An Eclectic Style: Kirk’s Portfolio, Part I
I was recently chatting with one of my friends here at VOX, the lovely Bernadette, who happens to be a fellow graphic designer. It’s always nice to find someone who does the same thing you do for a living. I can freely talk about things like “color separation“ and “negative space” and “vector paths” without fear of being mistaken for a drug addict.
Of course, as you’d expect in an online conversation between two artists, Bernie gave me a link to her portfolio and asked to see mine. My portfolio used to be here, but I took it down when I learned of Yahoo! directly participating in the suppression of democracy in China. I have since not bothered to acquire hosting. I felt pretty silly when I had to tell a fellow artist that I couldn’t show her any of my work at the moment and I promised to rectify the situation.
To that end, I have cobbled together a few different pieces to try and give a clear view of my artistic, er, merits. I pride myself on being a well-rounded illustrator and designer. I try to give my clients an eclectic mix of styles and mediums to choose from. I think you’ll agree that my ADD has served me well in this area.
FAIR WARNING: Some of my artwork present in this post is of an adult nature, though no actual nudity or obscenity is displayed.
Photo Manipulation
I start with this because it is, hands down, the most fun to do. Photoshop is my favoritest* thing in the whole world. It’s good for everything from making yourself better looking before posting your photo to VOX to nestling your worst enemy’s face inside a donkey’s butt. It’s truly a wonderful service Adobe has done the world in making Photoshop.
Here we have a few things I created by meticulously piecing together photographic elements entirely in Adobe Photoshop.
The first is, obviously, a message about the perils of smoking Marlboros. I made this shortly after learning that Marlboro adds freebase nicotine to their cigs. The second is a lovely little thing I did for a Worth 1000 contest but never submitted. The last one is just an idea that popped into my head one day.
Stylized Illustration
I can try to mimic any major artistic style, if the client requires it, but when left to my devices, I tend to go pretty dark. I often gravitate towards projects that allow me to be as dark as I want. I'm not completely incapable of putting together somehting bright and colorful, though.
3D Modeling and Rendering
I’m a complete autodidact at 3D software and, as a result, I’m not the best at it. You want to see someone who can build vector models, check out my friend the EvilWombatQueen. But I do try. Below are four different illustrations for which I had to do a lot of work in 3D programs.
Logo Design
It’s not my favorite thing to do, but I’m somewhat adept at it, I guess. Below we have the logo I designed for my blog, the logo redesign I did for Isomedia and another logo I did for a little pharmacy in Canada called, aptly, Canadian Pharmacy.
Well, I think that’s about enough for now. I’ll post another sampling soon. I also have a bunch of t-shirt designs you can check out if you still want to see more.
Thanks for looking!
*I make up words from time to time. We've established this.
Comments
i do love seeing your stuff though. just great!
Killer portfolio, Kirk. Post more, damnit!
Marque: Your pops made one exceptional human being, even if he did keep the art skill for himself!
Lurkertype: The question is does Tim Burton mind me being compared to him? :)
Dustin: You got it, damnit!
Maureen: Thank you so much! I am indeed hard on myself, but let me assure you that the reason the 3D images look so nice is because I do extensive work on my 3D renders in Photoshop. Anyone who saw one of my raw renders without any postwork done to it would cringe and tel me to go into another line of work.
Austin1234: I'm also far more affordable than you might think. People are usually surprised. Thanks for the kind words.
Red Pen: I used to like doing logos a lot more, but I've just done so many I'm sick of them. Logo design is a relatively easy freelance gig to get, so I've done quite a few. Thing is, I'd rather be in Photoshop making an illustration than tediously shifting around vector points in Illustrator. Plus, logos very seldom feature sultry women or demonic monsters, which is really what I like to draw.