Twitter Beard

Illustrative Mask "Twitter Beard."

For the past three years I've been teaching "Digital Illustration" in a local college VC program. For this terms final project I assigned the students an "Illustrative Mask" for them to create over a four week period were we focused on each phase of the creative process: Thumbnails, Sketches, Comps, and Final Art all being art directed by myself and peer reviewed.

I thought this would be fun so I decided to participate myself. The idea I chose to develop was based on my love of Twitter.com which I've been using going on three years now. (You can follow me at: @vonster)


Striking a pose with "Twitter Beard" mask.

When ever someone asks me "What is Twitter?" or "Why do you use Twitter?" I usually respond by saying "Think of Twitter as a diary for your random thoughts that other people can read." Essentially the only thing I'm doing differently now than I was pre-Twitter is documenting my thoughts.

The random thoughts and ideas have always been their, but I never captured them. Twitter allows me to do that now and also gives me the opportunity to see what others are thinking and that makes for a good waste of time.


Some of my students mask illustrations.

I think my students did a great job. Very creative and fun mask illustrations. They'll all be getting A's BTW.


My daughter Savannah inherited my zany gene. Arrrgh!

The fun thing about a mask like this is that each user can create a different emotion really easily. Add some props like a hat or glasses and all manner of zany merriment and take place. It's low-tech fun at it's best.


More mask hi-jinx.

Here are several people who put together their own design gathering and had some fun with the mask.


Construct your own "Twitter Beard" mask.

If you download and construct a mask for yourself please share a link to a picture in the comments below.

Download "Twitter Beard" PDF
"Twitter Beard" Mask PDF (1.5MB)

For more information and larger preview of "Twitter Beard" visit my primary site here.

User Gallery

Adobe Poster Signing

"Loyal Order of Wormwood" poster.

Adobe will be giving out FREE posters of my "Loyal Order of Wormwood" illustration (24x37 inches) at the HOW Design Conference.


"Loyal Order of Wormwood" gallery framed print.

Be sure to hit the Adobe booth on Wednesday night when they will be drawing a name and the winner will receive a one of a kind gallery framed print of "Loyal Order of Wormwood."


FREE John Handcocks.

I'll be autographing posters at the Adobe booth on:

- Thursday, June 25th from 8-9 am
- Friday, June 26th from 8-9 am

So stop by and say hi and get a FREE poster from Adobe.

The Society of Illustrators

Over the past two years I've been fortunate enough to be able to visit the "Society of Illustrators" in New York City.

The building itself is nothing special, rather it's the history attached to it. The many pieces of art that grace the walls of it's interior showcase a rich artistic history of some of the worlds best illustrators.

Self-portraits of many past members hang on the walls as you ascend the old creaking stair case. I looked at each one and thought of Harry Potter and the talking paintings at Hogwarts. What would these guys say to me? "What do you mean you don't use paint?" or "Keep drawing my boy!"

Back in 2006 I entered my first piece of art ever to the Society of Illustrators and it got accepted.

This year I entered another piece of art but to be completely frank I didn't think it would get accepted because, well it's an "Evil Clown."


Society of Illustrators 51 - New York


Tickles the Evil Clown. (37x30 Inches)

View larger preview of art here.

Much to my surprise my illustration got accepted into this years show. The first time I was notified by email that I had been accepted but this time I received a phone call and the lady on the line said to me:

"I'm calling you to let you know that "Tickles the Evil Clown" has been accepted into the 51st Annual Society of Illustrators exhibition and publication. Congratulations!"

At first I laughed because the lady had to say "Tickles the Evil Clown" since that is what I had named the artwork. LOL


Society of Illustrators - Los Angeles


Loyal Order of Wormwood. (24x37 Inches)

View larger preview of art here.

I also submitted my poster illustration I created for Adobe to the "Society of Illustrators" in Los Angeles.

I'm happy to say that it was accepted for their 47th annual Illustration West show. I'm very excited about this to say the least.

