Juanitos

HELLO!
A couple of months ago, a ex co-worker assigned all graphic designers at work to make a packaging design for a Puke flavoured snack. Ugh. Me being me, I made a monster themed illustration with lots of hair and quirk. There were three main flavours: Carnaval, Cumpleaños, and Campamento. The colours were based on what I thought best represented each of the flavours.

{For the Little Ones}

Good evening, boys and girls!
I know, I know... I haven't posted in ages but school is not exactly allowing me to do much. BUT I'M DONE WITH THIS SEMESTER SO YAY!
I was planing to make a book for my niece's 2nd birthday but, again, school didn't allow me to finish it. Now she's two and still no book. I did finish two {I know...} pages out of the ten I was planing to make. I think my style of illustration goes well with this kind of stuff.

I'm going to try to finish this as soon as possible and maybe print it in some fancy paper for the general public {as in people who know my niece} to admire. I finally got a proper camera so you'll see a lot of decent photos from now on. I think I'll continue with my me as famous things series once I decide which one to make next.

♪♫ The Girl From Ipanema by Stan Getz

{Menta Verde}

Menta de Guardia.
For my Graphic Design III class we had to pick a Dominican brand or a popular product to redesign. For some strange reason I ended up picking popular product "Menta Verde" or "Menta de Guardia" {Panca being the brand}. After designing a packaging for it, I was told to design a poster for it and I ended up with something I was not expecting...

This did get attention from a guy at the print shop who owns an advertising agency who gave me his card so I guess it's not THAT bad. I keep expecting to become better at this but it's hard and frustrating and ugh... whatever.

♪♫ Daniel by Devendra Banhart

{Tell it to the Marines}

There's always been something about nautical themed stuff I particularly enjoy.
Stripes, ships, anchors, water, etc, etc, etc... Maybe is the fact that I live in an island myself or maybe is just how awesome nautical things are {despite the fact that I'm TERRIFIED of open waters}. Anyway, last night {or really early this morning?} I saw this little doodle I made the other day of a sailor with waves behind him, grinning like an idiot. I had this urge to draw so I decided to give it a try. I've always been fan of old cartoons, as in1930s cartoons {Fleischer Studios, Walt Disney and all that} and how the shades of grey and silly animations worked so well. I was planing on making this a color drawing but decided to try and use grey scales. I kind of like the ending result and I think I'm going to play around with the grey palette for a little while.

Also, HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYBODY! A little late for that but this is my first post of 2014 so yay! I don't hold on to useless resolutions I know for a fact I'm not going to make so let's leave it at that.

♪♫ Happy by Pharrell Williams

{iPod}

In the time I spent in IL, I doodle a lot.
I tend to doodle "ads" of things that were happening, what I was eating, what I was doing at the moment and/or how I felt. One of them was from June, 20th. I was taking my break in the employee cafeteria, sitting alone, listening to music, minding my own business. You know, the usual.

This ended up on me doodling a series of iPods which ended up on an ad, like most of the thing seems to be ending up those days. I decided to make something out of it.

Foolin' by Devendra Banhart from What Will We Be

R U Mine? by Arctic Monkeys from AM

Island by The Whitest Boy Alive from Rules

Trying Your Luck by The Strokes from Is This It

♫ Hit the Road Jack by Ray Charles

{New Jersey VS Illinois}

2012 New Jersey me and 2013 Illinois me are not quite the same, but not quite different {appearance wise}. It's always fun to practice this new way of drawing I seem to be stuck with.

 ♫ Who's Gonna Save my Soul by Gnarls Barkley

{Illustration Course Chapter III}

Third and last week of the Illustration Course *feelings*
The last assignment was my favorite one. We had make a poster advertising a vintage looking bicycle. With my lack of mad skills for drawing people I had to go with my instinct. Didn't look as bad as I thought it would.

They liked it so yay! The teacher was making individual portraits for us but time is nobody's mistress so I have to go back on tuesday to get mine done. It was a fun/frustrating/creative progress this three last weekends but they were definitely worth it.

