Anton Nelson Illustration - Drawn

Wired 2011 Together 2011 painting

2011-10-22T13:45:00.001Z

A week or so ago I was invited by Wacom to paint a picture live at the Wired 2011 Together event. With only few short days I was advised to deliver something simple so I knocked a quick portrait together - saving the image halfway through so I could paint the image to a finished stage at the event.

So Wacom tablet (Intuos) and Photoshop CS5:-

Medical Illustration

2011-10-09T09:52:00.000Z

I spoke recently at the Institute of Medical Illustrators conference about drawing and painting with a Wacom tablet, knowing I have no work of any kind that would relate to a scientific audience (!?) I set about to create a quick illustration of the human heart to present at the workshop - I rarely get to just sit and draw something for the sole purpose of well.. drawing.

Pre-production paintings for unreleased Oakenfold project

2011-05-09T18:38:00.004Z

These are some 16 x 9 concept paintings for an unreleased Paul Oakenfold video project, painted in Photoshop CS5 with a Wacom graphics tablet. I use images like this to guide colour-keys and focus scenes I feel are important to capture in a production. The images in the desert are more colour keys than concept art but the first image I wanted to shoot and splice into the beginning of a show to increase the drama of the opening.

The iPad 2 and Sketchbook Pro for sketching..

2011-04-17T10:16:00.005Z

I am loving drawing on my iPad 2 - I had the first iPad for a while on loan but I never got round to actually picking up many apps for it - this time round I'm using it for almost all my client facing project planning and presentation - the next set of images i'm creating on it are storyboards, as with the first edition its great to pop out of your bag and start sketching..

I made myself a stylus or Sketchbook Pro out of a roll of anti-staic film jammed into a biro but its not as responsive as I would have hoped.. I plan to pick up a proper stylus in the next week or so. The multiple use aspect of the iPad is what is most appealing to me I think - the combination of video editing, drawing and photo editing along with books, comic books (guilty pleasure) and navigation with an external GPS unit has pushed me to use my iPad for all my travel computing (unless a larger job requires a laptop Final Cut editing suite) I will try and post some of my conceptual storyboards and sketches in the next few weeks..

Meantime here is a quick one I knocked out on a saturday afternoon - finger and home-made stylus. I created this to prove a point to a friend of mine - a fellow illustrator - who was torn between picking up an iPad 2 and Sketchbook Pro or going full whack with a Macbook Pro, Photoshop and a Wacom. His criteria was to have a light portable solution for polishing up his pencil and ink sketches in the computer. For professional, highly polished output - the Macbook Pro / Wacom route is the way to go, I'm still keen to use the iPad for on the road work or rapid prototyping with a client in the room - I would be less keen to use it for final print work.. I love my Wacom tablet and I use it literally every day even in my corporate job.

As it happens my friend won a Macbook Air in a company competition so he's going to try and cram Photoshop on it to use with a Wacom tablet - I will be intrigued to see how he gets on..

Painting on the iPad

2010-06-28T08:25:00.005Z

I have had the opportunity recently to experiment with the Sketchbook Pro application on the iPad:

A far cry from the Wacom tablet and Photoshop combination I'm used to but potentially an interesting tool. Sketchbook Pro has layers, a full colour wheel and a variety of brush presets to play with, I managed a quick sketch of a diver (purely for academic purposes) and found the painting tools to be quite powerful, the screen is a great size and space for simple illustrations but drawing with my fingertip drove me nuts after about half an hour - I hear there are now stylus tools you can purchase that emulate the fingertip or even make your own:

DIY iPad stylus

In its current state this is no rival for a professional set up with an Intuos 4 and a copy of Photoshop,the accuracy with even homemade tools isn't precise enough for me and the lack of photo features mean I'm not going to be ditching my laptop on the go anytime soon, although its a nice idea that I could sketch a rough for a storyboard or an illustration on the train or in a plane with that great 10 hour battery life...

More CS5 Painting

2010-05-10T07:23:00.007Z

Inspired by a creative mashup session yesterday (more on that later) I put another painting together in Photoshop CS5, the brush tools really are incredible with quick buttons on the menu to force complete control over to a Wacom tablet, I have been a big user of tablets for about 10 years now, working my way through the Intuos range, with a slight detour into a wireless Graphire at my time at Apple (awesome for presentations) and cannot recommend them more for digital creatives, the fluidity of a pen interface cannot be matched in photographic, illustrative or even video work.

