Sketch a composer competition

[archive]

Hi,

I've got a bunch of fairly low quality jpegs/gifs etc of old portraits of composers (most of them pretty obscure). I need them turning into elegant print-quality black & white sketches (no shades of grey...just b&w).

The finished sketches can be very simple - I've got in mind the kind of drawing that captures the essence of a person's face with just a few lines. I'm NOT asking for caricatures or anything comic. The sketches/drawings can be quite stylised, if you want. I'm not looking for reproductions - I need something more creative, yet more minimal, than that. They do, however, need to reflect the content of the original (for instance, if the original pic shows the composer holding a book then your image needs to show him holding one too!)

They can be scanned pencil / black ink drawings if you like, or you can do it all digitally. Once you've captured a style I like I'd have thought it would be fairly easy to produce several sketches of different composers.

I'll pay $10 for each image that I like, so there's not necessariliy a limit to the number of prizes awarded in this competition. I've posted a load of links to composers' pictures - once I get enough images of a particular composer I'll let you know on the message board so you can concentrate your activities on the remaining ones.

PLEASE, ONLY MAKE DRAWINGS FROM THE IMAGES I'VE LISTED!

So, it's a bit of a free-for-all....I'll give out prize money as the images are produced. For this reason I haven't set a deadline for the competition - when I've got enough images I'll close the competition down.

Have fun!

Richard

LINKS TO COMPOSERS....
(so that you don't all end up working on the same image, pick an image you'd like to do off the list...don't just work down the list in order!)

http://img78.exs.cx/img78/8973/vivaldi2.jpg
http://img78.exs.cx/img78/945/vivaldi.jpg
http://img78.exs.cx/img78/7295/victoria.jpg
http://img78.exs.cx/img78/1513/telemann.gif
http://img78.exs.cx/img78/2514/tele.gif
http://img78.exs.cx/img78/7662/tallis.jpg
http://img78.exs.cx/img78/4184/pepusch2.jpg
http://img78.exs.cx/img78/5272/pepusch.jpg
http://img78.exs.cx/img78/1927/marais.jpg
http://img78.exs.cx/img78/5403/hassler.jpg
http://img78.exs.cx/img78/9375/handel_portrait.jpg
http://img78.exs.cx/img78/6409/croft_w3.jpg
http://img78.exs.cx/img78/6495/croft_w2.jpg
http://img78.exs.cx/img78/2137/CGTelemann.jpg
http://img78.exs.cx/img78/9475/byrd.jpg
http://img78.exs.cx/img78/8038/bach-hau.jpg

[browncat]

I can't draw people. I experimented with Photoshop and thought I would see if you could use this type of picture. They would fit in with the old grunge look. Here are some examples:

Telemann
Hassler
Pepusch

[archive]

Hi Browncat,

Thanks for your entry. This kind of digital manipulation isn't really what I'm after, but thanks anyway!

Cheers,
Richard

[s0vj3t]

I think its a hard competition what you want :P But maybe someone can, not me

[oasis]

I will work on something. What about like a negative/postive silhuette style image?

Or do you want it to actually look like someone drew them- like sketchy looking?

[archive]

Good question! I'm not exactly sure what you mean by a "negative/positive silhouette" style, but I THINK it sounds like the kind of thing I might be interested in. Can you put one together - perhaps just a rough draft - to give me a better idea?

No, it doesn't have to look like a drawing. Real sketching is a possibility, I suppose, but I think I'd prefer something less "literal" and more stylised. Does that make sense?

I look forward to seeing what you come up with, and thanks for your post!

Cheers,
Richard

[oasis]

Here is what I meant.

http://www.oasisskateco.com//images/.../composer3.gif
http://www.oasisskateco.com//images/.../composer4.gif

If you want to see some others done up I will see what I can do. And if this isnt the direction you wanted to go in let me know and I will try another avenue.

[archive]

Thanks for this, Oasis. You're definitely along the right lines, especially with the second image (composer4) - it's clean, straightforward, pure b&w.

