Anyone who knows me, knows what a sucker I am for Christmas.
For me, it is the best time of the year bar none. I simply love the joy it generates and the way it can bring people together.
Last year I decided that I wanted to inject some Christmas spirit
into the lives of the people who follow me on Twitter and so I created
an Advent Doodle Calendar.
What is that I hear you cry?
Well, in a nutshell, I simply uploaded a new Christmas-based doodle
everyday to my Twitter account from 1st December, up until Christmas Eve
for people to see.
It isn’t much, but it is a small way of saying thank you to the
amazing people (and spambots) who follow me, as well as spreading that
little bit of Christmas cheer.
You can either follow me on Twitter to see the posts, or you can see them daily here.
Sunday, 27 November 2011
Saturday, 26 November 2011
It's the simple things in life...
I have recently been working on a few different characters visuals
for a client who was keen to explore the ways in which we could simplify
my designs in order to give their finished project a cleaner look.
The first route I was requested to take was to work towards my new style I have been developing. This look gives the character a lot more emotion and can be more striking and impactful compared to my other style.
The other option was a much simpler feel, which was strictly black and white and with real minimal detail.
The results are below.
The first route I was requested to take was to work towards my new style I have been developing. This look gives the character a lot more emotion and can be more striking and impactful compared to my other style.
The other option was a much simpler feel, which was strictly black and white and with real minimal detail.
The results are below.
I'm still alive...I promise!
After what has seemed an eternity since I last posted anything on
here, I have come prepared with a cluster of posts to make up for my
negligence.
In my defence though, I wasn’t ignoring you all, I have just been kept very busy with my main occupation as a freelance designer. As well as that, I have also been working on some illustration projects which I didn’t want to publish until they had been signed off and launched.
One of the projects I have been working on was some character design for a fantastic guy in the US called Luke Knowles.
I first started working with Luke a few years ago when he saw my work on the stock site iStock and approached me about creating a character for one of his Coupon Discount websites that he runs. Since then we have worked together designing numerous characters for the sites, creating a whole family for his brand.
Last month Luke came to me asking for a new character to be designed for his new venture into the world of discounted printer ink. The brief was pretty open, as his only specifications was for the character to be a little bit nerdy looking, to have the printing process colours (CMYK) clearly visible on the character and for him to have a jetpack.
Below are the original sketches that I produced. I created 4 different designs to begin with and then once the character was selected, we then looked at developing him.
He did take on a costume change as we progressed with the project and you can see the final design at the bottom of the post.
In my defence though, I wasn’t ignoring you all, I have just been kept very busy with my main occupation as a freelance designer. As well as that, I have also been working on some illustration projects which I didn’t want to publish until they had been signed off and launched.
One of the projects I have been working on was some character design for a fantastic guy in the US called Luke Knowles.
I first started working with Luke a few years ago when he saw my work on the stock site iStock and approached me about creating a character for one of his Coupon Discount websites that he runs. Since then we have worked together designing numerous characters for the sites, creating a whole family for his brand.
Last month Luke came to me asking for a new character to be designed for his new venture into the world of discounted printer ink. The brief was pretty open, as his only specifications was for the character to be a little bit nerdy looking, to have the printing process colours (CMYK) clearly visible on the character and for him to have a jetpack.
Below are the original sketches that I produced. I created 4 different designs to begin with and then once the character was selected, we then looked at developing him.
He did take on a costume change as we progressed with the project and you can see the final design at the bottom of the post.
All designs and concepts are strictly © Copyright Dan Bailey 2011.
Tuesday, 11 October 2011
Sketches...
After posting my latest illustration yesterday, I later thought some of you may have been interested in seeing the original sketches for them, and so here they are...
Monday, 10 October 2011
The Wally with the Brolly
After publishing my previous post featuring a slightly new
illustrative direction for me, I was over the moon with the positive
feedback I received for it.
Personally I was really pleased with how it has developed and really wanted to try another composition, which leads me to this post.
This new composition is very loosely based on the infamous photo of ex-England football manager Steve McClaren watching his side fail to qualify for the 2008 European Championships. I have always been intrigued by the shot, as it holds such emotion and portrays a man who is simply watching his reputation and career fall apart in front of his very own eyes. It was this photograph that earned McClaren his unwanted title of 'The Wally with the Brolly'.
When creating the image, I deliberately avoided branding it with the English FA crest and decided against making the character look like McClaren (apart from the hair colour), as I wanted to keep the illustration quite generic, but more importantly, I didn’t really fancy getting in trouble with The FA or Steve McClaren.
This will be the last of my illustrations in this style that I post up for a while, as I have a few other illustrations and project that I want to show over the next few weeks which will be back to my more recognisable look.
This image will be available to purchase from iStock within the next week or so.
