Von Glitschka

The Illustration Conference - ICON5

2008-02-11T08:38:45+00:00

Doodle Movies

2007-11-24T23:44:30+00:00

A recent drawing of Abraham Lincoln, some found textures from a parking garage in Nashville, a church door in NYC and a local parking lot. Also included is several historical diagrams I found in a vintage high school science book which I've made into Photoshop brushes.

Mix them all together and you get this essential nonsense.

In an age of flash animation and online video the venerable animated gif keeps marching along and that is why I enjoy creating these 'Doodle Movies'.

I came across a web site that was so poorly designed the content was all scrambled and it looked so ugly it was kind of cool so I took a screen capture to use it for the above animation.

Embracing my inner geek.

2007-11-06T20:15:03+00:00

I admit I love watching Star Trek. Over the years I've enjoyed the Ferengi characters the most. Since I just got TIVO I've been watching a lot of Star Trek lately and was reminded again of how much this specific character amused me and I've been meaning to illustrate one based on a sketch I did a few months ago.

Well I had a few extra hours last night so I created the art shown above. I integrated their official logo and an actual rule of acquisition. Of course if you're not familiar with the Star Trek universe then this art will mean very little to you and you'll just think I am a geek and yes you'd be correct in that assessment, and my wife would be of the exact same mindset as you too. :-)

You can see a larger version of this art here.

Interview with Bob Staake

2007-07-02T00:20:47+00:00

I've just posted an interview with fellow 'Drawger' Bob Staake over at 'The Illustrative Designer Podcast'. You can listen to it from the site or through iTunes if you subscribe.

If anyone else from 'Drawger' would like to be interviewed just visit the site and email me and we'll figure something out. It's painless and we can talk about what ever you'd like.

Von

Texture Test Drive

2007-06-28T02:46:22+00:00

I recently got back from the HOW Design Conference where I did a book signing for 'Crumble. Crackle. Burn'. That went well and my wife, two kids and I then got to visit the wonderful city of Savannah Georgia.

While there I couldn't help myself and went texture exploring. I created a '10' image set that you guys can download using the link at the bottom of this post. Keep in mind it's a pretty hefty download but the source files are well worth it I think.

All of the texture files are derived from real-world surface textures so the end result when using them gives you a nice authentic flair.

Enjoy!

Download the Texture set here. (Download is 125MB)

Green Poster

2007-05-27T23:06:47+00:00

I was asked to design a poster for an art show in Mexico called 'DO2'. I had been thinking a lot about the environment and green related topics the past two days after reading an article titled 'Plastic Ocean'. I was inspired to create art that had a green theme to it. I decided to play off the tribal tattoo look but instead of being hard core I gave it a subtle foliage flair while limiting my color palette to greens.

I'd love to get this printed some day on recycled paper using soy inks to really push the whole green aspect of it. I think that would be really cool.

Alternate Version
I grew up in the Pacific Northwest and was surrounded by Indian reservations and was exposed to a lot of NW Indian artwork such as totem poles and painted carvings etc. I've always liked the Black, Grey and Red color scheme they used so I decided to try this art using that palette just to see what it looked like as well.

All the textures I used in this art are part of the bonus '30' texture set I give away for FREE to anyone who orders my texture book. For more information about that book visit www.TextureBook.com

Cross Fertilize

2007-01-19T10:30:12+00:00

Since my texture book is due out in June I decided I'd play around with some of the textures that come with the book on a recent illustration gig.

I like how it came out.

If you'd like to know more about my texture book you can read up on it here.

Pioneer Spirit

2006-12-18T23:41:49+00:00

Sorry for the posting snafu. I think I have it now.

I've been doing a lot of illustrated logos lately. This specific style is fun to work in. Never have drawn a Daniel Boone type figure before so the coon hat was a first.

Schier Products has been pioneering and selling plumbing products since 1972. Many of their product lines have names like 'The Trapper' or 'Great Basin' and they wanted a logo that reflected that same heritage of pioneering spirit. To be specific they wanted a mountain man that could embody a strong persona moving forward.

Big Bocca

2006-12-12T19:19:04+00:00

Here is recent logo job I did for an Italian Animation Firm called 'Big Bocca'. I guess that means 'Big Mouth'? They wanted a cat type of character so I though this would lend itself for animation.

The type you see is a hand lettered font I am slowly creating called 'Nimcompoop'. After about four years of not designing fonts (Fontographer died with OS9) I now have the itch again.

Keyboard Characters�

2006-12-08T22:32:16+00:00

Keyboard-Characters™ are here! For the past year I've been working on an illustration product idea called Keyboard Characters™. They are a fun, unique and collectible way to enjoy art in your work environment.

