IF: Intricate

I went through the images I've done for Shutterstock - and I don't really have the most complicated (intricate) images. I believe they're well done (as they do need to appeal to someone for them to want to download my illustrations)...but they don't have to be intricate...I have done a couple that have been a bit more work than others -

These might not be a lot to look at - but it was tough trying to get a texture that would match the street of hollywood and work well in an illustration. At the same time the color of the star and the edges had to match real life (or at least simulate it well enough) AND I had to look up all the icons for each of the different things that people were being celebrated for - movies, radio, tv, and music. Anyway - after all of that - I turned it in and was rejected.

Turns out the Hollywood sign and the walk of fame are trademarked. So you need their permission, even if you're going to do a drawing based on this subject. Very sad.

But I have other stuff - and better stuff up on the Shutterstock. And that stuff is doing just fine. What's making some of my newer vector stuff pop is the inclusion of blends in Adobe Illustrator. I've been using the program for more than 8 years and I'm still learning. Basically blends are an easier (and more intricate) way to do gradients...and easily! It's made me want to draw all sorts of things -


such as flowers (!) that I never would have thought of in the first place - and only because I could finally do a nice looking gradient in Illustrator (which, in the olden days, you'd have to build shape on top of shape and repeat forEVER before you got anything that looked that good)...


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