Category: portfolio

This is a portfolio of my work in many forms. It should give you some insight as to the products I might help you to create.

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portfolio

Number 11 is a retro-styled funky monkey

Funky Monkey by John LeMasney via lemasney.com
Funky Monkey by John LeMasney via lemasney.com
Funky Monkey by John LeMasney via lemasney.com
Funky Monkey by John LeMasney via lemasney.com

So, for the new year, I decided to break a resolution. I had intended to follow a strict theme of faces on this joint, but as you can see here, I feel that Inkscape offers a lot of things that are expressed better as other things besides faces. I think this might make a nice t-shirt or something, for example. So for technique, I converted the word funky! to a path and played with it to make it, well, funky. Then, I added 3 dynamic offsets and colored them with warm colors. Then, I took the word monkey, converted it to a path, applied a bend live path effect, applied a sketch live path effect, and then duplicated it, converted the duplicate to a path, filled in the centers of each letter with color, then added a dynamic offset to that. I added the black background and clean text at the top. Happy New year you funky monkeys!

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Illustration Inkscape portfolio

A girl’s face made out of lines

An illustration of a girl's face made with serial lines using Inkscape cc-by lemasney
An illustration of a girl's face made with serial lines using Inkscape cc-by lemasney
A girl's face made out of lines by John LeMasney via lemasney.com
A girl’s face made out of lines

This one was a revelation for me. Perhaps not the best application of this tool, but it was a lot of fun to play with. I just started reading about Inkscape‘s Stitch Sub Paths Live Path Effect in Kirsanov’s The Book of Inkscape and found that it was great for lining long planes with manipulable parallel paths.

In my painting classes, I learned that it’s important to sculpt your subject with your brush to help your viewer see the way that a plane is going through space. This is a simplified way of doing just that. Very fun too.

I hope you can excuse the primitivism of this experiment, but I plan to develop my skills with it in the new year. Speaking of which, I hope you all have a great 2010.

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brand consulting design principles Illustration Inkscape open source portfolio professional activities research interests teaching

An illustration of Roger Ebert using text cc-by lemasney

An illustration of Roger Ebert using text cc-by lemasney
An illustration of Roger Ebert using text cc-by lemasney

A portrait of Roger Ebert made out of text by John LeMasney via lemasney.com
A portrait of Roger Ebert made of text by John LeMasney via lemasney.com

When I saw Slashfilm‘s post on Roger Ebert‘s list of best 2009 films (20 of them, not one of them Avatar), I remembered watching him on his show for years, up until his cancer surgery that removed a great deal of his lower face and neck. The photo that is the basis for my drawing appears above the post at Despite this surgery, which took his ability to speak, he continued to write, and as a salute on NPR stated so nicely:

“When Roger Ebert lost his ability to speak following cancer surgery, it wasn’t clear exactly what his future would hold, but it turns out that he entered a phase of his career that’s been utterly fascinating. He does talk about politics a lot on his blog, but even if all you read is his coverage of movies and culture, it’s well worth the time.” from Getting Personal: We Salute 10 Of Our Favorite Pop-Culture Humans Of 2009 – Monkey See Blog : NPR at Tue Dec 29 2009 23:35:51 GMT-0500 (EST) on

So, in my quest for doing (hopefully) interesting, poignant, and helpful sketches over the next year, I wanted to share my text-based portrait of Roger, with apologies to the original photographer who is not credited on Slashfilm. Shame. Also, I just read a great essay by Ebert that the NPR piece led me to at

He may not be able to speak, but he has certainly not lost his voice.

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portfolio

Number 8 is a do-over of the jagged toothed elf (Number 2).

A jagged toothed elf cc-by lemasney
A jagged toothed elf cc-by lemasney

A jagged toothed elf by John LeMasney via lemasney.com
A jagged toothed elf by John LeMasney via lemasney.com

I am already getting a little bit critical about earlier entries in this series. I feel like the quick entry in slot number two could have been better imagined, better executed, and definitely more refined. So here is a do-over that gives a more fully fleshed creature. I started with a simple ellipse, to shape the head, eyes, mouth, ears, and nose. I stretched and placed them after converting to paths where necessary. For the jagged teeth, I decided to use the calligraphy tool set to Wiggly. I duplicated my mark, flipped it to make a bottom set of teeth, and then clipped them both using the shape of the mouth. Then, as in most of these creations, I added some facial and head hair using my beloved pencil tool set to spiro path, triangle in. Finally, I added three rectangles with some curves, overlapping, and with fades of warm colors. I think it’s a great improvement over number 2.

 

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Illustration portfolio

A girl’s face made of text cc-by lemasney #cc #design #typography

A girl's face made of text cc-by lemasney
A girl's face made of text cc-by lemasney

A girl's face made of text by John LeMasney via 365sketches.org #cc #design #typography
A girl’s face made of text by John LeMasney via 365sketches.org #cc #design #typography

I used path as pattern path effect tool to make a stenciled face. In this case, I started with a photo of a girl’s face, did a trace bitmap operation, made text lines in three different sizes, then converted the lines of Inkscape‘s text into paths, and used them to paint the dark areas of the face, while leaving the lighter areas a pure white. Inkscape is an amazingly versatile tool, and this is just one more example.

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brand consulting design principles Illustration Inkscape portfolio professional activities professional experience technology

Nexus Negative One cc-by lemasney

Nexus Negative One cc-by lemasney
Nexus Negative One cc-by lemasney

Nexus Negative One by John LeMasney via lemasney.com
Nexus Negative One by John LeMasney via lemasney.com

On Early Adoption and the Nexus

I am a technologist, but I’m not generally an early adopter. Part of being a technologist for me is letting other people kick the tires so that I personally can benefit from their costs, repairs, mistakes, and teachable moments. I’m not saying all techs do this, but I do. I like stability in my software and hardware and services. I have some exceptions, and Google‘s first foray into phone software, Android, is a key example, and one I’ve not regretted.

I pre-ordered the G1 in November of 2008, and while I’ve certainly not regretted my purchase (it’s better than any handheld device I knew of or owned previous to it, phone or otherwise), I’ve been somewhat jealous as new phones running the OS, such as Verizon‘s Droid, have come onto the scene. The G1, though, has not failed me — it gives me what I need in a phone, a set of applications, and functions, generally speaking. I could use an upgrade on the camera. At any rate, this sketch is a tribute to my trusty G1 from T-Mobile, who I’ll likely stay with when I upgrade to the Nexus One or two or three, which is the point of the text there.

I feel like the G1 was a great first step towards the Nexus One, a “Negative One” of sorts. I do not intend for this to be derogatory though I am really looking forward to the release of Google’s N1. Google is doing great things in lots of areas, but the Android operating system is a killer set of apps, and the Nexus One seems like a great home for it.