Skate Deck Design Pt. 4 - Putting it all together.

So now I had to take all those assets and fit them together within the constraints of the board dimensions.
This took quite a while as I make/finalized a most of the stuff in Photoshop. I pieced together the designs from my previous posts onto my texture canvas.
I opened the deck template in AI and started adjusting the size. I had moved the skate deck outline to the top of the layers so I could see how the design would look on the actual deck. I found that I had some measurement issues even though I copied the measurements onto my canvas in PS. After about 1.5 hours of tweaking, I finally ended up with this:




Then I saved it as a TIFF file, and realized I forgot to incorporate my name somewhere. So at the last minute I opened the TIFF in photoshop and imprinted my name into what was originally the leather bracelet:



After picking up the sticker printout from a printer downtown, I had to VERY CAREFULLY put the sticker on my board, which was sanded and primed. I ended up putting it on a little crooked, which bothered me at first because I'm kind of OCD with things being straight, but when I stoof back I found that the slant worked anyways. Conceptually, glam metal was not something that ever tried to be mainstream 'perfect'.

Final design on the board:



Part 4 Time breakdown:
Tweaking: 1.5 hrs
Name addition: 10 mins
Board sanding and priming: 10mins + 1 hr wait time
Sticker Application and cutting: 20 mins
Total Time: 3 hrs 10 mins


TOTAL PROJECT TIMELINE
Research: 1 hr
Planning: 20 mins
Design Pt. 1 (Steel Crazy): 3 hrs
Design Pt. 2 (Texture, leather bracelet manipulation): 1 hr
Design Pt. 3 (Vector Guitar): 4 hrs
Design Pt. 4: 3 hrs, 10 mins
TOTAL TIME: 12.5 HRS

DMA 179 - Megalodon Poster

I started with [this reference image]
Stuck it on a black/red gradient background layer
Made copies of it and applied various blending modes, erasing in some areas
Took my smoke brush set and added/black red on the image to create the bloodied up/ripped effect, used the eraser with the smoke brushes to erase parts and make the jagged areas.
I used the typography from my original style guide, with layer styles for added effect.
See my layers [here]

Final Product:


Total Time: 35mins

Kensington Market Photobook Cover Design

I altered one of the photos I took down at Kensington to make a cover image for my photobook. I'm still trying to figure out an optimal layout. I was originally going to do it portrait-oriented but looking at my selections and this cover image I'm thinking it might be best to do a horizontal flipbook...

Original Image:


Modified Image:



For this I pretty much just selected the colour range of the lettering, selected the inverse, and cleared that selection. Then I applied the glowing edges filter and outer glow layer style, replacing the yellow with a light blue.

Panorama!

I went shooting on campus with Andrew Vizmuller looking for a good panoramic scene. It was very windy that day so we stuck to architectural shots. I took 5 photos in a row from left to right, panning the camera on my tripod.

In order to blend them together I loaded the photos into PS and then made a new document wide enough to fit the length of the 5 photos in their original size. I put each photo in on their own layer, overlapping and lowering opacity so I could figure out where exactly they should be placed. I had to transform/adjust/warp/tweak most of the photos to make them fit well with each other. That was definitely a challenge. I used a soft brush to blend in the edges together, then linked everything and adjusted the levels to create consistency in brightness and colours.
This is the first panorama I've ever done so it took longer than expected, but I am quite happy with the final result :)

Skate Deck Design Pt. 3 - Vector guitar

Nothing screams 80s glam metal like Twisted Sister! SO I made a vector image based on one of their actual Les Paul guitars. I then later drew black rings in a design inspired by one of their other guitars. The hot pink/black colour scheme is prominent on the band's album covers and I think it epitomizes one of the many distinct elements of style in the early 80s.


Finished vector guitar



It took about 2 hours to trace the guitar in AI due to all the tiny details and layers involved, as can be seen in the following screens:


Source Images
Trace:

Design reference:



I wanted to add a little something behind it to make it a little more epic so I made a simple glowing ball of light by drawing a circle and adding various blending layers and lighting effects, as well as the plastic wrap filter. Screenshot


FINAL PRODUCT


Total time: 4 hours

Skate Deck Design Pt. 2 - Leather band and Background Texture

Leather band
So I definitely wanted to use my friend's leather bracelet as a strap across the bottom of my board. At first I wanted it to look like leather but in playin around with filters it was almost starting to look like a deconstructed fretboard. So I'm kind of stuck on which one to use. I'm thinking given the theme and genre it might make more sense to use the second option, on the other hand both could be quite fitting.
Option 1:

Option 2:


Making these was simply a matter of deleting unused portions of this image and blending in layers, erasing one layer except for the metal parts, then merging them together and adding filters. I've found that Overlay and Multiply are very useful blending modes.


Texture

To make this I used this marble asset, duplicated a couple of times, used overlay and multiply blending modes and did a linear black/purple gradient. I may add more textures depending on how everything else comes along.

