World AIDS Day

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

World AIDS Day is held on 1 December each year and is an opportunity for people worldwide to unite in the fight against HIV, show their support for people living with HIV and to commemorate people who have died. 

 

taken from the website www.worldaidsday.org

Lion - preview

With all those holiday cards I missed my animals. I have started making a new set of illustrations that focus on animals in the jungle.
So once more I resort to geometry to find beautiful shape compositions and a balance in my design.

Although there is geometry and symmetry, to a degree, I always keep my shapes organic and uneven.
Starting to work on these illustrations I'd like to experiment a bit more with colour combinations and use bigger texture patterns in order to give a richer, more unique look.

I began working on the lion and have been taking my time discovering the geometry in his face and mane as well as the colours that express his might and power.

Merry Christmas

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This is the final holiday greeting card I designed to celebrate the upcoming holidays. The star over Bethlehem and an angel spreading the news of the birth of the baby Jesus.

For this Christmas card I used gold and red colours to follow a more traditional aesthetic and reference the more spiritual aspect of the holiday as well.

Spring - revisited

 

I decided to print some posters for my nieces for the upcoming holidays and thought my illustration "spring" would make for a beautiful poster as it's colourful and has a butterfly and a bunny, doesn't get better than that! However, when I printed this illustration in the past I found that I would have liked the colours to be a bit different, so I went back to the original illustration and spent a few hours making all of the changes I wanted  before I have it printed in poster size. Now it is finally ready and looking better than ever!

Happy Hanukkah!

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The Festival of Lights, the eight days of Hanukkah!
The menorah has eight candles that symbolise the eight days the Maccabees’ menorah miraculously remained lit for, despite the fact that the oil fueling it was only enough to last for one day, during the Jewish revolt against the Seleucid monarchy. The ninth candle in the middle is the shamash, the servant, used to light the other eight candles.

You can buy my Hanukkah Cards by clicking here!

Christmas Cards!

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Winter brings us festivities and celebrations once more, it’s the time of the year when we exchange wishes and give presents to our beloved ones.

For this Christmas I have designed a card in red to capture the warmth the holidays bring to our hearts despite the cold weather.

You can buy my Christmas Cards by clicking here!

Happy Halloween!

Trick or treat, smell my feet.
Give me something good to eat.
If you don't, I won't be sad.
I'll just make you wish you had!

Space Fantasy Project

Here are some more sketches of creatures for my space fantasy world.

I want to create fantastical creatures that are gorgeous, mysterious or humorous with weird shapes, patterns and colours.

Although they are creatures from another planet, I decided that I wanted them to look somewhat familiar so the younger children reading the book could relate to them more. Maybe it could be become a bit of a game, trying to figure out what animal each of this creatures looks like, I use to do that as a young boy!

At this point I'm more interested in the actual anatomy of each creature and character and will decide on their colours later on, when I will have decided what the environments' palettes will be.

I'll be using my usual illustrating technique, with my own brand new custom made brushes on photoshop :)

 

Space Fantasy Project

Some time ago I had an idea for a story of a little boy astronaut who lands on a strange and colorful planet full of mysterious looking people, animals and plants.
Guided by his new friend Celino, who he meets right after he lands, the boy starts exploring this planet. Initially he finds everything around him scary and awful and dismisses it,  but Celino helps him understand how this different world works and eventually the young explorer appreciates its unique beauty, however different it may be to the earth he knows.

This is the rough idea of the story. Now I have started working on some concept art for the characters and landscapes of this planet. I feel very creative working on this new picture book project, and I intent to keep it simple as it will be created for a younger audience, but still have a lot of content to make it exciting to read and see.

I'll post updates as I start refining the story and the artwork.

Little Robin - Corel Painter 12

I decided to try Corel Painter 12, after having given it a shot in the past with its older versions (which I found clunky, buggy, slooow and crashing way too often). Although not totally free from these ailments, I found Painter 12 to be rather charming. It has many tools to try out, emulating different painting methods.

This little robin was made using its digital acrylics tool. It can takes a bit getting use to and can be frustrating at times, especially if you're used to working on Photoshop like me (what is up with the layer system?!), but its tools realistic behaviour with many adjustible parameters along with its natual colour mixing effect make it a very impressive and powerful illustrating piece of software.

If you're an illustrator it's definitely worth giving it a crack!