Sunday, July 25, 2010

ILLUSTRATION - Redone page

BEFORE

AFTER

AFTER AFTER

Here are snapshots of one of the earlier pages in the storybook I'm currently working on. Of all the pages I've done this was the one I was least satisfied with. I finally made time this weekend to do revisions. The characters looked very flat, and I felt the cheetah, Numbi, didn't resemble himself (he can be seen in a earlier post). So the after snapshot is a result of a complete redesign of Numbi + color adjustments + an attempt to "unflatten" the characters. Photoshop never ceases to amaze me with the wide variety of ways to enhance color and helping me achieve satisfying results.

** The newest addition to this post (the bottom photo) shows another revision I made to the page. On this illustration I now make it more evident that the character are running through grass and not on flat land. It was not hard to make that change, it simply just did not occur to me until examining it again. Errors like that make me want hold off on posting things until a couple days later where I can re examine my creation with a fresh outlook.

Wednesday, July 21, 2010

GRAPHIC DESIGN- We Care Logo

Its been a little while since I have posted any of my graphic design work. Here are logo drafts for the non profit organization We Care. The organization came to me in quest of a logo to represent their new business, a day care. I believe my favorite is the top right. We Care strives to educate and provide quality childcare.
"We strive to provide an unmatched experience for students, parents, and educators alike. We Care’s position on learning is it is never too early to prepare for the future. At We Care, we care about kids."
- We Care

Sunday, July 18, 2010

PHOTOGRAPHY- America The Great

And this is for America. lol. This is from a shoot I did this past week, the shot I choose to display is probably not the strongest from the shoot, but I felt it was the best one to express the concept I had in mind. The conceptual goal of this shoot was glorify the American made Chrysler convertible - as a photographer my goal was to emphasize the American colors in this Southern setting with first time model Jamez Blount. Whether I work with a scared first time model, or a cocky first time model I always give the same advice - practice, practice practice. Which do you think listens? Neither. Modeling is a skill, no matter how attractive or unattractive a person is we all have the ability to be captured from an interesting perspective and as Tyra once said, "No one should look worse in photos, only the same or better." Being conscious of how you position your entire body and how its affected by different lightening is something I think no one can know naturally. With all this said this shoot was a learning experience for Jamez and a fun experiment for me I believe I got some cool shots :) Check out the models blog @ www.poorlilrichlife.blogspot.com

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

PHOTOGRAPHY - Shooting at Dusk

Puzzle Ad



Here's a shoot at the park along with Trey (Photographer Trey FX) and model Jeremy Jackson. Its always fun to shoot with other photographers to learn and share techniques. We shot this while the sun was setting so lightening was pretty good, but the mosquitoes were attacking us with no mercy! Meanwhile the ducks were pretty bold, especially the one pictured above who came within a foot of me showing no fear, I called him Divo Duck because he let me shoot him in every angle, and gave me a wide variety of poses ::sigh:: a photographers dream.
There was one point where we saw a family fishing out of the lake at this park. It was slightly disturbing since the water was a greenish color (which is why I changed the color balance on the photos I used with my logo.) Below is a shot I was able to get of them, while pretending to shoot pictures of Trey (although he believed he was the focus the whole time.) I believe the family spotted me getting shots of them and dashed to leave the scene. As they passed us Jeremy said, "Are ya'll going to eat those fish???" They politely ignored him and continued to flee the park.


Monday, July 12, 2010

FUN - The Big Frog Expedition



This past Sunday I had the thrill of rafting in Tennessee. A cool new experience that has opened my curiosity up to many other experiences I have yet to try. This trip was a 2hr journey north of Atlanta. For any interested in trying out this experience I strongly recommend water shoes and not choosing a raft that has children on it (the guide will be forced to take a more cautious route and make it more into a tour). On our raft we had twin girls probably around 12 (wearing way too heavy make up for their age if you ask me) and the guide was telling us about how a few years ago a major landslide caused rocks fall onto the road and as people came to check it, more rocks started to fall. One of the girls was like, "Wow that sounds like one of those situations where right before it happens your on the road and your car breaks down right below it.... and your door won't unlock... and your seat belt won't unbuckle." haha I thought it was funny, almost as funny as when the water splashing caused her make up to run, and the guide was like "You look like you just broke up with your boyfriend," and the other twin said "Oh Girl!! I got you!" and she wiped away the running mascara from her twins face. Oh, if you have the opportunity to jump out the raft (not in fast/dangerous rapids) make sure you do!

