Creative Folio

It is widely seen as importantfor a designer to maintain a bodyof non-commercial, self-authored work that keeps things fresh, informscommercial projects, and leads tonew opportunities.

CommercialArt andPersonal Projects

Showcase 2012

Gregor Louden

www.gregorlouden.com

www.gregorlouden.com Showcase 2012

Gregor LoudenShowcase 2012

Gregor Louden Showcase 2012

Gregor graduated from Manchester Metropolitan University in 1999 with a BA hons in Illustration with Animation. He has since gone on to establish himself as a freelance artist/illustrator choosing to express himself through his enthiusiasm for drawing. While primarily an illustrator, he also enjoys painting and sculpture and maintains a keen appreciation of graphic design and the

methods that may be adopted within that field.He has recently exhibited in Philadelphia(twice), Berlin and Glasgow. More recently, he released his first publication, a book of illustrations. In order to help promote the book, a book launch was held at the Recoat Gallery in Glasgow in October last year. The book is now in its second edition.Gregor Louden now lives and works in Florida, USA.

Publications

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01Lost and Found, structuresIllustration from book02 China TownIllustration from book03New York juxtaposeIllustration from book04Bird on a wireIllustration from book

Early in 2009, I began creating illustrations of various buildingsand structures which were to be eventually compiled in my firstbook publication which I named “Lost and found, structures”. In late October, in order to help promote the book, I held a booklaunch at Recoat gallery in Glasgow where I also exhibited theoriginal illustrations on the night.

Publications


Gregor LoudenShowcase 2012

Gregor Louden Showcase 2012

Gregor graduated from Manchester Metropolitan University in 1999 with a BA hons in Illustration with Animation. He has since gone on to establish himself as a freelance artist/illustrator choosing to express himself through his enthiusiasm for drawing. While primarily an illustrator, he also enjoys painting and sculpture and maintains a keen appreciation of graphic design and the

methods that may be adopted within that field.He has recently exhibited in Philadelphia(twice), Berlin and Glasgow. More recently, he released his first publication, a book of illustrations. In order to help promote the book, a book launch was held at the Recoat Gallery in Glasgow in October last year. The book is now in its second edition.Gregor Louden now lives and works in Florida, USA.

Publications

Workthrough


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01 Lend me ten pounds, I’ll buy you a drinkPencil illustration. Part of a series of five seperateillustrations which were eventually presented insmall square box frames.

02New York from abovePen illustration.Originally produced for inclusionin the book “Lost and Found, structures”.


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03Torre Apponale Rooftops

05Building Ball

06Building Ball Detail

Barcelona07

08Glasgow

04NYC

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03Torre Apponale Rooftops

05Building Ball

06Building Ball Detail

Barcelona07

08Glasgow

04NYC

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09Wacom Concept

10Wacom concept(detail)

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11Rampage on Broad Street

12 The Busker

13Road rage on Broadway

14Deadbeat Hunter

15Long walk home

16Never on a school night

17Ulcer scales the rooftops

These particular illustrationswere made in order toexperiment with usingdifferent elements in onecomposition. I have beentrying to research how succesfull it is to use photographic backgroundswith illustrations used in theforeground.


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18Northern Liberties

19Ho Cunto to the bar

20Hanoi 2

Sau Paulo21

22Trainwreck


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23Four Stages of Tommy

24Rupert on the Ropes

25Godard 1930


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29Hanoi

Sprawling Metroplolis 2

New York

Sprawling Metropolis


3020th Century All-stars, Bob Dylan


2320th Century All-stars, Hunter S. Thompson


01 A thousand miles not longer than onePhiladelphia, USA, 2008

03 Third in a one horse raceEdinburgh, Scotland, 200604 Intoxicated DemonsBerlin, Germany, 2007

02 Live paint SessionBerlin, Germany, 2007

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This particular piece was part of a personal project which is still very much on-going.Originally starting out as an experiment to see how well different forms of media can work together, the eventual aim is now to take the project into animation.

Combining photographic elements with traditional hand drawnimages can be a challenge but with a little help from photoshop,the results can come out quite well. Over the next few pages, I’lltry and show you the process that I went through in order to createthis composition.

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So, I started by scanning the original drawing into photoshop. Remember, the larger the better! I never scan in an image any smaller than 200 Resolution. 300 is best.

Then I duplicated the layer. I done this by clicking the layer called "Background" and dragging it to the ‘new layer’ icon(circled) at the bottom of the layer window.

What I wanted to do here was to get rid of all the white areas so that all I was left with was the black lines from the drawing. This was done by destaturating the image and increasing the tone by using the curves option.

Finally, I created two new layers. Filled one with white and one with a light shade of blue. I renamed these layers ‘white backing’ and ‘blue backing’. I dragged both of these layers under the "line art" layer.

