CS5 Play

Just got my CS5 Master Suite in the mail last night and wanted to play around with Photoshop's new features. I think the new settings with the brush are pretty cool, but really not all that life altering. I tried my best to use them in this image, but don't like the result as much as the process I've been developing with the previous versions' more limited capabilities. Basically you get some stringier looking brushes and the ability to pick up color that is already on the canvas with a new "mixer brush."

Overall, the software loads quicker and feels more responsive, but on the other end of that is too sensitive and feels a bit glitchy compared to CS4. For instance, I kept accidentally moving or closing my palettes when I was just trying to access them--something that's never happened to me in past versions even thought the interface is the exact same thing. The canvas is a little jumpy when zooming/panning as well. BLERG. (Also played around with the "content-aware fill" which is far less cool than what it was made out to be)

80 Dlist Boys: Clavicle & Reed. THE END

Here's the last two. It feels great to be finished with this project, as it's been a year and a half in the works. Some times it was like a weight on my shoulder, calling me to finish it and others it was a great way to express some creativity on the fly... I started it for a couple reasons:

1. I wanted to practice mark making and become more confident in my marks.
2. An opportunity to play with portraiture and test the limits of distortion against recognition. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't but because this was a sketchbook project it was easy for me to not get hung up on the guffaws.
3. Playing with beauty... how is it that these 80 men can all be beautiful but all be so very different looking? As my friend Maggie said about the difference between faces, "it's all about the spacing."
4. A productive time waster: when I started this I had a hole in my schedule everyday that I needed to fill.

Rachel

I like Sean Young. And I don't care how crazy she is.

80 Dlist Boys: riverwestchi, trippppp, ibader, mmaraaron

The end is near...

80 Dlist Boys: glowstars, pw417, ikuku, slopehead

More more more. This is an interesting group because I've met all four of the gentlemen in question. Here are some notes:

1. Glowstars is a dear friend of mine from Milwaukee. He is also an artist/designer and has a blog.
   
2. pw417 is a cool guy from Chicago that I met several months ago and humorously bumped into recently.
3. ikuku is far more handsome and masculine in reality. Somehow the drawing got a little squirelly. He's from Poland and I had the pleasure of sharing a few drinks with him while he was in the US back in April.
4. Slopehead was possibly the first dlister that I met - he gave me free lodging (and an amazing welcome to Brooklyn with a homemade steak & asparagus dinner) a few years ago the first time I went to NYC.

Janelle Monae

Painted this little lady in the afternoon after finishing some real work. Was tons of fun to just paint something and not care too much about the result! (meanwhile, two almost-finished acrylic paintings are staring me down begging for those final all-important brushstrokes).

Also some fantastic news, my Mad Men heads made it into the 3x3 pro show. Found out a couple weeks ago.

80 Dlist Boys: awesleyc, johnny_bebop, jperkins, sloc0898

4 more. Kind of wish I could have gotten johnny_bebop & sloc0898 on adjoining pages because of their tall hair!

80 Dlist Boys: xelamonster, BenPhilBeck, OshKosh, ralowe

4 more as promised. A few comments:

1. I've been looking forward to drawing BenPhilBeck for about a year now, carrying around a little picture of him in my sketchbook and really muffed up the likeness. In his photos he's got a really fantastic Don Draper chin and an optimistic look to him. Somehow I ended up drawing him really devious. Rats!
2. The reason ralowe is upside down is because his DList photo is upside down. I actually drew him upside down, as well, for an extra challenge.

80 Dlist Boys: QueerRocket, Serpentine, thebenjamin, bikeculture

Here's my next batch of four (still have a couple up my sleeve and only 8 left to draw for the entire series). I decided to start drawing in the people from DList that I've actually met in reality. Thebenjamin is a cooky fellow from Raleigh and bikeculture is one of my favorite people up in Madison. (although I really missed the point with his portrait, he's much easier to look at that I have drawn him)

80 Dlist Boys: heartbeat_city, javad, socialwhore, dizeek

I've been lagging behind online, but not in reality. I've got 10 more dlist boys ready for action after this post. Keep looking for more.