AstaDesign::design & stuffs

I found a great pic on the Trekearth.com, and it makes me wanna trace it.

Here's the end result.



A tracing of a Balinese Dancer.

Alhamdulillah.....Praise to Allah SWT, the Lord of The Universe.....

My baby's finally born on Friday, 1st September 2006, at 6:20AM.
It's a baby boy, a handsome small boy with wonderful smile and fascinating appearance.





I couldn't even believe that he's finally among us.

Wow, what a relieve...after 9 moths more in waiting, he's born in healthy condition, not even single scratch on his fragile body.

I'm a daddy now...and I do swear to myself, my wife and my baby, that I'm gonna be a good daddy.

KH Hasyim Asy'ari, is one of the most prominent Islamic movement leaders during the Indonesian struggle for independence. He's well known as the leader and can be said as the founder of the biggest Islamic movement in Indonesia, Nahdlatul Ulama (NU).

KH Hasyim Asy'ari's grandson is KH Abdurrahman Wahid (Gus Dur), who once elected as the president of Indonesia. They're great figures in this country and also great teachers of the nation.

I made a trace of KH Hasyim Asy'ari's figure....just to honour this great man.



I'll try to make more tracing of the Indonesian national heroes.

I've been tracing lotsa pics, but the funny thing is, I never done any for my own.
Hehehehehe.......and today, I decided to make at least one, and here's how it looks like.
My self trace.....



Hmmm....I think I'm gonna make some more.

Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz (born August 13, 1926) is the current President of Cuba. After commanding the revolution that overthrew Fulgencio Batista in 1959, he held the title of Prime Minister[1] until 1976, when he became president of the Council of State as well as the Council of Ministers. Castro became First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba in 1965, and led the transformation of Cuba into a one-party socialist republic. As president he also holds the supreme military rank of Comandante in the Cuban military. On July 31, 2006, Castro temporarily transferred duties to his brother Raúl to recover from intestinal surgery.
Castro first attracted attention in Cuban political life through his nationalist critiques of Batista and United States corporate and political influence in Cuba. He gained an ardent, but limited, following and also drew the attention of the authorities.[2] He eventually led the failed 1953 attack on the Moncada Barracks, after which he was captured, tried, incarcerated and later released. He then travelled to Mexico[3] [4] to organize and train for the guerrilla invasion of Cuba that took place in December 1956. Since his assumption of power in 1959 he has evoked both praise and condemnation (at home and internationally). Castro is frequently described by opponents as a dictator [5] [6] and accused of gross human rights violations, including the execution of thousands of political opponents, [7]. Other groups hail Castro as a charismatic liberator. [8]
Outside of Cuba, Castro has been defined by his relationship with both the United States and with the former Soviet Union. Ever since the failed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in 1961 by the United States, the Castro-led government has had an openly antagonistic relationship with the U.S., and a simultaneous closeness with the Soviet bloc. This was true until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, after which his priorities shifted from supporting foreign interventions to partnering with regional socialist figures such as Hugo Chávez in Venezuela and Evo Morales in Bolivia.
Domestically, Fidel Castro has overseen the implementation of various economic policies which saw the rapid centralization of Cuba's economy - land reform, collectivization of agriculture, and the nationalization of leading Cuban industries. The expansion of publicly funded health care and education has been a cornerstone of Castro's domestic social agenda. Some credit these policies for Cuba's relatively high Human Development Index rating.[9] Others see Castro and his policies as being responsible for Cuba's general economic depredation, and harshly criticize him for the criminalization of political dissent, free speech, and provoking hundreds of thousands of Cubans into fleeing the country.

For detailed info, click http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fidel_castro

Suddenly I wanna trace something nationalistic. Perhaps, I suffered from a Indepence Day syndrome.

Well, everybody, Happy Indepence Day!

It's been almost 9 months since I posted my last design here. Dunno why, just feeling stuck and busy with all the things in my life.
But today, I states once again, "I'm Back". I'll continue posting my designs here.
For the begining, here's a tracing I made today. Just took me less than 1 hour to complete it.



I'll keep my design spirit flaming in my heart.

Latest tracing...."the sexiest cat ever on big screen".



Btw, I wanna talk a bit about tracing image. It's a kinda tricky business but once you knew the clues, it's a easy as flipping your palm.

I used to start tracing by picking a pic and place it into an Adobe Illustrator doc file--FYI, I used Adobe Illustrator CS2. It's the best vector based design software.



The pic is place in a layer which then I lock and make it as a template. This template layer serves as a basic for my tracing.
Then, I create a new layer above the template layer, and begin to trace. There's an important thing to remember, since vector illustration is an object based software, then you make objects and combine into a final design.



In the case of tracing, you must create each elemen of a pic, started by the top-most object, the the lower ones etc. Then when you see the whole parts, you'll get an complete design.

I used to trace the eye first, started by the white spots of the eyes, the pupil, the white part and so on. The tools I used most are the Pen tool for drawing the object, then the Eyedropper tool for picking the perfect colors based the colors of the underlying pic.

For making a more realistic effects of the tracing I made, I employ the transparency feature of the Illustrator CS2. This trick works very well in smoothing various elements of a tracing, like the white spots of the eyes, the light reflections of the faces and stuffs.

Another thing to mention is to use Blending mode to create a different kinda look for the entire design. It's great to explore the various choices of blending mode.
What so great about this Illustrator CS2 is, you can apply different blending mode settings for different objects. Since Illustrator CS2 treats each object as a single sub-layer.

Great isn't it?