A what???

So apparently for our final exam we have to do an essay. Hearing just confused me in general because it's like "wait, havent we been doing illustrator all semester? where did an essay come from?"

Not only that, but the essay is supposed to be 700-1000 words. It also has to be 7-10 pages. Just outta the blue. The topic of the essay the inner workings of the computer. About what happens from the time the computer turns on to what inside of the computer has a certain function. So Random!

The essay also needed to be graphically laid out. We needed to include many different pictures
showing what piece of hardware is being used. Things like - Power Supply, Motherboard, CPU, BIOS, Ram, Video Car, HardDrive, Operating System, Monitor (LCD or CRT)

Not going to lie, I hated doing it but again...it was something that definitely needed to be done.

Freestyling again...

Yeah so I've had alittle free time. Barely with all the studying I've had to do for other classes. But I'm trying to fit this in my timing when I can. But lately in my free time I've been freestylin' again with illustrator. These ones aren't anything too special but two that I do really like. One of them is just another self-portrait and the other a logo that I've been helping out with for the Impact Movement: which a campus ministry much like campus crusade for Christ

Bitter/Sweet

So today is somewhat a sad day for me but at the same time a joyful day. Today is the day my youngest brother Jay is turning 17. :) It's amazing and I thank God for creating such the perfect youngest brother for me.

It's crazy that he's growing so fast. I mean he's almost taller than me.

But even though I'm happy that its my bro's birthday, I'm still upset I can't be there to celebrate it with him. Matter a fact, thinking of it consistently reminds me of my family and how I havent seen them since Christmas. That's a long time for anyone to be away from their family. It's crazy. I mean even though this class is a family of its own ( Kara being the Mom, Hannah that aunt  who is always straight forward with you, kyle biggs that cool brother, melanie that fiesty sister, mike flowers that uncle who always lets you get away with everything, and of course bekah...lol that one person of the family of the opposite sex you look at and think, "Wow..they're cute..wait what?..We're related!? Man I wish we weren't")
But anyway... I really am beginning to miss my family alot. Things aren't the same and it's almost like some of me can't truly come out to others because it's linked to my family.

So Hairy...

So this time we are all supposed to make a monster. But more than anything the monster is supposed to be hairy. This would be a tutorial that I was excited about I wasn't familiar with how to actually make this effect possible. Going through the tutorial itself I think was pretty straight forward. I also learned how to make a more realistic version of an eye and learned how to use other shapes to make the shape that you want.  It was interesting learning how to take a created brush and using it to your advantage so that your job is much easier.

Overall, I liked this assignment. Again, I didn't really seem to have a problem with actually getting through the directions and following what I was given. It was kind of cool to make my own monster. I figured everyone else was going to go with cute and cuddly. So, I went with hairy and evil. I think I'm going continue to mess with illustrator and see what I do with other ideas as far as characters are concerned.

More Tricks up my sleeve...

Now It's time to toy with illustrator some more until we have another project coming up. I figure since I know abit more about illustrator by day, I might as well freestyle alittle bit. I had time on my hands so I worked on two pictures of myself and trued to see what I could really do with them.
The first one (right) I just wanted to start off with something simple; so I started off with a picture of my self sitting on a bench. I wanted to start off like this just to get the juices in my creative mind flowing alittle bit. Now this got me going.
On the 2nd one (left), it was more eye catching. You see I've always been drawn by movie poster, t-shirt designs, and CD album covers it interests me in the fact that the design usually goes really well with the theme it is trying to portray and that I love. Again it was one of those things where I had free time and I wanted to see what I could do alittle.

Interesting

So the semester is drawing near and things have changed. My skills as far as knowledge in illustrator has changed. I'm more comfortable with the many things that are available for me to use. The atmosphere in the room is great. It's almost like we're all in an environment that allows us to let our personality out and to really help us be creative in projects that we work on. This has allowed me to learn a few tricks of my own. I'm really starting to like illustrator.

As far as this course is concerned in general, it's looking really good. Again, I'll never be able to force my self to like word and powerpoint tutorials but the course in itself I love. My relationship with my classmates has also turned abit. To some I've grown into a stronger relationship with and others are not as close to me as they once were first semester. It's going to hard to think about leaving this people to possibly do my own thing back home. I'm going to miss every single one of these guy. Especially Rebekah. Basically, everyday and every time that I go to any class think of her and always I'll miss her.

Bridging the Gap

Well the class was told that a program at the school, The Bridge Program, needed help creating a new but better logo. So the first thing that came to my mind was, "I need a bridge!". For whatever reason, I decided not to actually go out on the internet and grab a picture of one. I felt it would be better if I just made my one from scratch.

 In my head, I figured it'd save me frustration and time; Which it did. I only ended up using two tools to make my bridge: 1) Rectangle tool and the 2) Line tool. I just made two vertical but thick rectangles and one horizontal triangle that cut through the middle of the two other rectangles. Then, I used the line tool to make the cords strapped to the bridge. I used straight lines on the outside parts of the bridge but curved lines for the middle of the bridge. Well once that was taken care of, I needed to make it apparent about what the bridge represented exactly. So I needed to put the actual program name somewhere on the logo. Well what I ended up doing is separating the words "The Bridge Program". I separated them in a way that they were somewhat scattered away from each other. I tried to keep the font on the text pretty simple so that it was easy to spot and read.



After adding another texture effect to my bridge, my logo was complete. Not to bad of a logo. I think if I had put a little more time into it that I could of put a bit more into it but overall if it still turned out good.

Distressed Text Project

In this project, we we're told to create signage that warrants the distressed or weathered look on text. I thought that this was going to be kind of an interesting project to work on. Well, for what ever reason I decided to put my texture on a made up store called "cosmic comics" (I made it up). I changed the size of the text and the font to give it a more dramatic look to it. I needed to make the entire text into separate letters so that I could move and manipulate the letters the way that I wanted. 

Then, I added to very small triangles around the 'O' in the word "comics" so it made it look like a sun. I also put a ring around the "O" in "Cosmic" to give the look of Saturn. Then, I dragged the tail end of the "S" of "Comics" and wrapped around so make the letter look a bit goofy.Also, in order to make the texture itself I had to use brushes such as " Chalk Charcoal Pencil". The brushes really gave a new look to the picture was everything was merged together. The final product turned out pretty good in my opinion.

Yeah so....

Yeah so I wanted to start off by saying that I am extremely behind as far as these blogs are concerned. It's okay. Better late then never. Well I'm going to go by projects in order what I remember. The freshest one that comes to my mind is the logo/trademark remake project. The point of the assignment was to take a well known logo, out of a list given to us, and make our own logo. Also, we had to make two of them. So I decided I was gonna pick two things that would cause me to be creative.

The first logo that caught my eye was trademark for Baylor University. At first look, it looked very bland and boring. So I decided that it could be a bit more eye popping visually. The school's mascot was a bear and the colors were forest green and a gold-ish yellow. The first thing I figured I needed to do was give the logo a more fierce look to it. So I grabbed a bear that more intimating than the previous one. I also grabbed a bear paw print and added some green glow to it. It turned out really good and I truly think that making this one was my favorite out of the two logos.

The second logo I decided to do was Clemson. I'm not really sure why I stuck with the colleges but anyway. I also felt the Clemson trademark was too straight forward. Just the words Clemson and a paw next to it. I'd like to say, "Boring!". At the same time, I knew my changing of the trademark would be somewhat limited. So I decided to get a tiger looking as if it is walking down toward the Clemson words. Also, there are orange and purple paws trailing the way. After throwing some more texture effects in there, it turned out really well. Once again, I liked my Baylor logo more but I can't complain with what I did with this one either. I like them both.

I actually liked this project because it let me be creative which I love doing. I could definitely do some more.