cg zk magazine

8/9/2019 Cg Zk Magazine

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Art PortfolioSaint Xavier University

2007 - 2010

Zach Keke

The Works Of...


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Zach Kek

Table of Contents

Shoe on Fire............................... Future Beauty............................. Barns..........................................Impossible Possible...................Splaptoure.................................. The Unwanted Package.............


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Digital Photo04 | Spring 2007

Light DropletsControlling Dice


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6 | Zach Kekelik Compute

S HOE ON F IRE


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Computer Gra08 | Spring 2010

Craft:First, I had to take a picture,which I wanted to then turn intoan illustration. When thinkingof an idea for a unique way totake pictures of a shoe, the im-age of re came to mind. Afterlooking through a closet tryingto nd forgotten about shoes,I came across a ratty old pairof my dads shoes. I guredsince they had not been wornin a few years, whats the dif-ference if I burn them up? Also,the shoe was black, so I gured

this would help in capturing agood ame in the photograph. Iwaited until it was dark outsideso the ames would be more vis-ible. Then, I lled up a big buck-et of water for safety purposes.Next, I placed the shoe outsideon the concrete patio and moist-ened the shoe with just a

bit of lighter uid. Finally, I litthe shoe on re with a match.In order to make my illustration,I rst decided which picture Iwanted to make into an illustra-tion. After picking my favoritephotograph, I then started theprocess of working with Illustra-tor. In order for a picture to openup in the Illustrator program, thepicture and the illustration mustalways stay in the same folder.Then, I opened the Illustratorprogram and determined whatsize and what layout or orienta-

tion was best for the photograph.I chose a New Document andselected 11x17 (Tabloid) for pa-per size and landscape orienta-tion for layout. Next, to get thephoto into Illustrator, I went intoFile/Place which allows for thephoto to be in the program aslong as the photo is always in

the folder with the illustration.To start illustrating the photo,its a good practice to open Win-dows / Workspace / Essentials,this ensures all tools are set tothe default mode so everythingis how it always works. Then, Ienlarged and centered my pho-tograph in the middle of thepaper, holding Shift down somy image stayed in proportion.Next, I started drawing withthe Pen Tool by placing a dotaround the entire outline of oneshape of the shoe. I used the

Tear Off feature of the PenTool so I could easily add moreor less pen points. If I needed tomove the location of any of mypoints around the object, I usedthe Selection Tool and then theDirection Selection Tool. AfterI completed one object, I wouldchoose the color to Fill that

object using the EyedropperTool. Then, I decided I wantedthe line around the object to havea Stroke around it. The largewhite box is the Fill color, andthe box un-derneath withthe black linearound it isthe Strokecolor box. Af-ter all thesesteps were done with one object,it would become a Layer thatcould be viewed in the Lay-

ers Panel. When I completed agroup of layers that were all inone area, I Grouped the layers.In a complicated illustration,there will be hundreds of lay-ers and by grouping them intosmaller clusters it is much easierto manage all the layers. Once alayer is completed, a good hab-

B Y : Z ACH K EKELIK S HOE ON F IREit is to turn the layer invisible by clicking the Eye and thenlocking the layer by clickingthe Lock. While working onthe illustration, it is also essen-

tial that theartwork besaved aftera few layershave beencompleted.One way is

to go into File/Save or hit Com-mand + S on the keyboard. Forthis illustration, I started with

the shoe and then made the reand nally the background.The use of value is what I reallyfocused on, and I used the gra-dient, transparency, and opacitytools to do it. I used the gradi-ent tool on almost every part of the shoe in order to make thewrinkles and lighting appear

to be more lifelike. I had to addand remove different colors inthe gradient slider bar as wellas move the different colors upand down the sliders to makeeach section look as close to thereal picture as possible. Then,I used the transparency on allthe gradient layers to achieve amore realistic look. For the re,I used the feather stylizer withdifferent levels of harshness forevery level. This really helpedmake the re look more gas-like.I also created three different spin

offs of my rst illustration, andfollowing are the title and de-scriptions of them: Pic 1.) Shoeon Fire To nish my originalillustration, I spent most of mytime on the re and the back-ground just making nishingtouches. Pic 2.) Shoe #666Formy rst spin off, I decided to

Pic 1.) Shoe

I wanted to capture the spirit

of the re.


