Website complete....well almost

So my website is done :-) other then some small minor things that I will have to work out. Come check it out. I know I do more then just caricatures but this site is just for that. :-)

www.micahrauch.com

Caricature Website and Business Cards

I have been doing a bunch of caricatures lately and I really need to start making more money soon aaaannndd I figured that I should also use my domain name for something.

So here Is my website design for my caricatures that I think I'll be trying to make over Christmas Break. Its pretty simple so I hope It doesn't take much relearning of dreamweaver to get it done. Think the hardest part should be relearning how to place div Tags where I want them....I hope...

It will be a simple 4 page website that contains a home page, Gallery, About (about me and what I do), and a Contact page if a person wishes for me do work for them.

Home Page

Gallery Page

 

I also design and made some business cards to go along with the site. 

Wet Green Pepper with Pastels

I did this still life study in Drawing class this year. Its a green pepper with water droplets all over it. It was really fun and I felt like I learned a few new things. It looks better In person then in this photograph though. My camera doesn't like me for some reason idk.....anyways its one of the few times I've used pastels.

Im finding that I both like and dislike pastels...Im not sure if Ill continue using them in my work or not yet.

Arachne

I finally finished this piece that I started earlier this week. It is the first bigger size piece that I've done in a traditional medium. The majority of everything I do that is fantasy/conceptual is on the computer.

I first put the color in then I sprayed it down with a clear concealer and did the line work over again with India Ink  and touched the the white webbing with white paint.

The subject for the piece is Arachne from Greek mythology. In a nut shell its about a woman who ends up in a weaving contest with the goddess Athena and kicks the goddess' butt. In the end the jealous goddess turns her into a spider creature.

Caricature

Heres another Caricature I did today for a friend who requested one recently.

Cleaning Up Clipart

I am going to try and send in some clipart to http://www.istockphoto.com/ 
again. I wasn't very lucky the first time when I tried about half a year ago. I was looking at the files I sent last time and couldn't believe how bad they where. Specially this one in particular. 

 believe it are not I spent probably 3-4 hours to make this go from the before to the after......the problem wasn't really the look but the make. This is what the pictures looked like in outline mode in adobe Illustrator. After a few painful hours I had a much cleaner piece of clip art and I had learned a bunch.

To better show how bad the "before" picture would be as a piece of clip art and how hard it would be to work with I tore both of them apart.

5 drawing study

We were suppose to make 5 drawings of one object for our drawing class. no real specifications just that their had to be 5. I picked a Geode crystal....ended up being more painful then what I thought it would be. by the end I was like whatever I just want to get it over with so I cranked these things out in record time....not my best work by far but itll due for now.

This one was my favorite out of all of them....it is the one that I would keep lol

This was the last one and It suppose to have a different color for each shade of the crystal....I killed it by putting the blue on it and it ended up being one of my least favorite...although on the computer it is probably my favorite just because of the bright colors :-)

Minator doodle

Just feel like doodling tonight plus ive been in this mood for Greek Mythology. So I thought I would attempt a little something off the top my head quick in photoshop. while drawing this Some of the most important words that ive herd this year popped in my head. They where something sorta kinda along these lines. "Its not that you cant draw "it" because you lack the skill but you cant draw it because you don't know what it looks like." So basically i think I need to do some more close studies of things so I know what they really look like and to strengthen my drawings. anyways this is my minator.

Quick digi sketch

quick lava creature that I did tonight. Cant say a really like it...felt that the over all design could of been a lot better but thought id put it up anyways.

Self Portrait In Illustrator

Had this idea for a self portrait in illustrator that I have been wanting to do for awhile now. I like jellyfish if you cant tell by now.

End of year Thank You Card

One of our latest projects for class was to make a end of year "gift" to give out to clients to help promote ourself further. We had to make it and not just buy something from the store. I ended up making a thank you card with a gift card that would promote the client to use my services again. It is a gift card for 25$ off the next project they do with me or 25$ off a print of any of my pieces of artwork.

