Continuing on with my series of metal Apple logos (the other sets can be found here, here, here, here, and here), this is a batch of six more fresh from my rendering box. I still have 12 more that I have mocked up and are ready to render, and I’ll get those online in the coming weeks (or months – it depends on what else I feel like uploading). Anyway, I’m hoping that the kind folks at Apple will be so proud of me for making these images that they’ll send me a free Mac Pro or something. Wouldn’t that be nice?

Here are the details for today’s batch of free illustrations:

• A silver Apple logo lying on a gray reflective surface with thick chrome chains draped over top of it
• A transparent metallic Apple logo on a delivery cart over a red reflective surface
• A chrome Apple logo inside of a shiny heart shape hovering over a black reflective surface
• A large metallic Apple logo standing upright behind a white two story residential house
• A chrome Apple logo standing upright on a pile of silver construction parts
• A chrome Apple logo lying on top of a wood soap box over a dark gray reflective surface

Each image in today’s free batch of royalty free illustrations contain one common element: a magnifying glass. I’ve never admitted this to anyone, but I had always intended to build a more realistic magnifying glass to use in my renderings – maybe something a bit more classical with a wood handle and gold metal trim. But there are far more important things that I need to deal with on a day to day basis, and low priority items such as this tend to get lost and forgotten. Oh well. Perhaps someday I’ll get to it, but for now I’ll continue to use the generic one I built.

This set of images includes:

• A magnifying glass hovering over top of a silver and gray biohazard symbol on a gray reflective surface
• A magnifying glass floating above a large American football on a white surface
• A magnifying glass hovering over top of a light wood acoustic guitar
• A magnifying glass hovering over a silver hand truck on a gray reflective surface
• A magnifying glass above a bright yellow “new” symbol over a red reflective surface
• A magnifying glass floating above a metallic volume slider mechanism over a white reflective surface.

Yeah, I know it’s been a while, but I’ve got six more fresh new images for you all today. They are all extensions from previous sets that I have uploaded elsewhere, and of course they are all exclusive to Norebbo.com. There is no particular theme for this set of renderings, as I pretty much just grabbed six random files from my “upload” directory – and here’s what I ended up with:

• A large black and gold AA battery sitting on a silver hand truck over a white reflective surface
• A metallic red “X” symbol floating inside of a chrome heart hovering over top of a shiny black surface
• A wood soap box sitting on a large laptop computer
• A  bright yellow “NEW” symbol with a fragmented orange and yellow swirl pattern behind it
• A chrome trophy standing in front of a white three-story office building over a gray reflective surface
• A red and white lifesaver sitting inside of a silver frying pan over a red reflective surface

Continuing from my previous series of metal WordPress logos, here are six fresh new images ready for you to download. This time, I’ve rendered the logo with a variety of objects depicting popular blogging concepts such as security, love, and construction. Yes, most of them are gray – I didn’t realize that until I grouped them together for this upload, but hey…I think it gives them a very clean and simple look. Besides, they are free…so no complaining! Here is a more detailed description of the set:

• An open metallic briefcase on a gray reflective surface filled with an assortment of metal WordPress logos
• A silver WordPress logo inside of a chrome heart floating above a dark surface
• A large metal padlock clamped onto a silver WordPress logo
• A silver and gray WordPress logo standing upright on a pile of fastener nuts, a bolt, and a spring
• A metal WordPress logo standing upright on an automotive wheel and tire on a bright blue reflective surface
• A silver WordPress logo lying upright in a puddle of silver liquid on a gray reflective surface.

Thirty years later, I’m still sketching – though not as much as I’d like. Computer graphics (and web design) was becoming the hot thing just as I was graduating from college, so I naturally fell into that and began pushing pixels instead of a pencil. But the itch to sketch and draw has never left me, and lately I’ve been evaluating some of the software options available for digital artists. There is some interesting stuff available these days, and technology has finally reached a point where freehand sketching on the computer is not the clumsy and awkward challenge that it used to be. Pressure sensitive touch screens and drawing tablets are the most important tools for digital sketching, and matching that hardware with good software will give any artist the tools that he or she needs to create stunning work.