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Step 1 Step 2

Step 3 Step 4


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Computer Gr12 | Spring 2010

colors the same as my original, but I changed the brick brushand made the lines wavy. For the

shoe, I changedthe brush strokeinto such an ex-treme look thatthe illustrationtakes on an outof reality appear-ance. The most

interesting feature of this illus-tration is the re. I used an ef-fect called Roughen, which islocated under: Effects/Distort

& Transform/Roughen. I alsoadded a black brush stroke allthe way around each re layerto give the re a unique look that really captures the eye. Pic4.) Put that Shoe Out! For my

nal spin off illustration, I de-cided to add an extra image of a re extinguisher. I make the

re extinguisher by nding anactual image of Google, import-ing the picture into Illustrator,then tracing the actual picture,and nally making the wholeillustration of the re extin-guisher into one layer and drag-ging it into the shoe illustration.Composition:I knew with this type of picturethat time was of the essence in or-der to get as many shots as pos-sible before the shoe was entirely burned. For this reason, I put mycamera on continuous shooting

mode. I was most concernedabout capturing the greatestamount of pictures within theshortest period of time. I alsodid some testing before burningthe shoe, I used different modesettings on the camera like mo-tion and nighttime settings, Iplayed around with more and

less light directly on the shoe,and changed between with andwithout the ash. After ndinga good combination I was happywith, I lit the shoe on re. I juststarting taking as many picturesas I could because I knew mostwould be bad but a few would be great and the more picturesI took the better my chancesof getting a great photograph.In this illustration, the main fo-cus point is the contrast betweenthe dark shoe and the bright re.In order for this point of focus to

be enhanced, I chose colors witha much darker value for the shoeand colors with a much lightervalue for the re. Also, for theyellow and orange of the re, Ipicked colors with the highestamount of saturation as possible.I used the gradient feature themost, in order to make every

wrinkle in the shoe stand out. Iwanted the natural curves andoverlays of fabric from the actualphotograph to be represented inthe illustration. I also wanted the

different shadowing and light-ing, due to the ash on the cam-

era when taking the picture, to becharacterized in the illustration.For the re in the photograph, Iwanted to make my best repre-sentation by adding many differ-ent color layers on the re. Witha lot of different combinationsof colors, layers, and featheringtechniques, the re is now much

more elaborate. I started withonly three base layers: orange,yellow, and white. Then I juststarted to make a lot of smallerlayers with different variationsof these three colors and putthem on top of the base layers.The three different spin off illus-trations had different techniqueswithin them. This is a little more background on the spin offs.Pic. 2) I wanted this illustrationto really convey darkness anddevil-like characteristics. Forthis reason, I decided to make

the whole image mostly black.Also, I wanted some subtlety, soI added the image of the devilsface very lightly into the top partof the re, along with the pitch-fork. The changing of the colorsof the re from real life to greenand purple was a way for meto convey a different meaning

make my illustration into a dark devilish picture. I changed the background to almost all black and makethe bricksin the back-ground dif-ferent by us-ing a threelined brush.I then tracedthe outlines of the shoe using adifferent brush from the brushlibrary. This made the shoe look more like it was drawn with a

pencil. Finally, I changed the col-ors of the re to green, blue, andpurple and added a devils faceand pitchfork to the design. Pic3.) Snap, Crackle, Shoe Whenmaking my second version of my illustration, I started to playaround with different Illustra-tor effects. I left the background

Pic 2.) Shoe #666 Pic 3.) Snap, Crak

The concept inthis illustration

was sound.

I wanted the audience to get

the shivers.