One Letter takes anywhere between 5-15 minutes to assemble and it costs 62 cents to make just one. That is envelope, gift card, and letter.

More Jelly

Had this idea for a new jellyfish picture so i started playing with some sketch ideas....this is what I came up with....it is actually nothing like i was trying to make....so I will probably have to try again sometime, maybe pick a different type of jellyfish.  Anyways this is what I ended with tonight.

Blending Tutorial

We had to make a tutorial for our photoshop class. It has to be under about 10 minutes long and be able to be printed out. I just did a really simple tutorial on how to do some blending.

Finnegan

As my wife and I sat at the laundry matt tonight I thought it would be a good time to work a little on the character design for a graphic novel that has been bouncing around my head. His name is Finnegan. (mostly because thats where he was thought up by my wife and a friend and I late one night drinking coffee). He is a tall middle aged Irish Cook aboard a zeppelin know as the Valkyrie. He may be big but he has a big heart. Also Finnegan is missing an arm but has multiple attachments that he uses. With some Attachments there is an Adapter that allows Finnegan to connect to the piece of equipment, enabling him to use it as though it was a natural limb on his body. This Adapter was invented by Walter, another character in this story.  It converts the energy from the body into energy that can power the equipment.

Old Sketch New Color

So I was looking through an old sketchbook from high school for some fun doodles that would maybe look cool colored. Sure enough I found an old character design that I made in about 2003-05 sometime, a rat warrior. Put it in photoshop and worked on it. No change to the original line construction just colored in and slightly darkened. Did two versions. one full color and the other one I liked with just the plain color background.

Lucky the Rocket man

So I started this doodle about 2 hours ago and its a little past midnight and I have work in about 6 hours...ug... :-( really wish I was doing this for a living already. Its hard for me to put a drawing down once I start it. Anyways here Is Lucky. He is an English/Irish soldier of some sort who has a rocket launcher and is missing a hand. Just a quick simple concept. Funny to think I started to draw a crazy naked mole rat but it ended up being this lol. still not sure if thats a bad thing or good......o well naked mole rat another night i guess...anyways hope you like it. I need sleep now, goodnight everyone.

Yet another digital art piece from Photoshop. Im trying to do more concept art...Hopefully sometime in the future soon Ill work more on some digital art techniques so I can get a lot of fun diverse pieces.

Greeting Cards

Along with the Mutant animal Project we where also given a mini project to make a Christmas card or some sort of greeting card that can be used by Photographers. So basically a greeting card that allows photgraphers to easily put their pictures into the card and then enables them to order a bunch of the cards. I went through zazzle.com to make mine.

Here is a link to my still very small Zazzle Store. Go to the store and click on the card and your'll be able to see how it works. :-)
http://www.zazzle.com/Ratula


Heres my card and the person in the picture is my brother.

Mutant Animal

In photoshop we got assigned to mix 3 animals into one mutant one. I combined a rat, cheetah, and a rooster. its called a Taroostah. Hardest part about the assignment is finding decent picture of the same hi rez. Felt like I could of done better but what I did do was kinda crazy looking none the less. Hope it amuses you :-)

squid mermaid

So I had a friend who was talking about wanting a tattoo of a Mermaid but instead of a woman/fish he wanted a Squid/woman. While waiting for a class to start I doodled a few fun quick sketches that turned out pretty good. Got home and decided that I would give it a go on photoshop. It seemed like it would be a good excuse to practice some digital painting. Here it is Hope you enjoy.  I really had fun making it :-)

Cannonball

Like my Adobe Illustrator class we had to make a Label in Adobe Photoshop class as well and find an object to put it on that will coincide with your label. It had to be a PIRATE PRODUCT of some sort :-) It took me forever to think of an idea that I liked. And you cant really design a label for a product before you know what that product is going to be. Luckily As I was walking around in Target, checking out all their cool Halloween stuff I found my product. There was a ball and chain prop amongst the Halloween goodies that I decided to use. I cut the chain off, made my label, and put it over the hole in what was now my Pirate Cannonball. :-) heres the label and what the product looked like in the end.

