Pink Laughter Designs Blog

These are my first illustrations created using an isometric perspective. I found the perspective a bit challenging but it was harder to illustrate in a free form fashion.

In order to make things easier for myself, I winded up creating a custom grid on the walls and flooring of the isometric room. I was able to get the measurements of the room through a project manager that I had worked with as these illustrations were designs for a virtual world website for a large plush toy company. The themed rooms were to be featured on their website for their virtual world animal characters.

Once I got the measurements and created the custom grid, I began creating the sketching out ideas for the interior designs of the rooms based on the themes I was assigned. I worked on over 7 different theme room designs and created custom furniture in different angles and views (SE, SW, NE, NW). The rest of the themed rooms were given to others on my team as we all had to reach the client’s deadline by completing a total of 20 themed rooms.

I enjoyed the learning process of working with illustrations in not only an isometric perspective but in different angles within an isometric perspective. So, for example, if I created an Easter themed bed, then I had to create that bed in a front, back, left and right view so that animators could program the views into the room’s virtual world function on the website…and more importantly, so that the animal characters could interact with the furniture by having the user be able to rotate the views of the furniture pieces.

The themed rooms featured here are the Zoo, Art and Music Theme rooms respectively.

Moogle Room was one of my first big assignments with 3D Studio Max. The objective was to create a themed room. I’ve always liked the Moogle characters from the Final Fantasy series, so I felt inspired to create an elegant but sophisticated and playful room for individuals of Moogle size. I created a room and rendered it in various angles without lighting and then as a final touch, added lighting for the finished image.

When I first took a class in 3D Studio Max (version 6 was current at the time), I really didn’t know what to expect. I had never taken a 3D Design class and I’d never done any modeling…however, I had been fascinated by animation and 3D artwork for the longest time.

I remember seeing 3D Studio Max’s GUI back in 2002. A boyfriend, at the time, had the program and I would use his computer during visits. The program looked very complicated and intimidating. There were so many features and I couldn’t make sense of them.

So when I took the 3D Studio Max course, I came in with this impression as well as a lack of experience actually using the program. I didn’t know how I was going to do.

What happened is that I became obsessed with 3D Studio Max and found that I enjoyed it thoroughly. I wanted to know all that there was to know about it and I was especially fixated on lighting, materials and modeling. There were many nights I stayed up on my computer at home learning as much as I could about 3ds Max, doing online tutorials and experimenting with various designs.

I found that I learned very quickly and thus took to the program easily. This inspired me to contemplate on whether I wanted to explore animation professionally or stay with graphic design. I eventually decided to finish pursuing my degree in graphic design. I liked how versatile I could be in the learning process of this direction. As a result, I didn’t invest myself in the program much further because I was so busy with other projects.

Learning 3D Studio Max opened my mind up to better ways of implementing chiaroscuro (use of light and shadow) in my 2D digital work. I found that using the program was a good way to train the eye in developing a better understanding of 3D perspective and effects. I’d like to get back to using it more often because when I visit sites such as 3DTotal, 3D Kingdom, CG Society and the like, I feel an urge to play around more in the program and see where I can take my skills…because I know there’s potential there for more creative expression.

I created this illustration in Illustrator CS3 and really didn’t have any idea of what I was going to create in terms of a vacation scene. As I looked at various images online to brainstorm some ideas, I immediately knew I wanted something playful and child-like.

I thought of a vacation that never ends where you have an entire island to yourself…clean beige sand granules intermixed with eroded minuscule rock crystals, fragrant salty sea water stretching out into the far away milk-chocolate colored mountains in the horizon, arched palm trees that flirt right above your head which provide nurturing shade and curious but fun-inspiring sailboats and beach umbrellas sprinkled about respectively on both water and land.

I am reminded of the times I’ve visited several artist colonies and towns along the central coast of California. One of my favorite places in that area to go is Cambria near San Simeon. There are great stretches of beach which are literally covered and littered with tons of semi-precious rocks and stones including moonstones. Many stones are jasper, agate and so forth. Collecting these wonderfully little stones for hour after hour is what I consider one of life’s simple but highly rewarding pleasures.

I’ll have to make a trip back out there someday and this time, I’d like to experiment with some of the rocks I’ll collect for jewelry and mosaic tile designs.

This piece was created in Illustrator 10. I wanted to create my own rendition of the color wheel thus I decided to work with a floral theme. This illustration took a long time to create and the piece had many many layers. After the initial design was drawn in Illustrator, I took it over to Photoshop CS to began digital painting and manipulation. The detail (as there is a LOT) of this piece can really be seen and fully appreciated at a larger scale. The original size is 3000 x 3000 pixels.

Several people mentioned that this piece looked like a mandala of some sort and it made them feel a sense of well-being looking at it. I like this interpretation and I’d say there was a dormant objective in this vein of thought when I created the illustration. Nature, reflection, harmony, peace and the power of color and energy (unity) are entities projected amid a stylized metropolitan background.

This illustration was created in Flash CS3.

I wanted to capture a serene and peaceful day spa which hosts a bit of magic realism. It looks to be ordinary in some sense, but it’s somewhat offbeat, baroque (warped) and cartoon-like. The implication is this is a completely different dimension that one can escape to emotionally…and once those emotions are tapped into, the The Day Spa becomes a real place to reside in. It’s a place where day never ends and tranquility abounds. You can relax in the small pool, hot tub or spread out on the sparkling but warm reflective floors while gazing out of the windows into horizons and horizons of beautiful sky, rich grass and radiant sun.