New Learning Topic - Bay City Bears C&C Please

[werbear]

Thank you to everyone who helped me with my Plainsmen project. That project is still being tweeked but I decided to try something a little different in the meantime. I have a fantasy team who I'm thinking of calling the Bay City Bears. This is the initial concept I've worked up. Again I'm still learning how to make logos so any and all C&C is very much welcomed. If you can show me a new way to do something using inkscape that will help me grow as a logo maker I would love to hear from you.

[hugevolsfan]

Nice start for someone new at doing this.

I would start with the ear which right now does not look much like an ear then go to the mouth which does not look like a mouth of a bear.

The teeth in particular actually looks more snake like as it is.

[LAWeaver]

Ditto on what HVF said. Not sure if its a Snake-Bird hybrid that just came from Disneyland (Circular ears) or a bear. All joking aside, it is a nice start

[Whittier S]

I like how you've gone with a heraldic bear. At the moment, it looks like both "arms" are on the same side of the body. I would add a line--a ruff of fur--to indicate the line of the chest and to put the sticking-out arm on the other side of the body. Also, I'd experiment with the line you're using to truncate the bottom of the body--it could be much more dramatic and abstract, rather than it just looking like his legs are cut off. And right now the "arms" look very human--add some fur to them. But overall, this is a great direction and I look forward to where you take it.

[werbear]

Thanks for the compliments. I revamped the arms, added some fur, styled the bottom, and tore up the ear. Here is where it wound up. What do you guys think?

[FGM13]

Thanks for the compliments. I revamped the arms, added some fur, styled the bottom, and tore up the ear. Here is where it wound up. What do you guys think?

Dude, that's sweet.

[werbear]

There wasn't any negative feedback yet about the logo so I went ahead and made up some uniforms. Let me know what you think about the logo and the uniforms. Anything you like or would change. Thanks for the C&C.

[sparkychewbarky]

This is looking real good, werbear.

The bear's head is actually pretty awesome, even if it's not "correct".

On the black head, it might look better with solid black teeth (it is a silhouette after all).

The body and arms still need a bit of work, but keep at it; you're off to a good start.

I hate to sound like an old fart, but get yourself a pad of tracing paper and a good mechanical pencil (.5 lead).

Tracing paper is a handy tool for "working in layers".

You can flop it, flip it, overlay it, trace it...it's great for the roughing-out stage.

I don't even turn on the box 'til I'm pretty happy with what I have on the paper.

The Old English font might be a little hard to read for the nob.

Try a more simplified gothic font like "Squealer" maybe.

Keep up the good work!

[werbear]

Hey Sparky,

Thanks for the feedback. I don't suppose you have an example you could send my way. I'm new to this process and had never thought about rough drafting it in layers. Probably a simple thought but had never occurred to me. Sorry for not posting new work but drafting is a little harder from overseas. Thanks for taking a look and offering some opinions. Would you do the solid teeth with the red tongue?

[sparkychewbarky]

Don't have any examples werbear, but if I was roughing up the bear with my tracing paper, I'd draw up the head, body, back arm, front arm; each on separate sheets (layers).

It gives you a little more flexibility in altering each element without having to rework the part that you've got right (the head).

Like I said, tracing paper is the paper version of working in layers in Photoshop and/or Illustrator.

Yeh, on your black bear head, try solid black teeth , instead of white teeth with the thin black outline. I think it would look good.

[camly]

Not really a fan of the tongue. Not sure what it is but it looks a little too long and pointed. Sort of like it's a dragonbear

[werbear]

Hello again,

Still trying to learn how to make logos. So I took sparky's recommendation and went back to the drawing board, literally. I still like the direction of the heraldic bear and will probably return to finish it at a later point. At this point though I wanted to start over fresh with the idea of a bear logo. So I picked up some pen and paper and started drawing. The following scans are those drawings that I started with and a mock up of one of the better results. Hope this is what you meant sparky. I decided to try a little bit of a more traditional side view of the bear. I tried to convey a little action with the snarl but it just looks a little..... well..... like i'm learning. The last thing is that I tried to mimic more of a totem pole coloring (think seattle seahawks). To any of you who have been at this for a while is it just a style that comes with practice or are there certain things that you try to incorporate into your logos to make them look cleaner and more polished? Is there anything basic and fundamental that I'm completely missing?

[Windell918]

This is exactly why I love this forum...your first logo was good but pretty novice and now you have this awesome bear head that i'd slap on the front door of my school(if i owned one) keep up the good work!

[sparkychewbarky]

Good stuff, werbear.

I love the process. You explored a lot of different options before hitting the box.

The end result is a pretty cool stylized bear head. Nice look...it has an "aboriginal" feel to it.

I'll go through pages of paper, sketching out ideas.

I keep a pad of paper and pencil in my work truck.

For logo work, think "shapes" rather than "lines.

Good stuff...Keep at it!

[LAWeaver]

I absolutely love the bearhead at the very bottom right hand corner for your hand drawn heads. I think it stands out more than the others.

[Midway]

Your lines need to be thicker and smoother. Right now the shape of your bear head is a little irregular, especially for a stylized illustration, which I think is because none of your lines curve naturally. For example I see spikes and loops but they don't flow well together to make the shapes you're going for, as Sparky already pointed out. It's just a matter of fine refining.

For starters I'd simply work on the contours of just the head and thicken up the line weights so that it starts to look more like a compact logo. That'll give you get a better feel for what it needs and then you can move on to the facial detailing from there