Lolipop, Lolipop!!!

It's been awhile, but I shot this picture (the camera used was my soon to be sister-in-laws, awesome, awesome camera...=) of my daughter yesterday at a family Easter Egg hunt, I thought it was a cool picture and tried to add some cool effects to it with Photoshop. Let me know what you think.

Shooter

The wonderful New Year's resolutions, I love how a whole bunch of goals are set at the beginning of each year...and if anyone is like me, you're lucky to keep up with one of those goals. Here it is March and I am just barely getting around to working on one such goal, to create more artwork.

Well I haven't been very succesful up until now. You are probably wondering what the reason is for the sudden increase in artwork and postings here on my blog, well, let's just say I have lot's more time on my hand and instead of wasting that time I have been trying to better my Photoshop skillz. Hopefully, then I will be able to show off my future awesomeness...until then please feel free to send me any feedback and comments on what I post. I may not comment on what you post, but it is read and considered while working on these pieces =)!!!

This latest project is a little darker. I found a tutorial on how to create this broken glass look from a fired gun and thought it would be fun to see if I could duplicate the effect (you English majors, don't judge me too harshly, I can't remember if it's effect or affect). While I had to find my own photos to use, which I found using Google Images, I wanted to make this a little bit darker and more sinister. I guess the actuall photo of the shooter wasn't the best angle to use, but I didn't want to use the exact same photos as the tuturoial. Anyway, let me know what you think.

Second thing I want to mention is this cool animated video that explains the whole credit crisis. It's short, about 10 mins, and it's entertaining. I guess the person who put this together did it all with Adobe Illustrator and Adobe After Effects, pretty cool in my opinion. Anyway if you have a some time, or you're just bored, visit this website and watch this video, again it is informative and very well put together.

Em?!?!?!?!

Here's the latest project I just completed. This one was just for fun. I found a tutorial at Planet Photoshop, which teaches this simple method of creating comic styled photos. I was working on doing this with Adobe Illustrator, but this tutorial is a lot quicker. It doesn't look quite as smooth as a vector image would, but hey I still think it looks good. Again, insight and feedback is always welcome.

Invitation

My latest class assignment involves us creating a collage of images combined to illustrate a short poem, quote or verse from a song. While trying to determine what to do I turned to my favorite book of poems, "Where the Sidewalk Ends," by Shel Silverstein. I found a poem I really like, titled "Invitation." The poem reads:

If you are a dreamer, come in,

If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar,

A hope-er, a pray-er, a magic bean buyer...

If you're a pretender, come sit by my fire

For we have some flax-golden tales to spin.

Come in!

Come in!

I thought this was a great poem considering the classes I am taking. Here is the image I have come up with so far. All of the images, except the stone dooryway come from Getty Images, a site we use for our classes. The stone door is an image I found at tunari.tripod.com/id6.html .

Hope you like this image, it was creating using Photoshop CS3. Let me know if there are any suggestions. I love feedback.

Ohhhh...that's hot!!!!

So I finally finished my English class and am now back into an actual art class. My current class is Digital Manipulation II which is a class dedicated to learning Adobe Photoshop. I am in the first week of the class and am actually pretty excited with what we are doing so far.

Last night I had a bunch of assignments due and after two and half hours of working on the one I am quite pleased with what I was able to accomplish. We were given a photo of a jalapeno pepper and then required to use some layer masking to change the color of the pepper and then the color of the shading. I think this is probably pretty basic for most versed in Photoshop manipulation, but for me it was the first time working with layer masks. Once I figured out this technique I had a blast working on the assignment.

Digital Scrapbooking?!?!?!?

The other day I came home and my wife was working on our computer and for some reason she was very excited with whatever it was she was doing. She immediately wanted me to come and take a look at her newest project. As I looked closer to what she was doing I was blown away by what I saw. She had some how changed her desktop background to the coolest looking scrap book page. I asked her if it was a new page she had created, thinking she scanned it in. Nope, I was wrong, she explained the scrap booking page was based off of some material she downloaded, it's called digital scrapbooking?!?!? (Didn't know scapbooking could be digital, maybe it should be scrapblogging.....) Anyway, I guess there are a number of sites out there dedicated to the newest and modern form of scrapbooking, don't ask me what they are, that's my wife's department =)!

While I am not much in to scrapbooking myself...ok I am not in to scrapbooking at all, I do think it was absoletly amazing what my wife was able to do. She used Photoshop to put it all together and lately she has been learning a lot of cool applications that she has been teaching me as well. So, being bored with my background, I decided to create my own background from scratch. In trying to learn more about Photoshop I have learned alot from free online tutorials, some of my favorites are ones that use a "grunge" look to create websites and blogs. I surfed around the internet looking for some images I could use for my new desktop, downloaded some free brushes for use in Photoshop, and some new fonts. The end result....I must say I was pretty proud of myself for the first "grunge look" attempt. I just hope this doesn't mean I am turning into a digital scrapbooker.....=-) ?!?!?!?!?

My wife is turning me into a Blog Nerd!!!!

So, my wife has been blogging for about 6 months now, everyday in fact. She has to check her blog at least 5 times a day...and keeps telling me I need to start a blog of my own. However, being a person of few words I have often declined, until now. I never even read my wife's blog until two weeks ago, let alone have any desire to create my own.

Here I am though, I have recently been doing a lot of "blog surfing" looking at a lot of individuals connected to the wonderful world of art and illustration. I am currently attending classes through the Art Institute of Pittsburgh's online division and am having a hard time choosing between Game Art and Design or Animation.

Finding a lot of enjoyment from playing games, video games especially, I have always thought it would be extremely exciting and just a lot of pure AWESOMENESS to work on the artistic and creative side of developing the games themselves. However, animation also looks to be just as rewarding and perhaps allowing for greater flexibility with a career. Alas, I have come to the fork in the road not sure of which path to follow. So after reading my long windedness, if anyone knows of anyone working in either fields or has any advice PLEASSEEEEE, do share!