This image started life as a few blocky colours on a page before being shaped into a coherent painting, I don't often remember to take stages pictures (when free hand painting I usually just draw on one layer..) but I did snap a before image:

Plus a quick shot of the brush tool overlay - this accurately maps the positioning of the Wacom Stylus over the tablet and if you watch the screen closely while you work it allows you to see how your making brush strokes, coming from an analogue painting background - it was great to see my motions with a brush were the same in a digital environment.

iPhone to CS5 Workflow

2010-04-21T12:10:00.002Z

I have been experimenting with the iPhone as part of my creative workflow - I already use a variety of applications to get interesting and creative results out of my iPhone photographs such as Photoshop Mobile and Shakeit Lite - and I wanted to see what the possibilities are for creating a full design using the iPhone as a launchpad.

My first iPhone app in this workflow is Adobe Ideas - a simple vector drawing tool for making notes on photos and creating sketches and proofs of ideas in note form. I'm also a big fan of Shakeit Lite and other 'effects' apps for the iPhone - the camera on a 3GS is not actually all that bad and performs very well in daylight. I really like to use it as a visual journal - I'm not going to take a Canon 1Ds MkIII with me everywhere all the time its simply too bulky. I have started to take a few of these 'digital polaroid' images every day with the intention of making a project out of it at some point.

I enclose below a simple workflow diagram for working with the iPhone and Photoshop CS5:

Russian Dolls

2010-04-19T21:14:00.004Z

Following on from my last post on painting tools for Photoshop CS5, I have been designing some Russian dolls as templates to use for a real world creative project I'm working on. In the markets of Moscow you an buy 'blank' unpainted dolls to be painted with acrylic or poster paint - some come with the line work of the traditional doll but I wanted to start from a plain wood background and design my own doll - So far I have designed two layers to the doll using a mixture of Photoshop and the new Illustrator CS5 - illustrator has a nice feature for textured brushes that can be painted within a shape - this makes intricate design work with the unpredictable nature of brush control that much closer to working with pixel based paint in Photoshop.

White Rabbit - Photoshop CS5

2010-04-11T20:23:00.010Z

I have been Beta testing Adobe's CS5 Master Collection for a while now, with the embargo up (as of 7.00am this morning) I am able to share my finding and feelings about the new features. My first post will cover the new brush engine in Photoshop CS5.
As an illustrator I have always been a fan of painting in Photoshop, early versions had customisable brushes and later there was support for pressure sensitivity via a graphics tablet input - all great features for those wanting to use the program as a digital canvas. Digital painting has one major drawback - the fluidity of natural media is lost in Photoshop, the painting is almost too precise and there is very little room for creative mistakes.

Until now.

Adobe's latest edition of the tool includes a fantastic new feature for painters - a "bristle" brush. This added level of brush control (in addition to pressure sensitivity) allows the emulation of bristles on a surface - the brush even rotates to match the rotation of your pen on the graphics tablet (something that really has to be seen to believed..) this really brings in some of the randomness back into drawing and painting - I have been using a variety of Wacom tablets for about 10 years now and I have never seen the level of control and natural feel of Adobes Photoshop CS5 and a Wireless Wacom Intuos 4 - its a fantastic combination.

So I have done a few doodle's I would like to share - I set myself a task - a one hour speed paint using the new toolset.

I hope to get some more of these up on the blog in the next few days.

I Hate Televison

2010-02-09T13:26:00.003Z

By which I mean broadcast television, I hate being told what to watch and it all being rubbish reality TV bullshit, especially when there are better ways to watch the things I actually am interested in: (although must admit I rarely use them)

BBC iPlayer
Demand 5
4 on demand

The list goes on... so trash your TV!

Few new sketches

2009-11-28T17:14:00.002Z

These sketches were inspired by angry business men in Range Rovers on the motorway....

Abstract minimalism

2009-10-07T14:45:00.005Z

I'm working on a sketchbook, something I will add a mixture of photo, illustration and design content too and deliver as a sort of Flash interactive booklet in a post that can be clicked through and explored.

While I find time to build this I have dropped a few pages into a Photobucket account, I'm usually all about Flickr but sometime's you just need somewhere to stick stuff, no frills just an easy access image gallery.

