Illustrative Stunt Double

Striking a pose.

When ever I need reference material for a creative project involving a male figure I call up my friend John Nissen. He was my best man and we've known each other since attending art school. He also has a good stereotypical body type which makes him my go to male model. ;-P

An agency hired me to create some linear illustrations for a campaign pitch. The topic was medical and they requested a few samples to use in their presentation.


Doctor with stethoscope linear illustration.

John is an Art Director at a local firm here in town where I live and does both design and illustration himself so he knows how to strike that perfect pose. In this case a doctor getting ready to listen to your heart via a stethoscope.

These were going to be animated just like the bank spots I've done in the past.


Acting for the sake of art.

Here John is posing as a sick guy looking for a cure online. Does he have H1N1 or is he just a Hypochondriac?


Googling for Rx linear illustration.

Like so much agency work this project died before it ever had a chance to be animated. Easy come, easy go.

Ambigram I am

"Von" ambigram.

Ever since "The Da Vinci Code" was published in 2003 I've been wanting to play around with an ambigram design. I've just never found the time.

The other day I doodled out my first name and figured it wouldn't take too long to build so I put this design together.


Ambigram in action.

My name is pretty easy to do this type of treatment too since it's only one letter away from being a very simple palindrome.

A real creative challenge would be taking my last name "Glitschka" and creating an ambigram from that. It may take another six years however before I get around to that though.

Beyond the Glory

"Fungi Film" Doodle Movie.

I'm always doodling. Most people never see my doodles except those I choose to post on my art blog. Over the last few years I've been creating what I call "Doodle Movies."

In an age of increasing multi-media via interactive web sites, touch screens and a continuous non-stop march towards ever increasing technology, the former stalwarts of web interactive are quickly becoming obsolete.

What I call a "Doodle Movie" others refer to as an "Animated Gif." They're of course technically correct but I prefer my moniker instead.


Root King.

I don't animate all my doodles. Sometimes I draw something and look at it later and think "What is that?" Such was the case with my "Root King" doodle. No clue why I drew it? It just kind of flowed out of me onto the paper like a stream of conscience captured via a doodle. I like it, even though I have no clue what it means.

Almost everything animated online today is handled through Adobe Flash. Be that as it may, I still enjoy working with the simple methods of creating unique animations via my "Doodle Movies."

I know if there was a "Beyond the Glory" TV show for design methods an animated gif would no doubt be featured.

That said I think it's fun creating simple animated "Doodle Movies." It's like the doodling of multi-media.

Something Udderly Fishy

Alien Species.

What do you say to an agency that asks you to illustrate a UFO flown by a fish? And if that wasn't cool enough they also requested a cow boxing a fish into submission. Who are these cornball cartoonish illos for? The Canadian Fish and Game Department.

The themes reflect alien species of fish encroaching on the native species, farm lands and how they can effect local fish habitats all communicated in a fun way via a simple Flash animation. I'm not doing the Flash work, that'll be handled by the agency who hired me to illustrate these goofy visual assets.


Bull Trout Character.

My animated gif shows some of the movement that will bring these characters to life on screen. I suppose if they are Canadian the fish might be saying

"I'll kick your ärse Cow. Come back and I'll give you a fin sandwich, eh?"

Brook Trout Character.

Yeah so I flipped the fish, re-colored him, modified the shape of his head ever so subtly and voila, new art. What? All's fair in love and vectors baby.

So what might this fish be saying?

"Hey hoser, take me to your leader, eh?"

The Brawling Bovine.

In this corner is my lame animated gif weighing in at exactly 152 KB. This image doesn't do this heifer justice. His head is modular and I provided a library of images so as they can make him jab and punch and get a MOOve on!


Underwater environment.

This is the background for the alien species animation. These will be displayed on large plasma screens in their final form.


Detail of Scene.

Close the door your letting all the water out.


Pleasant Meadow and Spring.

This is the background for the cow boxing the fish. I suppose if they are fighting a discouraging word was heard, eh?

Rough Cut Animations
View a rough cut of "Fish -vs- Cow" here.
View a rough cut of "Invasive Species" here.

XBox Live Video Game

Owl illustration artwork used in game.

A little over a year ago "Say Design" contacted me about using my Owl illustration in a video game called "Puzzle Arcade" they were developing for Microsoft XBox Live Marketplace.


Microsoft XBox Live Marketplace.

I almost never get told by my clients when something will launch or be released. I usually find out after the fact and such was the case with this puzzle game. My fellow design friend Nate Vosse owns an XBox and spotted it and posted some links. Thanks Nate!


Screen shot of "XBox Puzzle Arcade" in progress.

I love video games and my wife enjoys doing puzzles so I was thrilled to license my art for this usage.


Screen shot of "XBox Puzzle Arcade" solved.

Unfortunately I don't own an XBox. But it's still cool that thousands of people will get to enjoy my artwork anyway via this XBox video game.

This Old Blog.

A guilty pleasure of mine is watching home related programming on TV. My daughter thinks I am wasting my TiVo account recording HGTV programs instead of "Invader Zim." I of course disagree, but when "Scripps Networks" contacted me about a logo and branding for a new program I was very excited.