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Computer Gr14 | Spring 2010

through the re. Pic. 3) I want-ed this illustration to have thesame colors and features of theoriginal, but I wanted to changethe reality form really life tooutside reality. Using different brush strokes from the libraryreally helped accomplish a moredrawn or cartoonish look. Also, by using the Roughen effect,the re took on a life of its own.The re in this picture is moreof a sound effect, like crack-ling and popping, which reallychanges from the warm glow of the original re. Pic. 4) This pic-ture was made more to changethe original illustration in a com-

pletely different way. By addingthe re extinguisher, the idea of the picture changes from a shoeon re to ghting the re of theshoe in order to put the re out.Concept:With pic.1). I wasmore fo-cused onwhat thef l a m ew o u l dlook like than how the shoelooked. The shoe was basically ameans to get the ame involvedin this photograph. Also, it isvery rare that someone sees a

shoe burning on re; I wantedthis factor to add a real shock value to the viewer. The mainobjective was to surprise theviewer with something that is

not seen ev-ery day, whileat the sametime captur-ing an awe-some looking

ame shot.The reason

I made this photograph andturned it into an illustration is because I wanted to capturethe spirit of the re in a waythat was unlike any other re

Pic 4.) Put that Shoe Out!

I decided to add an extra image of a

re extinguisher.

or ame I had previously seen.The re in this particular illus-tration is one that almost runsahead of itself, instead of sim-ply rising up in the air like nor-mal. This action of sprinting infront of itself is the same thinga shoe does everyday it is onits owners foot. It goes aheadof itself with every step, and sothere is a parallel between the

re and the essence of the shoe.Simply put, this illustration is,Shoe on Fire. There is a uniquething about re because of theway it moves when somethingis burning. The essence of the

re is what I am really trying

to capture, along with makingthe shoe look as real as possible.The combination of the shoeand the re is not a usual occur-rence, and it is what makes thisillustration really eye catching.The concepts behind the differ-ent spin off illustrations are alla little different and have theirown meanings. Pic. 2) The mes-sage I was creating in this illus-tration was one of a devil com-ing out of the re of the shoe. Iwanted the audience to get theshivers when they rst lookedat this picture. I also wanted thedevil to be subtle so only thosewho have enough courage to

take a close up look at the piture will be able to really see thdevil. Pic 3.) The concept in tillustration was sound. I wantethe sound of the re to real be conveyed through the use brushes and effects. With the usof these elements, the re allowthe audience to use another onof their senses, sound. So wisight and sound, this illustratiois really inviting for the audence. Pic. 4) The meaning of tillustration is turning this image into one of re and chaning it into one of putting ou

re. I wanted to do a comple180 in the ideas of re to no


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Future Beauty


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Future BeautyCraft:The rst step in this process wasto think up an idea that I had feel-ings about and something I couldmake a cool picture out of. The ideathat struck me as interesting andcontroversial at the same time wasone of beauty. I was on cnn.comand clicked on a story about a newcream that makes a womans eye-lashes grow really long, this got methinking. Nowadays, it seems every-

one is getting some kind of unnatu-ral physical enhancement. This ledme to the topic of my project arti-

cial beauty of the future. So afterI had thought of my idea, I tried tothink of a way to convey a story inthe form of a photo. I decided to ndsome props around my house andmade a bit of a pink screen instead

of a green screen. I asked my girl-friend to be my model and startedto take pictures. I took some closeup pictures of her face as well as alot of different poses of her with allthe props acting as the little beautyphysicians. I started with all thephotos I took during week ve. Ilooked at all of them and pickedout certain ones thatI liked and would twell in the composi-

tion of my image. Thebackground of my piece was a largephoto of a face. Before I chose thespeci c picture, I opened Photoshopand made a new blank document. Ichose a 11x17 page with 300 reso-lution. Then, I imported the back-ground picture and sized it accord-ingly. Next, I started to cut out the

images I wanted to put in my pic-ture. I mostly used the magic wandtool to select the little beauty physi-cians. I also used the mask to makesure I selected everything I wanted.I did the same thing for all fourbeauty physicians. Then, I importedall of them onto the background andresized them. After I placed them

where I wanted them to be,I added shadows on all of them to make it look more

realistic. Then, I startedworking on the highlights of the faceby making each aspect a new layer.This gave me the ability to movethe layer around on the backgroundimage as well as not make perma-nent marks on the background layer.These are most of the techniquesI used to complete my rst draft.

