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

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

Toy Watercolour paintings

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


Originals:







Link to Assets Blog Posting

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:
 

DMA - 179 Paper Zoo Assignment COMPLETE!

Level Up! 1000 Exp points!

Polar Set:




Desert Set:

Savannah Set:


Rainforest Set:


North Plains Set:


Ocean Set:



For my optional animals, I chose animals that I like and thought would be interesting to draw without going into too much detail given that the assignment called for line drawings. It still look a long time (at least a couple hours) just to draw them all. I thought the zebra stripes would have a cool effect on the background and I really like how it came out.

DMA 179 - Paper Zoo Animals

Finally got all my drawings done - took a LONG time (at least a couple hrs) due to me being such a perfectionist (and not the best at drawing) tried a few different styles. ended up using pen on the zebra cuz it looked way better.
Threw them all on one image for now just to save space on my flickr account

http://flic.kr/p/9X4EXg

Update: Took HOURS to get everything right in PS. My high res screen needs large files sizes for me to see properly so everything is huge. Perfectionism at the cost of time, took 3 hours (with breaks in between) to remove the white, position the animals, and research the info for the blurbs.

Update: Took another couple of hours to arrange the text so that there would be no splitting up of words and in box styles that somewhat complimented the watercolour backgrounds.

Megalodon tooth preliminary research

just slightly overwhelmed by this. I'm starting with researching for the clay model.

Dimensions

Found 4.86in on google

Found 5.75in

Found 4in

Good example here: http://www.megateeth.com/product.php?name=k9033

Required materials: black paint, something to make texture, automotive primer, glossy stuff

Good reference images:

 

Artist research sketch (final) James Paterson [Presstube]

Here is the final scan. I believe it incorporates both Paterson's artistic style and his concepts. I found that he is similar to myself in that he uses abstraction in a way that also sends social/hidden messages in an unconventional format. First I did it in pencil then went over in pen as I find that he does that a lot with his drawings and I like the effect. I did a partial colouring in imitation of his style as well as for the effect.