Working on the ‘line art’ layer, I used the Eraser Tool to get rid of any unnecessary lines or marks. This was just to help the lines to be more clear.

Now I was ready to add colour to the visual.

By holding down command and clicking on the channels pallete, I was able to select all the white areas of the illustration.

After inverting the selection(to select the black areas), I created a new layer.

I then-whilst making sure I was working on the new layer-filled the selected areas with black. I named this layer “line art”.


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So, I started by scanning the original drawing into photoshop. Remember, the larger the better! I never scan in an image any smaller than 200 Resolution. 300 is best.

Then I duplicated the layer. I done this by clicking the layer called "Background" and dragging it to the ‘new layer’ icon(circled) at the bottom of the layer window.

What I wanted to do here was to get rid of all the white areas so that all I was left with was the black lines from the drawing. This was done by destaturating the image and increasing the tone by using the curves option.

Finally, I created two new layers. Filled one with white and one with a light shade of blue. I renamed these layers ‘white backing’ and ‘blue backing’. I dragged both of these layers under the "line art" layer.

Working on the ‘line art’ layer, I used the Eraser Tool to get rid of any unnecessary lines or marks. This was just to help the lines to be more clear.

Now I was ready to add colour to the visual.

By holding down command and clicking on the channels pallete, I was able to select all the white areas of the illustration.

After inverting the selection(to select the black areas), I created a new layer.

I then-whilst making sure I was working on the new layer-filled the selected areas with black. I named this layer “line art”.

Working on this layer, I then filled it with black which ensures that the colour is temporarily hidden.

I selected white, selected the paint brush tool, and started painting in the areas I wanted.

It was then just a matter of repeating this process for all the colours I wanted to add. If the colour I was adding was too close to white, I would then use the light blue backing layer.


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I created a fill layer for each colour for the figure. This is done by clicking on the icon above.

The colour picker box was thenrevealed. After selecting the desired colour, I then clicked on OK.

I then renamed this layer as the section I wanted to colour, In this instance, it was ‘skint-tone’.

If at any stage I wanted to change one of the colours, then it was just a matter of double clicking on the fill layer and reselecting an alternative colour.

Now I had all my colours,it was now important to start making the illustration come to life.

It was now time to create the shadows on the figure. Like beforewhere I added the flat colours, I clicked on the icon above. Only this time, I clicked on hue/saturation.


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I moved the saturation slider to the right and the lightness to the left.This can always be re-adjusted later on.

Then I had to clip this layer to the appropriate colour layer by creating a clipping mask(hold down “alt” and hover the cursor between both layers the click).

I could then add the shadows by filling the layer with black, selecting white, selecting the paint brush, lowering the opacity and then painting in the areas desired. This takes a bit of practice.

Adding the highlights is almost an identical process to adding the shadows. Only this time, after selecting the hue/saturation fill layer, you must move the stauration to the left and the lightness to the right.

I now had my figure pretty much complete. It was now a matter of adding the photograph to the background. I’d had this one in mind from the beginning which I had taken in Philadelphia.

Once I had added it to the background, I duplicated the layer.I made sure that the layer with the figure(now flattened to one layer) was between them both.

On the duplicate layer of the photograph, I then masked out everything in the photograph except the street light. This helped to give the impression that the figure was within the photograph.

Using the same process for rendering that I’d used on the figure, I added a few objects to the background to add to the chaos of it all.

And there it is. This process takes a bit of patience and practice but it can produce some pretty cool resultsif you’re willing to invest a little bit of time.


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I moved the saturation slider to the right and the lightness to the left.This can always be re-adjusted later on.

Then I had to clip this layer to the appropriate colour layer by creating a clipping mask(hold down “alt” and hover the cursor between both layers the click).

I could then add the shadows by filling the layer with black, selecting white, selecting the paint brush, lowering the opacity and then painting in the areas desired. This takes a bit of practice.

Adding the highlights is almost an identical process to adding the shadows. Only this time, after selecting the hue/saturation fill layer, you must move the stauration to the left and the lightness to the right.

I now had my figure pretty much complete. It was now a matter of adding the photograph to the background. I’d had this one in mind from the beginning which I had taken in Philadelphia.

Once I had added it to the background, I duplicated the layer.I made sure that the layer with the figure(now flattened to one layer) was between them both.

On the duplicate layer of the photograph, I then masked out everything in the photograph except the street light. This helped to give the impression that the figure was within the photograph.

Using the same process for rendering that I’d used on the figure, I added a few objects to the background to add to the chaos of it all.

And there it is. This process takes a bit of patience and practice but it can produce some pretty cool resultsif you’re willing to invest a little bit of time.

Creative Folio

Art & Photos

Transcript of Creative Folio