Luke Bash

Edit: This post became out of order when it was updated. It should be the 3rd post on 26 Aug. As my third tile, I had dreams of depicting the Great Wall of China rolling over the mountains. I struggled with the layers and over lapping colors and the end result was less than desired. This wasn't good enough and I knew it. I needed to hone my skills and vision. Living in Beijing, I decided to use the famous Temple of Heaven instead.  Better, but I don't need the words and the image was missing something. Finally I came up with: As you can see, added a frame on the 3rd tier and some shadows while removing the border and words. Now its something I can be proud of.

Trying to think of a simple tile, I thought of the windmills of the Netherlands. I didn't need to source a photo of a windmill to trace and I could simplify the color scheme. My final result is this: Now, this wasn't my final version. I had tried to use just three colors, but I ran into some issues. Mainly, the Pepsi copyrighted logo. They were too similar, hence the change and 2 extra colors. My first Attempt Pepsi Logo

I have been working on a few new tiles and I wanted to go through a little of the process of of putting one of these together. Let's look at my tile for Lesotho. Lesotho is famous for its ponies and majestic Drakensberg Moutains.  I sourced a few pictures: - a horse and rider (to be adjusted with a Basotho hat) - misty mountains  - and the Three Rondavels (famous mountains in the Drakensbergs) The misty mountains have the color scheme and some the mountains. The silhouette of the Three Rondavels become the rest of the background and some of the foreground. The horse and rider silhouette with a proper hat finishes the tile.

Sometimes I struggle to get the right image. I know Indonesia is tropical paradise with beautiful islands, flowers and animals. But finding that iconic view of the country (like Macau) has lead me only to the National Monument in Jakarta. I added the city name and the flag colors to add a little more to the image. I'll keep this, for now: One thing I did learn from this endeavor; shading by using different colors and alpha levels in the color.

Macau has always been a simple project, just make a good image of the facade of the Ruínas de São Paulo. Using Google Maps, I found a suitable image and go to work, making this: Previously, I used a different view and an 8-bit filter: It was interesting, but didn't fit the style.  Still, a good version of Macau evades me, but I am happy to stick with the first one for now. Maybe I'm looking at the wrong view, the wrong landmark, or the wrong time of day. We'll see where this one goes in the future.

For a little whimsy and in an attempt to simplify the color palette, here is Mao's China. That's all for today.

After much time and reassessing the design, I decided to fix the Japan Tile. Firstly, I want to focus on a single cherry blossom, but not a stylized version, so I used the silhouette of a real flower. I then looked for some simple architecture. Remembering Itsukushima's famous tori (gate) I looked through my picture and online versions. I found a graphic I liked, but I had to add a little that was missing. I am happy with the end result:

Continuing on the style of Singapore, I tried Japan. This lead to cherry blossoms and Mount Fuji, very iconic Japan. I used different colors, daytime and sunset. I settled on this one: I kept this one for months, but unhappy with something about it. Did I need the write the country across the bottom or should I use gradients? I left this one for later inspiration.

Many years ago, the National Parks in the US started selling (or maybe reselling) old travel posters for a few parks. I enjoyed both the clarity and simplicity of these designs. I started looking up old travel posters for other destinations and have collected some of the graphics. As a traveler, I wanted to showcase my travels to different countries with the style of the NP posters., but as small stickers to use on my suitcase. Here is one of my first tiles: +Hexagonal (something I plan to keep) +Iconic - Unnecessary Label? I like it and have kept this in my collection.