Been away foir a while.

Hello everyone! I know its been a while since I posted anything on my Blogger, Twitter or Deviantart page. I've been very busy doing the corporate art thing. 11 months ago I started as an intern at a digital signage company called Creosity and am now the head of the department, working 70 hour weeks and up to 72 hour shifts to finish projects on time. This actually isn't uncommon in this industry. But when I first started working with digital signage, there wasn't a lot of how-to-create tutorials on the web or any in-depth explanations for creating pixel artwork to be seen on digital signage. In my next post I will be explaining how to do so. This will be posted next week.

Going to concerts are great, better if you are on the stage

So a while back I was went to the Wild Buffalo in Bellingham to see the NW hip-hop artist Macklemore. I must say for an Irish hip-hop artist, he does great techno, through one of his many characters, that he will often perform other genres by. Below is the video in which I jumped on stage and danced. (I’m wearing the red cap and white/black shirt that says “Irish Hustler”) During the song, my heart started to give me trouble from dancing so hard. The entire show was full of energy both from the MC and the crowd. Macklemore has performed in the past with other NW hip-hop artist such as champagne champagne , The physics and (my favorite NW group) The Blue Scholars. I’m looking forward to seeing what the MC puts out next.

Be sure to support NW hip-hop and pick up his CD, THE VS EP which is produced by Ryan Lewis.

Fliers: Use White space effectivly

On a recent piece I did for a client/friend for an acoustic show in Everett, WA. I had to plan for cheap printing and therefore needed to stick with the most basic of sizes and colors. As well as make sure I use white space effectively since that’s what the fliers would be printed on and my two colors would be black and gray, I sketched out an image of the singer being carried away by fish balloons (an element I have used in a couple of pieces and I originally created for a t-shirt design) holding her acoustic guitar. Since I was in a rush I used some stock vector graphics from Gomedia. By the way, her island home is being blown up by music. Enjoy!

"Justice Never Reloads" Hits Post Productions

For the last year I have been the Senior Marketing director for the Justice Never Reloads Franchise. I originally created just the logo for the one episode TV show, then was asked to play a bigger role when the script for the movie got the green light. Since then I have created the promotional poster, cast t-shirt, logo, website and other various marketing materials. With the movie now in post production, it’s looking like my next project for the franchise will be creating the opening title sequence or “opening credits.” I was recently sent a list of still images from the movie and it’s funny to look back on the project and all the work I dedicated to a project that was started by a good friend of mine, Joseph Clift.

(I'm in the second frame in the black jacket and hair metal wig)

Not only was I the Senior Marketing Director for the project, but also an actor for one the scenes. On a sunny morning I received my bi-weekly phone call from Joey like I always did to discuss artistic direction of the project, when Joey asked me if I wanted to play a thug in one of the scenes. I told him “If I can say some epic dialogue, like, try and stop me super cop.” He agreed to write something for me. So our mutual friend Chris Munroe and I drove 6 hours to the shoot, were we put on thuggish attire and makeup, that made us look like we stepped out of an 80’s glam rock video. Over all, funny one liners were said and stunts were performed. (A cup of coffee/cola was thrown at my face and was therefore sticky for about 5 hours after the shoot.) And we ended the day with a free Tech9 concert that was happening down the street on the WSU campus. It was a great experience and being part of the process more than sitting in my office the whole time. I guess the lesson of the story is diversity. You may be hired onto a project for one task, but you should remain flexible and stay open for other aspects you may have less experience with. It just might make you more valuable to future projects.

The Starting 2010 Post

As the New Year begins, it a good to asses the goals in which you want to complete this year. Just remember this year also marks the start of a new decade. Here are some quick outlines on how to be more successful this year.

STEP ONE: Asses your last year

Make a list of the things you did, tried and failed at. This will help you determine what your strengths, weaknesses and what areas in your life you need to work on. This is where you need to take an honest look inside your self and go, “I think that went well” or “wow that didn’t turn out at all how I expected it to go.”

STEP TWO: Making new goals

Everyone can dream about all the things you may be able to accomplish this year, but you also need to make a list of smaller goals that directly affect your larger ones. For instance, say you plan on saving up for vacation next Christmas, and you think it will cost 5,000 dollars to afford it, well since you have about ten months (for example) till, you need to save $500 a month to get there. So you should have your bigger goal of $5,000 by December, you should also have the smaller goal of saving $500 a month.

