative concept of this piece is that using your imagination can transform boring events into fun experiences. 

[cgdrawings]

Simplistic School Bus Illustration

I couldn’t even tell you how I ended up drawing a school bus...

As I started this design, I wanted to focus on trying to create an illustration using only simple shapes, but in a way that it would still have depth and interest. I had trouble deciding what the right amount of detail to add was in order to keep it simplistic, but still have some form of character. Throughout my process of creating this school bus, I learned how important overlapping shapes, as well as differences in tone are in order to creating depth in an otherwise flat image.