IF:Focused

"He might be just a tad TOO focused on his problems..."

Jack of Spades

(click to enlarge either)

I finished the Jack...On the Queen I had gold trim around the heart under the Q...on the King I didn't. I think I like it better without the gold trim but doing it either way is a relatively easy fix...

Now I have to get the Joker and an Ace completed as well as the back design for the card...Joker is sketched out...back of card is in my brain...possibly using up the last space of my remaining two brain cells...after that it will just be a matter of tweeking placement to ensure consistency of the letters and symbols...



This was my initial sketch...



Of course during an after school meeting I decided to play with the design a bit and came up with this...

Queen of Hearts

(click to enlarge)

Second in the card series...tried to capture a bit of the personality of the Praying Mantis female...you know...killing and eating their partner...queen of hearts indeed...

King of Diamonds

Been a while since my last post...as I've been trudging through the giant pointillism dinosaur...and the Holidays...and it is time for the students to start putting the final touches on their portfolios...so no Illustration Friday or play time for me for a while.

Usually during the year the students design a playing card. This year's related teacher had the students design a single card...so this year I upped the project...students had to design the King, Queen, Ace, Jack, and Joker along with the back...again, another project I wanted to give a shot, especially after seeing the samples in the September/October Communications Arts mag...and since I haven't had a chance to do something out their for a bit I've thrown my hat in the ring.


I did the sketches for all the cards but know if I show them all I will be never finish them because something will blow up or I'll get attacked by a herd of jackels...or something...I'm trying to break free from the iron grip of Freehand, which I will again tout as superior and quicker than Illustrator in a lot of ways...but I know that Freehand is a lame duck program just waiting to die...PLEASE ADOBE...put the freaking bezigon tool AND the 'cut and past inside' function into Illustrator...

And with that...the finished card...


(click to enlarge)