Although my work is usually pretty intricate I actually quite enjoy minimalism, I'm putting a series of minimalist landscapes together to complement a photography project (Link) and these sketches help me get my brain in the right mood for it.

Retouch

2009-08-26T16:49:00.003Z

As retouching photographs is relevant to both my illustration AND my photography I have decided to post it on both blogs..

Retouching photographs... a constant source of frustration for the less IT inclined members of the photographic community. There is always a DVD or a seminar on at every photography show I speak at about the subject, how to do it quickly "one click retouching!" or easily (plugins for Photoshop etc..)

I think the truth is retouching photographs can be a rather laborious process, involving a mixture of Actions in Photoshop combined with more complicated layer-based editing and I don't really think there is any quick or easy way to achieve the things you see in magazines. If you want quality results, you really have to throw yourself into learning the tools, Photoshop and correct RAW processing being the primary ones. I treat retouch as a creative exercise, combining traditional retouch activities (skin smoothing, shaping and light adjustments) with my illustration.

These are a couple of images I use as retouch samples, a Product image and a bit of Wedding:

These were created with RAW editing in Aperture 2 to correct exposure, highlights and shadow and correct White Balance, followed by Photoshop for cloning, patching and softening work on multiple layers. In the case of the product photo I used the table as a guide for lighting but dropped the camera onto a white backdrop to really isolate it. A reflection was painted in on a transparent layer beneath. The dress on the wedding piece was balanced using a soft light layer, soft light allows you to pull up the brightness in shadows and even out harsh lighting - If you fill the layer with neutral grey (50%) when you create it you can just gently paint in the lightening using a 10% white paintbrush. I use a Wacom Intuos 4 tablet for all my illustration work, the ergonomics of using a pen make it an unbeatable experience and I highly recommend it to anyone looking at retouch or digital illustration, I'll try and put up a post about how I use a tablet in the near future.

Womens Athletics

2009-08-01T20:24:00.007Z

I am getting back into doing more and more illustration, in order to court a few healthy/lifestyle magazines I have been doing an illustration's on athletics:

Another sketch/idea for this follows:

More..

2009-06-23T22:07:00.006Z

So the project continues to develop... this is another concept piece for the performance I am working on - I send my ideas on to the choreographers who work out the actual movement, they then present a piece to myself and the other camera operators and we work out how to shoot it.

I want to overexpose the whole shoot to give it a "bathed in light" type look

Flat Art

2009-05-03T15:48:00.005Z

I was recently reminded that I haven't posted any Illustration in a while... In fact the suggestion was that I had abandoned illustration in exchange for my photography! @ www.antonphotographer.blogspot.com

This is not the case :P I am still drawing and painting when I can.. unfortunately I now deal with video evangelism in my job now and have very little time to do anything!!

Here are a few illustrations I reworked for my new flat:

More as promised

2008-12-30T13:27:00.002Z

Here is some more concept art from the same project, I imagine I'll be doing this until I get a real freelance job through... :P

Concept Painting

2008-12-06T23:44:00.005Z

Something a little different... before I did commercial work I used to paint in Photoshop, I still dabble with this from time to time and after a rather long hiatus I have produced the following painting for a personal concept project I am working on with a friend called: Orion

This painting was designed to get the colour keys and atmosphere of the environment and inspired by some local art seen in a shopping centre in Wycombe (!?!). more to come....

Third Libretto Cover

2008-12-06T23:32:00.002Z

My Third Cover for Libretto:

New Libretto Cover

2008-09-06T11:34:00.013Z

Here is the latest cover for Libretto.
This project was good fun to work on, very quick to complete and good experience for me working with a client on more than one project, in fact they have offered me a third cover!

I have uploaded all the work-in-progress for this project for anyone who is interested how I work and its on the flickr page.

Images 32

2008-08-11T09:10:00.005Z

About a year ago I got a place in the Association of Illustrators annual book; Images 32 and it just came in the post...

Here is another picture of it:

I will post the new Libretto cover soon, Im just awaiting its publication.

New Balance Competition

2008-07-21T10:13:00.003Z

I am currently working on another cover for Libretto, which I will blog when finished.. Slightly different tack with much brighter colours...

