Caught in the Drain

KSCG launches new project at arkirby,com

richard@kitchensinkcreativegroup.com — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 00:10:53 GMT

KSCG's latest creation is the website promoting Birmingham author A.R. Kirby and his new novel, Committed. The novel will be published on arkirby.com beginning July 14.

Happy World Juggling Day!

richard@kitchensinkcreativegroup.com — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 16:15:38 GMT

Happy World Juggling Day, y'all!

As you can see, we've posted our new World Juggling Day creation. This was a fun one to create; it's not often you see someone juggling an electric guitar, a chair, and a teenage girl, all while standing atop the back of a giant dog!

With the World Juggling Day piece, we also made a couple of small changes to the website. From our homepage, you can now link to a high-resolution PDF file of our unusual holiday greetings. These are suitable for printing and are free to anyone who visits the site. It's our way of saying thanks for dropping in and paying us a visit.

Now that World Juggling Day is done, we're moving on to a couple of new projetcs. We'll be designing a new website that will launch in a couple of weeks (more details later), and we will soon be starting on our holiday greeting for fall. Check back soon for more information on both of these!

World Juggler Day prep

richard@kitchensinkcreativegroup.com — Sat, 10 May 2008 14:28:12 GMT

Preparations for Kitchen Sink Creative Group's next project for World Juggler Day are in full swing!

Jean finished the conceptual work for the new greeting card, and that means the nuts-and-bolts work for the project are getting underway. We shot our "juggler" last weekend, and we'll be working on another photo shoot today, with the goal of getting the major components ready for the computer.

The photos are being taken both on film and digitally, using our trusty old Minolta 35mm SLR (my personal favorite) and an HP Photosmart digital camera. Once the film is developed, the negatives will be scanned onto a photo CD. Of course, the digital images will be imported straight into the computer. After that, Jean will bring the images into Photoshop and work her magic.

With little more than a month left before World Juggler Day on June 16, you can bet the farm that we will be doing lots and lots of work on the new piece during the next couple of weeks. Check back soon for ongoing developments!

Creating Pi Day

richard@kitchensinkcreativegroup.com — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 03:06:00 GMT

Pi Day, the latest holiday creation from Kitchen Sink Creative Group, is a good example of how the combination of different elements and techniques creates a unique and effective composition.

Jean’s vision was to have a group of people in a field celebrating Pi Day; unfortunately, we had no Pi Day celebration planned, and we had no idea where to find a pi monolith to put into our back yard. So began the imagination process. Ultimately, the finished piece was an amalgam of three basic elements: stock photography, digital illustration, and custom photography.

Jean first selected a background for her image. She selected a number of images that fit our criteria (sunny, spring-like, fairly open) from istockphoto.com. We eventually chose an image from Antonio Nunes.

Once the background image was chosen, Jean began work on the pi monolith in Strata 3D. She created several different monoliths, including a silver one (she liked it best but the contrast was all wrong) and one or two psychedelic ones (it seemed like overkill; the image is trippy enough)!

The pi was originally created with a brushed silver skin, but it was so smooth and slick it didn't look natural. To overcome this, Jean created a bump map – essentially a black and white image where the white comes forward and the black areas recess. This gives the pi image its “pitted” look.

Once she finished the pi image in Strata 3D, she did some work in Photoshop, adding some “stepping stones” to suggest a way of getting to the top of the object.

Now we were left to find people to celebrate in the photo. Because we were including Einstein in the image (it was his birthday too), we figured we could get away with duplicates with our models (time travel and all that, you know). We gathered friends and family, as well as a number of critters from around the house (special thanks to Wookie, Keefer, and Mango) for a photo shoot. During the shoot, we paid close attention to lighting and positioning to help reduce the amount of manipulation required once the pictures were in digital format.

The majority of the images were taken around our house in Homewood, shooting on film using a Minolta X7-A SLR camera and a 35-75mm zoom lens. We also used a few shots taken with an HP Photosmart M407 digital camera. The film shots were developed and the negatives scanned to CD; shots taken with the digital camera were uploaded directly to the computer.

Jean merged the background and pi images to create a scene with a natural appearance, then began some basic composition with the people and animals within the scene. Using Photoshop, she made all the necessary adjustments to each of the figures to maximize the realism of the scene. Photoshop was also where she essentially drew in the Einstein cloud face.

The result is an image we think exemplifies a celebration of Pi Day, and we look forward to making many more!

Next holiday project -- World Juggler's Day

richard@kitchensinkcreativegroup.com — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 04:08:09 GMT

After a great deal of thoughtful deliberation (not to mention soul-searching), Jean and I have decided upon our next deserving holiday to commemorate. Mark your calendars -- June 17 is World Juggler's Day!

After all, who doesn't like to watch someone juggle? It takes quite a talent to keep objects in constant motion, especially if you're throwing (and catching) knives, chainsaws, and the like. And, of course, we're all jugglers in a philosophical sense.

We'll be developing some concepts over the next few weeks. Although we're still hammering out exactly what type of project we'll undertake, it will definitely focus on some of our specialties.

Stay posted, and we'll keep tossing out the ideas!

Happy Pi Day!

richard@kitchensinkcreativegroup.com — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 18:35:18 GMT

You didn't think we'd go to all the trouble of creating that beautiful Pi Day illustration without actually wishing the world a "Happy Pi Day", did you? So here's our best to everyone running around in circles today!

We're very excited that the good folks at PiDay.org chose Jean's illustration for inclusion on their site. It's holidays like Pi Day -- generally little-known, but quite interesting -- that get us excited. We're always looking for a good reason to celebrate!

The illustration is actually a composition of several elements. First, Jean created the monolithic Pi in Strata 3D, and placed it in Photoshop. The meadow is stock photography purchased from istockphoto.com, and the people (and our dogs Wookie and Keefer) were photographed locally by yours truly. Jean worked her magic, and -- voila! -- the Pi Day illustration was complete.

The illustration is also being used by KSCG in a print marketing piece sent out to selected area companies.

Have a great Pi Day, and visit us often to see what else we've got up our sleeves!