Custom Blanka Fight Stick

     I want to start this post by briefly stating that I'm not sure exactly what my goal for this blog is yet. For the time being I want to keep my personal and freelance projects separate, but in the future I see it being a combination of all my work. So far I've only posted "final versions" of projects, but for the next few post's I'm going to show my process. I spent this past week working on freelance, but now that I have some free time it's back to my own projects.  

     My brother's favorite Street Fighter character is Blanka, and he wants to customize his arcade fight stick for his Xbox. This seemed like a good opportunity for a fun project so I'm creating some custom artwork for his controller. I'm not sure if he'll end up using my art, but it gives me a fun project to work on. Plus it will be good practice for when I customize MY controller in the future.

 

 

     This is a cleaned up sketch I drew of Blanka.  It's actually a combination of different sketches pieced together. I'm out of practice so getting the pose, proportions, and line-work was difficult. I referenced some other Street Fighter art (in particular Zangief for some reason) to help me get things looking correct.

     I added some color to my sketch to help me figure out my composition moving forward. This is NOT the final version of Blanka. It's simply my starting point. 

 

     This is the basic template for the fight stick. It's a Mad Catz Tournament Edition layout that was originally released with Street Fighter IV. I found a graphic of Blanka's original stage from Street Fighter II, and used it for the background of this custom art with a monochromatic green effect. I also downloaded a fan-made Street Fighter IV font to label the buttons. The main texture behind Blanka's stage looks like a marble at first glance, but it's actually leaves.

 

     This is currently where I'm at in the process. I added my Blanka to the layout to see how things were looking. I also added some controller elements that I photographed. I changed the color of the buttons in Photoshop to match what the final colors will be. My next step is to focus on Blanka, and color him "for real". Then I need to figure out what other elements I want to add to the composition. Right now it's still needs something else.

Blog Banner Exercise

   I stumbled upon this tutorial and decided to create a banner for my blog.

http://designinstruct.com/graphic-design/text-effects/create-a-dark-grunge-3d-text-scene-in-photoshop/

    Here is my final version. For the most part I did not stray from the steps in the tutorial, with the exception of creating my text shapes in Illustrator. I also omitted the gradient map adjustment layer on step 18. I wanted to retain the black background to match my blog.

 

   While this was a good quick photoshop exercise for me, I hope to come up with an original banner design in the future.

New Logo!!!

     My project for this weekend was to update/create a new logo for myself. I've been sketching this idea out on napkins, bills, post-it notes, and any other scrap piece of paper for awhile now. This weekend I finally decided to work through the design, and resolve the issues I had with it. After a lot of work, and many revisions that all started looking the same, I finally ended up with something that I liked.

   

     The foundation of this logo is essentially an abstract combination of the letters that spell out my first name, R-A-Y. The "R" is on the left side, the "A" is on the right, and the Y is at the bottom. It's not meant to be obvious so don't feel bad if you can't see it. I'm not set on colors yet, but I'm leaning towards a black and orange color palette. These colors would symbolize my birthday, which just so happens to be on Halloween. Plus I like the idea of a bright orange grabbing someone's attention. I also like that the design is pointing up. It sort of makes me feel like things are heading in the right direction.

 

 

     I'm planning on digitizing this logo for embroidery later this week, and hopefully I can get it sewn on a beanie sooner rather than later. Since I no longer have immediate access to an embroidery machine it may take some time.

    

     Overall, I'm happy with my new logo, and I'm looking forward to leaving my mark. 

First post! This is mostly a test.

 

     Welcome to my very first blog post! I've recently rediscovered some of my old Marvel cards that I collected as a kid. The artwork was very influential to me growing up, and everything I know about the Marvel Universe stems from these collections. Instead of putting them back in storage I decided to put them on display for easy access. The blank generic binders were boring so I created labels for each card series.

 

 

     I tried to stay true to the design of each series. In some cases I was able to match the font, but there were instances where I had to recreate the type in Illustrator. I also incorporated images from the packaging, and created vector versions of logos that didn't scan properly because of their reflective foil stamp. Some labels turned out better than others, but in general I'm happy with the end result.