WORST.TUTORIAL.EVER.

Here is an illustrator tutorial that was labeled with a time completion of 1.5 hours. Well, it took me 4, but I'm really happy with the final result and the immense amount of information and tools I became familiar with while working through the steps. I never felt comfortable with Illustrator but these tutorials definitely make a substantial difference.

http://vector.tutsplus.com/tutorials/illustration/how-to-create-a-curious-owl-in-illustrator-cs4/

Pathfinder Tool

Here is a simple Illustrator tutorial about the pathfinder tool and pen tool. Pretty simple/boring stuff but good for learning the basics.

Illustrator Blend Tool & Typography

Here is another abduzeedo tutorial that works with illustrator's blend tool and typography. I made a cover album for the experimental music group MGMT. I never knew about the blend tool before but I couldn't stop playing around with different options and settings. I can't wait to use it in future projects.

http://abduzeedo.com/cool-typography-blend-tool-illustrator

Here is a really cool abduzeedo tutorial on changing the appearance of plain text to a lit up casino sign. This exercise required an excessive amount of layers of both text, lights and background textures. This tutorial taught me a lot about different blending options and also using several embossing and shadow techniques.

http://abduzeedo.com/easy-casino-style-sign-photoshop

Color Halftone Filter

Here is a tutorial that use's comic artist Roy Lichtenstein's illustration style by working with the color halftone filter. This tutorial requires both illustrator and photoshop. I used one a picture of one of my favorite music artists: Max Bemis. I had a little trouble using the filter on this tutorial. It may have been because of the original image quality but I used a layer mask to hide unwanted dots, such as on the face.

http://abduzeedo.com/simple-roy-lichtenstein-style-illustrator-and-photoshop

Photoshop Bas Relief Tutorial

Here is the final image from my manipulation of photoshop's bas relief effect. I used my own images of a tree background texture and a line drawing of a surrealistic octopus. This was probably one of the easier tutorials. The link is below:

http://psd.tutsplus.com/tutorials/3d/quick-tip-create-a-bass-relief-effect-with-photoshops-3d-tools/

Week of 10/18 - 10/25: Challenge #3

Here is my final result of the "image blending to create a forest scene" exercise. Working through the tutorial opened my eyes to different filters such as gaussian blur that helps images look more hyperrealistic. I had some trouble with the overall photo filters which resulted in a more blue-er image. In the end, that is one intimidating bear.