Process - Relient K Chibi Magnets

It was around 2005 when our cousin introduced us to Relient K. He lent us a copy of their album MMHMM and I was around 12 years old then. Ever since, I've greatly related to most of their songs and we'd dream of them visiting here in the Philippines. I thought it would be awesome if we could see them live and tell them how awesome they are.

Years later, and behold, they were here and I had the privilege to meet them! Last September 28 and 29, I've been to their shows and also had the privilege to meet them and gave them these cute magnets.  It was an awesome time.

In this post, I'll talk about the process in making the gifts I gave the band - chibi magnets of Matt Hoopes and Matt Thiessen.

First off, I drew both of these awesome guys on a sketch paper,
doing my best to make them look similar to the two Matts.

Using the pen tool, let's trace the characters to form lineart.
You can check here for an awesome tutorial on how to use the pen tool.  

Lineart's a little close to being done. It still looks messy, so we'll adjust them in a bit.

More lineart. Looks really cute! 

Now we'll add the colors, using the pen tool and adding a clipping mask for the shadows.

Now we add more detail by using the brush tool to add some life to the colors,
again using a clipping mask.

Now that the kawaii chibis are done, let's make the magnets!

I visited an office supply store and purchased some magnetic paper. Then used that paper and printed the images.

Cut the magnets carefully with scissors and here they are! Ready to be given as gifts to the most awesome bromance ever, the two Matts of Relient K. 

Here are some photos I took from Relient K's show. 

Thank you so much guys for coming here to the Philippines!

P.S.: They love the magnets and posted a photo on their Instagram. It feels awesome!

Using Burn/Dodge Tool to make Digital Portraits

Hi everyone! Sorry for the lack of updates here at the blog. Hopefully here's something that would inspire you to keep making art that matters to you. :)

While vexel portraits are mainly used with the pen tool, it would be interesting to do experiments and try making portraits with different tools and methods. The burn and dodge tool, as well as the gaussian blur filter, was something I proved had its uses in making cool digital portraits, although they won't be called vector/vexel anymore. :)

One of my earlier works last year was "January", a portrait I made for a friend.

I didn't record what I exactly did, but first I start of with the pen tool to create the shapes for the hair, face and shirt. The hair strands, using the pen tool, and then I experimented with the burn and dodge tool to make the shadows. Check out the basic tutorial for using these tools here. 

Here's another example, this time using mixtures of the pen tool, gaussian blur, and the burn/dodge tool.

The burn/dodge tool is often used in making photo enhancements but works well with adding shadows to portraits like these too.

I'd like to improve and venture on with making art, so hopefully in the next days, I'd be sharing more stuff with you guys.

Thanks for reading!

-Tactician Jenro

Illustrator Tutorial - Watercolor and Marker Style Portrait

This tutorial from DesignInstruct.com shows us how to make a watercolor and marker style portrait in Illustrator. Try it out for yourself and create your own portraits! Following through this tutorial is so much fun.

Here are the portraits I created from following this tutorial:

8 of the Cutest Character Design Tutorials for Illustrator

Here are 10 awesome cute and simple vector character design tutorials for Photoshop and Illustrator.

1. Create a Cute Panda Bear Face Icon

2. How to Create a Cute Bunny Vector Character

Wallnuts Need Some Love - Plants Vs. Zombies

A few months ago, my Plants Vs. Zombies fanart was featured in the PvZ facebook page. Hooray! :)

You can check out the feature here.

The wallnut is, hands down, my favorite plant. I mean - look at it! He sacrifices himself to defend you from all those zombies. Poor thing. That's why I thought it really needs some love.