This is the portfolio site of illustrator and web designer Henry aka Helmetgirl. Welcome and please have a look around.
All images and designs are © Helmetgirl 2012 unless noted otherwise
Most of my work is character based, so I wanted to have a go at creating something more abstract and based on geometric shapes.
And as it is now – according to the calendar anyway- spring, I thought it appropriate to make something more colourful and happy go lucky than I normally do.
If you like it you can download it as a desktop wallpaper here:
Just before christmas last year I had the pleasure of spending a weekend in Sevilla in Spain visiting a friend that had recently moved there.
Traveling is always a good way to get new inspiration or get out of a block, even shorter distances can do the trick. I think it is good to see things from a new perspective, and it can be the smallest things that will tricker your mind to come up with new ideas.
Sevilla is a very visited city, it is a city full of beautiful architecture, cosy small spanish streets in the old quarter of the city, and appears to be a place full of delicious foods too.
But one of the most inspiring things for me from this visit, was the Feria Posters that you see everywhere. The city each year in april celebrates the Feria de Abril- a city wide party- and each year they produce a poster for this. The posters you see everwhere, on postcards, and in the tourist shops.
Poster from 1966 by José Álvarez Gámez, and from 1964 by Antonio Abelardo Garciá Fdez
There is a certain timeless effort in these posters, often very graphic, simple shapes, complimented by strong colours, and very little- but well arranged- text. The tradition is to show the iconic Sevilla- the Sevilanas in their dresses, the guitar, the men on horseback in traditional outfits.
Poster from 1966 by José Álvarez Gámez, and from 1957 by Ramón Blanco Casal
I wanted to do my version of a feria-styled poster, and decided to use my friend as a model for it. Although she is not a Sevillana, she was playing with the idea of acquiring one of these flamenco-styled dresses that the ladies dress up in for the Feria- and I think she would look just great!
My version of a Feria Poster
I haven’t been able to find a lot of information about the painters and traditions of the feria posters, if anyone knows I would be interested in hearing more about it all- links welcome.
Happy New year everyone!
This is the first illustration of 2010.
Entitled Cuddly Inside, it is meant to show that even dark spiky beings can have a soft center.
This illustration have been added to Redbubble, and from there you can buy it as a card, or print.
To see this and other works of mine for sale visit my red bubble site:
New Illustration:
I just finished this and wanted to share it. It started as a redwine induced sketch from my little sketchbook that I always have with me.
from my sketchbook
I wanted the illustration to have a textured feel to it, a slightly flat look. I normally create my illustration using a combination of hand sketching, illustrator line drawing and then a finish in Photoshop.
This one was created solely in Illustrator though. I used patterns and gradients to give it texture.
- – - update – - -
This image can now be bought as a postcard and print here:
A while ago Jouni from DiveSpain came to me and asked if I could create an illustrated header or character for the DiveSpain website.
DiveSpain.net is a popular web community with interesting diving related content and an active member base. The illustration was to be an integrated element in the header to give the site a bit more personality.
Jouni sent me a very good brief for doing this job, with ideas he had, and mentions of what other diving sites are doing.
Based on Jounis brief I came up with some different options:
Initial sketches for the divespain header
Jouni decided to go for the cartoony diver, as this was the more personal solution and it illustrates something called the perfect position in diving language. This cartoony diver was also easy to use around the web, as an avatar for Divespain.
As I don’t have a lot of experience with diving I had to get some more pointers from Jouni, so the position, and airpipes etc. looked correct even if simplified.
And here is the Final version:
The final character design
The avatar version of the character
Visit Divespain here