♪♫ Oh, Brother by Kacey Johansing

{Illustration Course Chapter II}

Second weekend of the Illustration Course.
For this one we had to illustrated an article about this band. I've never liked the group... I dislike them even more now. Drawing humans is not exactly my favorite thing in the world but it was a must for this assignment.

The next one is going to be a magazine cover. I. Am. Going. To. Die.

♪♫ I Want! I Want! by Walk the Moon

{Illustration Course Chapter I}

As good as I thought.

Last weekend I started my illustration course with talented Glenn Hilario who, not only graduated from my university but also graduated from Altos de Chavon and Parsons {my dream school} where he is currently teaching fashion illustration. In the three hours per day I've learned more about illustration and how to make a story out of it that I've learned in a number of my university classes, and that's saying a lot.

I'm not going to lie, on my first assignment I felt like my head was going to explode trying to find an idea for the article he gave us but I actually made something out of it and, surprisingly, he actually like it. A lot. I don't like people telling me things like that in front of a whole class but it felt fantastic.

The article we were making the illustration for was Otoño en cualquier tiempo.

Next class is Saturday and I have an assignment about portraits. This is going to be really interesting. Let's just hope I can come up with something decent.

♪♫ I Want! I Want! by Walk the Moon

{Shicake}

Ever since I came up with my "oh so clever" {note the sarcasm} name back in 2008, I've been asked, quite a lot, what's the meaning of it. Well, by that time, I was really into sushi and cupcakes for no particular reason. I tried to merged the two of them and ended up with Sucup.Shicake. I kind of liked it but it was too long for my lazy fingers to write/type so I started going by Shicake. It's just the end of sushi and the end of cupcake as my header implies: "a blog fueled by sushi and cupcakes". Plus, I like the sound of it. {I'm still into sushi and cupcakes though}

The other day I was trying to draw something regarding the name. Only problem is how exactly do you relate sushi and cupcakes... it came up after 5 minutes of not-so-serious thinking. After some doodles on my sketchbook, a 4 hours nap and some tuna and crackers, I went to my computer and started painting.

The main point was to make a background for my twitter account that I could use freely without feeling guilty about using some weird image found on google. I made the banner and then started making the pattern that will be used as my background.

I kind of got bored after that so to explain my name a little better I made a sort of poster describing the Anatomy of Shicake. Pretty handy.

♪♫ Rome by Yeasayer

{Yokomo}

Yokomo is a sushi place from my country. Yokomo is from the phrase "Yo como which means "I eat"in Spanish. They change the c for the k to make it sounds more Japanese -ish. I've been ordering sushi from there for a really long time but, sadly, I've only been to the actual place once.

What makes it different from other sushi places is that it incorporates Dominican vibes to their menu. Just by reading the roll names {Rollito Play Be, Fuin Fuan Roll, Ñikiti Roll} you get the general idea but one of the things that caught my attention was the design. The palce is full of design. From the walls to the tables it has art plaster all over the place.

The other day, while I was waiting for my teacher to arrive, I started doodling and ended up doing something related to Yokomo. After scanning the drawing I didn't like how the colors turned out so I decided to make it a digital thing. 2 days later, I finally finished it!

Even though those 2 days felt like the longest days of my life, I'm actually proud of how it turned since  turning regular drawing into digital is not exactly my forte. Some of the shades makes me cringe but hey, at least it's something. I'll try to fix them some time.

♪♫ Welcome to Japan by The Strokes

{Library Pictures}

Of the quickening canoe!

Months ago, I kept listening to Suck it and See by Arctic Monkeys on a daily basis. I ended up designing something out of the blue based on Library Pictures.

 Actually proud of that thing. I was going to print it on transfer paper to make a t-shirt but {a} I didn't have the time to go the print shop and {b} I was not going to spend money on that. Since I got an incredible urge to make something yesterday I said to myself "whatever, I'll paint it by hand". Got my paint out, cut out the stencil and started painting on the t-shirt.