Of all the software choices out there today, which is the best? In my opinion, there are only two real choices: Corel Painter and Autodesk SketchBook Pro. Adobe Photoshop can’t even compare to these two programs, as it doesn’t perform well enough to be able to follow fast sketchers – I draw really fast, and there are many times that Photoshop can’t keep up with me and the lines it renders are fragmented and chunky. With that said, these are my opinions of my two favorites: Painter Essentials and SketchBook Pro:

Corel Painter Essentials 4

“Essentials” is basically the “light” version of Painter. You’ll get all the basics of the full package (like a full palette of brushes, layer tools, pressure sensitivity, etc), but without complex tools such as the ability to draw vector shapes and create fully-custom brushes. As far as sketching goes, “Essentials” is all you need – the brushes are very sensitive, and it’s very easy to create lines with varied weight and thickness as you draw (just like you can with a real pencil). Every brush can be modified, allowing the artist to change the size and opacity very easily, and can be saved in a “favorites” panel for easy access. Drawing is very quick and easy, and the software is powerful enough to track your lines no matter how fast you draw – unlike Photoshop, which can’t seem to keep up with fast drawing even on the most powerful computers.

But the truth is that Painter was never intended to be just a sketching program. It was built from the ground up to be the ultimate digital tool for fine artists, and it contains a variety of prebuilt brushes and textures that are frighteningly similar to the kind of effects you could achieve on a real canvas with real paint. Painter is a very appropriate name for this program, because that’s what it does so well. From watercolors to acrylics to oil, Painter simulates any medium flawlessly.

The Pros:

• Simple interface
• Lightning-quick performance and brush tracking
• Accurate brushes that simulate real media flawlessly
• Ability to freely rotate the canvas/paper as you draw, just as you could with real media

The Cons:

• Pressure sensitivity isn’t as good as it is in Sketchbook Pro
• Can’t move the tool palettes around – they are stuck docked to the edges of the screen
• No vector tools/shapes in the “Essentials” version

Autodesk SketchBook Pro 2010

The truth is, I was reluctant to try SketchBook Pro. I have been a very satisfied Corel Painter user for years, and I didn’t really see the need to try something different. But I read a lot of design forums, and I kept hearing more and more about SketchBook Pro so I thought it was worth a look. Long story short, I purchased the full version of the software in less than 24 hours of downloading the trial. This is a seriously good drawing program. Unlike Corel Painter, SketchBook Pro is designed for one thing only: sketching! It is not intended for fine artists, as there not any options available for creating watercolor or oil paint styles. All you get is a palette full of various pencils and pens (all of which you can fully customize) and a very simple and uncluttered interface. The best part about SketchBook Pro? Line quality and pressure sensitivity! Honestly, it’s just like drawing on paper – line weight is so easy to control with this program, and to me, there is absolutely no difference between sketching with SketchBook Pro and a real pencil on paper. It’s stunningly accurate, even more so than Corel Painter (which is saying quite a lot).

The interface is also very clever, and extremely minimal. There is a graphical control panel which can be docked to any corner of the screen, which includes shortcuts to all the main tools such as brush types, colors, layers, etc. This simplicity allows for lightning-quick tool changes, and allows fast sketchers like me to draw virtually uninterrupted – which is so very important when being “in the zone” while designing. Nothing frustrates me more from being distracted by my tools when I’m trying to get a good idea down on paper, and SketchBook Pro does an excellent job of not interfering with my workflow.

Another thing I like about this program is that it contains “guide” tools for drawing straight lines and circles + ovals. For an automotive sketcher like me, that is a huge plus. That reason alone is why I don’t use Corel Painter much anymore.

The Pros:

• Line quality and the ability to very weight on the fly is butter smooth
• The guide tools are very useful
• Minimal interface
• Ability to freely rotate the canvas as you draw

The Cons:

• The shortcut menus take some getting used to
• Not many brush / texture options for fine artists

Conclusion

If you are currently using Adobe Photoshop to draw and sketch, do yourself a favor and pick up one of these two software packages. There are definite benefits to having the correct tool for the job, and Photoshop was never intended to be a sketching and drawing tool. Once you try either of these packages, you’ll quickly understand why.

I prefer Autodesk SketchBook Pro over Corel Painter Essentials. For my style of drawing (cars + mechanical objects), Sketchbook pro offers greater freedom and more powerful drawing tools than Corel Painter. However, fine artists and painters will assuredly have the opposite opinion. Both are very inexpensive and well worth their price, so it may be beneficial to have both in your arsenal. I do.