By : Z ach KeKeliK

Composition:In order to achieve my message Ihad to arrange the photo in a waythat made the ideas simple and easyto understand. I decided to make thebackground of the photo one sideof a natural human face. Then, onthis face will be futuristic beautyphysicians working. These beautyphysicians are little clones of theindividual that is being beauti ed.These clones are miniature and willbe all over the face accomplishingdifferent tasks, i.e. applying make-up, whitening teeth, enhancing eyecolor, etc. The important part of mypicture is making sure that the beau-ty physicians can be seen, and it canbe easily understood what they aredoing. The main element of the im-age, at rst, is the large right side of a face. As you look closer, you areable to see little mini beauty phy-sicians xing certain areas of thispersons face. There is one chang-ing the eye color, one covering up

a pimple, one applying blush, andone whitening the persons teeth.All of the little physicians are indifferent parts of the face so thatthey all can be easily seen and whatthey are doing can be easily under-stood. I chose 11x17 paper size sothat these workers could be seen indetail and would not be overlooked.Concept:One sentence of what I am tryingto say would be, If science contin-ues to test new boundaries and thewant for arti cial physical enhance-ment grows, then what unethicalextremes are humanscapable of reaching toaccomplish these goals.As I started to thinkabout all these new scien-ti c technologies used toimprove ones physical appearance,I also thought about how science istesting new ethical questions thesedays - such as cloning. I re ectedon these two situations and thought;

what if in the future these twothings meet up and become one?What if in future arti cial beautyimprovement techniques involvedindividual personalized peoplewhich did all the work for each cli-ent and what if these workers wereactually little clones of the personwho wanted these beauty improve-ments? This is my idea and what Iwill try to convey to my audience.This image entitled, Beauty of theFuture, was created as a responseto all of the new and sometimescontroversial ideas of beauty en-

hancement. With all of the new technology andscienti c discoverieshow far will people goto change themselves?Will at one-point indi-

viduals put super small organismson their face to make them lookgood? How far is too far? Theseare the issues and thoughts thatI want this very image to raise *

Beauty Physicians

Beauty

of the Future

18 | Spring 2009 Visual Com


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Barns


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Digital Photog22 | Spring 2007

Craft:These photographs were part of my nal project for digital pho-tography class during freshmanyear. I decided to pick the topicof barns because, where I live,I see barns quite often. I reallylike the barns because when Ilook at a barn, I wonder aboutall the history behind it. I es-pecially like the really old ones;the ones that look abandon andabout to crumble to the ground.The way in which I went aboutcompleting this assignment was

rst to nd some of my favor-ite barns to photograph. AfterI had chosen a few of my favor-ites, I had to wait until there wasnice weather so I could get somegood quality pictures. When Iarrived at a barn, I took as manypictures as I could. I would takepictures of everything; the moreI took the more I would have towork with for my project. AfterI had taken photographs of nu-merous barns, I started to work with them in Adobe Photoshop.I would rst make a backgroundcopy layer of the picture, andthen I would start to make adjustments. I would make adjust-ments to both the barn and the background by selecting the areaI wanted to adjust with the lassotool. After I had an area select-

ed, I would make adjustmentssuch as: curves, exposure, color balance, hue/saturation and brightness/contrast. After I had

