[napalm]

Hey all,

I just finished up some postcard designs and finally got em back from the printer! Here is a little snapshot of the 4 fronts:



They're based off some of my existing drawings, which i mocked up in photoshop and then vectored up for clean printing using the unholy copulation of flash and illustrator. For some reason doing vector 'artwork' in flash makes me feel dirty... probably because i have to use it all day at work for other projects.


Here's an example of a back that features a logo, title and the full creature:


(rest of the backs are imagemap linked from here)


And if you're curious here's a 'real life' picture (well except for the guy drooling at them)


..anyway, i thought they came out decently. wanted to share.

Also if you like little monsters my site has a guest artist week starting next week featuring some great artists including an artist from slave labor graphics and a penciler from marvel comics and a few other sucker..er.. friends of mine.
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creatures in my head /deadzebra, inc

[MCnasto]

AWESOME! I especially like the panel in the lower right!
That is such a sweet style, the creatures are awesome! I love the bold outlining alot!
I actually have no criticisms for these hehe

nice work!
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"Man! I just noticed that I write a lot of fragment sandwiches!"

[gu]

how did you vectorize your drawings? i'm trying to do that using mm flash 5, but the resultant images are always pretty messed up!!

[paranoid?]

hehe Gu its not vector, its a real life snapshot =P

hehe I like them all and yeah it seems they came out pretty great =]
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I touch myself only where it counts

[napalm]

Actually paranoid all the source files are vector art, so gu's question is valid

Here is my workflow for vectorizing artwork relatively quickly and cleanly:

i used to use streamline, i now believe that Flash is better for my own style of work. This works best for inked/limited color works:

1. scan/create artwork in high resolution (300dpi)
2. if black and white linework, adjust contrast/brightness to make blacks solid.
3. convert to bitmap mode to make it aliased and only black/white
(i usually convert it to index mode 2 colors first, i find this gives cleaner lines than going right into bitmap mode which tends do dither and add noise to the edges)
4. save as .BMP
5. import into flash (it will be big on the stage, feel free to scale down, it still converts the 300DPI scale)
6. click into group and modify>trace bitmap
7. for a black and white 300 dpi setup i usually have my settings at Color Threshold: 10 (doesnt matter really, no color), and Minimum Area: 5 Pixels. I leave curve fittings at normal, although you might have to tweak for your specific work.
8. viola! artwork.. At this point I usually spend an hour or two tweaking the vector work, first while i'm in flash, and then later when I export it for use in illustrator.

..So basically, the secret is high resolution aliased artwork. Hope it works out for you.
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creatures in my head /deadzebra, inc

[zap.br]

wonderfull work !!
i love it .. so original ..
so great ..

wonder !
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Brasil GFX POWER
zhp