There are a total of '10' characters in the set. The characters shown above are 'Evil Corporate Suit', 'Riled Rover', 'DZGN-BOT', 'Office Joker' and 'Pet Monster'. For more information on what exactly they are, how they work etc. just visit the site.

Infest Your Desk!

I Want Your Skull!

2006-11-16T11:03:07+00:00

I enjoy participating in collaborative art projects. So when my fellow art buddy 'Rob Schwager' emailed me about a project called 'I Want Your Skull!' I knew I had to submit something.

You see skulls are number '4' on my 'Top Ten Favorite Themes' list, so it was a no-brainer. Be sure to check it out and submit your own skull.

Top Ten Favorite Themes

1. Robots: Evil, Benevolent or Humanoid it's all fun.
2. Monkeys: Ape, Chimp, Gorilla or go ape and do a 'Robot Monkey'.
3. Naked Women: No explanation needed.
4. Skulls: Or skeletons for that matter. It's all Bona-fide fun.
5. Monsters/Mutants: Home grown or universal the scarier the better.
6. Paranormal: Aliens, Angels, Demons, Ethereal forms etc.
7. Surrealism: Popularized by Dali, captured by most artists in doodles.
8. Dogs: Flea bitten art inspired by mans best friend.
9. Human Head: All matter of zany things have popped out of heads.
10: Machines: All kinds of mechanic contraptions and devices.

If an artist can combine several of the above into one composition then it's a dream project.

A couple other common elements used by artists are 'Flames' and 'Wings', but they tend to be integrated into the work of a given theme more then a theme in and of themselves. Someone had mentioned 'Pirates' which I agree is a most enjoyable theme to work with. But I think it' recent craze is due to the recent Disney movies. Of course every child at one time or another drew 'Dinosaurs' and all though another fun theme to work with it's not as popular as the ones in the list.

As you can see most of what drives us creatives tend to be very character driven.

I've had many artists email me on this list and I've adapted some content from their input. If you have suggestions let me know.

NYC - Urban Burn

2006-11-14T06:58:58+00:00

This past week was my first time to visit New York City. (No, I am not a red-neck hick I've been to all the other big cities just never the Big Apple so no Oregon jokes.)

Man alive is New York City huge. I was overwhelmed by how massive it is and how many people dwell within it's limits. All the cliches I've heard over the years are true. At one point it was sensory overload and much like Disney World I didn't come close to seeing and doing everything a visitor could. I am sure I'll be back again soon and I plan on visiting more key spots.

I did manage to find my way into the 'Late Show' with David Letterman so that was a whole lot of fun. I also got to meet fellow Drawger 'David Flaherty' so that was cool too. If I wouldn't have been sick I would have met more of you guys at the AI party but I was sitting in my hotel room trying not to projectile vomit.

My visit did inspire a doodle and that combined with a photo I took led to the following low-tech animation which I am calling 'Urban Burn'. I hope you enjoy the art.

Test Your Creativity!

2006-10-26T17:38:06+00:00

Recently I was asked to participate in a very interesting book project called 'Vormator'. In a nutshell they have assigned the same '8' basic shapes to broad range of artists (Anyone can submit though) along with a pre-set list of design rules of engagement we have to follow. In essence it's a test of our creativity. Can we create a strong design when we no longer control the content? Can we take profoundly simple shapes and create something simply profound? It's a challenging quest many artists are now pursuing for this unique book project.

Rules of Design Engagement - From the Author
What exactly are you allowed to do and isn’t allowed with the Elements? The following rules have to be followed when creating your artwork:

1. You’re allowed to rotate, flip and duplicate the Elements
2. You are not obliged to use all the Elements
3. Scaling is allowed proportionally, no skewing or free transform
4. You can add, subtract, intersect and group elements
5. Use of colour is unrestricted. Create your own colour schemes
6. You are allowed to use gradients
7. The Elements may only be filled, use of strokes is not allowed
8. You are not allowed to use filters or effects (e.g. drop shadows)

I like doing these type of projects, it's a good creative exercise and I am planning on having my illustration students do something similar for a class assignment.

If you'd like to read more about this book project and participate goto www.vormator.com

Promotional Poster

2006-10-26T17:25:51+00:00

I'll be teaching digital illustration again come Winter term on January 4th. This is a poster I created to hang up at the college to encourage students to sign-up.

You'll notice several common themes I have repeated in this artwork. I've been illustrating a lot of tubes coming out of heads, snakes, wings, fire, another bird cameo and of course the token fedora. Not sure why I've been on this kick lately, but it's fun and how often do real paying gigs ask for tubes and such?

