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.

p.o.e.m. b.o.o.k. v.i.z.u.a.l.i.z.a.t.i.o.n

Going into this project I had a few initial ideas that I wanted to I knew I definitely wanted to incorporate in my final piece. I was very enthusiastic about working with Chris Tusa’s poem because there was a lot of imagery and it dealt with a familiar theme, Snow White. I took my fellow classmates’ suggestions about researching the original Brothers Grimm version to see how it relates with well known Disney rendition of the story. Tusa gave the poem an eery feel with the story changing from the prince’s kiss waking the sleeping girl to the girl actually dying because in reality a kiss does not wake the dead or poisoned.

When I began working with my images I remembered the critiques from past projects and tried to avoid complicated, cluttered designs. I worked with as little color as possible and focused on the details of the design and text alone. I went through the Suitcase application and searched for fonts that I felt applied to my poem’s theme. I found a few including: Prestige Elite, Warning LXT Pi, Zebrawood, and Georgia. I was not satisfied with the few already on the hard drive so I went to www.dafont.com and downloaded extra fonts such as: Abusive Pencil, The King & Queen Font, Jellyka Castle Queen, Typo Garden Demo, A-Lolita Scorned, and Floral Two. The two fonts I used the most throughout my book are Jellyka Castle Queen and The King & Queen Font.

I made my final book piece to look like a large storybook. I used cardboard to give it a sturdy look. I contemplated painting the cardboard with either acrylics or spray paint but both resources were out of my reach. The size of the book correlates not only with my primary intent to make it immense, but also with to hold an old tape recorder that would play a music box sound when you turned to the last page. The music helps illustrate the last line: “If only you could hear the songs my bones sing.”

A lot of my images I brought directly into Illustrator and used live trace with varying thresholds and brush and stroke lengths and weights. I only used Photoshop to use quick selection and the gradient tool. I also used a variety of filters and the warp tool to blend images or give them a unique texture. All of the text was done in Illustrator using mostly the type tool or the type on a path tool. I printed the final images on the Xerox printers due to a surprising lack of printer points. I also used my dorm room printer to take care of the few images that have color. I tied the pages to the cardboard story book and manipulated the final page so that the coffin holding the girl was raised above the surface and gave the essence of a three-dimensional format.