In the meantime I have been designing some trainer's for a New Balance competition. The 420 is a suede skate/running shoe and the competition/ promotion is to design your own shoe and New Balance will make it for you if they really like it!

I have converted one of my existing illustrations into a shoe (similar to that make-your-artwork-into-a-vinyl-toy-thing) Ill let you work out which one:

and also designed a pair of colour-way's based on cake's....

Which I had a dream about.

Libretto Cover

2008-05-25T10:40:00.002Z

This new piece paid for me to go to New York recently!

Client: Associated Board

Unused alternative composition:

Client: Associated Board

New work

2008-02-06T14:03:00.001Z

I haven't updated this blog in ages! been very busy at my other job Im afraid, but along the way I have generated a bit of Illustration/Design I can share,

New Personal Illustration

2007-12-23T18:54:00.002Z

I have the Flu at the moment, or Bronchitus... im not sure which, but anyway it seemed like an apt time to put out some new personal illustration

This new piece goes with this older piece from the summer on a similar theme:

Slideshow Illustrations

2007-12-09T18:58:00.000Z

This is the first of a series of illustrations im putting together for a presentation.
The subjects covered will be: Music (above), Video and Web/Podcasting.

New Job

2007-11-30T11:59:00.000Z

I havent been working on Illustration very much recently, had quite a bit of Graphic Design stuff but its commercial or conceptual so I havent been able to blog it,

did a new piece for fun a while ago and havent got round to blogging it yet, I just got a new job with a fruit-themed computer company where I work 9-5 (!) so my time for freelancing is limited but Im still hoping to get some more commissions!

Fortean Times Work in Print

2007-11-30T11:57:00.000Z

There was a delay in me getting a preview copy of the Fortean Times with my work in..but i have finally got it and uploaded it...

so here are the illustrations in context

In Print!

2007-10-28T13:54:00.001Z

My cover for Piano ... in Print!

Green Personal Work

2007-10-19T18:35:00.000Z

This is a personal work/doodle thing I did to celebrate turning my blog green!

Piano Magazine

2007-10-19T13:18:00.001Z

This is the new cover for Piano magazine I illustrated

Fortean Times Illustrations

2007-10-19T13:14:00.001Z

I recently did 4 spot illustrations for the Fortean Times Magazine on a scientific theme

Digital Arts Page

2007-10-19T13:12:00.000Z

I got a Page in Digital Arts for the October Issue

Im now currently writing a tutorial on the Fidel Castro piece seen below for the magazine.

Graphic Design for Consultancy

2007-10-19T13:08:00.000Z

This is some Graphic Design work completed for a consultancy

Garlic

2007-09-04T10:46:00.001Z

This piece is about how Garlic plants apparently grow very well on minefields and soil saturated with explosive residue/TNT

Back in The Zone

2007-08-27T13:04:00.000Z

After a few days lost in an artisic block I have managed to get something out, Im sure this sort of Illustration (the gritty cityscape) has been done to death but I thought id try it out...

Castro and Cuba

2007-07-30T12:55:00.000Z

Does anyone else think its weird that the Americans still have sanctions against Cuba?
I mean what are they afraid of? the spread of Communism, at this late stage?!

Anyway...i did an Illustration of Cuba and Fiedel Castro at the height of his power....

After using photos in some professional design work,Im toying with the idea of using it in my editorial.

Design Treatments

2007-07-24T17:57:00.000Z

This is some of the concept work I have been doing freelance for a design company, the context is a corporate leaflet exploring the ideas behind the company.

I refer to them as treatments as they work around or into stock photos supplied by my employer.

Sports Car Tuning

2007-07-22T17:14:00.000Z

I have not had much work on this last week so I got round to doing another Editorial. This one is for an article in the Financial Times's "How to Spend It" supplement about precision tuning for performance sports cars.
Buying a Sports Car, especially a customized one is usually a method of defining identity amongst those who can afford them so I worked in some fingerprints into the design along with the billowing money and robot arms.

Chinese Robot Builder

2007-07-17T11:15:00.000Z

Had quite a lot of work on these last few weeks, phoning publications and doing a bit of freelance design work, so I have been a bit crap about doing any new editorial work
I managed to get this done on sunday

The piece is based on something I saw in "Paul Merton in China" about an uneducated chinese farm labourer who inexplicably taught himself how to build robots out of everyday objects and trash... I saw him as person who could work out how things worked just by looking at them, almost like an exploded view of the world.

