Author: lemsy

John LeMasney (lemsy) is an artist, graphic designer, and technology creative. He is located in beautiful Nelson County, VA, but works remotely with ease. Contact him at: lemasney@gmail.com to discuss your next creative project.

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design principles Illustration Inkscape portfolio

A highly reflective sphere

Highly reflective sphere
Highly reflective sphere
Highly reflective sphere - LeMasney Consulting
Highly reflective sphere

Here’s a simple sphere that moves a bit away from my regular reflective treatment.

In Inkscape, I made a black sphere on a gradient background. I duplicated and intersected the sphere and made the intersection white to imitate reflectance of the ‘floor’ part of the background gradient. I made a white rectangle and converted to path, then bent the top and bottom paths to make the reflection of an overhead lampappear to bend upon the top surface of the sphere. I created center gradients for both the black and white parts of the sphere. I added a grey, blurred, flat gradient for a shadow beneath the sphere. Finally, I duplicated and lowered the opacity of the black sphere and moved it down to create a reflection of the sphere itself in the ground.

Hope you all enjoyed it!

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affiliations brand consulting curriculum vitae design principles Illustration open source photography portfolio professional activities professional experience teaching experience

4 ghosts from Pac Man reimagined – LeMasney Consulting

4 ghosts from Pac Man reimagined - LeMasney Consulting
4 ghosts from Pac Man reimagined - LeMasney Consulting

4 ghosts from Pac Man reimagined - LeMasney Consulting
4 ghosts from Pac Man reimagined – LeMasney Consulting

For the love of Pac Man

So, like many of Gen X, I was highly influenced by the introduction of Pac Man, and feel like the colors, sounds, and excitement that came over me the first time I saw it changed me in ways that I didn’t know until I started to study design. I was never particularly good at the game, and still I have trouble getting past the first level before losing interest. The first time I saw the game, it was inside a Wendy’s Hamburgers in Northeast Philly. It was about the size of a dishwasher, doubled as a table, and had a short queue waiting to play it. The version I play now is free and exists on my phone. It really is the end times.

How I made the image.

In Inkscape, I started by making the simple ellipse, rectangle, and Bezier shapes for the ghost outline. I combined the rectangle and Bezier path, the duplicated and flipped that shape to create the back of the ghost “skirt” In fact, two more dupes were made in order to create the 3d effect of the skirt. I found a public domain skull and bitmap traced it and carved it down to just the eyes and nose, then added it to the ghost. Then I added the candy coating effect. I duplicated the ghost 3 times and affected the color to match the Pac Man colors. As a final touch, I added the final frame of the Pac Man sprite (when he is captured) to the background. I hope you enjoyed it!

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portfolio

It’s good to be Queen – LeMasney Consulting

It's good to be Queen - LeMasney Consulting
It's good to be Queen - LeMasney Consulting

It's good to be Queen - LeMasney Consulting
It’s good to be Queen – LeMasney Consulting

So there’s lots of reasons for this. First I was thinking of my beautiful wife, and how by mutual agreement, she pretty much has the power in our house, lives, and marriage. She does so much more with it than I would anyway. I also was thinking about the game of chess, which my 5 year old Jack and I have begun to explore in simple pawn only games. I was holding one of the queens in my personal board set which I got for my birthday about 5 years ago, and thinking about how beautiful the forms are, and it all came together as inspiration for this design.

In Inkscape, I imported a photo of a queen, and used the guidelines in Inkscape to create horizontal markers for changes in the form from top to bottom. Using the rectangle and conversion to path, I used the node tool to shape out the queen. I added a checkerboard in the back, the text over top, and finally, I used the new 0.48 beta spraypaint tool in order to create the bokeh effect you see floating in the background.

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portfolio

Save NJ LIbraries – LeMasney Consulting

Save NJ LIbraries - LeMasney Consulting
Save NJ LIbraries - LeMasney Consulting

Save NJ LIbraries - LeMasney Consulting
Save NJ LIbraries – LeMasney Consulting

This is actually Sunday’s post, even though it’s late in the day, but this was the first opportunity I had to be online today. I have posted this elsewhere, and I feel very strongly about the short sightedness of cutting Library programming, databases, and other funding. I understand that budgets must be kept, but it seems like other costs, like million dollar state run college coach salaries could be reduced or removed before dismantling the beneficial programs and positions of many people, because as many have said, that’s a hell of a lot of books. Support your local Library — they need you right now more than ever.

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portfolio requests

89 of 365 is a wild sunburst in #Inkscape @Robin Milne

Wild Sunburst - LeMasney Consulting
Wild Sunburst - LeMasney Consulting

Wild Sunburst - LeMasney Consulting
Wild Sunburst – LeMasney Consulting

So this is in response to a 365 request from a friend and loyal workshop attendee, Robin Milne, who in noticing my love for the spiro spline effect sent me a crazy image of an object that had hundreds of beautiful squiggly spiro like lines. I have no idea what the object is, and in a way, I prefer not to, as it’s beautiful as simply an object.

Spiro monster from Robin Milne
Spiro monster from Robin Milne

So at any rate, I decided I was going to go back to an old standby theme, the Sun, especially in celebration of the Spring Equinox. I took Robin’s image, I brought it into Inkscape, bitmap traced it, duped and rotated it a few times, changing the color each time. Then I added a central ellipse to make it clearly a sun, finally working into all of it with the calligraphy tool.  I built a sunset styled gradient in the background, and painted in a landscape below. For a final touch, I added a candy coating effect to the sun. I enjoyed making it, and I thank Robin for caring enough to send an image, and you for caring enough to stop by. Happy spring!

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portfolio

88 of 365 is a spring flower mindful of winter in #inkscape

Spring flower - LeMasney Consulting
Spring flower - LeMasney Consulting

Spring flower - LeMasney Consulting
Spring flower – LeMasney Consulting

Tomorrow is 2010’s spring equinox, and so I thought I’d celebrate with a highly stylized flower design.

In Inkscape, I started by adding two inline circles, and then connecting them with a Bezier path to create the dual opposing dewdrop shape. I then unioned these and duplicated them, moving the center of rotation between the two shapes. This made essentially the gray shape you see there. Next, I duplicated and path-outset the shape to make the light blue shape. I did the same for the deep blue shape. For the shadow effect behind the light blue and deep blue shapes, I duped those shapes, changed them to gray, and gave them some blur. I added the blue circles using the ellipse tool. Finally, I used the candy coating effect (dupe, intersect with circle, apply gradient) for the gray shape and each of the blue circles separately.

Hope you enjoyed it, spring’s right around the corner now.