I've got a couple of reservations. There's a lot of black, which gives the image a heavier, denser look than I imagined. Also, it's quite "literal", which makes it look rather like a digital manipulation rather than a re-working. Maybe there's some way to work with lines, rather than blocks of black, and to really pare down to the barest elements that make the image.


Please, keep experimenting, and by all means keep developing what you've shown me. Thanks!

[oasis]

I tried a couple diferent things. They don't look that great. I'm kinda stumped, but will try a few more ideas....

[archive]

Hi Oasis,

I'd be interested to see what you've been trying...

[ShaneLinkcom]

I'll be submitting some samples today.

[archive]

That's great news! It's been quieter than the grave so far....

*tumbleweed rolls past...*

[oasis]

okay here are some lil sketches I came up with.

http://www.oasisskateco.com//images/...osersketch.jpg
http://www.oasisskateco.com//images/...sersketch2.jpg

I should have reduced them to like 150x150 because they look alot better. Let me know...

[archive]

Hi Oasis,

Wow. Thanks ever so much - you've really gone to town on these! They're really rather impressive.

I'm really looking for something quite a lot simpler. You've put a lot of work into making the composers recognizable - their features have been drawn very subtly and in great detail. I find it really hard to describe what's in my mind, but....mmm....imagine trying to recreate the substance of the picture (i.e. posture, basic features) with just, say, five or six strokes of a flat-nibbed black pen (or something like a chinese ink brush). I'm not saying that's the only thing I'm interested in, but it's the kind of level of simplicity I'm looking for. I think I should have made more of the word "minimal" in the brief.

Cheers,
Richard

[ShaneLinkcom]

Here are some examples that you should like. Simplified versions that respresent a brush stroke or rubber stamp. These images are fully vectorized in Illustrator to be scaled to a selected size and easily change the colors as well. I will create the same process with the remaining supplied artwork if you like these. Check out link below.

http://shanelink.com/composers.html

Thanks,

[archive]

Hi Shane,

Very interesting! I like the way it's going. I loaded up one of your pics into paintbox (yes, my graphics editing suite is THAT sophisticated!) and played around with it. I removed all the speckles of black on the white areas, any lines that seems at all superfluous and I drew around the edge and replaced the black background with white. I like the technique your using, but can we make the end result simpler? Remove absolutely anything that is not 100% essential to recoganising the shape & posture of the human form? Is it possible to take what you're doing to such an extreme that the whole image is made up of just simple lines?

I hope you keep going with this - I like it!

[archive]

Hi again Shane,

Here's the result of me playing around with one of the images you sent.

http://img32.exs.cx/img32/9862/test15.gif

For me, it's still a little too fussy and the think black line's too "clunky", but it's moving towards the level of simplicity I need. Also it's not really stylised eonigh. Now, if someone were to trace around this in elegant strokes using a think nibbed fountain pen and indian ink, well, that would be great! Anyway, I hope it helps give you an idea of where this needs to go. Cheers,

Richard

[Rogier]

I have made 2 images:

http://www.forumjunkies.nl/designz/dc1.gif -> more detail
http://www.forumjunkies.nl/designz/dc2.gif -> less detal

Let me know what you think of it!

[ShaneLinkcom]

Here are the remaining 8 composers created in the same manner. Take a look and let me know what you think. I will go back and simplify them sometime tommorrow if I can squeeze in the time. Would you like me to remove the backgrounds from all the images? What are you using these images for? Print? Web?

1st Set
http://shanelink.com/composers.html

2nd Set (I believe that there are 3 or 4 in here that are close to your request as is)
http://shanelink.com/composers2.html

[archive]

Shane & Rogier,

Thanks for your posts. Rogier - interesting techinque, but the brief says "no shades of grey - just black & white".

Shane - thanks for these. I think there's really some potential here. Let me have a think about it, and then, if you don't mind, I'll direct your attention to three or four specific images to work in in a bit more detail. I'll post again for you in a few hours when I have a chance to go through your images in detail.

By the way, the images will be for print (front covers of sheet music, possibly on a very slightly textured paper), and smaller versions of the covers will appear on a website.

Cheers,
Richard