This year is the year of Dwayne. I plan on venturing out into the world of the paid illustrator. How am I going to achieve this? I am going to travel to every convention and sell prints. I need to get known. I need a fan base. If I ever intend to become successful I need those things. As I said before look out here comes the new and improved Dwayne.

Here is my latest project. I am thinking it will soon be the back of my business card as well as the photo for my about me section in my upcoming website. I am very proud of this one because it is 100% digitally painted (my first). If you can't tell it is a self portrait of myself. All in all about 6 hours of fun work, done completely in Photoshop. Any suggestions?

Dr. Robert's Brain

I had a lot of fun with this project. I was in a bit of a creative slump and suddenly decided to go with the first thing that popped in my head... which just so happened to be a brain in a jar. The name Dr. Robert comes from the Beatles song called Dr.Robert. I feel like I am finally breaking free from Photo Manipulation and on the verge of Illustration/Art. Any thoughts?

New Project

Here is a new project that I am working on. I think I may have over did it with the gradient map and the grain back ground but I am still thinking about it. I think I will call this one "polluted mind".

Here is a Portrait I did of Jack Black for my illustration class. It is acrylic on illustration board 9 x 12.

So here's another fun Project I did in photoshop...

I am fairly confident in my Photoshop skills now, that I think it is time to take it a step further. Instead of random cool images I now plan on composing some conceptual ideas i.e using a phrase like "a million tears" and making an illustration out of it.
For all those that are curious as to what kind of treatment I did to these photos... well, to get it looking awesome like this I had to implore a few new techniques. The rider had a very harsh lighting so I had to make the ant match, I simply grabbed my Wacom tablet and went to town with 3 px hard brush with pressure sensitivity and the opacity set to about 10%. then after a few tweaks with the tranform tool and adding a shadow for the rider I added my new favorite adjustment layer... The Gradient Map. I like it because it is refreshing to me. it adds more colors than the average "real" colors and makes the image come together as a whole. Plus it hides a lot of color matching problems saving you loads of time.

I have been trying out a lot of online tutorials lately. I believe they are helping me out tremendously. I know a lot of the content they describe I have just never seen a practical application for a lot of the tools. This one uses a lot of gradient maps and custom brushes.

A fun typography project... I can picture it on a t-shirt.

Today was extra productive... woo hoo

I am trying like mad to perfect my photo-manipulation skills. It is something that I really enjoy doing. I have to say that when I enjoy the projects that I set for myself I am extremely productive. In the past twenty four hours I have done three mini projects, two of which I will post. This one in particular was a little bit of a challenge when it came to color matching. I finally had to desaturate the whole thing and recolor it myself. I think it turned out phenomenally. It still makes me laugh.

Fly II

Here is the update of my fly design I added color highlights and was playing around with different backgrounds. I think it is turning out rather nicely. About 30 min in Photoshop.

My Future Homepage

This is still a work in progress but I decided to show it anyways. I have always been attracted to the design elements of Adult Swim and they frequently manipulate photos to include their logos. This is my take of their concept and I think it is going quite well. Done in Photoshop about an hour of total design time thus far.

Animation Practice

Here is a character I am playing around with in Flash. His name is Brig. I am using him as a guinea pig for brushing up on my Flash skills. I haven't touched the program since CS2. Just some simple movements nothing special.

A fly...

Here is a personal Project I am working on it is done completely in Photoshop CS4. All in all it took about 4 and a half hours and about 75 layers to get to this point. Since It is almost completely desaturated I am adding color highlights to the chrome to give it a more realistic feel. I created it entirely from chrome car parts warped and skewed to the shapes I needed. The eyes are tail lights the abdomen is a motorcycle headlight etc. It is a fun project that I intend on using for my business card.

Welcome to my blog!

First off, I am new to this. I am a father and have a busy life so my updates may have a little distance between them. I look forward and am open minded to all critiques so lay it on me (I have thick skin so be honest). I plan on sharing with all my viewers a glimpse into the artistic archives of the talented Mr. Dwayne Bruce. So sit back and enjoy a cornucopia of visual stimuli.