Art Deco Posters!

Towards the end of last year, the company I was working with ran a competition to win a trip to Rio for the annual carnival. I was asked to create promotional artwork to be used on the social media accounts.
We had many different styles which we used, but the 'art deco' was my favourite. Researching the different types and seeing old posters from decades ago was really inspiring and interesting to see how design has changed and how well executed the posters were.

None of these images were used for the campaign, but they were by far my best out of all the ones created. I really learned a lot from doing them and got a new appreciation for the applications used.

Swamp B*tch, Framed Beauty and Angry Mexican!

Working in a corporate environment has really pushed me to seek creative release by any means necessary. Anything to break away from the monotony of doing the same thing countless times, all day and trying my hardest not to die of complete boredom. Luckily, I keep paper and a pen handy, while waiting for my work computer (which is horribly slow) or during breaks, I sketch and doodle as much as I can. 

The past few weeks I've had a lot of fun doodling and just putting random ideas from my head onto paper. These three were the ones that made it past the traditional and into the digital.

I drew the swamp creature first, and I liked it so much that I wanted to do more.

Then I created the Victorian princess in the frame and lastly, because I was told I draw too many woman, I made the angry Mexican.

All in all, I'm pretty happy with them. I'd honestly love to elaborate on them and give them a full page worth of detail, but I just don't have the time or the resources - still looking to get myself a decent graphics tablet.

Until I do, these will have to do :)

Instagram Sketch Uploads Pt.2!

Doodling is definitely my favourite thing to do - ever! 

Give me an exam pad and a pen and I'll be lost for hours, generally with boobs or faces.

So this is the second post I've done based on things I doodle and then upload to Instagram.

The zombie one was scary for me to colour. I usually just stop with the pen, but had highlighters sitting right next to me and I just had to experiment. I haven't had the balls to do it again, so I'll leave the rest as is for now.

Why Is Everyone A Bully?

So lately, I've been noticing something which I rather hate about the internet.
Cyber bullying.
Yes, it's been there for ages and it probably wont go away by me just writing down a few words on this blog which probably won't get many views, but I felt I needed to vent. Facebook is definitely not the place and Twitter only allows 140 characters, so here I am, writing this post to any bully out there.

Working in a design and media industry, I'm always online and always looking for people doing things that are different and innovative. Take music for an example.
Let's say Sarah What's-her-face releases a new music video for a song she has worked her ass off perfecting, costing thousands to create a visual representation of her dream, giving her fans exactly what they want while still staying true to herself. Good for Sarah. She is doing what all of us wish we could do - pursue our dreams!
She uploads it and the comments spill in.
This is where I get confused with society.
Who the hell do people think they are crushing the dreams of something special to someone?
Why must people hate on something they don't like?
Why don't they promote and give praise to the type of thing they like, instead of saturating the comments with hate?
If I like Sarahs music, I'll give it a 'like', maybe a comment on what I enjoyed the most and watch her grow, filled with motivation to be better at what she does.
If I don't like it, I move on to something I do like. Hating on her will not increase my 'cool factor'. It just shows the world how much of a douche-bag I can be.

The same goes for movies. I love movies, especially horror movies - there really is nothing better than a frighteningly good horror. The problem is that sometimes Hollywood gets it horrifyingly wrong, but that's the case with horror movies. You either hit the nail on the head with a perfect movie, or you miss and end up with a swollen thumb. Nothing wrong with that, because once again, that's just my opinion.
The writers, directors and producers all believed in their production and therefore it's obviously just not for me, so I move on to something that is better fitting.
Why take time out of your day to track down their website or Twitter and hate on them for something they invested a good portion of their lives into. It's not going to change anything and you'll just be upsetting someone. Does it feel good being a bully? Really, because I'd like to know.

The way things should work is like this:
I recently watched a movie which I found to be brilliant! Seriously, it was good. I don't know why or how, but I really lost myself with this movie. After watching it, I looked up it's website and learnt more about it, shared my opinion with my friends and recommended it to colleagues.
By sharing something good, more like-minded people will get to experience and enjoy what you have, and so on. This is what we need more of.

So yeah, that's me venting. I hope by reading this you might think before posting your next comment. Think of how your comment could affect the person who receives it. Think also about what the world is going to think of you reading your comment, keeping in mind that your comment is your first impression to the world.

Inspirational E-cards!

