October 11, 2015

Latest Post The Hound of the Baskervilles by Owen Soule

For those who don’t know, Laura and I have a baby boy on the way due in early November! A while back, actually before we even knew the baby was a boy, I put together a countdown timer because everything in life is better with a countdown timer. I may have been overcome with glee at the prospect of a new Soule in the world or perhaps a bit drunk but either way I decided the best “theme” for this countdown timer would be “Soule Designs: The Next Generation”. And so began my Star Trek: The Next Generation themed countdown timer creation!

the-next-gen-screenshot.png
Shine on, you crazy diamond!

First step was to craft some artwork. Anyone who has looked over my blog will know that I have a tendency to draw cartoony stuff, so I once again went this route for the main graphic of the timer. Here is my initial concept sketch done in Manga Studio:

soule-designs-next-gen-sketch-1.jpg
Pretty rough, the "I ♥ Cthulu" sticker didn't make the final cut

Based on that crazy first sketch, I hopped over to Photoshop and did a much cleaner sketch that started to look more like the final image. I used Photoshop for this because at the time, I think it was March, I was hot and heavy into Peck, Peck, Peck illustrations and I didn't want to spend the time getting up to speed in Manga Studio. You can find posts on inking in Manga Studio here on my blog where I did eventually delve into that topic ;-)


soule-designs-next-gen-sketch-2
Getting closer, phaser was Laura’s idea and it is awesome!

After the sketch was complete it was onto the inking, below is the inked artwork sans color and crazy futuristic space glowing bits:

soule-designs-next-gen-sketch-3.png
Stay on target...

And finally the full color version you all now know and love!   

soule-designs-next-gen.jpg
Final color version!

After the image was done it was just a matter of creating a TNG web font, pulling in some JQuery timer code, and it was a wrap! Full the live page head here https://www.souledesigns.com/the-final-countdown/tng though the timer will only be running until November 4th, baby or not!

Owen Soule

Published October 11, 2015