STEP THREE: Keeping track of your time

It can be easy to loose track of your goals, that’s why a calendar, marked with various goal dates should be available to you. Also a weekly schedule planner can help you maximize your time. I try to plan 3-5 tasks every day that can help me get ahead, like meeting with clients, colleagues, friends, or other people who are interested in my work every day. (These tasks can be as easy as a phone call or e-mail for me)

STEP FOUR: Reward

When you complete enough goals you will be more successful than if you had no aspirations at all. At that point of were you feel that you have completed a goal that took a lot of effort you should reward your self. For me just the satisfaction of doing something new and creative is enough of a reward by its self. Most people need a physical reward. Choose something small that you don’t do very often, that way you know you deserved it.

Things I accomplished this year:

1. Toured potential colleges for BA (My favorite visit was Digipen in Redmond, WA)

2. Got back to writing hip-hop songs

3. Completed websites for the Everett Symphony, ASPI Land Surveyors, Justice Never Reloads, and the new MGYP site was assembled.

4. Became an actor finally! Something I had always thought about but never got around to doing. (I played a thug on JNR and became the Everett Symphony’s Mascot)

5. Was awarded the 5^th place daily award on newgrounds.com for the animated short “A Midnight Visit”.

Some of my personal goals for this year:

1. ‘Justice Never Reloads: A Cop Drama Movie’ is finally finished.

2. Get back into shape

3. Post on my blog every two weeks

4. Put out my 5 song EP as the MC known as “The Omega Gene”

5. Think of a 5^th goal for this year.

6. Create a new form of art

Well, Happy New Years!

Infect Love Remix

As many know, I am a fan of activism and power for the people. Martin Luther King Jr, Gandhi and JFK are all heroes of min. Recently, it was announced on Deviantart.com that Shepard Fairey (Barrack Obama Poster, Obey Clothing) is having a contest called “Love Unites remix” Below are my entries.

If you like the design and you have a deviantart account, please vote.

Non-Profit Poster Photoshop Tutorial

So today’s blog is a Photoshop tutorial. The poster is for a college fundraiser, the fundraiser is selling Producer Film credits to help raise money to send a student to college. You can buy your credit here. The tutorial is split into two sections: Pre-setup and the actual tutorial.

Pre-setup 1: Research
Before you can design something, you need to know what you’re trying to design. So ask your self this; who is your audience? What is your message? How are you going to convey it? Once you have this you can move on to the next step.

For the purposes of this tutorial, our target audience is males and females, age 18-27, in college, not married and in touch with the alternative social group.


Pre-setup 2: Thumbnail sketches and text.
Thumbnail Sketches:
Always sketch out your ideas. You should do at least 5 per project is your only doing a poster. But if your doing something that will be up and running for years you will want to spend way more time on this portion of a project. For a website, I try to do about 25 sketches then send my favorite 3-5 of them. Remember, put the most outrageous ideas down first. Then simplify them so they can be workable. Know the elements you want in the poster before you start. This will help you organize the layout.

The Text
LOGO: A Producers Film
Main Text: Where else can you become a film producer for only $1 dollar?
Top Caption: Become a film producer at www.ProducersFilmProject.com
Lower Caption: A college fundraiser

Step 1: set up the document
Our document will be for flyers to be posted in stores, walls and in the general public. For cheaper printing prices, the flyer will be 11x8.5 and 300 DPI. Just to let you know the document will be in landscape format.

Next use your radial Gradient tool to bring in a nice circular gradient to the poster



Step 2: The content box
I made a yellow box in the center of the document that matches the color of the logo for the Producers film Project.


Than flattened the logo layer and the yellow box so we could out line the image.




Step 3: Finishing the background
Next we will add to the background, I used two found resources: A brush that creates a sunrise effect from Deviantart.com (Click here for a similar brush to the one I used) and a free repeating background from the Gomedia freebies section.

I covered the entire page surface with the repeating background,


then added a layer mask. Now with the mask layer selected, use the sun rise brush.


Step 4: Adding the text
Put in the text.


Step 5: visual excitement.
Now the main poster is finished, its time to add some visual elements that help make the poster stand out. We will need an image cut up. I got my image of a cameraman from stock exchange, which is a great resource for graphic designers to find royalty free images, with some not so free ones. Place the Cameraman in the right lower corner and rotate it.



Then use a Lasso tool to make cuts to the image like it was removed from a poster or magazine. We will then add white strips to the corners of cameraman layer. Use the Lasso tool again to make uneven cuts to the white strips. Once this is complete, turn the opacity of the tape layers to 46%. This will make it look like tape.



You have just completed the poster tutorial, if you liked this tutorial, leave a comment and I will know to make more.

I hope to be able to have the time to write more of these in the future.