“What is Creative Mondays?

Monday’s are always a drag. The start of a new week, you have to go back to that routine of going to bed early/get up early. If (like me) you have to commute then you prepare for that long journey into work and that long journey back for the first time after a nice two day break.

So to kick off those lousy Mondays, I’m going to get my creative mind flowing in a positive way. Creative Mondays. A chance for me to show off something unfinished or finished that I’ve been working on throughout the previous week.”

This week’s Creative Mondays piece is just a nice reminder to myself. I’m only at the beginning of a big adventure and there’s so much still to learn. There’s so much inspiration out there and if you’re a budding designer/illustrator or creative person in general then I’d suggest getting yourself on Twitter and explore the plethora of talent and knowledge. You can find me there @jasonwstanley

“What is Creative Mondays?

Monday’s are always a drag. The start of a new week, you have to go back to that routine of going to bed early/get up early. If (like me) you have to commute then you prepare for that long journey into work and that long journey back for the first time after a nice two day break.

So to kick off those lousy Mondays, I’m going to get my creative mind flowing in a positive way. Creative Mondays. A chance for me to show off something unfinished or finished that I’ve been working on throughout the previous week.”

This week’s Creative Mondays piece comes in the form of a blu-ray cover design I entered for a competition on PhotoshopCafe. The competition requires that you must “Design a ficticious Blu-ray cover that can include an original illustration, photograph, photomanip, collage, whatever you like, as long as Photoshop is used somewhere in the creation of the piece.”

Being the massive fan of outer space and galaxies that I am I chose the Photoshop filter ‘Solarize’ as my element to parody. The sun is rapidly becoming a supernova and the Earth will soon meet it’s fate… the remaining population must find a way to get off the planet to safety! Something along those lines.

It’s a great competition and what’s more I’ve joined a forum of enthusiastic artists that like to discuss and share their work. The competition is free to enter and finishes on the 31st of January! You can check it out here.

Photo by: Toomas Järvet http://www.stuudio.net/toomas

Photo by: Gary Cowles http://www.garycowles.com

Photo by: screwcity http://www.sxc.hu/profile/screwcity

“What is Creative Mondays?

Monday’s are always a drag. The start of a new week, you have to go back to that routine of going to bed early/get up early. If (like me) you have to commute then you prepare for that long journey into work and that long journey back for the first time after a nice two day break.

So to kick off those lousy Mondays, I’m going to get my creative mind flowing in a positive way. Creative Mondays. A chance for me to show off something unfinished or finished that I’ve been working on throughout the previous week.”

This week was all about down-time. I have had about ten days off and as much as I tried I wanted to stay away from to many hours in front of the computer. That didn’t work, so I created something that I’d like to use to inspire others (and myself) to be more creative this year! I used the stock photo site http://www.sxc.hu/to gather some images and a pretty sweet ‘swirls’ brush that was designed by Mel Rodicq.

Happy first Monday in 2012!

So another year is upon us and here’s hoping it’s going to be a good one! I felt that 2011 was the year I made my real start on this site and pushed my creativity to a new level. 2012 will be all about that and more.  To all my family, my friends (new and old) and to all those that check out my site I’d like to wish you a Happy New Years and all the best for 2012. Let’s make it awesome!

“What is Creative Mondays?

Monday’s are always a drag. The start of a new week, you have to go back to that routine of going to bed early/get up early. If (like me) you have to commute then you prepare for that long journey into work and that long journey back for the first time after a nice two day break.

So to kick off those lousy Mondays, I’m going to get my creative mind flowing in a positive way. Creative Mondays. A chance for me to show off something unfinished or finished that I’ve been working on throughout the previous week.”

The FWA or (Favourite Website Awards) has been showcasing Flash Website design for over 10 years and was one of the original inspiration sites that I would go to whilst studying at university. Although much has been said recently about the state of Flash and it’s unknown future, there’s clearly an immense amount of talented work going on with the platform.

One aspect of the FWA site that always catches my eye is their wallpaper section. Artists are encouraged to create a wallpaper in any style of their choosing using the FWA logo in some shape or form. With it being so close to Christmas I choose a winter theme for my wallpaper. I’ve submitted it to the site but even if it doesn’t make it up I’d like to be able to share it as something I’ve been working on over the holiday period! Happy Holidays!

You can download the full image wallpaper on my Flickr page!

“What is Creative Mondays?

Monday’s are always a drag. The start of a new week, you have to go back to that routine of going to bed early/get up early. If (like me) you have to commute then you prepare for that long journey into work and that long journey back for the first time after a nice two day break.

So to kick off those lousy Mondays, I’m going to get my creative mind flowing in a positive way. Creative Mondays. A chance for me to show off something unfinished or finished that I’ve been working on throughout the previous week.”

I usually get a phrase stuck in my mind with the intention of creating something around it but never follow through with the idea. With the help of Creative Mondays I have a feeling that a great deal of work that will pop up on these posts will be representing just those phrases!

