Explorations

The explorations project is a smaller project for the end of the year where we are able to choose what we get to do. For my project I decided to work with another classmate of mine, Midori, helping them to create artwork for a small program that would procedurally generate an album cover given a link to some music. I thought the challenge of creating procedurally generated artwork and I thought that since a program like that will already naturally create something that will be a but disjointed it would also be a great opportunity to try and learn some new techniques.

Almost all of the work for the project was creating artwork. We started by simply creating a list of assets we would need to create and then went on to create them in Photoshop and Illustrator. Once we had a decent list of elements, we combined them into one Illustrator document and exported it off to the program which Midori had created by taking code from the Spotify API and addding a few extra lines to use it to combine the artworks.

Artworks

Here are picures of most of the final versions of the art I created for this project along with a little bit of the process behind it. The finished program with everything compiled together can be found on Midori’s website.

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One of the final products I was most proud of from this project was this crow here, I created this by masking out sections of the crow with the pen tool and then filling those masks with very rough colors, which I then carefully blended together with the smudge tool. The final product of which I think turned out very well.

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Using this smudge and mask technique I learned I also managed to create the planets as well as a more textured backdrop for this space background.

I also used that same smudge tool to create a dust cloud brush which I used to create this sandstorm from scratch.

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Another technique I tried to learn a little better for this project was the gradient mesh tool. Which I used to create this fog effect while still only using vector graphics.

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I then tried to get better at manipulated larger meshes first to create a simple fire effect, and later to create a detailed Aurora Borealis. Which turned out incredibly well.

Lastly I tried to experiment a bit more with creating foliage for various other elements I created.

Digital Media Work

For digital media, we were tasked with creating an infographic explaining one of the things we learned. Since I didn’t really have an overarching theme to the work I created I just created this simple explanation of working with gradient meshes.

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Overall I really enjoyed getting to experiment with new styles for this project, I think I got to master a lot of elements to working in illustrator, and I’m very proud of a lot of the the completed products.