2009 was a fantastic year for us (me) here at Thirsty Fish Graphic Design. Lots and lots of new work on new accounts as well as new work on old accounts. Looking back I honestly can’t say I would have changed anything. Well…

One thing I did notice in fact was that during the few times I didn’t have material with which to work on pending projects I was in the process of learning new things….nothing new there….that is just kind of how I operate. What occurred to me was that what I was learning was almost always related to something technical – whether it was brushing up on traditional javascript, learning php, practicing this or that….I never just worked on “artwork” be it vector based, raster based or just using the damned PENCIL!!! After all, this is the very REASON I decided to do / be a graphic artist!!!! Don’t get me wrong, learning code and programming stuff can be fun….but personally, I like the immediate gratification of artwork for the sake of artwork. It is much more satisfying to me to make a stroke of the pencil (a real, physical pencil or the pen & pencil tool in AI) and see the result than to have to write 20 lines of code and look at what the browser did to my code before I get the satisfaction! When one considers Microsoft Internet Explorer….well, lets just say that one may never be satisfied (although, stunned at the myriad of ways one company can fuck things up).

All of this being said, I resolve this year to do more artwork for the sake of artwork…both traditional and computer. If it happens to beef up my portfolio at the same time then, so be it! After all, my new 27″ iMAC comes this week so what better time to get started?!? Oh, did I mention my new copy of CS4 as well? Sweet!!!!

I will now post some killer vector and raster art for your enjoyment (and my inspiration!). I hope you enjoy! Full credit to the artists (none of which is / are myself!).

This is about as realistic as I like my vector art
“people” to be. Great work here!

LOVE the subject matter on this one!

Okay, if you haven’t bothered to look at the full size
version of any of the above pictures….you HAVE to
view this one at full size!
Keep in mind this is NOT a photograph!

This next one is in fact raster art (Phew!)

This last one I actually like the best
…mostly because it is readily apparent
that it is NOT a photograph BUT the
painstaking detail is still there
….killer stuff!