 Creating E-cards for work really makes you research the different types there are out there, and Pinterest is the best place to find loads of them, good and bad.
Along with the many I created for work, these were a few I did for personal use, using photos I got from Jessie-Lee. Brilliant photos! After being dipped into a few Photoshop filters, this was the result.
I hope to do more for my blog soon - if I can find the time.

Quotes:
Change Is The Law Of Time - John F. Kennedy
Freedom Lies In Being Bold - Robert Frost
Everything You Can Imagine Is Real - Pablo Picasso
Stop Holding Yourself Back - Unknown

Uncharted Nathan Drake!

Without a doubt, Uncharted is one of the best game series in history. I recently finished playing the third game which blew my mind to pieces. The graphics and fluid movements are flawless, while the storyline is so unbelievably awesome, it's hard to not like.
Anyway, I was browsing around on Pinterest and I came across an image that Patrick Brown had created based on the game, and ever since that day, he has become my idol. The man has some mad skills!
Going through his DeviantArt gallery, I saw many sketches which he had never brought to inking, so I downloaded an image of Nathan, and with the help of my awesome new tablet at work (seriously, this thing rocks my socks) I started at it.
I began with lowering the opacity of his sketch and tracing over my outlines in a new layer, then I added inks, highlights, shadows, lighting effects, mud, and background image, which is a concept image from the third game, and finally corrected the colour.
One thing which was rather frustrating, was that my tablet displayed colours very differently to my monitor. I spent about an hour just fixing up colours. I obviously need to calibrate my tablet correctly.
So after an entire afternoon, my Nathan Drake picture is complete!

Oh, and I would love it if someone would be kind enough to sponsor me a tablet of my own, they're only R29 000 :) Guess I'd better start saving.

Doodles and Sketches - Instagram!

It has been a long time since I posted something new.

Time has been extremely tight trying to manage a social life and working 6 days a week, and still squeeze in some of what I love doing - drawing.

At work, while prowling the internet for inspiration, I keep an exam pad in front of me, and just doodle whenever I get the urge to put pencil to paper. Some days it's utter garbage, just swirls and scratches, but some days I end up with something I'm pretty proud of.

The images above are a few that I liked and uploaded to Instagram. It's a lot easier to snap a pic and upload with a fitting hashtag to showcase my work, than doing an entire blog post, but I love my blog and I don't want it to die out in some lonely, dark corner of the internet, so I will do a post whenever I can if the art is worthy.

I also wish I was brave enough to ink my own work again. I miss spending hours on photoshop colouring in a sketch. Maybe one day, when I have the time and willpower, I'll break out the scanner and get back into it, until then, my quick sketches at work keep me happy.

Follow me on Instagram: @Keith_Mark

Sexy Brunette With Corset!

So, I finally got around to completing this image today, when the net was conveniently down at work for an hour. I grabbed my tablet, opened my .PSD and zoned out.

There have been a few changes since the last post. For one, she's now a brunette, and not a blonde, and her corset is a grey instead of pink. I decided the 'bubblegum pop princess' was not the route I wanted to use in colouring this one.

As stated before, the lineart is not mine and belongs to Elias Chatzoudis. He's a brilliant artist, and I love his style. All of his pin-ups are amazing, and I hope to one day be half as good as he is.

REMEMBER: Open the images to see full detail.

Slowly Finding Time To Update!

I started this image two weeks ago. Again, the lineart is not mine, although I wish I had time to create my own. The original can be found here.

As most of my posts are, she's a semi-naked woman with massive honkers. Just a personal preference of how I like to create them.
I'm slowly finding the time to squeeze in some work on it here and there, but as you can see from the image above, I have my flats down, and have started highlights and shadows on the face, neck, hair and chest.

Hopefully she'll be complete by next week. I'm thinking of also changing the pink. It all seems a little too "Girl-next-door" for my liking.

Nicki Minaj, Katy Perry & Juliet Harding (GOODLUCK) Characters!

So, one day, while completely bored at work of creating emoticons, I decided to create a Nicki Minaj Super Bass-ish character. What started off as just mindless fun, ended up being quite enjoyable. 

Once I got her hair pink enough and her booty big enough, I thought I'd try Katy Perry. 

The California Gurls get-up was inevitable considering the blue hair and cupcake boobs, were what most people relate her to.

