Art: Acheron “Briareos” d’Tana
December 20, 2007 | 6 Comments
Here’s a character sketch I did for a fellow member of the Dark Jedi Brotherhood. Acheron, modeled after Briareos Hecatonchires from the Anime film Appleseed, is depicted here with sub machine guns. Using a toy as a reference, I drew this with my Intuos3 tablet. Overall, I liked the way it came out!
myPlymouth: Halloween Theme
November 2, 2007 | 4 Comments
As I alluded to on my last post, on Halloween, Zach, Dan, and I unveiled a new feature in Plymouth State University’s portal. Plymouth State will begin customizing the myPlymouth logo and/or the entire header withing the portal.
Using some snazzy CSS easter-egg functionality combined with some PHP, we can dynamically alter the look of the portal and target customizations to the entire campus, groups of people, or individuals. On Halloween, we customized and targeted the entirety of our user population with the following header theme. We changed this:
To this:
The Halloween theme was a surprise to the campus and received a number of good reviews and comments! The theme didn’t reduce the portal’s functionality, it simply gave it a nice candy coating to add a little flair. Overall, I’m pretty happy with the layout (which is actually made up of 7 images). Due to the excitement around the Halloween theme, the campus can be sure that more are coming!
As I mentioned before, targeting the entire campus is doable along with targeting groups of people and individuals. Needless to say the targeting capabilities of this can be exploited by…well…by me. And I’ve had some fun exploiting it, too! Here’s a couple of fun ones that I targeted at specific users:
This header was targeted at my manager, Ken:
This one is targeted at Dee:
Here’s one that I targeted at Dan and Zach:
Fun times. So far, Dan, Zach, and I have some pretty sexy ideas for what can be done…ranging from minor tweaks to the logo (similar to the goofy ones I did above), to fully customized headers (like the Halloween one), all the way to full blown themes that customize a larger portion of myPlymouth. I look forward to getting creative with what I can draw and implement.
Art: Turkey Sketch
November 1, 2007 | 6 Comments
I’ve begun the design of custom headers for holiday themed portal action in Plymouth State University’s portal. Here’s a quick turkey sketch I did with my Wacom tablet in preparation for a Thanksgiving themed header. I’m still a little undecided on what I plan to do with the header as a whole. I have a few weeks to figure that out, I suppose :)
Drawing: Female Yuuzhan Vong Warrior
July 29, 2007 | Leave a Comment
Here’s a drawing of a female Yuuzhan Vong Warrior I did for the Dark Jedi Brotherhood using my Intuos 3 Wacom Tablet (You can click the image for a larger version). She has a very high sloping forehead, complete with tattoos, scarring, and topknot. She is clad in Vonduun Crab armor and wields an amphistaff.
Fun With My Wacom
February 23, 2007 | 1 Comment
I’ve been having some serious fun as of late with my Intuos Art Pad. Honestly, I haven’t done much drawing since my Alien Sketch back in July. I didn’t realize how much I was missing ;) Well, ever since getting back into Star Wars, I’ve had an urge to do more drawings…well, actually drawings have been asked of me and I’ve happily obliged.
I’m pumped and ready to hone my skills even more…From these sketches I can tell that I’m pretty rusty but things will come around! Here are a few of the other drawings/crests I’ve done as of late:
Drawing: Mejas Doto, Dark Jedi Master
January 21, 2007 | 1 Comment
Here’s an image I did for a member of the Dark Jedi Brotherhood, a Star Wars club on-line with a focus on computer gaming, writing, and roleplaying. Anyways, this member collects images of his character and thus commissioned one from me. Here’s the final product:
Along the way, I saved various steps I took while creating the image…its interesting to look back and see the progress.
Initial sketch, general layout for the character.
Darkened in certain areas, defining key parts of the Jedi Master. Created the face and head markings.
Finished basic darkening, began coloring in the skin.
Defined clothing and colored under-tunics.
Defined cloak and clothing even more and continued coloring.
Finished clothing definition and coloring.
Thickened lines, shortened middle finger, filled in gaps, added a black background.
Fixed hand and added Force lightning…blue lines, Gaussian blur, faded brush strokes.
Drew lightsaber and added blade. Defined right hand a little more.
Original final rendition with sweet red background.
Re-done final rendition…aged Mejas Doto appropriately…he’s no teenager as the previous version implied.
Thats all she wrote! The picture took about 6 hours on my Wacom Tablet. Much fun was head and it was good to break the tablet in again! Its been far too long.
Amanda Congdon and Casey Bisson Form BisonBoom?
July 19, 2006 | 8 Comments
My friend Casey Bisson contacted me to create this logo. In the typical Casey fashion, he hasn’t exactly explained himself yet…Bastard. I can only speculate that he and Amanda Congdon have something cooking that will give Rocketboom a run for its money.
It seems that BisonBoom.com has been purchased by Casey (I did a who-is). Hrm…
Registrant:
MaisonBisson
POBox 350
Plymouth, New Hampshire 03264
United StatesRegistered through: GoDaddy.com, Inc. (http://www.godaddy.com)
Domain Name: BISONBOOM.COM
Created on: 19-Jul-06
Expires on: 19-Jul-07
Last Updated on: 19-Jul-06Administrative Contact:
Bisson, Casey spinapse [at] mac [dot]com
MaisonBisson
Anyways, I drew it with my Inuos3 tablet. Its a Bison on a Rocketboom-like rocket. w00t. (I took the liberty of changing the tailfins to suit my preferences) This Bison looks scared as I suppose I would be if I was riding on the side of a moving rocket.
Intuos Alien: Aerek
July 7, 2006 | 6 Comments
I’ve been playing around with my Intuos Tablet and I’m loving it. I think I’m slowing getting the hang of things. The only issues I’ve been having is working with the photoshop interface…I’m not used to interacting with it with a pen. Proficiency will come in time, I suppose.
I did the quick alien doodle (below) in Photoshop over my lunch break. That’s a creature that I came up with a few years back that I tend to sketch a lot. I figured I should christen my tablet with him. Fear the weapon wielding naked thing.
Fun cartooning. w00t w00t.
First Intuos3 Sketch
July 7, 2006 | 1 Comment
I just bought an Wacom Intuos3 9X12 USB Tablet for all my art and doodling needs. Here’s a brief description on what the product is:
Intuos3 gives you the power to quickly and professionally edit photos and create digital artwork by turning on the full power of Adobe Photoshop, Corel Painter, and over 100 other leading software applications. Intuos3 tablets now put ExpressKeys and Touch Strips right at your fingertips for convenient keyboard shortcuts, scrolling, zooming, brush size control, and more. Wacom’s Penabled technology gives you the natural feel and superior performance of Wacom’s patented cordless and battery-free tablet technology. You’ll find that using an Intuos pen, mouse, and tablet gives you more control, comfort, and productivity. Alternating between the comfortable Grip Pen and the ergonomic five-button Intuos3 mouse reduces repetitive motion. It’s an easy and natural way to work.
It just arrived and I installed the drivers, plugged the sucker in, and fired up Adobe Photoshop to give the thing a whirl. Here’s what I did in my first 2 minutes:
The thing is extremely easy to use but will take a little getting used to. I’ll be posting more on the tablet when I get a better chance to sit down and play. So far, I like the way it allows me to be have sketchiness that is common in rough drawings on paper…makes it seem real. The pen is pretty comfortable and the thickness of the lines is influenced by the pressure you apply to the tablet. To erase stuff…simply flip the pen upside down and erase like you would a normal pencil. That is just cool. Once again, the eraser is influenced by pressure.
Anyhow…more to come.