If you compare the original version for Adobe with the one shown above you'll see I modified the background color. This was due to the fact the accepted pieces would be part of a gallery showing and I thought it looked better sans the brown background color.

I'll be posting some follow up pictures of the final gallery pieces soon so you'll be able to see some process pictures of the canvas art being stretched and framed.

Illustrator CS4 How-To Guides

"Loyal Order of Wormwood" Adobe How-To Guide.

As some of you may know I designed promotional art for Adobe CS4 Illustrator called "Loyal Order of Wormwood." Along with that project I also put together a "How-To Guide" for them as well which Adobe has now posted on their web site so I have posted the same blurb below which gives you access to same content and a little bit more. But be sure to check out Adobes page to view other cool promotional art created for CS4.


Promotional Art for Adobe CS4 Illustrator "Loyal Order of Wormwood."

Loyal Order of Wormwood
by Von Glitschka, Glitschka Studios

His inspiration for "Loyal Order of Wormwood": "I never know when or where inspiration will come. Most often it's captured initially via a simple doodle. Then at a later point in time I take that doodle and flesh it out into a refined sketch. Once my drawing is exactly the way I like it, I simply scan it in and start building my vector art."

Read the how-to guide
Download the Illustrator CS4 file
Download Missing "Step by Step" Tutorial

Adobe copyright © and usage limitations of this art are clearly stated within download files.

Pet Monster

My daughter Savannah and her pet monster.

This past week I did a presentation at the Adobe MAX Conference called "Working SmARTer." The session focused on the creative process and how you could use smart objects in Ai and Ps.

To help illustrate the use of smart objects I created a project where I used a combination of photography and illustration. My daughter Savannah gave me the idea so I made her part of the project and she did a great job acting the part as you can see in the image above.


Close up of pet monster "Gooblymook."

As my daughter explains pet monsters live in your pockets, they enjoy wearing small hats, piercing their ears and because they dwell in the dark most times their vision tends to be poor and requires corrective lenses.

Every so often they come out and enjoy the fresh lint-free air.


Kanji for "Create."

Pet monsters are part of Asian lore and only speak fluent Japanese. This timid fellow is proclaiming "Create."

My daughter rules! Go Savannah!

Loyal Order of Wormwood

Promotional Art for Adobe CS4 Illustrator "Loyal Order of Wormwood."

For well over 15 years I used Macromedia FreeHand. Along the way I had dabbled in Illustrator in order to convert a file or open a file etc. but never really used it from beginning to end on any project. That changed in 2006 when Adobe hired me to design a poster to promote CS2 and assumed I used Illustrator. Long story short I recognized the hand writing on the wall and switched drawing applications. You can read more about that whole story here.


Detail of Art: New song bird of proclamation.

A little over a year passed and I was using Illustrator for some projects and FreeHand for other projects. I had a hard time cutting the cord completely. That is until I installed Leopard in 2007 and FreeHand stopped working. The cord was completely severed now. I found many things frustrating in Illustrator and posted my experience on my art blog here.


Detail of Art: Vacant worms demise.

Through the magic of the intertubes my blog post some how found it's way into the inner circle of Adobe and before I knew it they were talking to me, addressing my concerns, answering questions, fixing problems and ultimately inviting me to be on their beta team for CS4. To be honest I felt like I was sleeping with the enemy, but their people behind the scenes listened and their integrity was impressive and one thing was obvious they were improving the application.


Detail of Art: Evil worm.

Today Adobe announces the launch of CS4 Illustrator and I am happy to say that it's been a great app to work with and I am proud to be one of the many artists who were part of beta testing it. I think the improvements are incredible and the the new features will no doubt make many users very happy.


Detail of Art: Inner worm and the cup of trembling.

Adobe hired me once again to create some original artwork that will be shipped with CS4 Illustrator. Anyone who buys it will be able to open up my original Ai file and see how I pulled it off using CS4. I think it's pretty cool when a large company hires you to do artwork for them and basically says "Do what ever you want." That simply doesn't happen that often. Thank you Adobe!