Lastly, to complete my collection, I created Juliet Harding of Goodluck. I put her in a sequined dress which I've seen her perform in once, with the gold to silver to black sequins. Also, I opened her eyes more than the other two by raising her eyelides slightly.

Hopefully I create a few more soon... Maybe a whole Lady Gaga group, meat dress included.

Colouring Using A Tablet!

I wanted to better my skills using a drawing tablet, so I took a lineart image from Elias' DeviantArt page and went crazy with it.

So obviously the actual drawing isn't mine, I just filled in the colours the way I best thought appropriate. Be sure to open up the image for full detail.

The coloured in picture is set to 1920x1080 so it can be used as a wallpaper. It's currently my wallpaper until I can create something of this quality, on my own.

Starfish Sally!

After no posts for a VERY long time, I thought I'd squeeze in some time to create this.
Starfish Sally in all her 70's porn-star goodness. Carefully placed starfish to keep her PG-13 and a cheesy name are the simple things that bring it all together.

As usual I created the lineart in pencil, then pen, then fineliner. Scanned through, only this time I did all the colouring using  a Wacom Bamboo tablet. Was tricky at first, but after a bit of use, it got easier.

Nikita Header - TV Edge!

The CW show, Nikita, is in its second season airing in the states.
It stars Lyndsy Fonseca, Maggie Q, Shane West, Melinda Clarke and Xander Berkley. I do the graphics for tvedge.net and I wanted to use the new promotional pictures that were released for season 2 on the new header.

Using all these seperate images, I merged all of the characters into one image for the header.
Lots of blending, light fixes, cropping, cutting, dodging and burning and voila! A new header for the website.

You can also visit the site at www.nikita.tvedge.net

Zebra-Corn Shoes!

 

I designed a pair of Zebra-Corn (Zebra/Unicorn) shoes for my friend, Jessie-Lee's 21st birthday.

I bought a pair of plain white canvas shoes and first did my lines in pencil, then painted in the black zebra stripes. After that, I painted in the blue area around the lace holes and the red stripe on the back piece. Lastly, I painted the yellow front bit and painted the name on the shoe tongue.

I searched for the perfect pair of laces for the shoes and I figured purple and silver sparkly laces are better than plain lumo coloured laces. Gives it more of a 'unicorn' feel.

Lastly, I added a tag onto the shoes with a small card and a brand name for the shoes. I did the tag after I took the photos, so it's not included here.

This was a really fun pair of shoes to make, and it was quick and easy :)
Happy birthday Jess.

Plants Vs. Zombies Pot plant!

 

For one of my friends birthdays, I made her a "Plants VS. Zombies" pot plant.
She's a big fan of the game and bringing the concept together in a simple way produced good results.
I used a polystyrene cup for the base, covered it with the clay which then hardened and lastly, I painted it, filled it with dirt and added the flower.
While doing the photos for my blog, my dog almost destroyed the flowers, luckily they weren't real.
Happy Birthday Jo!

Ofentse Website

I recently completed the website for Ofentse, a singer in South Africa. Along with his website, I also created his Twitter, Youtube and Myspace page images. This website was the first I'd ever created, and was surprisingly easy. His full site can be viewed at iamofentse.com.

Moses Mabhida Stadium! (Mountain Range)

This is an image my brother took of the Moses Mabhida Stadium in Durban which was built for the Fifa World Cup 2010. Originally, the picture was a shot of the parking lot, stadium and buildings surrounding it and in the distance. I changed it up a bit, by removing the buildings and replacing it with a backdrop of a mountain from Underberg.
I also had to remove a couple of people from the foreground because they were kinda in the way, and made it look messy.
The main focus is the great change in scenery. Durbans stadium looks very different in a new setting, really cool, and I imagine an awesome view from the top of the mountain during sport events or concerts.

Less Is More: DaddyBoy Records & Endlovu Entertainment.

These are two logos I designed for a client earlier this year, I forgot to upload them and found them yesterday floating around my some files on my pc.

They were pretty simple concepts and didn't take much effort, I just kept telling myself; less is more. I also based a few ideas around the stuff I learned about typography in college last year.

Durban July!

Zip-Code Clothing recently released their Durban July dresses and Studio Twenty706 did the photography.

I borrowed a few pictures of one of the models and thought I'd play around with the images and give them character, giving them a theme based on the dress.