There are certain themes from my entire collection which have been popular from the beginning, and “communication” is definitely one of them. I’ve sold more stock images depicting communication concepts than any other, and I’m willing to bet that (as social as we humans are) it will continue for years to come. Here are six free images which contain silver microphones as the primary object:

• A microphone protruding out of an open metallic briefcase
• A microphone protruding out of a glass filled with an alcoholic beverage
• A large microphone standing in front of a transparent map of Hawaii over a blue background
• A microphone standing on top of a bevelled chrome sports play diagram
• Four large red and white medicine capsules arranged in front of a big microphone on a gray reflective surface
• A large red and white lifesaver around a silver microphone on a gray reflective surface

I’ve been building websites for years, but this is a first for me. I had been tossing around the idea of creating and uploading some vector website templates to various microstock websites, and this was the first one I made. Talk about a frustrating experience! I’m not a vector artist by any means – my strength is squarely on 3d illustration and Photoshop, and I find illustrator to be extremely limiting to my workflow. I like visually intense images, and I don’t have the skill to do that in vector format. But I’m forcing myself to learn, and this website template was definitley a learning experience. However, I’m not happy with the way it turned out, so I will not be uploading it anywhere but here. Yep, even though it’s a freebie, I’m not sure how much value it really has. As a web designer myself, I don’t really like the look of a “vectorized” template. I just looks…stiff. I need to keep practicing…

Anyway, this is just a simple black and silver two-page template. The homepage has a large feature area (above the fold), with a simple block for quick links and short amounts of text. The interior page extends that block to fill the entire space. Note: this file is in Adobe Illustrator (.ai) CS3 format.

You’re probably already familiar with these images, as they are exclusive variations of themes that I have been developing over the past several years (all of which, can be found on microstock sites such as dreasmtime and shutterstock). These particular images have not been uploaded anywhere else, and they are exclusive to Norebbo.com – just like all of my images here.  This particular collection contains the following images:

• A brass padlock standing in front of a white three-story office building
• A yellow toxic radiation symbol inside of a silver frying pan on a yellow reflective surface
• A silver microphone standing inside of a red and white lifesaver on a gray reflective surface
• A large magnifying glass hovering over top of a wood acoustic guitar
• A red and white lifesaver protruding out of a silver shopping cart on a gray reflective surface
• A large audio speaker standing upright behind a spring and two fastener nuts

To me, WordPress has got to be the greatest thing since slice bread. When it came to Norebbo.com, I have struggled in the past to find the right balance between web development and content creation. Using WordPress has set me free from the chores of website maintenence and allows me to focus 100% of my time on creating new images. Yeah, I feel free! And for that I guess I’m what you’d call WordPress nutswinger (I’ll let you figure that out on your own), and I’ve started developing a whole series of images featuring metallic WordPress logos. These nine images are just the first in this large batch, which contains about 50 total in my archive. And of course they will all be uploaded here over the next several weeks.

Anyway, this batch features that much-loved WordPress logo situated into my famous object icon series. Each feature a silver and gray WP logo standing upright in front of: a calculator, a desktop calendar, a clock, a globe, a padlock, a paint can, a lifesaver, a speaker, and an automotive wheel and tire.

The more I think about Twitter and it’s corporate identity, the more puzzled I become. To me, it seems as if the Twitter brand is fragmenting somewhat and I don’t think it’s doing them any good. Today, there are three common objects used to represent the brand: the “t” logo, the “twitter” text logo, and a myriad of publicly created Twitter bird graphics scattered throughout the web. It seems as if the Twitter birds are the most popular amongst those who tweet, yet it’s not something that is commonly used by Twitter itself. Is Twitter losing control over it’s corporate identity? Has the public shunned the official logo(s) and defined a mark of their own? These are just some of the things bouncing around my head at the moment. Anyway, here are the details about this collection of images:

• A Twitter logo sitting on a green American football field
• A Twitter logo being carried by a silver hand truck
• A Twitter logo inside of a heart
• A Twitter logo standing upright on a laptop keyboard
• A Twitter logo spilling out of an overturned office building
• A Twitter logo sitting inside of a red and white life saver