Just a doodle with Studio Artists Presets that make the nicest cut paper like effects.

Several experiments with a torn paper look in Studio Artist

These were done without use of layers. This required some strategy. Choosing forms that started from bottom to top... As if actually layering pieces of paper.

Rough seas!

Beginning to get the hang of the style in SA. An experiment made with Studio Artist presets that make shapes resembling torn paper.

This was built in SA with layers. The layers saved as .PSD files, recomposed in Photoshop and shadows added.

Playing with looks for a Nursery Rhyme book

Playing with styles and layout.

A style test for a comic style piece to come.

The art was created with Expression3 (the last Mac version)

This software is essentially dead at the hands of Microsoft... But the old application still is unmatched for vector/bitmap hybrid art creation.

All of the brushes and textures that make up this art were created by me for various art projects. Many of the books illustrated for Starfall were created with E3.

A doodle with Studio Artist

This one using some of the interesting pattern filters to create a textured print like pattern for the fills.

A older doodle with Studio Artist

Playing with some natural media Presets.

IF: stretch

Tongue stretch to the max!

Retro - good or not?

Every time I look at what people are collecting as inspiration on blogs and other collective sites directed to illustrators and animators - I see "retro".
By retro - I mean art that is derivative of a style from 20 plus years ago. I am pretty certain this is what everyone means by "retro".
This tendency is both great and enjoyable - to me - looking at the works from my old adults viewpoint.
But also poses a question to me.
I would wonder.
Is this serving the audience(s) it is directed towards? Is this enriching? Is this call back to a visual vocabulary of the past more than just reviving an old visual language (or I should say and old visual slang- something timely in its day but eventually just anachronistic) that may or may not have hit home even when it was current. I feel that there truly is a lot of rich legacy in that old vocabulary. Lots to share. But then again maybe there is a more modern and effective way to communicate the same ideas (richness) with a visual vocabulary that is "now".
Everything we see in the form of illustration, art and the like has some derivation. Comes from some inspriration and some tested technique. Tapping in to some lovely technique can make for lovely art. But the more I am presented with georgeous technique, the more I yearn for substance (that should be) behind the technique.
Taking the inspiration and shaping it into a new look - a new vocabulary is a challenge.
A challenge I would want to direct at myself.

IF: tree

The view from up in a tree is always eye opening.

Created with the 2003 Mac version of Expression3 and Photoshop(fast color tinting)

IF: Crooked

Crooked torn edges.

IF: Tall

Characters from tall tails... tales!

IF: lost

Lost

Made With Studio Artist - experimenting with "drawing" that looks like torn out material.

IF: faded

Drab, faded clothes...

A character design color comp. This was made with Studio Artist

IF: Jump

Jump