China's changing economy

2007-07-05T15:57:00.000Z

I finished this piece the other day but im looking for work now so time is a bit constricted, the idea is about how china is dividing into a financial upperclass and underclass while still maintaining the pretense of communism.

First Published Work

2007-06-28T16:22:00.000Z

My work is in a digital arts magazine, which is very exciting! so i thought i would share it with you all:

This is the magazine

and this is my work (from earlier in my blog no less...)

The article is about the best (digital?!) work from this years D&AD "New Blood" show
needless to say im very happy to see my work in print.

Conflict Diamonds

2007-06-12T13:23:00.001Z

This Illustration came about from reading about the violence in Sierra Leone and Liberia (funded by illegal diamond trafficking. I thought the phrase "Getting blood from a stone" was somehow appropriate to this continuing problem of weapons finding there way into the hands of child soldiers via illicit arms sales.

FT Article Illustration

2007-06-03T19:35:00.000Z

I chose an article from a recent FT Magazine about the life of an FBI agent for my latest practice exercise. The agent specialized in recovering stolen art by going undercover so i played with concealing identity to represent him.

Old Drawing

2007-06-03T19:28:00.000Z

Inspired by Adams recent drawing post I decided to post some old drawing I did in my first year with Quink ink and instant coffee, the technique is a bit like watercolour but it smells weird (because of the coffee!)

Sample Sheet Work

2007-05-27T16:28:00.000Z

This is a piece I am putting together for some sample sheets to send off to editors
the idea is about how children are put in a "lottery" to decide what school they go to

Home Project

2007-05-25T15:52:00.000Z

This was the final project I did for my 3rd Year, I toyed with the idea of investigating journeys and travel but ended up working on the Ego project first.
After finishing that I took a public brief on "home" for a local exhibiton.
I examined many ideas of home and became fixated on a social commentary piece on the desolation of slum living and poverty in suburban london.

I also looked at the idea of "neighborhood watch" in a reversd way, with people watching each other inside the community ,rather than being wary of strangers.....

All this work was interesting but I needed something more personal, so I looked into my attitudes about home, I used to have a rather distorted life, somewhat like a person with two lives, one with my now ex-girlfirend In Totnes, Devon and the other in Banbury, studying for my degree, on top of that I lived in Buckinghamshire. Needless to say I travelled a lot and spent a large proportion of my time in non-places, train stations and roadsides, places that exist only in the transitory.

I sought out to illustrate how I felt about it and when I had designs for both places
i wrote my girlfriend a letter describing the work. This became these Final pieces:

Rogue Trooper

2007-05-23T19:52:00.000Z

I was asked (through Myspace)to do an illustration for Litmsuphere magazine in march this year, unfortunatley I was really busy with two other briefs for uni and couldn't apply all my time to it, I produced two bits of work for the deadline but remained unhappy with the final result, for my own piece of mind I created a new piece later whi ch i have posted here today. When I get my sketchbooks back from assessment I will post the sketches and submitted work.

Orange Competion

2007-05-22T17:27:00.000Z

YCN Orange Brief

[the text for this post has been removed because these pieces are popular with art directors and I want to get more work]

Ego Project

2007-05-21T13:53:00.000Z

The Final for my Ego Project at Uni

I tried to design a character who i felt inspired feelings of hostility, the pink polo shirt suggesting a softness (in touch with his feminine side?!) countered by the hair and sneering face making him look like a cocky idiot.

Postcard Art

2007-05-20T22:04:00.001Z

For a brief set by D&AD this year

Two finals and some sketches:

An enjoyable project based on the idea of "A Postcard from the Edge" I chose to look at mental illness through the "right brain" or creative side of the mind.
I read Oliver Sacks book: "The Man who mistook his Wife for a Hat" and used the narrative to create my designs around some of the bizarre case histories.

The final images are intended to portray the gulf between the mentally ill and the medical establishment, the intertwined trees representing autistic twins who communicate through numbers as similarly inseperable despite the intervention of the medical authority.

The other image look's at the overmedication of the mentally ill (somewhat clumsily)

First Post Fun

2007-05-19T14:35:00.000Z

Well This is my first post on my blog i have told no-one about yet

(watches tumbleweed drift by......)

Ill go off and get some Illustration to put up here then!