A recent graphic design project for Jonathan’s Valentine’s Day card made me think of the first time I tried my hand at graphic design/cartoonization (is that a word??) for my friend Steve’s 31st birthday party. I had come across some great tutorials online and was excited to experiment, since most of the photos I had of him were excellent quality and taken with my Canon 60D. I’m a planner by nature and planning parties thrills me- all of the details, exciting extras, and personal touches are what make an event fun!
For this blog post, I’ve posted the original photo and the resulting graphic side-by-side for comparison’s sake. The above photo was taken on our trip to Antietam and was turned into an Andy Warhol-style coaster using this nifty tutorial. Now, I won’t say that it was easy- the most difficult part of these tutorials is that you can never quite find a tutorial for your exact software or version of your software- so flexibility and improvisation are key. But, I enjoy the creative process, so it wasn’t too difficult to pull off in the end! (Note his own 60D in the photo above!)
I would say that the above graphic is by far my favorite! Provided to us by his sister, the photo makes me laugh because: Is he a fireman or a clown? A fireman clown?? He looks a little like a badass member of the band Kiss at age 4. I used this tutorial and have used it many times since- it’s a fantastic step-by-step way to turn anyone into a cartoon . . . if you have the patience! The starburst behind him was created using this tutorial. A small accomplishment in this graphic was that in the original photo, his thumb is cut off by the edge. I simply cloned the end of one of his other fingers so that he could be jumping freely.
I offer graphic design services and love new challenges, so if anyone out there is interested, shoot me a photo that you’d like turned into a cartoon! I’ll post some great ones that I made of my pets soon. In the meantime, below are several other examples and a photo of Steve wearing the t-shirt we made from one of my graphics!
