Jane Bak, from New Jersey, is a 2015 graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design, one of the oldest and best-known colleges of art and design in the US.
Jane has a style of her own, a textured vector look using limited palettes and expressive raster brushwork, fully realised in her 'Hey, Houston' series, which follows the adventures of the Starman and Houston characters.
We love her style, so our creative director Neil Ladkin got in touch with Jane and asked her to create some new ‘Hey, Houston’ work using Affinity Designer.
We think the new illustrations are beautifully captivating and thought provoking.
“I love portraying some emotion with the inclusion of a character like Starman in this series, whether he’s staring off into the depths of infinity, examining a new species of plant with unbound curiosity, or playfully skipping across a pond on a new world. It’s an exploration.”
Jane started out in her career using primarily free software, and was very positive about her first experience with Affinity Designer.
She concludes: “I used a lot of raster brushes in my pieces, changing nozzle sizes on the fly, and loved being able to mix raster and vector without interruption in Designer. It felt natural very quickly—things like the Pen Tool are easy to pick up and brushes just work.”
“I was really pleased that my Starman and Houston characters had another mission exploring completely new places, I really enjoyed taking them on an exciting new adventure.”
You can see more of Jane Bak’s work on her Behance profile.
A version of this article featured in Computer Arts magazine (UK, issue 254) in June 2016.