Cool Houses Daily Logo Mark.

A brand logo for a TV production is a different breed of animal than one for mere print production. It has to work well as a "Bug" on TV. It has to allow for the possibility of animation and seamless integration across all media venues including both print and web. That was part of the criteria I was given when working on "Cool Houses Daily" a new featurette offered up by the Scripps Network.


TV spot animation of Cool Houses Daily Logo.

Cool Houses Daily is directly tied into an online web portal called www.frontdoor.com so I created fun and colorful web headers and illustrations that were integrated into both the TV spots and web site. Visit the site link above or view my artwork in action by clicking here.


My art in context of the web site.

Working digitally is a double edged sword at times. Even though I like how this came out over all there is a few areas on the site where Scripps in house team took some creative liberty and chopped up my art to create other usages and those kind of make me cringe but what can you do?


Real Estate Survival Guide header illustration.


Part of the Cool Houses Daily home page.


Seller's Guide inset illustration.

Stay tuned for a few more logos I developed for Scripps programming on a small screen near you.

Unwrapping a Logotype - TV Spot

'Lifetime Television Seasonal Logotype'

Lifetime Television just sent me the TV spot using my logotype design. They changed the colors and added some modeling to the letterforms but overall I think it came out pretty cool. The above image shows the art I delivered.


'Lifetime Television TV Spot'

The screen capture shown above comes from the actual TV spot being aired the whole month of December on Lifetime. Watch the entire TV spot here.

Trashing Abe

'Doodle Movie - Trashing Abe'

Another doodle movie using one of my recent drawings 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.

htmhell

'Doodle Movie - htmhell'

In an age of flash animation and online video the venerable animated gif keeps marching along and that is why I enjoy creating what I call 'Doodle Movies'. I doodle some art, take images I've either found or photos I've taken and then go into Photoshop and use the gif timeline to create fun animated artwork.

If you're wondering why I created this keep reading.


'Actual scrambled page.'

This past summer I was introduced to Twitter. What is Twitter you ask? According to their own site it is defined as follows:

"Twitter is for staying in touch and keeping up with friends no matter where you are or what you’re doing."

I've done exactly that, documenting stray thoughts, funny insights, snarky quips and cool links with fellow creative peers and others who have added me to their follow list. It's fun taking a peek into others lives and each of us sharing our own. (See link in my contact information at right)

About a week ago one of my friends posted a link to a web site on Twitter. I clicked the link but when it loaded into my browser the page was scrambled as shown above. A few seconds passed and right before I moved my cursor to close the window a thought crossed my mind

"That is so ugly looking it's kind of cool."

I've trained myself to not ignore these types of thoughts, so I took a few screen shots of the scrambled page knowing I'd use it somehow to create some art. And thus a new doodle movie was born.

Unwrapping a Logotype

'Lifetime Television Seasonal Logotype'

I was approached by Lifetime Television to create the above seasonal logotype. They wanted fun and festive hand lettering for use in their branding for the holiday season the entire month of December. It'll also be used in their print publicity materials and online.

The TV spots will be animated and are suppose to start airing November 10th. I haven't been able to see the animation yet myself however.


'Secondary Seasonal Element Provided'

I also created the above secondary graphic to go with the logotype. All though I don't think Lifetime Television will end up using the holly berries I still provided the art incase they changed their mind.

I always enjoy doing hand lettering it's almost as fun as Christmas.

Linear Line Artwork

'Smiling Face Linear.'

Creating linear line illustration is as close to getting paid to doodle as it gets for me. The amount of time it takes to go from my revised sketch to final is about as short as it gets in regards to illustration. But that said this style is deceptively simple. Sure it's one continuous line (minus secondary elements like movement lines and such) but you have to balance the negative and positive areas well otherwise it can become a scrambled mess of overlapping lines. The other key is to not make the stroke too thick or too thin.


'The Whole Set.'

The ad agency White Rhino (Cool name) hired me to create the set of linear line illustrations shown above. The usage would be for TV spots for a regional bank called 'RiverBank' and on print collateral. The illustrations had to work moving from left to right when animated. The 'Dental Chair' illustration was never used because their client didn't want that theme related to their banking experience. ;-) Included in the project was the need for type matching the same style they could use on print collateral as well.


'Capture from TV Spot 1'

The illustrations were animated for two TV spots they produced. You can watch both spots using the following links.

- Watch TV Spot 1
- Watch TV Spot 2

Now if only Ragu™ would hire me to create linear illustrations out of spaghetti! Dat's a-spicy project!

Doodle Movie

Scan My Conscience

I've had a lot of fun taking doodles of mine and using 'Image Ready' creating cheap little animated movies from them. They are kind of captivating. You just end up gazing at the art longer then you should really. What does it mean? Your guess is as good as mine on this one.

NYC - Urban Burn

This past week was my first time to visit New York City. Man alive is that one huge place. 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.

My visit inspired 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.


'Urban Burn' Inspired by Time Square 10pm.