Digital Illustrations and Images
Welcome to, what I considered to be, the most fun part of my portfolio! In my spare time, I love to create digital illustrations and images especially for friends and family. I am constantly illustrating and I will be continuously adding new work to this section. Enjoy!
Character Development
When I develop characters, I follow a multi-phase methodology to thoroughly explore and render my ideas. I go through multiple iterations of sketching, contrast exploration, color palette development, and compositions.
I start off every illustration with rough sketches to capture the essence of the character. Once I settled on a satisfactory direction, I take my work out of the analog world and into the digital. Experimenting with contrast helps me look at varying levels of depth and light to bring into color phase.
Sketching and Contrast Exploration
Color Palette Development
Next I explore various color palettes to see what colors suit the character and contrast levels best.
When choosing which colors to layer on, I draw inspiration from the characters themselves or trends in the industry.
Compositions
I also love to make some, if not most, of my characters androgynous. It contributes to the openness that I try to convey with my illustrations. I really love to leave things up for interpretation.
Inclusion and diversity is a passion of mine so I love to illustrate people that we do not normally see represented in digital media. This illustration of an amputee woman on the right is actually one of my favorites because it is inspired by one of my favorite teachers on the planet who opened my eyes and ignited my passion for social change.
In terms of setting up compositions, I take inspiration from very simple poses that allow me to play with gestalt, shadows, and the relationship of negative space and color.
Digital Images
I started creating digital images at the request of friends needing visual representations of themselves to use for performances, websites and other personal matters. I then started challenging myself to create multiple images based off of sound, words, textures, patterns, and/or emotions that I enjoying feeling, hearing or interacting with.
Hallie Smith
My good pal Hallie, a bad ass audio engineering masters student at UC Berkeley, asked me to create some images for her that she could use as a visual in her live musical performances. She gave me samples of her sound (which you can listen to here) as well as a visual and literary mood board.
Abigail Dunlay
This amazing industrial designer named Abby, requested that I create an image of her that represents her as a designer and her sassy personality. It is a work in progress as she has requested to add more things to this image that can really bring out who she is as a person, but I wanted to share nonetheless.