Need help with Color Schemes? Go to Colourlovers.com!

I had a college professor tell me that she loved my color selections. Personally my secret is using a monochromatic scheme. It works best for me and I find it a lot easier than combining colors. Of course I have to a variety of colors for many different projects, so if I get stuck on deciding what compimentary colors work or I can't think of a color, I'd go to this website, Colourlovers.com They have a huge selection of palettes, patterns, colors, and they have their own blog on colors. They'll tell you what the current trends are. It's very helpful.

BrandsOfTheWorld.Com For Finding Company Logos For Your Jobs

Whether you're given terrible artwork or a student that wants to add some finesse for a school project, this site is very useful. http://www.brandsoftheworld.com is great with providing you with vector logos for companies from Coca-cola or Pepsi or other big companies. You never know what will be there, so type it in the search engine and see the images that come up.

MY ShirtFight.com submission- "Hothead" Process

Hello,

I have always liked ShirtFight.com. For those that do not know what it is, it is a weekly t-shirt design contest. I posted general rules on how to win a t-shirt contest that was written by the owner of the shirtfight.com, El Presidente a couple weeks ago. I've been meanin

g to do this for a while, but I figured I should submit a design for this week. It may be a little late, but hey I can always win, plus I'd like to be featured on their blog as one of the top 10 heavyweights. If I would like to be in that category, because I'll have more people viewing my portfolio,which could lead to more design jobs. You have to look at the bigger scheme of things. It's not just a competition where you're competing for cash and prints of your design, but exposure where you can land jobs. 

        This week's theme was fire, so I wanted to create something good. I had a couple ideas, but I figured why not name a design "hothead". I thought it would be great to have an old colonial type skull on fire. Here's my process from sketching, to doing the linework, to the coloring, and the final design. I knew that I wanted to keep my colors to a minimum, so I would be using a lot of halftones for lighter shades of the colors I chosen for my palette. 

       If you wish to vote for this design, so it can be printed you can go here http://www.shirtfight.com/vote/entry/hothead/   It's free to sign up and vote. They have some cool shirts for sale. They're now going to do bi-weekly themes instead of every week, which gives a designer a lot more time to work on it. I hope you enjoyed this post.

            -Joe

My Sketch being inked

I'm beginning to lay down my colors.

This is more of a complete illustration, but there are still more details I want to add.

Here you can see the background color I wanted and how it to be used for the shirt.

This is the final design and you can see the boxes above which show how many colors I've used. I wanted a burn feel so I added some grunge effects. Next thing to do is mock it up on the shirt and submit it.

T-Shirt Magazine's Article "How to Make Money as an Artist"

T-Shirt Magazine is a very useful blog that defines itself as a online magazine then a blog. It has very cool articles and interviews that are interesting to read. This one happened to be an interesting article and some of the items listed on how to make money is possible and others are a bit harder to get done, but can be achieved. Here is a snippet from the article on the ten things you can do to make money as an artist.

"1. Build a Portfolio with the type of work that you wish you were paid to do.

2. Submit Your Work in Art Exhibits

-You will have the opportunity to showcase your work to a large audience and someone might buy your art.

-If the gallery is in a very affluent neighborhood, they’ll pay you big bucks.

3. Enter Art Contests

-You have the chance to rake in some serious cash. Some contests pay winners anywhere from $100-$10,000.

-Even if you don’t win, at least you had the chance to perfect your skill and build your portfolio.

-When you see who the winners are, observe their style and technique. If all of the winners have the same things in common, you should adopt those elements into your own art, so you can win the next contest.

4. Have Your Work Published

-This not only exposes your work to the world, it also builds your credibility. People will think, “If this artist’s work is in a magazine, they must be good!”

5. Build a Website (If you don’t have one, you don’t exist)

-Register your domain name on a site like GoDaddy.

-Display your best artwork.

-Show a list of clients you worked for and include pictures of the work you did for them (Can someone say “Social Proof?”).

-Write tutorials on what you do. This establishes you as an authority in your field."


If you would like to continue reading please CLICK HERE

SKETCHES vol.2

Well here are a couple sketches that I wanted to post the first time around(CLICK HERE TO VIEW), but I felt like waiting. I think I might even try to post a couple new sketches every week. It's always good to see other people's work and if you can draw inspiration then the artist did his job. It doesn't matter whether the inspiration was generated, because of hatred or being a very talented person that makes you want to strive to be if not as good as them, but better. I hope you look forward to viewing my sketches. -Joe Baron

I've always liked this sketch, but don't know what to do with it. I would like to turn it into a t-shirt design.

This sketch was from '07 and it's kind of creepy

I love the female form. I do find it humorous how I added the smileys.

This is a sketch that may turn into a t-shirt design, but I would have to lay out the plans for that idea.

I showed this to my friends and they found it creepy, because that's my face as a drama/comedy mask. It was quick, but maybe I'll find it and work on it adding shading.