Goats and Gardens

A good friend posted on his facebook feed about wanting to start a landscaping business using goats. I loved the idea and got a bug in my ear to make a little logo for it.  For some reason I have wanted to draw a goat for ages and this little project gave me a chance to practice. I'm not sure exactly why I've had this desire to sketch a goat for a while but it sure was fun doing a concept page to figure out which type of goat I liked the most.  In the end feel as though this turned out well, although now that I've finished this one I might do a few more later on for fun. For the time being however, this should work.

The Birds, version 02

So I kept working on adding some more bird silhouettes with additional positions and beak types. Overall I like the result. It's funny how you can come across something that really adds to the design just by taking a break and cruising the internet. I stumbled across a few images that gave me more ideas for the background and the shape the bird flock should take. Once I had all the shapes I wanted I exported a jpeg, pictured below:

 I thought this looked much better overall and the way the red acted with the blues was much more interesting. I wanted to see how the image would look with an overlay of a texture though. To do this I did a quick search for a free stain texture. I found a great one here : Flicker texture. Once I did a quick alteration to make it more solid red the overlay gave me a great idea. Rather than the blue and red I would desaturate the background and overlay the texture on the shapes. The end result is pictured below:

My wife noticed the bloodspot and said it might look a little better without it, in the end I think she was right so I output a version without it. I think a red border works better overall but if I'm super honest I kind of missed the blood drop, so because I couldn't help it: 

I think this is as far as I'll take it, maybe next I'll try another short story. The most dangerous game maybe? Or maybe even some H.G.Wells?

The Birds in-progress

I re-read the short story The Birds a few days ago and happened to be making some vector birds for a little design practice. I thought it might be fun to do a book cover for it and gave it a go. I didn't really have the time this week to take it as far as I would have liked but for now I feel alright about it. I'm thinking this weekend might leave me enough time to work it to completion but for the time being, here is the in progress piece.

Used some reference from the old Hitchcock with Tippi Hedren as well as google image search for a bunch of birds I could make vector silhouettes.