DMA 101 - Self-Portrait Transformation

Before/After:


Assets:



What I did:
I used a picture that was taken at Sauble Beach 2 weeks ago and decided it would be fitting to turn myself into a mermaid.
I used a lot of layer masks and blending options (particularly Overlay)
and manipulated some images I found off google.
The facial texture is from the inside of an abalone shell
I used liquify to pinch the pupils to give them more of an amphibian look and made layers to manipulate the colours and add light to them.
I wanted the face to look a little more elongated so I used liquify for that as well.
I didn't want my mermaid to have the animal print look from my bathing suit so I selected the colour range for black and filled it with a gradient.
To add drama to the eyes I brushed on some shadow with a soft brush.
The hair colour involved a series of different coloured layers blended together and erased in some parts for dimension.
It took a good couple hours to do but I pretty much winged it the whole time.

Oh, and the wisps of smoke coming from the seashell is the spirit of the sea.

DMA 204 - Depth Of Field

Front Bottle in Focus:


Middle Bottle in Focus:


Back Bottle in Focus:


All in Focus:
Had a bit of trouble with this, cuz I could not for the life of me figure out this f-stop 22 stuff so I just winged it and did my best.

Skate Deck Design 1 - Steel Crazy

So I wanted to make something to go behind the guitar I'm going to make, and I wanted it to be inspired by what I've seen from both 80s retro design and have it relatable to my glam metal theme. so I chose the phrase Steel Crazy in reference to a compilation album released in 1982 featuring various artists including Twisted Sister, the primary band for my inspiration.

This took so long to do and get it right, about 3 hours.
To make the grid lines I drew some lines in Illustrator and applied a blend then a 3d rotation.
For the curved lines on either side of the circles I drew a couple of circles and did a blend as well.

Typography
Font: ctks Rude Metal
The text was treated to a multitude of layer styles (Gradient, satin, inner shadow) then the layer was duplicated and half was erased, and manipulated with new colours and layer styles.

Texture asset:


Screens:


Final Result:

Skate Deck - theme acquired

Started my research for the skate deck design, decided to go with a glam-metal inspired theme, incorporating popular elements that I've seen on album covers, instruments, and fashion.

I've typed out a basic idea of what I want to do:
Background: 3D metal design, with space effects
Main object: vector guitar inspired by Twisted Sister
Secondary Objects: Leather band diagonally across the bottom, assets from photos of old synths, lightning
Font(s): Robo font
Text: TBD

I started a folder of reference images on my photobucket account

Photo Restoration

Transformed this old photo of my grandmother's grandmother and did my best to restore it. Had issues with the patch tool, it seemed to keep patching with a feather even though there was none. ended up doing some manual selections and a lot of cloning.

Here is the Before and After:

Terminator Cyborg Uprising - CD Cover Design

This project involved creating audio for a faux video game we invented, involving menu selections, gameplay, and dialogue.
Compressed MP3 HERE
I collaborated with my colleague Andrew Vizmuller on the cover design:


Credits

**Update: We got 100% on the assignment and Fred Duvall (prof) is keeping it to show future classes!**

White Balance

Today I learned how to make a custom white balance setting in order to optimize my photograph based on the current lighting condition.

Set 1:
I took a picture of the dog using one of my flourescent settings, which resulted in bad lighting. Then I took a picture of the white background beside the dog and set the camera to use that to gauge the white balance.
Bad Lighting:

Good Lighting:



Set 2:
To get the good lighting this time I walked right up to the artwork and held up a piece of paper so I could capture the lighting state and used that photo as my custom white balance.

Bad Lighting:

Good Lighting:

Toy Watercolour paintings

Did these a while back in DMA 179, and made assets out of them


Originals:







Link to Assets Blog Posting

Red eye removal

I took this picture of Dana on our group trip downtown. The redness on her eye is the result of an injury from a random attack. So I decided to try a first attempt at removing it..

                                 Before                                                                      After

Moving to Photobucket...

that's why.

MORLOCK ADVENTURE ~ Photo Scavenger Hunt

A group of us got together and headed downtown for a photography scavenger hunt.
Group members (aka TEAM EXTRA):
Stephen Lew, Dana Margulis, Joseph Estacion, Kira Tiurbeeva, Andrew Vizmuller, Maxim Yegorov, Monica Chan, and of course Me.

See the entire album HERE

(I used Photobucket so as not to use up my very limited storage on Flickr)

DMA 179 - Shape Sketches

We were asked to draw 5 sketches each of triangle, circle, rectangle, and custom shapes. Most of them are inspired by the beauty of my backyard. My custom sketches followed the teardrop shape. The challenge was that each sketch had to be of something that could be found below knee level.
 These can serve as potential assets for future projects.
(Note: sketches involving chairs all focused on corresponding shapes that adhered to this criteria)

DMA 179 - MEGALODON!!! YEA!!

TIMELINE

Preliminary research and gathering of materials: 1.5hrs

Planning: 15min
Wireframe: 30min

Foil wrapping: 5 min

Sculpting (main body): 1hr 40 min

Sculpting (detail): 40 min

I also found a piece of gravel and rolled it around the base of the tooth later for added texture
Baking time: 30 mins
Cooling wait time: 20 min
Total painting time, incl. drying: 1 hr
Spec Piece: 1 hr 40 min

Total Time: approx. 8 hours 10 min
Meaurement: 5.75in

FINAL SPEC PIECE

Additional Images: