Building character...

Just a couple of bad asses out for a stroll...

Despite the rather tongue and cheek approach I take with Galactic Gun, there are a lot of aspects - some rather serious - I'd like to take the comic and its stories. To that end, I've often wondered how effective the cartooning style I'm often to use is. Times like those produce imagines like these; where I take the pivotal characters of the Galactic Gun universe, and give them a more “realistic” look.

This gives me the more legitimate look, for sure; something needed to be taken more seriously as a Graphic Novelist. But, I wonder... and, maybe worry... if, in getting more to a standard look, I might be sacrificing some of the more expressive tools of the characters and their stories.

Whether I'm trying to use cartoons to express seriousness, or illustrations to be funny, I fear something's going to be a little lost in the translation. All the more reason to keep hunting for that just right look; blending the spectrum of design.

I don't know; what do you think...?

My card...

Or, to be more precise, my business card assignment in Studio Design class over at school.

Each one was created in Adobe In Design by making a master page and plugging in the graphics - found at stock.xchng - and texts accordingly. The first three are for the fictitious town of Neverland, Ca. (Pronounced "N'ver-lund" by its residents.); part of my model train layout. The last one, I think, may, with a little more work, become my new personal card.

Words... In Design

Okay, so these past two weeks we've been learning something about Adobe In Design. I find that, while it's good for paste ups - setting pages, flyers, and the like - it's really not so much a creative tool. And, yet, here I am showing off my creative assignment in a not so creative tool.

Image from Stock Xchng Quote by Charles Bruce Catton

Recipe from Recipes.com Image from www.sxc.hu/

Image from Fbook Covers Words by Charlie Irons (Inspired by A Softer World)

The idea of the assignmnet as to, using the concepts of design, text wrap, paths, and other effects, take any image and set of words to create... well... these. We had to have one that was orented portrait, landscape, and squared. Otherwise, the content was pretty much up to each student.

I do not own any of these images; which are used with the intent for only the project; each are linked to their source. Authors are noted, as well.

"Up, Up, Down, Down" - Designing a CD single cover

So, over in my Typography class, we've been working on doing a CD cover using only type; no picutres are allowed anywhere. So I grabbed nerdcore rock greats Kirby Krackle, and their quirky "love song" Up Up Down Down, from their self titled debut.

I have to admit that the initial design sort of quickly snapped together. However, I then spent three days obsessing over how the title would go.

In the end, I went with the Komica font. The idea was, in font size and position, to capture the idea of going up, up, and then down, down. The background lettering is in NES Controller font - no, really; it's the Nintendo font used on the actual hardware - and set at 35% opacity. The band logo is imported; I didn't do anything to it.

Since KK is a nerdcore rock band (Comics, video games, etc.), the news print comic strip look was essential to attract its target audience. In that same way the font choice was pretty obvious. (Which is a bit of a lie; you'd be surprised how many comic styled fonts are out there, these days.Yeash...)

And just how quirky is this little love song? Well...