nished a photograph, I wouldthen save it as a nal draft. Af-ter all the photos were nished,I then printed them out and putthem into a binder in order topresent them to my classmates.Composition:For this array of artworks, Iwanted to get a wide variety of compositions. I de nitely want-ed to have a few general photosof the overall barn, so that thetotal barn could be seen andrepresented in its fullest. AfterI had photographed the overallspirit of the barn I then got intothe details of each barn. I want-ed to get up close to the uniqueparts of each barn. For a few of the barns thismeant that Iwent insideof them; forthe others, Igot up closeto the out-sides and looked for interestingcharacteristics. After I had ac-complished these two objectives,overall and detailed, I startedmy third and nal compositionmove, abstract. Finally, I lookedfor ways to use the barns as an

abstract concept within the en-tire frame of the photograph. Iespecially used the background,such as the sky and ground, inorder to ll up much of the frameinstead of the barn taking up theentire frame. By using thesethree composition techniquesI was able to really capturethe total essence of each barn.Concept:The concept behind this groupof photographs was trying toput the barns, which have now become outdated and unused, back into the spotlight one lasttime. I wanted to put the barnson display even though, in real-ity, they are just not being usedor even rotting away to noth-ing. I also wanted the audienceto get the same feeling of won-der that I did when I saw these

barns. WhenI look at thesep h o t o g r a p h smy mind startsracing, thinkingabout all the sto-ries that revolve

around these barns. I wonderabout how and when they were built, what was stored in them,what went on in the elds aroundthem, who used them and soon. Hopefully, you will get thesame enjoyment out of them *

...the stories that revolve around

these barns.

B y : Z ach K eKeliK


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Digital Photog26 | Spring 2007


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28 | Spring 2007 Digital Pho


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30 | Spring 2007 Digital Ph


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32 | Spring 2007 Digital Pho


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34 | Zach Kekelik Computer

IMPOSSIBLE P OSSIBLE


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Visual Commu36 | Spring 2009

IMPOSSIBLE P OSSIBLE

Craft:Combine two pictures together. Theproject for week 3 was to mash upan old photo of Lincoln from theInternet with a new photo I had per-sonally taken of the current era. Inorder to start this project, I neededto find or take a picture that I want-ed to put Abe into. I looked at allthe photos that I already had takenthroughout the years and I did not find any that I liked. So, I decided to

take a picture for a specific reason, toconvey the message I wanted withinthe mash up. I took a picture of my dad by the computer in order to ac-complish the new picture aspect.Then, I started looking through my contact sheet of the Lincoln photos.I found a few pictures where Lin-colns head was looking in the direc-

tion I wanted. Then I opened boththe new and old pictures in Photo-shop. I selected Lincolns head withthe magic wand tool and then copiedand pasted it into a blank Photoshopdocument. From there, I zoomed inand took my time to erase everything around Lincolnshead. Then, I copiedand pasted Lincolnshead into the photoof my dad. I then

had to resize Lin-colns head in orderto get the proper look of realism.Finally, I lowered the saturation of both pictures down to zero in orderto achieve a black and white photo.During our first critique, I receivedsome good comments, which helpedme while I worked during the week.

The main issue I wanted to improve was the neck area around Lincolnscollar. In order to accomplish this,I copied and pasted a portion of the shirt collar from another pictureonto the Lincoln photo. By doing this, I was able to put the portion of

the imported collar on topof Lincolns neck so that it looked clean and neat. Also,I lightened up the image of Obama on the laptop screen

so it would pop a bit more.Finally, I changed my image

size in Photoshop under image -image size I made sure the: Resa-mple Image, Constrain Proportionsand Scale Style boxes were checkedand that the Resolution was 300.Then, I changed the Document Size to as close as I could to 11x17.

B Y : Z ACH K EKELIK

+

=Composition:In my photograph, I wanted twomain elements to be seen: 1) AbeLincoln in front of the computer2) A computer with an image of Barack Obama on it. The picturethat I took of my dad had a lot of empty space around the edges. So,I cropped the pictures so that theimage was full of the two subjects Ihad in the photo. I also wanted tomake Lincoln the main focus of thepicture because of the assignment sothat is why he is larger and his face isthe first thing your eye is drawn to.The two elements of Lincoln and thelaptop were in a pretty good order,so I did not have to work too muchon making adjustments. Lincolnis in the foreground and is the big-ger of the two images, which makeshim the first thing your eye catches.

