Fashion Monsters are finished!

Finally finished this project that began over drinks in July or August, was shot at the beginning of September (or was it the very end of August) and languished in post-production (read: ME) for the last three months. It is done and I think it looks great. Beautiful shots, beautiful model, beautiful clothes, and some seriously cute and creepy monsters.

About the project:

Fashion Monster was a project conceived with photographer Dustin Cohen to combine his photographs and my "monster" illustrations. We set out to create a noir feel, knowing that the monsters would upend that with their absurd placement and bright colors. Shot on location around lower Manhattan at the beginning of Fall, the light was great and the team Dustin put together created wonderful images for me to work with.

Eli Neugeboren | Art Direction, Retouching, Illustration
Dustin Cohen | Photography
Angelique Velez | Hair & Makeup
Matthew Simonelli | Styling
Andrew Hanenberg | Photo Assistant, Stunt Driver
Winfield Foster | Photo Assistant
Casey Levine & Monique Perreault | Producers, Kids With Candy

All clothes | Edelweiss by Sarah
model | Mirielle represented by APM

see it on Behance

Burton-Ize

The final project I am giving my Digital Imaging students at City Tech is to "Burton-Ize" a self-portrait. We are teaching to a "Core Text" at City Tech this semester and the Core Text is Tim Burton. They chose Burton because of the coinciding show at MoMA and the release of his version of Alice in Wonderland. Visually I figured this would be something both challenging and fun for the students to do as they yearn for the freedom of Summer vacation.

So much fun that I did a quick one of myself this morning:

The assignment can be found at the wordpress site I have been keeping for the class:
http://adv1260.wordpress.com/
Oh, and this here is the original:

A Finer Line

Why is this referred to as "trick photography" and not retouching? 20/20 has spent a good amount of time putting together a report on what is essentially false advertising - an altered (photoshopped, retouched, whatever) picture standing in for a lesser reality. The are calling it trick photography, which implies that we as viewers are being tricked? Why is this language so different than the language they use when reporting on the retouching of female models? Is it somehow offensive to our cultural sensibilities to think that we could be tricked by a fashion photo, but acceptable and understandable that we would be tricked by an architectural one? Does it say something about what we think we want? What are the cultural politics of desire that are at work here that we would differentiate so completely between two acts that are the same: altering a photograph.

The net result is also the same - the alteration is used to enhance and entice, to put forth an ideal version of what really exists, whether that is a fashion model or a Bahamian resort. The closest they come to conflating the argument with the fashion retouching brouhaha is the weight loss advertisements, but with those they focus more on the fact that the images were stolen.

The caption for the video segment reads, "From hotel to weight-loss ads, photos altered for perfect results." 20/20's thesis for this type of photo alteration is "buyer beware", rather than responsible advertising or labeling of altered photos.

http://www.abcnews.go.com/2020/beware-trick-photography-staple-online-ads/story?id=9215461

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Temporary splash page on my site

I am feeling ambitious and want to redesign my website before the new year. I want it to be as uncluttered and uncomplicated as possible, with direct links to galleries of work and possible a feed from this blog as well. (Not with the terribly ugly dotblogspot template.) Above is the placeholder I threw together today, using the logo I designed for myself earlier this year.

I lifted the negative space "E" from this logo for Ed's Electric logo designed by Siah Design, which is actually a guy named Josiah Jost, and he lives in Alberta. I think I saw this on designboom or some other site like that. I would worry about this theft, but this is just a recent incarnation, as can be seen on this flickr link. Let's call it "inspiration" not theft, the foundation of graphic design!

Wrinkled skin

Wrinkled skin blown up to show individual pixels. It all comes together and looks like the Gobi Desert from an aerial view. Click to see it larger, with the pixel divisions.

Old Invites

Fun with photoshop and pictures of me and Jenni! I love making these ridiculous things.

Open GL in CS4

This is what Photoshop CS4 does when openGL is turned on in CS4. When you zoom in it shows the actual pixels, which is nice. Really allows the user to understand how color correction affects the image at the pixel-level.

This is a screengrab of skin on the chest of a middle-aged white woman I'm currently retouching.

old stuff: Cracked Out Snowmen

These were proposed illustrations for the Spin corporate holiday card a few years ago. Didn't get approved for some reason.