My artwork is titled "Loyal Order of Wormwood." The source file that ships with CS4 actually has two pages within the file. One shows the artwork below and the other tells the story behind it. If you'd like print resolution version of this art to hang up in your work area you can download a larger version here. (2.5 MB)

I hope you enjoy the art and CS4 Illustrator.

Head in the clouds.

"Giraffe character."

Sometimes I get the itch to illustrate something for no other reason than to illustrate something. At first I was going to put the Giraffe in high heels but after sketching it out I changed my mind.

What can I say, I am pragmatic. Common sense told me I could repurpose this art in the future and I figured no one would want a sexy Giraffe.

Eastern Beauty.

"Eastern Beauty" Artwork. Click image to view larger preview.

Lately it seems like clients have been giving me specific directions to take my art and once I get there they change their mind and than move me in another direction. It's all part of the creative process when working with an agency but it's still a little disappointing when you feel like you delivered on target. (Cue Hindemith's solo violin sonata no. 2, Op. 31.)


"Eastern Beauty" T-shirt.

But I am not too bummed. (Sniff) After all they are still paying me for creating the art and I get the benefit of using it however I see fit. (That's right!) And I see fit to take this rejected art and apply it to all manner of consumer goods so you my faithful blog reader can spend your stimulus check and help facilitate a healthy creative commerce. So gird your loins with my art here.

Some of my best artwork have been complete failures and this is what I'd consider one of my best. Artwork that is, not the failure part. (Geesh.)

Animal Metaphors & Rabbit Trails

Multi-Tasking Octopus. Click to view larger image.

Even though I don't do a lot of editorial illustration I do enjoy the challenge when it presents itself. These illustrations were for Fortune Small Business magazine. The challenge with editorial is gleaning a creative and clever idea to illustrate after reading the article which sometimes can be very dry and boring. Thankfully in this case it was actually a very interesting topic.

My original pencil sketches included the pig concept below and because they liked that one so much they then asked me to create two other animal based metaphors so that each of the three illustrations would work more as a set. The octopus shown above was chosen to represent a company that did everything themselves rather then outsourcing and because of that their quality control was better and their production was far more efficient.

Rabbit Trail 1: When I was coloring this art I originally had green instead of purple. My oldest daughter came into my studio while I was working on it and said "Dad the octopus should be purple." I kind of shrugged her off and then looked up some information on octopuses and discovered they change color so I decided to just keep it green.

The next day after sending off the comp the art director asks "Can you change the octopus to purple?" DOH! Suffice it to say my daughter enjoyed hearing that bit of news. I reminded her she has my genes so that obviously was responsible for her opinion. LOL


Croc Loving Pig. Click to view larger image.

The next part of the article was about companies finding a unique niche for business by piggybacking on trends. The specific trend discussed was Crocs. Obviously the terminology in the article pinpointed the direction I should take.

Rabbit Trail 2: The art director asked me to add some type into two of the spots so the art above shows that as well. The type is part of an on going hand lettering project I've been working on for three years now. Eventually I'll produce a font called "Nincompoop" based on these letter forms.


Flying in Formation. Click to view larger image.

The gist of the last article needing an illustration was about a company who brought order out of chaos in the high tech parts market and profited greatly from their business solution. Prior to the animal metaphors I had a guy putting a puzzle together and on that puzzle was a dollar sign. But since they wanted animal metaphors that wouldn't work now. Some of the new concepts I proposed were "Getting your ducks in a row, with each duck carrying a part" and "A bird who takes random parts and builds an ordered nest from them." Neither of these ideas floated the art directors boat.

Instead the art director requested butterflies that form a dollar sign.

((( insert cricket sound )))

Yeah, I am scratching my head still on that one myself. Don't get me wrong I like the way it came out and think it looks cool, I am just not in sync with the underline concept. It's a bit detached where as the other two make sense right away. Hey 2 for 3 is great in baseball, so I can live with that creative batting average.

