Hey everybody welcome back again. This week I went down a different road. Instead of trekking through another video game concept illustration (though I had plenty of ideas for them) and instead wanted to try something a little more edgy and touchy.
The idea started with a girl fight boxing game, And of course I was going to label it "Popularity" however the idea changed dramatically throughout the design process. At the local brick and mortar comic book store (BIG B) I came across a Metal Gear Solid art book by Ashley Wood.
I did however pull a lot of reference from one of my new favourite flickr contacts
UK Vintage. Its an awesome photostream and I highly recommend checking it out. But lets bounce right into the illustration this week.
Using the smudge tool I began to blend in the shadows and afterwards on a separate layer using the paint brush tool I began to smooth out my tones.
Usually I would draw out my background first and blend and paint directly overtop but experimenting with my wacom tablet and the lasso tool I was able to make the background. I also applied a texture filter for effect. The rug or carpet she is sitting on was created with a texture brush.
In a separate file I created a 10 x 10 px dot and defined it as a pattern. Using the lasso tool and the fill tool I carefully outlined the fill areas that I believe required a little more definition and shade. And with a little more work and the word of the week... Popularity. You get a rather nice illustration.
And here is a practical design use for this illustration as a cd cover...
Entrepreneur Seth Godin defines emotional labour as work nobody feels like doing anymore. It involves tirelessly making yourself an expert in your field. However tireless this seems it is in fact the opposite, emotional labour is easy is something more tedious than tireless. This sort of activity is almost required for success on the vast populous of the internet.
Making yourself an expert in your field is a key factor of emotional labour. This requires vast amounts of attention seeking, and networking. One expert I started following recently that shows a great amount of emotional labour is Axel Torvenius. Torvenius is known online for releasing a speed-painting in photoshop almost everyday. He practices drawing in photoshop and releases his speed-paintings on his youtube channel.
Recently in the spirit of emotional labour and online networking I've been branching out on the Forum boards in Deviantart trading opinions and critiques with other graphic designers and artists. This practice has helped by introducing foreign ideas and views on my work which allow me to constantly develop and evolve my concepts into illustrations. Beside from that the one of my deviantart watchers Wezenbeesje proposed a "Pay it Forward" challenge providing one sketch per person willing to pay it forward 10 more sketches. Immediately after reading the journal entry I signed on board the challenge and started taking names for 10 sketches.
Making connections and collaborations are keys to success both in the online and offline community. Helping others and allowing others to help you is one of the reasons I love being a graphic designer so much. Even now in almost all of my recent works along with my own views, almost all of it has gone through someone else to fix possible issues I could miss and to have another influence edit any graphical errors. One example of this a recent youtube video I published labeled with fellow Graphic Designer Oz Espinosa Demon vs Clown.
So all that being said Emotional Labour to me means building connections and constantly learning and developing and possibly redeveloping your concepts. It means spending 3 pages in a sketchbook on thumbnails and then 3 more pages of comprehensive drawings. Its about having the ca-hones to stick out your ideas and share your thoughts. It means caring and sharing your ideas and allowing others to be influenced by you and for you to be influenced by others. It means grabbing attention and developing connections. 
