Anyone Paint?

I am what used to be called a commercial artist.
Nowadays I'm referred to as a traditional artist.
I work at a production house that services multiple, large ad agencies. Most of the work is digital, but I'm still making mock ups, props and other meeting materials.
Things you can touch.....
You know, stuff that'll be thrown out in 3 hours after the meeting is over :)
I don't get to design or do creative at this gig, just making stuff and that's OK.
I meet with the agency designers, we go back and forth about capabilities and what's envisioned and I start by making a white paper, blank. Then go on from there, tweaking and building.
The box outside is book binders (faux) leather with transfer type and the orange is book binders cloth. Transfer type on the plexi and other vendors for the rest.
There were about 10 people involved in the unboxing project, so it wasn't me alone....
You can see the video here
 
So, today I was starting to teach my daughter some basics for drawing/sketching. So here's a quick still-life we did of a small plant from the windowsill. Mine is on the left... LOL

Tw6LiRX.jpg
 
Ebbtide said:
I am what used to be called a commercial artist.
Nowadays I'm referred to as a traditional artist.
I work at a production house that services multiple, large ad agencies. Most of the work is digital, but I'm still making mock ups, props and other meeting materials.
Things you can touch.....
You know, stuff that'll be thrown out in 3 hours after the meeting is over :)
I don't get to design or do creative at this gig, just making stuff and that's OK.
I meet with the agency designers, we go back and forth about capabilities and what's envisioned and I start by making a white paper, blank. Then go on from there, tweaking and building.
The box outside is book binders (faux) leather with transfer type and the orange is book binders cloth. Transfer type on the plexi and other vendors for the rest.
There were about 10 people involved in the unboxing project, so it wasn't me alone....
You can see the video here
Click to expand...

That's pretty cool. Hand skills are really a lost art these days. When I was in design school back in the early 90's, we did a lot of physical mock-ups for things. Had to learn 'paper-engineering' for making up product packaging, POP, studio props, etc. Spent lots of time with Bristol board, exact knives, remount, and such. It also set a solid foundation for the 3D stuff I do today. It was also the transition period when computers were just starting to take over the design field, so a lot of agencies and print houses were still doing things by hand - so we learned it.

Glad to see there are still people doing things by hand. Like I said, it's a lost art. Running the design department here, I've interviewed a lot of designers/artists, and very few of them under the age of 35 could create something by hand if they had to - never touched a t-square, Repidigraph pen, or a stat camera - and have no idea of the concepts that the various computer programs are built off of. Ask any of them to produce something without a computer, and you'll just get a blank stare... :(
 
I miss my rapidographs! Still have my ruling pen and compass set though.
All those skills that I worked so hard to be good at are passé.
Indicated lettering for layouts, ruling borders and graphs, hand lettering, showcard lettering....
Powerpoint? Heck that was me with a pad, a big marker or two and a t-square.
Interesting that you used the phrase paper engineering, that's part of my title :)
I got out of college in '76 and have been in advertising since.
Did paper mechanicals, that were art themselves, for the Chase Manhattan Annual Report to down and dirty newspaper ads for supermarkets.
How down and dirty? No t-square or triangle :) I have a good eye though.... ahh the days of late night Fridays..."I need a piece of art for a slice of blueberry pie!" So I'd do that too....
Thru the 80's and a good part of the 90's I worked on liquor POP displays, Absolute, Dewar's WL, Old Grandad, etc. They were fun with all the moving parts :)
Got caught out for a while during the digital revolution when there were a bunch of people that could do the stuff that I could and the demand was for kids out of school that could run a Mac (and for 1/3 the cost).
But most of us old schoolers are gone and now I'm back in demand. Can run the darn computer too.

I could rant for pages on how the computer ruined advertising art and design, but no one wants to hear that :)

But I shall not give up my fight against hyphens and widows!
Never!
 
Haven't thought about production mechanicals in years. I did four years of drafting in high-school (pre-CAD), so my first year of design school, I was putting production mechanicals together like a seasoned pro. I loved setting up 2 or 3 color jobs, with Ruby overlays, non-repro blue pencils, and registration stickers. Still use all those skills today, in a roundabout way, when I'm spacing custom elements for a vendor.