Sunday, July 11, 2010

PHOTOGRAPHY - Kiddunot 2yr Anniversary



The above photos were taken at KiddUNot.com's 2 year anniversary. In the above photos are the Voices of Kiddunot, KodakBoi and J.Cherry, Esquire (from Esquire Casting), along with Nivea and Dwight (from housewives of Atlanta). I believe there were other well known/established people at this event, but I didn't know of them. One of the funniest moments at this event was when I met the creator of Kontrol magazine. I was sitting along with him and a few mutual friends having conversation that somehow led to asking him if he knew the waitress name. He didn't, and our friend was like, "See you've become so big you ignore the little people!" My friend then gestures towards me and says, "Do you even know his name by now?" And the Editor and chief of Kontrol confidently blurts out, "Yeah, Brandon!" My name is Brian if you don't know by now. Yet I wasn't offended at all, infact I was pretty impressed he was so close. He kept apologizing and reassured him it was fine, because in my mind I was thinking I don't even know your name. I later saw it on the business card, Julian Lark. Great guy, I really respect his hustle and I think he is doing great things, so much it inspired me to get on top of some stuff. Anyways, if I took a photo of you at this event and you would like to have it- brianolli10@gmail.com (Don't get crazy tho ;) ).

Saturday, July 10, 2010

PHOTOGRAPHY - Online Mag



Here is another photography post.. This one is of Dubois, a great model that provided plenty of great shot. He entered some of our shots into a online magazine called www.pmblogazine.com and I was flattered they decided to use a shot. Of all the shots, I wasn't expecting this choice (on the bottom), but I love the effects, it turned a photo that I saw minimal greatness in, into one of my favs, I guess they have a great graphic designer on their team :)

Illustration - Ptolemei





Ptolemei has taught me not only a million interesting tricks with my wacom tablet and illustrator, illustrating this book has helped me recapture my love for illustration that I had not felt in years. This project has been going on for almost a year now and its one of my most prized ones, maybe because the amount of time I have put into it. My growth in this project is easy to see, I now have to go back and rework illustrations as my skills have increased and parts of older illustrations bother me. In the middle I posted a screen shot of one of the characters, if you look closely you can see the one on the left is the corrected and the one on the right is the original I did months ago.

GRAPHIC DESIGN - Red Klay Logo

Red Klay is actually one of the first clients I've ever had as a Graphic Designer. Years ago I created a logo for them not knowing very much at all, just jumped into the project blind. Over a year later I learned that the logos I originally created were unable to be copyrighted. Although I didn't copy the designs, thinking back, those logos just weren't creative so I couldn't be too surprised. I felt really bad, the situation taught me that even if a client finds something I do to be adequate and is willing to pay for it, I should always put forth my best effort so I can be proud of Everything I create, its not ALL about the money :). I've become comfortable turning down jobs that I feel as if I can't put forth my best effort. The logos above are redesigns for my client, they decided to go with the middle one.

PHOTOGRAPHY - Summer 2010 - M I A M I

No long explanation is needed to explain my absence from updating my blog, I'm back now and its in my plans to keep it that way :). I have a few projects that I'll post for now, hopefully you all can enjoy and witness my growth as a Photographer, Illustrator, and Graphic Designer.

First I'll take you to Miami and show you some of my newest photography work. The lady above is Jessica, and its been a goal of mine to do a shoot on the beach for quite some time. There's nothing like shooting at the beach and I hope to have the pleasure many more times in my life.

*Biggest Regret* I did this shoot while wearing a polo for over 3hrs, I now have to battle my farmers tan the rest of the summer.

*Upcoming* This August I plan to buy photography lights to bring you all greater studio shots, its all about lightening...