Stickers Coming Soon! This little store experiment of mine is a pretty fun undertaking and a big learning experience. I just ordered some stickers for my sketchbookedprints.com store. I am thinking of selling packs of 5, and once again making them limited edition. The stickers should be coming to the store in a week or so. The stickers will be 3in., silkscreened, UV coated… and awesome. I have them coming from the best sticker maker in the business: http://stickerobot.com/

Anyone wanting to purchase a print, if you use the code “SEXYCOFFEETIME” you get 10% off your order ;). I am currently working on some new illustrations for the next set of prints, as well as doing mini-prints at a more affordable price.

Time lapse video of my most recent Roman Illustration. Piece was created using a Wacom Intuous4, Illustrator CS4 and Photoshop CS4 while I sat at a coffee shop on RIT’s campus… the air conditioning was on for some reason, and it was really cold…

Plus I had to use the bathroom the entire time, so my pen movements were totally erratic, but I didnt feel like packing up my stuff–only to potentially lose the table I was working at… Someone really needs to come up with a good way to resolve this common problem. 

Music is “Bionic Commando Remix” by Rusko

Ali, My Brother from another Mother! This is a work in progress… More to come… I need sleep for I am quite incoherent at this point. I have a class in the morning but was compelled to have a post for tonight. Hope you all have a good evening.

I am featured on the SixRevisions (via DesignInstruct) website! Answering the question “Why am I here”. Check it out!

Keith (3/3/2010) Check out Keith’s awesome Graphic design work at http://www.workplaydream.com.

I have even less time to get these out properly colored or worded … grrrr. Sorry folks. I’ll play catch up this weekend hopefully… I start teaching again next Week … Monday’s are going to be hell :(.

Luke (2/28/2010). Luke is a coworker at Dumbwaiter Design. A Motion graphics and storyboarding master, Luke handles a lot of our motion graphics work. Luke is an awesome addition to the Dumbwaiter team, and is another proud alum of the RIT New Media Design program. Check out his work at http://lukealessi.com/

Ben (1/26/2010). The Amazing multitalented Ben. I went to RIT and studied New Media Design along this kid. He does some amazing motion graphics and design work for Nickelodeon and other various incarnations of equally creative television and broadcast media outlets. He also sings and plays guitar as cricket spin. Check his with the links below. (Thought I wasnt going to be able to make this sketch today… I was cutting it close.)

http://benyonda.com/, http://cricketspin.com/

Self Portrait Saturday! (1/16/10) ok so I made it up… but anyways, I decided for today to do a self portrait. No reason in particular… Just felt it had to be done.

Anywhoo, my Name is Miguel Cardona. I work at Dumbwaiter Design. I am an Interactive Art Director. I make sexy on-screen designs, as well as do a bit of Flash Development, and motion graphics on occasion.  I live on the West Side in Buffalo, NY (The weather is miserable as shit right now). And I spend wayyyy too much time in front of a computer with a wacom tablet in front of me, as you all can see, evidenced by this very blog .

I enjoy looking at beautiful things, drawing in sketchbooks, listening to music, and going running ad biking. My homepage is http://www.mc82.com, I haven’t put anything of substance on there for quite some time… Maybe someone should harass me about a proper site. I also have a slew of other domain names I am not doing anything with… including …  http://sexycoffeetime.com, which I may use as a more general blog for rants and inspirations. But in the meantime… enjoy my e-scribbles.

Peace.

A Little about my “Sketchbooked” process. A lot of people have been asking me if my illustrations are watercolor, marker and paper… Not quite… I use illustrator and my nifty Intuous 4 tablet for everything—mostly for quick a turnover time, and I generally do them one day ahead of schedule, to give myself some breathing room and potential editing time.

I use some custom settings with the pen tool for tilt and pressure for diameter and stroke. For the fills, I layer shapes drawn with the pencil tool, with some custom settings and transparency. The “marker” and watercolor look reflects my analog style I have developed and use in my personal sketchbooks. I try to keep a sloppy hand style and a free stream of consciousness approach to making these, and try not to sweat details. Basically I build up a composition with coarse and sketchy gestures. Above you can see how the pieces are all really vector lines and shapes, as well as the amount of detail I am able to get with this process.

It will take me anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour to make one of my illustrations, I usually keep a desktop folder handy for collecting reference photos for my subjects. I find it difficult to find just the right pictures to reflect someone’s personality, and that actually may take longer than to illustrate.

So far this exercise in one a day illustrations has really improved my style and aesthetic. I have also noticed a big difference in the way I approach a lot of my design work. In addition, I have had a number of great conversations with my subjects after posting them—via social media / phone / etc, basically reconnecting in some way shape or form outside the occasional wall post… People have been very supportive of my efforts, and I hope I am able to continue throughout the year.

If you are reading this, thank you for viewing my fun little project. It has done a lot to keep me sane these past few weeks :).

Following up with another drunken profile photo post, in honor of the New Year… Here is former coworker Kevin. A Web designer who claims responsibility for the prettiness of the internet, Kevin does his thing like no other.  He currently resides in Brooklyn… check out his site: http://kevinjohngomez.com/