Igniter Backs are the collection of stills and loops that I help create along with Trent Armstrong and Ryan Jarrell. Trent is the master of all things After Effects and Ryan is the king of white space. We make a great team with our various strengths “COLLIDING.” Oh yeah… the Big RT’s (Rob Thomas) got some photoshop skills too. Don’t sleep on that!
Working on the stills is challenging because of the # of them we offer but also because of the variety we attempt to provide. Whether you are a Phil Wickham style church or more of a Tomlin dealio, we try to create something unique for a variety of styles. If you are like me and wish that your church were more like a Justice song… then you’ll love some of the random ones that I try to slip into the collections. Igniter Backs 05 won’t release until January (I think) but here’s a sample of a style I was messing with for a family of backgrounds.
I added some of the old poster art IMPAWARDS.COM to my inspirational art folder a few months ago. They have a huge collection of old poster art. Unbelievable to think how these were created without using the Adobe Suite. These are ridiculous!
God has done some amazing things in my life over the years. Recently, some very exciting things have been going on with the exposure I am receiving for my artwork. In addition to writing for Gomedia & PSDtuts, I was approached to be the editor of a motion graphics site that will be launching soon. I was unable to commit to that but shortly after, I received an email from the CEO of Maxon Cinema 4d!!! Surely I must be trippin’! I was asked to write tutorials for their paid subscription Cineversity.com. You know I had to say yes to that one!
I received my copy of version 11 this weekend and can’t wait to install it and start making some art. I’ll post once I’ve completed the tutorial.
So we’ve all seen live paintings on individual canvases brought together to form one piece at the end of the worship set, right? Check out this image from theREVOLUTIONchurch.tv. Live tattooing!!! That’s definitely a fresh twist for serving up a classic dish! Pretty crazy.
Great stop motion piece made up of cigarettes!!! A good reminder that it doesn’t always take 3d software and major render farms to pull off a great video.
Last year Trent Armstrong and I animated this piece for Igniter. It was a late release right before Christmas. With only 3 weeks until Christmas, Jesus and Santa Video sky rocketed to #1 on the Worship House Best Selling Media list. This year we’re hoping to promote it better now that we have time and hopefully get it out to even more churches. It’s a great message. The script was written by COLLIDE Editor, Scott McLellan and edited by Igniter founder and owner, Rob Thomas. It was a great team building project. I was stretched and a bit out of my element creating the artwork and characters for the video, but I’m pleased with it. Definitely something different for me. Purchase Jesus and Santa today!
Here’s the ad I created to promote the video in the latest issue of COLLIDE.
I received an email from Sean Hodge, editor PSDtuts.com a week or so ago. I was blown away by his kind words. Check this out:
“My name is Sean and I’m the Editor of PSDTUTS.com, which is a Photoshop tutorial site that receives over 1.2 million monthly visitors and publishes some of the best tutorials on the net. We’ve worked with artists such as Justin Maller, Nik Ainley, Sergio Ordonez, and more. Your unique digital illustrations are inspirational. Our audience would really love to learn more about how you make such high-quality work, and how you use Photoshop to bring those elements together.”
So here’s the deal.
#1- He used my name in the same email as Justin Maller! To quote Wayne & Garth… “We are not worthy! We are not worthy!”
#2-I will be writing for the Plus program that has an elite hand picked group of artists writing tuts and they are only accessible via paid memberships to the site.
#3- 1.2 million monthly visitors!!! Are you kidding me!
Here’s the artwork for the first Plus tutorial I am writing for them. SIGN UP TODAY for the Plus program. It’s only $9 a month.
Had the privilege of working with Stephen Brewster of Integrity Music last week. Instructions for the project… use 8 jpegs of Integrity album covers and the words “FREE WORSHIP RESOURCES” with our website… Simple, clean, but VERY cool… and oh yeah! T-24 hours til it needs to be uploaded to RELEVANT MAGS servers. I lost some sleep on this one but am grateful for the opportunity to work on this project.
Having no clue what I was gonna do for this ad and no time to waste, I started this project how I start pretty much every project: with some major prayer and a diet mountain dew. I don’t do coffee. It’s an expensive addiction. My diet mountain dews are like $.22 a can. However, I crushed an entire 6 pack throughout the night while working on this one - HENCE, the DIET Mt. Dew and not regular.
Eventually, I landed on a Wikipedia definition of RESOURCES for inspiration. After all, I only had 2 other words to choose from, “free” and “worship.” The thought of natural resources stuck with me and the whole idea that Integrity was giving away resources that will help your ministry grow. That led to the patch of grass and the plant life that grows from the resources.
Fortunately, Brewster loved it! (I don’t think we had time for him to not love it). It’s always a pleasure working with a man of integrity. (ha! pun intended)
The tutorial I wrote for Gomedia earlier this year is getting some more love from PSDtuts.com. On November 7th they listed it among 30 other tutorials as being ultra high end techniques that will allow you to “create high-end digital artworks and effects to rival any Photoshop legend.”
P.S.- I didn’t name it “BADASS” Bling Effect. That was a slight rewrite on the part of Gomedia. Pretty funny though.
I just got sucked out of the black whole of DIGITAL SAND ART art a few minutes ago and came up with the picture above. I wanna see somebody use that site to make a Sermon Series graphic! Who’s going first?!
Warning: Don’t visit the site if you are sleepy. The sound of sand pouring as you make your art is a recipe for an instant nap!
It was a pleasure to work on this piece for Jim Cocke over at CRYSTAL CLEAR CDs. Jim is targeting church ministries in an upcoming ad campaign to be run in Relevant, COLLIDE, Worship Leader Mag, and possibly a few others. Jim brought some sketches but wanted me to do my thaang. Here’s the before concept and the final piece:
Oh yeah… the Big RT’s (Rob Thomas) got some photoshop skills too. Don’t sleep on that!
