Something to Chew On, from Feb 22, 2009

GW has something for the people to think about, so I illustrated it through a squirrel. As seen in Disney’s The Sword in the Stone, I often have wished I could become a squirrel and achieve the proverbial “walk in my shoes”. What do those guys think about all day? What worries them, beyond power lines, poison corn, and bat-bite rabies?

They do seem like quite nervous creatures. Watch the video for the service at vimeo.com/powellchurch.

Used for GW’s sermon. Basic full colors with a number of filters overladen to try to achieve a comic-book feel.

For Tim Jones this Sunday. See the video at vimeo.com/PowellChurch!

GW’s sermon comes from Matthew about the four soils, where one of them multiplies its seed by growing into a strong plant.

Turns out, I am a Yankee and I thought it was supposed to say Soul. It’s supposed to say “Soil”. That would change this picture pretty drastically, I think. Yeah, a little bit.

Tim’s sermon comes from Samuel, when the boy hears God’s voice and thinks it’s Eli requesting his presence. Tim called for us to think about noise and silence and how, usually, our lives could use more of it.

The picture comes from a stock source, colorized and dodge/burned.

Base picture comes from stock.xchng. I changed the dynamics of the picture through strong dodge and burn to make it fit the emotion of the sun’s rays and its relationship to the text. The font is Ambulance Shotgun.

Base picture from stock.xchng with custom text and some effects. Font from vtks.com.br.

This one had to go through its process of creation quickly. I’ll tell you what I like about it and what I don’t: I like the text and I like the paper bag look (it’s a layer mask cutout on an actual paper bag picture I downloaded for Creative Commons use).

I am disappointed in the 3D effect: I think Bevels have made their rounds, but I didn’t have time to find something better. I also wish I could have made some sort of basic bow tie with twine, but I need to visit ILM or Pixar to have them teach me 3D modeling.

Merry Christmas!

Very similar to last week’s picture, I’m thinking about making the picture design process easier from week to week by changing elements of a design, but reusing the fundamentals. That will allow me to add to an already good picture to make it better instead of having to go back to the drawing board each week.

Christmas designs lend nicely to that concept. It might be harder to connect Easter with Veteran’s Day, so we’ll see how that all goes.

A strong background texture seems to lead to quite a naturally good-looking picture. This came about in an unexpected way with two different textures mixed together.