I feel heartbroken… I can’t find the original AI file for the above vector image… I resolve from this point on to always be more careful with my backups. There will be backups of backups, which will be clearly labelled and never thrown out. *cries*
Tag Archives: vector
Holly Berry Part 2
A while ago I started a new drawing of my cat Holly Berry. A lot has happened since then, but I have started working on the drawing again. These kinds of pictures are a test of patience for me. I love the end results, but they take forever as I decide where I’m going to start colouring, shading, and drawing individual “furs” – and then deleting and deciding the approach isn’t working. But they also help me to get perspective on colours and tones and shapes.
One of the things I love about Holly Berry is that she’s got such beautiful colours in her coat. The white sprinkled all through it makes it seem like she’s going grey prematurely, but she has the funniest little kitten face and these really pretty tans and browns. Also, she has these cute little white paws (which won’t be appearing in this drawing) and one solid black leg (the others are a patchwork of colours).
I’m still here!
It has been far longer than I had anticipated. We came back to Sydney to early on a Saturday morning, to bad news, and spent the first week and a bit involved in family activities. The second (and a bit) week I had a university assignment to complete, and the following week it was back to work.
Right now I’m hunting for jobs in KL (if you know of anything that you think would suit me, please don’t hesitate to let me know!!) and Sydney (contracts only) early morning and at night, working my previous job (team lead, developer, and project manager) during the day, and trying to hit the gym 4 days a week. I’m also trying to fit in my university studies in any free time I have (thank goodness for bus rides). It hasn’t left time for much else though.
Oh, and I need to give a big shout out to all the big courier companies out there. I hate you!! It took over a month for our boxes from the Philippines to get here and they were completely crushed. Luckily it was only personal belongings (clothes and books and such) and nothing valuable or breakable, but still… We even had to pick the boxes up ourselves from customs because the courier company refused to. What on earth are we paying you for????
Enough of that ranting though. I was hoping to have something pretty to put up on the website, but job hunting is consuming most of my free time. So I thought I would leave you with a couple of vector images I did when I was learning how to use Illustrator…. way back when 
I don’t think that badly of them – although I can certainly see how far I have come! Even just looking at the technique and the way they were drawn…
Ch-ch-ch-changes
I’m starting to get impatient with being in the Philippines because my husbands posting is almost up. At some point soon (fingers crossed it’s before Christmas) we will find out where Vincent will be posted next, and I will be going back to work. In part due to excitement and in part so that I can see just how much I have achieved over the past 12 (or so) months, I’ve been updating my resume.
What is exciting to me is that I can see that I have achieved a lot. My six months off work has not been in vain, and I’m glad I took the time to study again. My commerce degree (one more subject to complete until the Graduate Certificate!) has really given me a new perspective on work, and has also helped me form much clearer career goals. I’m so glad I picked commerce over multimedia or fine arts. I would love to carry on and complete my masters, but not through Open. I know it works for some people, but I hate the online format (ironically online learning is how I’ve made my living over the last few years) and find it ten times harder to focus because of it.
I’m also really thrilled that I persevered last year to attain my CAPM. I know it’s not the most prestigious certification, but it really helped me form a more disciplined project management style. I still would like to go on and qualify for a PMP certification, but I think I’ll wait and see where my career takes me.
And I’m also glad I’ve decided to start looking at the Internet again, opening up Photoshop, exploring WordPress, and using Illustrator. After spending so much time with my head in code and dealing day in and day out with Flash, Actionscript, Javascript, and the odd other script, I felt really spent. I still feel creatively burned out, but I actually feel like I’m getting better (healing?). I can see things and find creative inspiration now! I think creativity is of huge importance in the workplace – regardless of what job you have. To be able to find new and better ways of doing things, to be able to maintain motivation even if you’re doing the most dull task in the world… It’s a creative skill. When you stop being able to think outside the square, I think you become less effective. You just become another number instead of being stand-out.
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Anyway, enough reflection! Once I’m done with this weeks assignment for uni, I will endeavour to post something new and pretty. It has been a while since I’ve done a 60 minute sketch so I might mull over ideas at the gym today and hopefully tomorrow will have a little time to do something.
In the meantime, this is a new picture I’ve been working on.
It’s my cat, Holly Berry. I’m finding she is really hard to draw because she has so many white furs which need to be drawn individually as they are randomly scattered all throughout her coat. This picture is going to take forever to complete…
Gradient Mesh
I have been practicing with the Gradient Mesh again (as mentioned in the previous post). There has been about a three year gap, and I had never exactly “mastered” the tool to begin with, so I’m pretty proud of my first couple of attempts. I need to work on the detail in both images (particularly around the ears and the hands) but I certainly can’t complain so far.
This is the first image that I created – the reference photo was from my wedding day. The blurring around the right eye is actually deliberate. The reference photo that I used focused on the left eye. 100% Illustrator, no touching up in Photoshop. I’ve deliberately framed off the hands, because they look like mush.
This is the second image I have done. This time the reference photo is from iStockphoto. Again, 100% Illustrator, no touching up in Photoshop. I still need to draw in the eyebrows and eyelashes, which will darken the eye socket area. I also need to focus on the hair shading as it is still very rough.