 I was extremely nervous about painting on a white t-shirt since I tend to smudge paint over every single t-shirt I paint but since must of them are black it's not noticeable. It didn't turned out as bad as I expected so score! I might need to get more black paint and retouch the center banner.

Materials:

• White fabric paint
• Black fabric paint
• Plain white t-shirt
• Plastic sheet
• Tape
• Cutter

 ♪♫ Got the Life by Korn

{Samba Vexillographica}

Every time I listen to Devendra Banhart's Samba Vexillographica the line that goes "La bandera de California tiene 10 piernas rotas. Llenas de tus tiernas gotas que salen al revés, salen al revés" always gets stuck in my head. One day while I was at University the lines just popped in my head and I started doodling and this came out:

I'm always afraid to trace a scanned drawing digitally but this didn't turn out that bad. I'm planning on doing more like this in a not so near {or probably near} future if I finished the People + Me series which, by the way, I have more than a month with the second of the series. Oh, so lazy.

♪♫ Samba Vexillographica by Devendra Banhart

{People & Me}

HAPPY NEW YEAR MATES!
2013 is here and, hopefully, it's going to be full of new things, new projects and a lot of stuff. I'm working on a new series that I titled "People & Me". The concept is simple: line draws of a certain group of people and me. The first of the series is "The Roommates & Me" featuring the 4 people I shared those 3 months back in NJ in summer 2012.

I've been trying to find a simple way to draw people in van Gogh only knows how many years and I believe this one is the simplest way to go. I think I'll stick to it {unless I have to draw a full body... that's going to be a problem} until I magically learn how to properly draw.

♪♫ Houdini by Foster the People

{Fifty Shades of Grey}

Actual shades.
I'm not planning on reading that book. Ever. I got bored {don't judge me} and went to the I-just-saw-the-name-on-the-bookshelf kind of thing and made a poster out of it.

Things tend to get really boring when you have free time and 0 things to do.

♪♫ Young Folks by Peter, Bjorn and John

{Lemon or Lime}

Whatever.
Today I was trying to make a certain amount of time go fast so, as usual, I started to doodle. For some reason I ended up making something with a lime/lemon shape. The thing is, in my country, the majority of people tend to think the small green fruit is a lemon and the big yellow one is a lime when in fact {or according to a pretty fast research} is the opposite.
I end up making this:

It reads "Lemon or lime, whatever. I see them everyday, every month. I make lemonade and i try to bake"
Why the "And I try to bake" part? I have no idea. I try to stay as far away from the kitchen as possible. I was not made to bake or cook or whatever. I suck at it.
After getting home I was staring at my computer screen with absolutely nothing to do so I decided to mess around with this doodle. I simply vectorized {not sure if I should say that} the letters and put some color in the background.

Yellow and green because, well you should know this by now.

♪♫ Fantasy by The XX

{Egg}

I don't think I have any more brain cells left to write down something coherent in here so let's get to the point:
I was doing my packaging assignment for tomorrow {hate how it turned out} Got bored after I finished it. Ended up doing this.

My head is throbbing.

♪♫ Brand New Start by Little Joy

{Making Things Simpler}

Simple post.
The XV Feria International del Libro opened yesterday. Here is the official poster:

I got bored and decided to make it simpler:

Materials:

• Adobe Illustrator CS5

♪♫ Cayman Islands by Kings of Convenience

{Lady B}

This took a while.
This is basically the first thing I've ever hand drawn and then scanned and painted digitally. I really like how this turned out.

Materials:

• Mechanical Pencil.
• Adobe Illustrator CS5

♪♫ Brianstorm by Arctic Monkeys

{Coffee Beans}

And yes, more coffee related doodles.
Whatever I love the colors related to coffee. All those pretty browns and creams and sigh such pretty colors.

Materials:

• Adobe Photoshop CS5

P.S.: I've been making some changes on the template. Let me know how it is so far or if it needs some others changes.

♪♫ 15 Minutes by The Strokes