Thanks for dropping by.
Personally I was really pleased with how it has developed and really wanted to try another composition, which leads me to this post.
This new composition is very loosely based on the infamous photo of ex-England football manager Steve McClaren watching his side fail to qualify for the 2008 European Championships. I have always been intrigued by the shot, as it holds such emotion and portrays a man who is simply watching his reputation and career fall apart in front of his very own eyes. It was this photograph that earned McClaren his unwanted title of 'The Wally with the Brolly'.
When creating the image, I deliberately avoided branding it with the English FA crest and decided against making the character look like McClaren (apart from the hair colour), as I wanted to keep the illustration quite generic, but more importantly, I didn’t really fancy getting in trouble with The FA or Steve McClaren.
This will be the last of my illustrations in this style that I post up for a while, as I have a few other illustrations and project that I want to show over the next few weeks which will be back to my more recognisable look.
This image will be available to purchase from iStock within the next week or so.
Thanks for dropping by.
Saturday, 1 October 2011
Some guy...
The style is a little different to my normal work, but to be honest, I have watched my illustrations evolve over the years and I can see how I have got to where I currently am.
That’s not to say that I have moved away from my old style, as I haven’t, but I am just having fun exploring and producing work which is a lot less vibrant and offers a lot more simplicity in respects to the construction of the characters. As you can see, I have purposely moved away from having too many colours and have resisted the use of highlights on the character.
I just wanted to make the figure itself as simple as possible and I wanted the form of character to leap out at you, rather then the bold palette or the incredible detail.
I hope you enjoy the piece. I am a little unsure whether to make this available on my iStock portfolio, but I will keep you notified if I do.
Tuesday, 27 September 2011
USA
September was a month that I had been looking forward to for a
long time, for years in fact, as this was the month that I finally got
to live out one of my dreams and go to New York City. Not only that, but
I was also lucky enough to experience both North and South Carolina
along the way too.
I know this is generally a design and illustration blog and so I won’t bore you with a ‘Wish You Were Here’ style review on why you should travel to these States, but I did want to share just a few of my photos from this adventure.
Don’t worry, I won’t make you sit through the 700+ that I put my family and friends through, but I did just want to post a few.
I won’t show you any of North Carolina, as to be fair, I didn’t see a great deal of it. We were staying there with friends and despite seeing some of the area, we never got to experience a vast amount of it.
A lot of my favourite pictures were taken in South Carolina, in the Isle of Palms, where we were staying along the beach in a Condo. Every day, me and my girlfriend would get up early and walk along the beach to watch the sunrise and every morning we would be blown away by the beauty of it. It really was stunning and one of the most breathtaking moments in my life.
After spending the first week of our holiday in the Carolina’s, we then went to the complete opposite extreme by traveling on to New York for a few days.
In hind sight, having the beach holiday after New York would have made sense, but to be honest, the holiday was absolutely perfect and I wouldn’t have changed it for the world.
New York was everything I hoped it would be and more. There is this beautiful anticipation surrounding the City, as everyone around you has different expectations for their experience there. There is just so much versatility to New York and I truly cannot wait to go back, it is just such an inspiring environment to surrounded by.
I hope you enjoy these photos. I will be back uploading more of my art soon, but I do have some big and exciting projects to finish off before I get back to it and so you may have to be a little bit patient with me.
I know this is generally a design and illustration blog and so I won’t bore you with a ‘Wish You Were Here’ style review on why you should travel to these States, but I did want to share just a few of my photos from this adventure.
Don’t worry, I won’t make you sit through the 700+ that I put my family and friends through, but I did just want to post a few.
I won’t show you any of North Carolina, as to be fair, I didn’t see a great deal of it. We were staying there with friends and despite seeing some of the area, we never got to experience a vast amount of it.
A lot of my favourite pictures were taken in South Carolina, in the Isle of Palms, where we were staying along the beach in a Condo. Every day, me and my girlfriend would get up early and walk along the beach to watch the sunrise and every morning we would be blown away by the beauty of it. It really was stunning and one of the most breathtaking moments in my life.
After spending the first week of our holiday in the Carolina’s, we then went to the complete opposite extreme by traveling on to New York for a few days.
In hind sight, having the beach holiday after New York would have made sense, but to be honest, the holiday was absolutely perfect and I wouldn’t have changed it for the world.
New York was everything I hoped it would be and more. There is this beautiful anticipation surrounding the City, as everyone around you has different expectations for their experience there. There is just so much versatility to New York and I truly cannot wait to go back, it is just such an inspiring environment to surrounded by.
I hope you enjoy these photos. I will be back uploading more of my art soon, but I do have some big and exciting projects to finish off before I get back to it and so you may have to be a little bit patient with me.
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