George Harrison Portrait

For Digital Design Foundations, our latest project was to do a portrait of a famous person with interesting looking hair. We were supposed to do these in Illustrator with black, white, and two colors of our choosing (the two colors allowed us to use as many opacity settings as we wanted for each color).

I decided to do George Harrison from the Beatles:

The background pattern is influenced by the psychedelic pattern on the inner sleeve of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

Here are some studies that show the progression of the portrait and some of the variations his mustache went though:

Some Shapes and Patterns

For our Digital Design Foundations class's first project, we've been doing some basic things with shapes and patterns in Illustrator so that students new to Illustrator can get the hang of things. Easy stuff, but kinda fun.

The first thing we had to do was make a shape and use three of that shape to make a bigger shape. I made my little shape interlock with itself:

Then we had to cut out a little square or piece from the shapes and use that square or piece to make some black and white patterns. Here's a whole bunch:

The final step of the project was to take some of the patterns we made, add a color, and make a gigantic pattern thing:

We got to print our final pattern things on gigantic HP Designjet plotters. So now I have a gigantic 6 foot by 6 foot poster of this pattern. Sweet!

Our next project involves drawing celebrities with interesting hair, hence all those random people studies I've been doing. I think this next project is going to be fun. :)

Pictures From Hong Kong Pt 3

I took around 500 pictures while I was in Hong Kong over the summer, but I never really got around to sorting/processing those photos until this weekend. Obviously 500 is too great a sum for any sane person to want to look through here, so instead here are around 35 (give or take a few) shots that Ana Kim helped me pick out.

Almost everything was shot with my Nikon D60; a few shots were taken with my dad's Sony DSC T-100.

Since there's so many pictures in this post, I've split it up into three parts. This is part 2, and here's part 1 and part 2.

Taxis in Hong Kong are red! They also drive on the wrong side of the road, just like in the UK.

The older parts of Hong Kong are AMAZING to visit, simply because there's so much to see.

So many people, so many advertisements!

The malls in Hong Kong make the ones back in the US look puny.

There was some celebrity holding a press conference in this one mall. This guy was videotaping it.

"Times Square" is an odd name for a mall.

Incredibly, this subway car can be considered relatively empty in Hong Kong. The subways get CRAZY packed during rush hour.

HAIR POTATO! MEEHEE. ^^

Two random people caught in the downpour from the typhoon.

Lantau Island has this mind-bending cable car system.

Ana says this shot doesn't even look real.

At the top of Victoria Peak, there's this big mall/tower called Peak Tower that offers amazing downward views of Hong Kong's Central Business District. A great place for panoramas!

That really tall blue tower that isn't the under construction one in the far background is International Finance Centre Two. Cool place.

At Dian's request, high res version available here.

Even the apartment buildings in Hong Kong are taller than most skyscrapers in Philadelphia.

The Hong Kong Convention Center has this crazy amazing rainbow light-up wall thing. I'm using this shot as my desktop wallpaper right now. If you want the full res gigantic file: click here.

The view down from my dad's friend's apartment. "Apartment" isn't really a good description... condo might be better? At any rate, it was a huge condo. I had this as my background for a while too. Full res here.

Go on to part 1 and part 2.

I'll post more pics from Shanghai and Beijing later, perhaps. If you guys want full res versions of any of these, give a holler down in the comments and I'll post 'em. :)

Pictures From Hong Kong Pt 2

I took around 500 pictures while I was in Hong Kong over the summer, but I never really got around to sorting/processing those photos until this weekend. Obviously 500 is too great a sum for any sane person to want to look through here, so instead here are around 35 (give or take a few) shots that Ana Kim helped me pick out.

Almost everything was shot with my Nikon D60; a few shots were taken with my dad's Sony DSC T-100.

Since there's so many pictures in this post, I've split it up into three parts. This is part 2, and here's part 1 and part 3.

Hong Kong has a LOT of really high end stores. I found this one street corner where there was a giant Louis Vuitton store...

...and not far from the Louis Vuitton store was a big Prada Store.

The previous shot of the Prada Shot has all colors desaturated except for yellow. This shot has all of the colors untouched.

I love experimenting with panoramas and stitching together separate shots into large shots. I thought I'd give stitching a shot in front of the HSBC and Bank of China towers.

I love the tubes and frame and stuff on the HSBC tower. Very very fun to look at. :)

One of the covered walkways had to have a suspension system because it's main span was so long. I think my exact reaction was something like "AWESOME!"

A lot of people use these walkways.

Even Ana couldn't decide between color and black/white for that shot, so both versions are here.

I found this in some random record store! ^^ I really regret not buying it. HAHA.

I wasn't expecting to find such grand boulevards in such a cramped city.

Another panorama that I stitched together. I think this was taken from in front of Hong Kong's main Convention Center (which juts out into Victoria Harbour). On the left is Hong Kong's Central Business District, on the left is Kowloon Island, which is starting to get more and more skyscrapers. The crazy clouds are what an incoming typhoon looks like.

Again, I couldn't pick between color and black/white, so here's both!

This is cropped from a larger panorama. Ana pointed out that the shot looks better cropped this way. :) The guy on the edge of the water with the umbrella is my dad.

Go on to part 1 and part 3.

Pictures From Hong Kong Pt 1

I took around 500 pictures while I was in Hong Kong over the summer, but I never really got around to sorting/processing those photos until this weekend. Obviously 500 is too great a sum for any sane person to want to look through here, so instead here are around 35 (give or take a few) shots that Ana Kim helped me pick out.

Almost everything was shot with my Nikon D60; a few shots were taken with my dad's Sony DSC T-100.

Since there's so many pictures in this post, I've split it up into three parts. This is part 1, and here's part 2 and part 3.

Victoria Harbour from about the 30th floor of International Finance Centre Two. My dad's old college buddy is a director at Nomura's Hong Kong branch (they used to be Lehman Brothers, but Nomura bought them out around the time Lehman collapsed), this shot is from his office. The green hue of the photo is from the green tint of their windows.

The same shot as the one above, only with the green tint removed. Ana prefers the ones with the green tint though.

International Finance Centre Two from my dad's friend's office.

Another shot of Victoria Harbour from International Finance Centre Two.

Hong Kong's Central Business District, as seen from the edge of Victoria Harbour.

I couldn't decide between black/white and color, so both are here. A lot of these shots appear here in color and black/white because I'm bad at making up my mind.

All of the buildings in Hong Kong's Central Business District are connected by these elevated covered walkways. Ana liked the orange/yellows and blues here, so this shot stays in color. :)

One of the elevated walkways leading from International Finance Centre.

Go on to part 2 and part 3.