I was lucky enough to be right on that cusp between digital and analog. Had to learn both ways, even though it was clear where the industry was going in the early/mid 90's.

Funny you mention the liquor POP displays. one of the pieces in my portfolio that landed me in the trade show industry was a POP concept for Tangueray. And yes, that is an honest to goodness marker render (not my best work, but I was a punk kid in school when I did it... LOL)

hiTZLEK.jpg
 
I'm enjoying this thread. I'm not artistic, but I can build things. Used to do scale models, built stuff for my buddies HO sets, painted trains, lead figures, and whatever else. Enameled some car parts, modified metalwork, etc. Half-assed trained as a machinist and cabinetmaker. Did gunsmithing for a little over a decade. Now days I work doing something I never even knew was a job, and work on the house and toys. My latest painting is this:

szFCXmU.jpg


But I like art. Dated a few artists over the years. Met quite a few at various functions. Collect stuff I like. It's kind of strange to have a hobby that doesn't try to kill you.

Picked up a still life the other day, oil on canvas, 40-50 years old. Had a friend who wanted one. It's "too nice" so now I've got another thing to hang on the wall. I've got more stuff to hang than I have walls.
 
Jaseman, we are birds of a feather :)

Did someone mention scale models?
My last survivor..
Screen%20Shot%202018-09-12%20at%203.39.05%20PM.png

Armor came later, my favorites were twin engine prop jobs, oddballs like the Lockheed Hudson, Dornier 335 Arrow and the FW 189 Uhu. All historically correct.... Sadly they are all gone.

Below is a detail of a painting that hung in my Godparents house as long as I can remember. It had a profound effect on me. It's probably a mass produced "formula / art school" piece. I always loved the way things are portrayed and seen for what they are with so little attention to detail. It's all indicated and your mind fills in the rest.

Screen%20Shot%202018-09-12%20at%203.40.11%20PM.png

Don't sell yourself short eisman, art is where you make it. I think Ann Rand said that anything well done could be art.
It's all good.
 
Nice tank! Used to love building model cars and bikes as a kid. Loved to modify them and really detail them out. I'd buy three or four kits at a time, just to get all the pieces I wanted, so I could swap them around. Body from one kit, wheels from another, engine from a third, then a lot of cutting, splicing, melting, etc... built some pretty cool 'customs' that way. Might have also been the only 10 year old to ask for a Dremel for his birthday! :D


Gotta say, this thread has got me going. Me and my little girl have been drawing every night for the last 3 or 4 days. Sometime is charcoal, sometimes it colored pencil, or even even just a regular #2. We've done still life's (posted above), faces, and last night was aliens! I'm thinking maybe we'll try penguins tonight - she loves penguins!

Hope people keep contributing to this thread. I love seeing all the various stuff people create.
 
Nice German Marder and Kettenrad. I think that Marder is an Italieri kit, but I could be wrong. I used to kit bash that stuff back before photo-etched parts came around. I have a buddy who just started building them again (after 30+ years) and he's always asking me stuff. Where did all the hobby shops go?

I had a couple jobs selling those kits and supplies all over southern California and then western Washington. I had stacks of them in my garage. It was fun but I worked like a dog and made no money. The big box stores all converted over to plan-a-gram shelf space and killed my business. 150 stores all wanting the exact same models. I remember the guy out in Palmdale arguing with his district manager that he needed 50 linear feet of airplanes just to keep the guys at Edwards AFB happy and getting told he couldn't have it. That store went from around 2000 kits a month to less than 100. Now days kids don't want to bother.
 
eisman, The Squadron Shop is still around and has a presence on the FB.
All but one of the brick and mortar model stores that I knew are long gone. The one that's left is on 30th Ave in Astoria NYC.
Somewhere around here I have plans for a GB Racer to be scratch built from balsa.... IIRC the wingspan would be between 2 and 3'.
Someday...

Yeah folks, keep the art coming!
 
I mentioned the Squadron Shop earlier.
In my FB feed they had a pre order ad for a B-24J Liberator kit in 1/32 scale!
Always had a soft spot for the Liberator, my first boss was a Liberator pilot during WW2.
Haven't built a model kit in a dog's age (or three) and figured I'd just might take a crack at this giant of a model.
Then I saw the price.



$250....
This inflation stuff has gotten truly out of hand.
:0
 
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