Poison Bottle Finished

 I like making things...wish I did more of this kinda stuff and that I had more tools to build things....anyways.....

I have finally finished my Poison Bottle "Crowe's Soul". It was a bit of a pain getting the label on the bottle but i got it. The label wasnt the right shape so to fix this I put the glue down on the bottle then fit it the best I could and then put glue on the label so it was wet and then kinda molded it like paper mashey.  I melted wax in an old pan and dipped the bottle repeatedly on bottom and around the top to get a nice effect then I filled it with a Cheap hair Jell that has lots of bubbles in it....the tricky part was figuring out how to light it.....I ended up taking apart a key chain LED flash light and carving out a cork to fit all the flash ligh'ts guts in it. It actually doesnt turn on till you put the cork in because then it squeezes the pieces inside making a connection, turning the light on, so that's cool. I do wish I could of got it to be brighter though. :-).... hope ya enjoy. have any questions feel free to ask.

Here is my cork I had to fix up...still not sure how to keep it together when not in use though......

Front in the dark

 Back of Bottle in dark

Its not actually this bright but the camera kinda enhanced it. I wish I could get it to be this bright. Maybe in the future if I ever make another one or if anyone pays me to make one for them. 

Graphic Novel Character

So my wife and a friend and I have been toying around with an Idea for a graphic novel. Nothing to series yet but we have 7 of the characters we want down and I have been doodling now and then to give them a face. I should maybe be working more on it then I have been because some of my professors think I need a Project that will take awhile to help push myself in the direction I want to go "art career wise". We dont have much story line down really but we have a vague idea. Its a Steampunk story :-)  Anyways here is a photoshop painting of one of the main characters. Its nothing like I want the graphic novel to be as far as style but it kinda gives a rough idea of this person.

Her name is Teckla and she is in her early 20s. Totes around two large pistols and wears fiery red. Over all dress design still has a long ways to go same with face jewelry and weapons....but its blocked in already with all the basic ideas for the most part.

Poison Bottle Label

It's that time of year when the scary fun Halloween stuff comes out. So for my Adobe Illustrator class we are making potion/poison bottle labels and finding cool bottles to put them on. This is what I have done with the project so far :-).

I plan to post a picture of it mounted on the bottle once I get it done. I'm trying to figure out what to put in the bottle and how to get a light in it as well,. so that the bottle will glow from the inside :-)

Another Caricature

Woke up and felt like doing a quick caricature before doing some other art work so I pulled this pic off line of my Battle Buddy from AIT for the Military. Not sure if Its a successful drawing though.

Resume

I designed my resume the other day. I didn't want some boring paper document so I gave it some character and made a PDF file. As school goes on though I'll have to update it. Heres a Jpg version of it....theres actually two parts. First part is for a letter and the second part which is down below is the actual resume. Tell me what ya think :-)

Semi Old Projects

Just thought I would post some stuff I have done in the past that many of you may not have seen yet. Theres a lot of old pieces I found. Some of them a lot of you have seen before but I thought Id put them up. I had to thumbnail these as best as i could because theres so many. If you click on one yourll be able to see a bigger version of it. All off these where made in Illustator except the Purple dog thing with crystals on its head.  Enjoy :-)

Invisible Person Project

For my photoshop class we had to pick a picture with people in it and make the people disappear but still leave their cloths there. Of course I  ended up with picking a pretty difficult one... :-(    Mine was a picture from the movie "Prince of Persia"......I was doing good till it came to the making of almost the entire inside of the shirts....I did my best but after a few hours of clone stamping I was ready to be done. Heres the before and after pic home you enjoy :-)

BEFORE

AFTER