The final product

Final stages of development

Revisiting the original sketch and a quick paint

Logo development part 2

NHS logo development

Weekly plan

I have decided that my weekly schedule is currently terrible. I have a huge volume of work to get through over the next 2 months due to the fact my self led brief is going to be pretty labour intensive (more on this soon).

To rectify this and ensure i don't go gibberingly mad here is the first of many weekly plans that will ensure i keep on top of things.

First attempt with a tablet and a few pointers (image is a trace and not original)

Righto then.
My repaired PC arrived laden with interesting software. Woot!
 Unfortunately there is no sound whatsoever due to an issue with the soundcard so i can't look at C4D tutorials which was what i had planned...

Sooooo... I decided to get the graphics tablet out and see whats what.
 As a short aside, i have had an unhealthy fear of this thing after 3 minutes playing with it when it arrived months ago but i have decided to persevere.

First things first, If you are worried about using one, don't. It isn't that hard to get used to.

 I decided to start light so twoc'd an image and a background off of google to trace. Don't start trying to just draw an original piece straight away, this will probably put you off for life. I then started tracing and was swearing and shouting in no time, but, and its a big but, this stress goes away pretty quickly.

My tips are:

1, Don't obsess over following lines exactly, this is stressful and not an issue. Cleaning up mistakes is so simple it hurts so just sketch away.

2, Get comfortable with your tablet in an easy position and stick with it. It is easier to move around the tablet than to keep moving the tablet (if you get what i mean)

3, If you dont like the lack of feel or if the stylus moves too easily put a piece of thin, plain paper down over the top. Can't express how much better this is so just try it.

4, Keep going. Don't keep 'rubbing out' lines you dont like as this leads to the dark side... Stress.
Just keep going, the aim is to get comfortable using the stylus, not creating an instant work of art (see above for proof of a crap first attempt).

I will be documenting my progress as im planning on doing an hour or so as often as possible along with my first attempts with a couple of other media.

The above image is a trace of work by 2 far better artists so it is not original at all.

Self Branding exercise

A quick crack at coming up with a logo for myself using my name and interests.

As i really like sci-fi art and technology i went for something that reflected this. I originally wanted to use a robot or piece of tech as an image to go with my name but this ended up appearing too cluttered detracted from the text.
 To get over this issue i simplified the image down to something resembling a crop circle which still keeps with my sci-fi theme and interests but is simple enough to not draw the eye too much.
 I used a stylised "c" within the crop circle to appear like a copyright symbol to suggest that my work will be original and not found elsewhere.

 Crop circles also have a sense of mystery and controversial which works well for this.

The top image is the simple version that i am going for. This means that it is easy to add to things like letterheads and business cards but also leaves open the opportunity to play with it for idents and future animations or updated versions.

 The second image is the result of abit of playing around on my part. It is not as visually successful as the first but shows what can be done to the logo for things like t-shirts etc.