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

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 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