The laptop with President Obamasimages on it is in the background.

Also, because I lightened up the im-age on the laptop, your eye will travelstraight from Lincolns head towardsthe image of Obama, which is theorder I wanted the two men to beseen in: Lincoln first, then Obama.

Concept:My main message in this photographis two individuals that have ratified a nation at two very different time peri-ods. This picture is meant to signify change, past and present. Lincoln isnow sitting in my current era, looking at how change has come to America in 2009. One aspect which I really

like about the picture is the directionof both Abes face and Obamas face.It looks like both men are starring off toward the right hand direction. Thisphoto signifies that both men havechanged America in some way; now they are thinking - looking into thefuture, to see who or what will be thenext big change in America. Theseare two men that have totally changed

Americas thoughts and ideas. Also,this picture symbolizes how Lincoln,if he was alive t oday, would (my per-sonal opinion) be very interestedand inspired by Obama and what it means to have elected an African

American President. He would beinspired in the same way Obama hasbeen very interested and inspiredby Lincoln throughout his way tothe presidency. I have named thePhotograph - Impossible Possible *

Mash up of

old & new.

Change in America.


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M aking S tyle


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40 | Spring 2010

M aking S tyle Craft:In order to make my artwork, I usedAdobe Illustrator. Within this pro-gram, I was able to use the drawingtablet connected to the computer in order to draw freehand onto thecomputer screen. I started to createthese pieces of art by rst openingIllustrator and opening a new printdocument. I chose to use letter size

paper 8.5x11. I wanted the orienta-tion of the paper to be portrait for

the bottle illustrations and then Ichanged the orientation to landscapefor the candy illustrations. Startingwith a blank page I rst created about10 layers in the layers window andthen grouped 9 of them into the toplayer. I then labeled each layer, i.e.outside lines, product name, stylelines, color, touch up. This made

each illustration easier to work on because every layer was preset for me, creating a smooth work owthroughout each illustration be-cause every illustration looked ex-actly the same in the layers window.

Next, I would open the brushes win-dow and go into the brushes libraryand open Hand Drawn Brushes/Vec-tor Pack and Artistic/Ink brushes.Then, I wouldget the bottle

or candy thatI was going todraw and setit on the tablein front of me.To start eachdrawing I would use the paintbrushtool and use the 3 pt. round presetwith no ll and a black stroke. I

would use the drawing tablet andtablet pen, then I would click on the

rst layer of the group and then drawa rough outline of the product. After the outlines were nished I wouldclick on the second layer and startthe inside lines. Then, I would starton a new layer, and I would drawthe letters of the name or the logoon the product. Every individual

piece had an in-dividual layer.

This allowedme to have alot of controlon each indi-vidual piece of the illustration.

After all the drawing was complet-ed, I would choose any layers that Ithought I might want to keep white

By : Z ach KeKeliK

My style usessplatters of color to capture the image.


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Computer Gra

in order for them to be readable on

the nished image. I would thentake all of these layers and make acopy of them. Then, I would changethe copied layer(s) to 2pt. oval pre-set with no ll and a white stroke.

Next, I would select every layer,except the white oval ones I just

changed, and then transform theminto the Hand Drawn Brush style.

Next, I would move the white ovallayers on top of all the black hand

drawn lines so they would be vis-ible. If the white 2 pt. oval couldnot be easily read, then I would usethe brush tool and draw behind thewhite with the black Hand DrawnBrush. Then, I would go to the col-or layer and start using the Ink DropBrush to create the color in the il-lustration. I would use anywhere

from 2 pt. to 10 pt. size of drops

in order to cover the entire image.After that I lled the whole imagewith ink drops, I would use the color

picker and color guide to choose thecolor that best matched the product.Finally, I would save my image andthen get started on the next one.