Prince's Purple Rain

I remember listening to this album constantly when it came out. I had the 45" of "When Doves Cry" and my sister had the LP, and we'd listen to it at our house and her best friend, Jennifer Wentzel's house. I would sing, "this is what it sounds like, when dogs dieeeee!!!" I didn't know what "Darling Nikki" was about, but I wanted to. Spin just published a huge feature package marking the 25th anniversary of the release of the movie and album, and they got a bunch of bands to cover the album. Best part for me? I got to do the photo-illustration for the cover under art direction from Devin Pedzwater.

This first sketch is something I threw together that didn't get used. I had done a few different ink versions before I scanned this and colored it in photoshop. It got me very comfortable with the image, which helped when I made the final.
This is the final version, as it looks on newsstands.
And this is the original photo, by ASP.

the Retouching Arts

(photo by Kevin Van Aelst, no permission. Great example of clever and well-done retouching. Filthy filthy lies!)

Communication Arts has an article by Kate Chase, published last December that just came to my attention. Given the generally negative and inflammatory way retouching has been portrayed in the press (OH MY GOD LOOK WHAT THEY DID!!!), it is nice to see a more measured and reflective look at the biz. (photo pilfered from CommArts website)

She talks about the Wild family and their retouching lineage, and how they changed from the late 1800s with the first airbrushes, all the way to the advent and proliferation of Photoshop.

"It’s been debated over the last few years if the term photo-retoucher is still applicable to describe today’s modern digital artist. For me, it’s still the perfect description, because all others ­fall short in comparison to what’s been thrown out as a replacement. ... The dedicated and sophisticated retoucher continually proves that it’s the educated artist in this niche who is sought after and retained to surpass expectations. It seems everyone is still looking for the name of a good 'airbrush' artist."

dipping my toes into the AfterEffects pool

This is so terrible, but I'm pretty damn excited about the class I'm taking (at SVA) and what I will hopefully be able to do after the 8 weeks of class, and beyond. Adobe After Effects is a pretty powerful engine, I think I learned how to start it up and put on the directionals last night.

More stuff from Spin

This was the AD's initial idea for the illustration - DVD morphing into imageThis one is what ended up running. I was happy with how I managed to make the type seem carved into the collumns, and the shadows/highlights seemed to all work well in the end.

Glaze

Identity for a possible retouching/imaging company.

album art: Indelible Beancurd

Cover art

Interior art

Just finished this album art for my old pals Ethan and Dan. This is the first work I've done as the Liaison to the Sun in about 11 or 12 years. This album is the result of five years of work between these guys: Inspired by the long-distance collaboration that produced the Cooling Pies album(s), Ethan and Dan began writing and recording this album in 2003. They traded visits back and forth between Ohio and NYC, and this gem is ready to go on the world's finger. Er sumthin.

check them on their site and on amazon.

monogram 1: Oh My God

I have always loved interlocking monograms; usually I notice them as sport's logos, but they are all over the place. They are an optical illusion, an Escher-like puzzle for the eyes to sort out.

The more complex the design, the more letters involved, the longer it will take to figure it out, but our eyes and brain seem to have an amazing ability to sort these things out, similar to reading a sentence wth sme of th lttrs mssng without skipping a beat. I think that I am also drawn to these things because they take type and make it into an image, maybe through decorative means, but still. I think I can track this back to looking at the Star of David iconography at the synagogue I went to growing up, and trying to follow the lines around and over and under and through, trying to make sense of it, in my head. I spent many hours drawing and re-drawing these, tracing them until I could draw them on my own.

So I decided to try making some of my own. The question was, what would I make them for, what would the letters I chose represent? I immediately thought I would use instant messaging acronyms, since the juxtaposition of the slow labor-intensive process of drawing these with the hurryupnow nature of their etymology seemed at odds. This strikes me as a similar intent to the slow-blogging movement, though not as crusty or bitter. My intent is to do it as an homage, a glorification of our newfound method of simplified communication. All that being said, here is my first effort. This is a scan of a pencil drawing, colored digitally. I will see what they look like re-drawn in vectors, but I like the idea that they have an element of the non-digital in them as well.

monstertauk

Now I see what was causing all those weird clouds. He doesn't look so bad.

Photo Illustration :: Noise Opener for SPIN 200808

Challenging photo illustration (or digital collage, if you prefer) combining these parts into a final image. Grass was too big and had to be tiled. Lanyard on VIP tag had to be "draped" over the edge of the tray. Tray had to be squeezed to fit the page layout, hands were moved and kept at the same size. Two versions follow, the full-color logo is the one that made the final page layout.

Photo Illustration :: Madden for SPIN 200808

Photo collage for the Games review page in the August issue of SPIN. Art Director: Ian Robinson