Rabbit Trail 3: BTW, these illustrations show how you can use the textures found in my texture book.

If any of you do figure out the butterfly idea could you please email me? ;-)

Relax it's only work!

AP Assignment Illustration.

The thing I enjoy the most about illustrating for the Associated Press is the challenging timelines I am faced with. I get a story a day or so before the art is due and have to come up with a clever and fun visual that will capture the tone of the article and work well with it when distributed across their network to newspapers nationwide.

This specific illustration was for a small article about yoga-like stress reducing tips for the work environment.

Tweens

'Happy Tweens and Sad Tweens'

Earlier this year the Associated Press (AP) put me on retainer to do illustration for them. This was my first assignment. An article about a study on 'Tweens' and what makes them happy and sad. I've done newspaper illustration before for the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post and The Oregonian in the past but this one could potentially appear in nearly all of them since it's being distributed by the AP.

Fertile Mind

'Fertile Mind - Urban Forest Project'

The original AIGA sponsored showing for 'The Urban Forest Project' took place in New York City in Times Square. Now other chapters of the AIGA are following that lead with their own localized version.

The Portland AIGA chapter will be displaying their own 'Urban Forest' banner designs from April 22-27 across Portland Oregon.

I went through a few concepts on this project. Originally I was going to do a burning bush type of theme with all the branches being arms and hands with the flames morphing into green leaves and one of the hands releasing a flaming Phoenix. It was OK, but frankly it was just getting too serious and the message was far too nebulous to communicate on a broad basis.

So I decided to approach it from a different angle thinking to myself "How will this whole Urban Forest issue ever fully become a reality with the average urban dweller?" The answer was then obvious, the heart of the people have to change before the mind will think differently and that is when the term 'Fertile Mind' came to me.

In my opinion these types of projects too many times are wrongly focused towards an adult audience, so I purposely created a banner design that would appeal to any age be it a 6 year old or a 60 year old. I wanted either type of viewer to look at it and smile from it's humor, all the while considering its meaning.

Adobe Newsletter

Illustration Used on Adobe Newsletter.

Some may have noticed my artwork making an appearance on the recent Adobe Newsletter sent via email? The main image in the header graphic they used is art from one of my Keyboard Characters™ named 'Pet Monster'.

The agency I worked with on this and other assignments for Adobe such as the 'Go Forth & Create' poster really makes creating artwork a whole lot of fun.

I wish everyone a very merry Christmas!

Start Mobile Art!

Start Mobile is a massive online gallery of art available for mobile devices of all types. Tons of great art ready to take up residence on your cell phone or PDA.

I went through my archive and picked a handful of art to use for this venture. Now if I can only figure out how to get it on my cell phone.


'Vonster'


'Tribal Tattoo'


'Robotica'


'Temporal Infestation'


'Sea Serpent'


'Owl'


'Happy Tree'


'Escape'


'Super Doodle'


'Deep Six'

Keyboard Characters™

'5 of the 10 characters in the set'

Keyboard-Characters™ are here! For the past year I've been working on an illustration product idea called Keyboard Characters™. They are a fun, unique and collectible way to enjoy art in your work environment.

There are a total of '10' characters in the set. The characters shown above are 'Evil Corporate Suit', 'Riled Rover', 'DZGN-BOT', 'Office Joker' and 'Pet Monster'. For more information on what exactly they are, how they work and how to order a set just visit www.Keyboard-Characters.com for the complete scoop.


'Monkey Boy' he's simply chimptastic!

Get a FREE '11th' character called 'Monkey Boy' when you order of two or more sets at one time. So click on over to www.Keyboard-Characters.com and go ape.

Infest Your Desk!

Society of Illustrators Exhibit

'Hoo Do You Love'

Today I got some cool news. My owl illustration was accepted into the 49th Annual Society of Illustrators exhibition and publication. It was my first time submitting to the Society of Illustrators so I am pretty excited.