I am a new CS2 Frustrator user and this was only the fourth time I've used CS2 to create a project. It's getting moderately easier but still far slower then FreeHand unfortunately. One thing for sure it's getting harder to use both and eventually I'll have to completely cut all ties to the previous. I am still a little bitter with the corporate weasels at Adobe who forced this change on me. Eventually I'll have to illustrate a corporate weasel to fully vent my lamenting.

Go Forth & Create!

2006-10-02T04:37:11+00:00

OK it's confession time. I've been a diehard 'FreeHand' user since 1991. I've owned Illustrator since version 8 but have never created a project from beginning to end using it. I only used it to open and save out files. That all changed recently.

For the full story you'll have to read it on my art blog at 'Art BackWash' but to sum it up in an ironic nutshell I was asked to illustrate a poster to showcase CS2 Illustrator. As you will see if you visit my blog this caused a few problems seeing as I've never used Illustrator to create my art with.

Well That changed and I forced myself to learn it in a week. A few colorful adjective later I started to get the hang of it. I am still trying to fully get the hang of it.

In any regards this was my result 'Go Forth & Create'. The only thing Adobe marketing didn't allow me to do is keep the original German WWI helmet on the winged worm, I had to change that to the Roman helmet. Other then that the let me just run with it.

Learning new software aside this was the most fun I've had with an illustration in a long time and I was really surprised Adobe let me have so much creative freedom.

This was the original German helmet I had on that their marketing people ignorant of History wrongly assumed was a Nazi helmet. I was trying to give a creative nod towards one of my childhood favorites 'Ed Big-Daddy Roth'. But you know how marketing people can be.

Patches-O-Plenty

2006-09-28T08:59:55+00:00

Here are a bunch of embroidered patches I've been designing so far for 'Upper Deck' for use on a baseball card product line. When it's all said and done there will be about '135'. Each patch will be embroidered and applied to a jersey swatch baseball card specific to the player or event.

The size on these are just a little bigger then what you see on-screen so the level of detail had to be very simplified which can be tricky. All of them are due by the end of this month so I've been trying to crank out '20' a day among other on going projects so it's been tricky pulling it off.

I really love the sport of baseball so it's always fun working on this type of project.

Freaky People!

2006-09-15T04:55:13+00:00

When I am invited to create something for a show called 'Freaky People' it's a greate excuse to do something for no other reason then to have fun. The title of the piece I created for this art show is 'Tubes'. At the time I created that moronic senator from Alaska had described the internet as a series of tubes. I kind of played off that as a metaphor for memories and thought.

I had a lot of fun creating this art. When I've shown it to several friends the reaction has been amusing. My buddy Matt just looked at it and asked "You doing OK?"

The coolest is when people try to read into something that I never intended. I actually think that is the power of art. They then ask me if they were correct in their assumption and I just smile not confirming nor denying their idea.

Infest Your Desk!

2006-09-09T10:13:53+00:00

Adopt Your Own!

'Keyboard-Characters™' are coming soon! For the past year I've been working on a product idea that I'll be launching next month. I decided to post a little teaser to wet your appetite. There are a total of '10' characters in all.

You'll be able to order them online at 'www.Keyboard-Characters.com'. The site isn't launched yet but you can still book mark it.

If you'd like to be notified when this product launches then send an email to: request@keyboard-characters.com

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Sneak Peek!

2006-09-05T04:57:54+00:00

Crumble . Crackle . Burn
by Von Glitschka

I just got word today that my first design book 'Crumble, Crackle, Burn - 60 Stunning Textures for Design and Illustration' will be released in June 2007. The book is part resource and part inspiration. Each of the 60 spreads in this hard bound book will showcase a raw b&w texture on the left page captured and prepared by me and then on the right will be artwork utilizing that same exact texture.

Each of the 60 artists I invited to contribute was assigned a specific texture. This book is just as much an art book as it is a reference book. All textures are real-world surface texture so they will give the user an authentic feel that will add a nice level of organic flair to their artwork and design.

Each texture will come with the following hi-res images:
- Layered Photoshop File
- Bitmap Tiff
- Photoshop Brush Derived from texture

and included on the DVD will be a additional bonus of '60' textures not shown in the book. Many of these will be from Europe.

Also included in the book is a chapter I wrote on 'Texture Exploring' it even shows one of my first texture pictures going all the way back to 1985.

The book will be available through Amazon.com and if you book mark 'www.TextureBook.com' it'll eventually have all the information on it along with some free downloadable texture samples, artwork gallery, example step by step usages etc.

It's been a labor of love.

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