Composition:Although I am a really bad drawer on paper, by using the tablet and veryrough outline edges and letters I was

was able to cover up my poor draw-ing ability by converting my smallround lines into Hand Drawn

brush strokes. The Hand Drawn brush makes the overall object look very good and gives it an artisticfeel. Due to my own personal abili-ties, I did not want my nal illustra-tions to look professional like or an

exact replica of the product. I

ed a nal image that had abcharacteristics. The reason I

bottles and candy was becaurst assignment was to create a

sonal style using 5 different thI thought it would be easy for get ve different bottled drinks

the cafeteria in a short time fI wanted each bottle to be a dent shape and have a differenored liquid inside of it. This

each illustration could be diffin terms of style of bottle and of liquid. After my style was lished, I created 10 illustratio

bottles. I then wanted to comaking illustrations but wandifferent product. Thus, I with candy; I used the same style and created 10 more ill


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44 | Spring 2010

tions with candy and candy bars.I wanted the scale of these illustra-tions to be large in order to ll theentire page with color. So the bot-tles had to take up a lot of the paper

because the only color that would be on the paper was the black fromthe brush strokes and the color fromthe ink drops. For these reasons, Idecided on letter paper size 8.5x11

because this size of paper could befull and the bottle image would bealmost the same size on paper as inreal life. I decided to use the Ink Drop brush to apply color becauseit works hand in hand with the char-acteristics of liquids. When the liq-uid is poured out of a bottle, the rstthing that hits the ground is a drop,then more drops, and nally every

bit of liquid poured hits the groundrst as a drop. I gured this would

be a great way to put color on my il-lustrations, like I was using drops of the actual liquid of the bottle pouredonto my illustration to color it.I wanted the outside lines to be asdark black as possible, and then Iwanted the color of the ink dropsto be very bright. The contrast be-

tween the dark outside lines withthe light color drops really creates avivid appearance of the liquid col-or. Because I used an Ink Drop

brush, the colors were a little bitlike the watercolors. I really had to

play with the hue and saturation of each color in order to make it look like the actual color of the product.

Concept:This style of illustrating was some-thing that I had to rst conceptual-ize in my mind before I could startdrawing anything on the computer.I wanted the images to look like Idrew them by hand. The name of my style is Splaptoure and therules of my style are as follows. My

rst rule was of the subject matter,every picture had to be of a plastic

bottle or type of candy. My sec-ond rule was using only the HandDrawn Brushes Vector Pack for every outside line. My third rulewas to only use the Ink Drop

brush in the Artistic Brushes setand only one color within each en-tire artwork. The name of my style,Splaptoure, comes from two wordscombined, splatter and capture.

The reason for this word is becausemy style uses splatters of color inorder to capture the image. I feel,

by being so basic in my rules thatmy style is really easy to identify.When I developed my style I want-ed it to be really apparent so that nomatter who saw my pictures theywould quickly be able to under-

stand the style. I felt that the moresimple the style, the easier it would

be recognized and the more fun Iwould be able to have when I wascreating the artwork. Within theseimages of plastic bottles and candy,I wanted the message to be about

bright colors. I also wanted theviewer to immediately know whateach images was. For these reasons,I only incorporated enough infor-mation from each bottle and each

piece of candy so that the type of product would be distinguishable.One part of my style which I hadto work on a little was something

that was broughtup in a group cri-tique. In one of my original veillustrations, thecap of the bottlewas left whitewhile all the restwhere colored

in. The one with the white capstood out and looked different thanthe others. Therefore, I decided tochange my other four illustrationsto have white caps as well. I liked

the overall theme of the illustra-tions better with the white caps soI kept white caps as another rulein my style. Consequently, every

bottle illustration has white caps.For the candy illustrations there wasno good way to incorporate a white

part into every candy image, so I leftthat rule out for those illustrations *

Rules:1.) Subject Matter

2.) Hand Drawn Brushes 3.) Ink Drop Color


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Visual Commun46 | Spring 2009

Craft:To think of and develop a story that involves three situations; 1.)A per-son waiting 2.)A person traveling 3.)A package. When we started thisproject, we were given the option toeither work with a partner or work by ourselves. The class voted on part-

ners so the first step was to choosea group mate. After we all had part-ners, the next step was to brainstormon a story. For a week, my partnerand I bounced ideas off each other.