Would be nice to keep all my ideas in a container that I could just sprinkle out and complete a great artistic recipe!

This week’s Creative Mondays piece comes from a project I heard about on Twitter earlier in the week. The project created by @ph7labs entitled Illuniverse enables artists/illustrators to submit their own created planets onto a website showcasing their work. The aim is to create an entire universe with a variety of different styles.

The project seems to have taken off pretty well and you can already see a nice selection of styles from artists around the world. As an added bonus, each planet links back to it’s creator’s website and serves as a brilliant resource to explore a very creative collection of people!

What’s great about this project is that it’s an open idea. The brief is very open leaving you to create pretty much anything you want!

My first planet (I call Reddy) was an exploration from scratch. I sketched out a circle and drew whatever came into my head. I then worked on fleshing the planet out in Photoshop and the result seems to be some sort of red dripping spotted planet with a double halo ring!

The idea for my second planet was an homage to a scene from The Empire Strikes Back where Han Solo and his companions land the Millenium Falcon on an asteroid in an attempt to escape from the Empire. I created this planet in Illustrator as I rarely work in this program and wanted to expand my knowledge. Watch the clip below to see the scene that I’m talking about.

So I hope you enjoy these little guys and be sure to check out the entire collection over at Illuniverse.com!

“What is Creative Mondays?

Monday’s are always a drag. The start of a new week, you have to go back to that routine of going to bed early/get up early. If (like me) you have to commute then you prepare for that long journey into work and that long journey back for the first time after a nice two day break.

So to kick off those lousy Mondays, I’m going to get my creative mind flowing in a positive way. Creative Mondays. A chance for me to show off something unfinished or finished that I’ve been working on throughout the previous week.”

Here’s my second installment of my ‘Creative Mondays’ project and this one is for all those ideas that are boxed up waiting to be released into the internet wilderness. Wanted to mess around with one texture (the wood) and see how far it would take me. As the idea grew it became a box with hinges and a little handle! Was fun to create something from scratch and let the idea take shape.

The wood texture can be found here.

I’ve always wanted to do a poster featuring my favourite web-slinger and I can now show you the finished piece! I like to make sure at some stage throughout each project to learn something new and this poster was no exception. I’ve never really gotten into illustrator before so I decided this was a good opportunity to dive in head first.

The entire poster was created in illustrator (all except a few touch-ups with lighting and the text) starting from a sketch I’d scanned in. As Spidey is frequently seen swinging through New York’s amazing cityscape I felt I could take advantage of Illustrator’s new ‘perspective tools’ and create a convincing backdrop. It takes a little getting used to but once you let the perspective do the work for you, you’ll get a better idea of the composition you’d like. Within Photoshop I added a few textures to the buildings, added his webbing and created the glow effect you see around him.

I’ve always sketched out comic book characters as a kid and it’s really where I started in terms of my interest in drawing so to be able to transfer those skills to digital art was a really fun experience!

Dribbble:

Dribbble is a great site for designers and developers that want to share work in progress (WIP) screenshots of their latest projects.

Anyone can become a member and explore the work of the site but to contribute you have to be ‘drafted’ by existing members. Dribbble states that this is to sharpen the focus on sharing interesting work while enabling the support and scaling of the site.

I can see great potential in Dribbble as most of the people I follow on the site are friends from other networks enabling me to see the kind of work they are currently doing. It’s also an interesting approach to give viewers a screenshot of what’s going on and not the full piece thereby showing off a community at work rather than just showcasing final projects.

Forrst:

Forrst is similar to Dribbble in the way that it’s a community site made up of designers and developers but purely focuses on the discussion of a piece of work.

Users are encouraged to post links, snaps, code or simply ask a question to try and draw comments or critiques from others within the same field.

Joining Forrst is also an invite only process but some work can be viewed by those not registered. I’ve only just started using Forrst but in that short time I’ve really come to appreciate the discussions and ideas bouncing back and forth. You will be surprised at how inspiring discussing yours and others work really is.

Behance:

I think Behance is perhaps the most well-known out of the design/developer networks currently online and it certainly feels like one of the most professional out there.

Essentially it’s an online portfolio for creative professionals across a variety of industries enabling users to showcase their work through other partner sites and industry-specific served sites.

The site is popular within the industry as it is used by creative companies and recruiters to find talent to hire.

To sign up you must request an invitation describing your creative work. Once accepted it’s simply a case of uploading your portfolio, sharing your work and connecting with others within the same field. There’s also a jobs section and a place for recruiters to post job vacancies.

It’s clear social media networks are here to stay as we all need a means to communicate with each other but what we’re seeing are niche groups that enable users to focus their discussion.

There’s a whole host of other networks out there including the big names but I think the important thing to do if you’re a designer or a developer trying to further your knowledge and engage with others is that you get into that discussion. Create work, share with others and discuss and you’ll be surprised about how much you learn and improve.