Doggy Butts at the lake

Last week we played hooky one day .... well sort of. We really were on a mission and we went to the Dallas Dog park at White Rock Lake and started a new project. Lola and I are going to be uploading some experimental videos soon of dogs and their humans. We are still in the editing stage right now. Above are a few still shots I took as we sat in the sun and watched dogs frolic.

If you have never been to a dog park I would encourage it. If you go to dog parks all the time, I would suggest you try going once without your dog. I really love just watching the pups play without having to worry about where my own pup is and if he is playing well with others. Of course there is that problem of walking in the door reeking of other dogs ... they always know when you cheat on them.


You can see more dog park photos in my Dallas Dog Park Flickr Set.

Retro Papercraft Batman Mask

Illustrator Katie Cook has created a papercraft mask that hearkens back to the Silver Age of Comic Books. The template for this 1960's style Batman cowl is one piece, one page and may be downloaded here. Katie is a talented artist who, among other things, works on Clone Wars webcomics for starwars.com. Hey Katie, how about a Captain America mask next? ;)

Bruce Metcalf

© 2008 Bruce Metcalf
photo shared through creative commons license

The other day I was stumbling around Flickr, which lead me into some blog browsing, which lead me to Bruce Metcalf. His name sounded familiar and then once I clicked through to his blog my entire college history came flooding back to me. Seeing his work reminded me of my younger days as a jewelry and metalworking student. He is the sort of artist we would admire in American Craft Magazine. Metcalf is a legend in fine crafts. He has one of those blogs where content rules and frequency is not a concern. What you will find on his blog are a few very well written posts. I really enjoyed the post titled " Craft Identity in Craft Education".

Reading his blog I found myself longing for my college days when I spent so much more time in my head. In our 20's we burned the candle at both ends and while we worked hard in the studio there was always time for thinking, more thinking and discussion.

Below is a great video interview the folks over at Etsy did with Mr. Metcalf.

Anime Eyes Vector Pack

Today's update is a free resource for all you manga/anime artists out there. A set of 15 vector anime eye shapes in EPS from Agneva. You can use this stock to speed up your character design process or to simply study the structure of anime eyes...

If you are an Adobe Illustrator user, you may have some problems loading the file so here is a quick tip: Convert to Artbords. Check "Legacy Artboard", "Crop Area", "Artwork Bounding Box" and click OK. Then select everything, copy and paste in a new illusrtator file.

The resource if free for personal and commercial use. Download

10 More Free Vector Resources That You Might Have Missed

We are back with another nice collection of vector resources for digital illustrators. You can use them for brainstorming, inspiration or a starting point for your projects. You can see a tiny preview of each pack below. Please consider visitng the authors links and posting a comment if you have any problems using them...

European Art Deco Floral Pattern
A set of 2 seamless floral patterns for Adobe Illustrator 8 and above from Keep Designing.com. You can use this resource for creating a high resolution wallpaper or decorate an object in your composition. Free for personal and commercial use. Download

Pop Art Laurel Leaves
A popular symbol in a minimalistic / pop art style from ClickPop Media. Available in *.AI and *.EPS file formats. Free for personal and commercial use. Download


Soccer Player Vectors
A huge silhouette stock by Parka Design. Free for personal and commercial use. Download


Random Pattern Swatches for Adobe Illustrator
A collection of random seamless pattern swatches for Adobe Illustrator from Mmolai.com. To use, load the PDF file in Illustrator and open the swatches palette (Window>Swatches). The pack contains: "Polka dots, chain link fence, houndstooth, canvas, checkers 2.0, mario bricks and more.To alter any of the swatches (except the canvas) just drag them out of the swatch palette and scale them to the size you like or use the magic wand to change the color, then drag them back in." Download

Japanese Dragon Vector
A vector illustratoin of a Japanese dragon from www.vector-clipart-eps.com. It could be used for T-Shirt Design or a tattoo concept. "God Dragon & kanji Symbol (Japanese Pronunciation : Ryujin) Ryujin is a spiritual dragon from Japanese mythology that controls wind and rain." Free for personal and commercial use. Download

Ocean Creatures Vector Pack
A collection of ocean creature silhouettes by Jessica Romero, found at Vector Stuff Blog. Download

iPod Family Template
A free vector template from Designinator. The resource is in Adobe Freehand file format (.*FH11), but you can still use, customize or convert it to EPS or AI by opening it with Adobe Illustrator. Could be useful if you are working on iPhone skin project. Download


Vector Shopping Bags
A free vector stock from VectorJungle. The stock contains five cute vector illustrations of shopping bags. The resource is available in EPS and PDF file formats.Free for personal and commercial use. Download


Sketchy Vectors
A free vector stock from ragingcephalopod. "The pack includes a fist, 2 guns, a bird skull, a human skull, a ribcage and a crab claw. Download

Urabn Grunge Textures
A collection of vector textures in EPS from Cmicak. The resource is editable with most major vector editors. Download

Vector Skyline Adobe Illustrator Tutorial

A video tutorial by Liron Tocker, explaining the stages of creating a vector skyline illustration using Adobe Illustrator. The tutorial is useful for beginner artists to understand the process of tracing graphic elements using the Pen Tool...

Sports Team Logo Design Tutorial

A comprehesive logo design tutorial for Aobe Illustrator from favorite digital illustration magazine Computer Arts. Alan Wardle shows you how to create an eye-catching logo design and brand from scratch.

My brief was to design a brand identity for a youth mountain biking team based in London. As they’re based in an urban environment, this team needed an aggressive logo so they’d be taken seriously when travelling to rural events around the country...

...In this tutorial, I’ll lead you through everything from designing the logo to setting brand rules. We’ll also look at creating other elements such as team uniforms, helmets and merchandise using your designs along the way. Full tutorial