We came up with a story and wrote it down on paper. During our first classback from spring break, we told ourstories to the rest of the class. The

next step is to create photos that cantell our story through pictures only,no text. The week before this assign-ment, my partner and I had drawnout our comic strip on paper in orderthat we had a clear idea of what typesof pictures we needed to take. After

we have established the places and

situations that we needed to photo-graph, we tried to get the pictures. Inclass, we talked about different waysto describe color, such as: Hue, Satu-ration, Value, Primary, Complimen-tary. We also talked about the color

wheel and the difference between warm and cold colors. So, this week we had to make our whole comic

only using two colors. The first step was to make the background layer a normal layer. Then, we had to makea new layer with a really dark color.Next, we had to multiply the photoin order for the color to be seen inthe photo. The last step was to makea sandwich of layers, top-photo/mid-

dle-color layers/bottom-dark univer-sal color layer. In order to changethe colors of all our pictures, we first had to make layers for ea ch color we

were going to use. Each picture hada different amount of layers becauseeach photo had different areas tocolor. Then, we could use the brushand eraser tool to color the picture.

Composition:The story that my partner and I cre-ated was about a love affair. Theperson waiting is a man in his mid20s. The women traveling is a busi-ness woman around the same ageas the man. The package is a boxthat the man is waiting to give her at a restaurant where they are to meet.The reason that these two individu-als know each other and are meeting again is because they had a one night stand about a month ago. After the

woman went home, the man gave hera call and told her he had something that he had to give her. The picturesfor this story are focused around theairport, a restaurant, and the manshouse. In order to convey the mes-sage, the pictures must have certaincharacteristics in them. A major fo-cus must be on the two individualsfaces. Their expressions will tell a lot of information to the viewer and willhelp the viewer get a sense of how

the story is playing out. In order tocomplete this assignment, we need-ed to use filters on each of our pho-tos. The filter that we decided to use

was the graphic pen filter. We alsodecided that in order to make it look more like a comic strip, we wouldmake the photos black and white.In the end, we would like to color

the background purple and the twocharacters as well as all of the key ele-ments yellow. In order to effectively accomplish this assignment, we hadto use one color as the backgroundand foreground and the other coloras a marker for important content.

We chose to use purple as the back-g r o u n dand fore-g r o u n dc o l o rb e c a u s eit wasdark and

w o u l dmake the other color pop. Thesecond color we chose was yel-low. Yellow worked very well be-cause it is high contrast to purple.By using these two colors effec-tively, we were able to make thepeople and important objects standout from the rest of the photos.Concept:

The concept of this story is to bring up a serious conversation but by do-ing it in a funny way. The ending isfunny but is a very real and seriousproblem that people have to deal

with. After someone reads this sto-ry through our pictures a topic willbe brought up and this story actsas a icebreaker for a more serious

situation. The pictures that we havetaken are of the models and in theplaces where they need to be. Forthese pictures, there will not need tobe any Photoshopping of the peopleand places. A few other pictures that

we will use will have to be where themodel is Photoshopped into a photo

of another placeor background.This project isdifferent thanother assignmentsbecause of thepartner element.My partner and I

can bounce ideas off of each other,and if we need help with problemsin photoshop, we can ask each otherand figure them out together. Alsoin our picture, I am in the pictures,and James took the pictures, sothat makes for an easy way for usto get the assignment done. Thesephotographs are meant to convey a

steady progression of events lead-ing to a humorous final scene. Thisfinal scene is meant to come as a surprise to the audience. The pro-gression of events depict a not toout of the ordinary situation, but once the final scene is viewed, thereis a sense of comedy as well as se-riousness and a bit of grossness *

B y : J ames K line & Z ach K eKeliK

A Package A Person Waiting

A Person Traveling


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Digital Photo 54 | Spring 2007

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