Business Card

     

For this assignment, we were to create some sort of card, be it greeting, business, holiday, etc. This assignment was influenced by the site, "Minted" (minted.com) where you can browse a wide variety of custom designed cards. I decided to go with a business card, and made up a clockwork repair and restoration business. I chose the name, "Sam Coster" after seeing that a man named "Samuel Coster" was a famous clockmaker. I used a series of gradients and shapes to achieve a grey and red styled backdrop. I also used a gear vector that I made a few years ago. The black shapes around "Coster's Clockwork" were made with a brush, and then duplicated to have a gradient fading effect. I positioned the text off-center, after seeing that the gear was also not quite specifically positioned. For the back of the card, I reversed the red and gear vectors, for consistency and style. I'm not sure if I should have placed things off-center though. Overall I'm pleased with it, though there are a few design choices I wasn't completely certain were correct, such as the font.

Animated Gif

For this assignment, we were to make an animated gif. I had never made a gif, but I was curious and interested in how to do so. I decided to make the title card of a previous personal project animated. PILE is a game that I hope to produce someday. It is a murder mystery, that mainly addresses Man Vs. Man and Man Vs. Nature themes. Each day, someone in the quiet Canadian town, Charlotteside, (name subject to change) is killed, and it is up to the player to discern who the killer, before they end up being the next victim. However, a terrible winter storm is brewing, and each day the snow comes down heavier and the wind blows harder. So unless the player is cunning and quick on their feet, the pile of snow and bodies will grow and blanket the town.
(If you look closely at the snow, you may see this represented)

I decided to animate the snow falling down over the title image. I followed the given tutorial, as well as another tutorial for how to create snow. Overall I'm happy with this, though I'd like it if the snow truly looked as if it was constantly falling. And the snow in the original image unfortunately doesn't move.

Animation Tutorial: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ot5GwpQPjF0
Snow Effect Tutorial: http://www.photoshopessentials.com/photo-effects/photoshop-snow/

Book Covers

For this assignment, we were to create two book covers. One cover for a book that we have read, and another that we have not. I'm a fan of mystery and thriller, so I decided to with a darker, gray-toned theme. I chose The Invisible Man, by H.G. Wells, for the book that I have read, and The Shining, by Stephen King, for the book I have not read.

For The Invisible Man, I wanted to focus on the man himself, and I've always loved the visual design of the character. I decided to draw the bandages that were wrapped around his head as the title of the book. I left a few straps of the bandages loose, to emphasize that it is not just text covering a head. I drew it with a rough, cut-out style, to pop a bit more. Overall I'm happy with it, though I feel the background is a bit lackluster. And I was not too sure what to do with H.G. Wells' name.

For The Shining, I wanted to focus on something that was present in both the movie and the book, since I've heard there are quite a few differences, and I had seen the movie. So I chose the setting of the book, the Overlook Hotel. I found some pictures of the outside of the hotel used in the movie, and based the simple drawing off of that. I used a lot of normal brush strokes and layers to get a black mass of ambiguity. I then used the liquify filter and stretched out the black markings. While I was doing so for the bottom half, I noticed a white circular image came out in the black mass. I thought of that as being the moon, and placed it above the hotel. I filled out the sky with black and wisps of white. Overall I'm happy with it, though yet again I was not sure what to do with King's name.

Halloween Ghoul Effect

For this assignment, we were to select and follow tutorials from the website, "Mashable" to create Halloween themed effects on photographs. I chose the skeleton merging one, and chose a picture of an actor, Jack Nicholson, to edit with another picture of a skull. Jack is one of my favorite actors, and his already semi-creepy smile was quite fitting. I used layer masks and different opacities on brush strokes to achieve a decent blend of the skull and face. I also altered the levels to bring out and fade some details. Both photos were black and white, so I added a grungy green to the final version. And I was very happy to have light reflecting around the backside of the head, and a sliver of that light can be seen on the ride side of the picture.

http://mashable.com/2013/10/23/halloween-digital-makeover/

Art Show Flier

For this assignment, we were to create a flier for a local art show. I decided to go with a very simple design, and took some photographs of nearby trees. After finding a decent angle, I stuck with that picture, and edited to bring out the contrast, add a grayscale, and do a somewhat posterized effect. I placed it in the center of the poster, and used various brushes and erasers to get the organic border around the photo. I spaced the required text around, and added a simple border. I also drew a basic design at the top, just to add to the style.

NAPP Tutorial

For this assignment, we were to find a tutorial on the website NAPP, (National Association of Photoshop Professionals) and follow it. I chose the Brush and Text Effects, by Corey Barker, where you can create your own brush out of text and apply it with masks to a portrait. So instead of using a photograph of a person, I scanned a pencil sketch of mine. I drew the character Dallas' mask from the PAYDAY videogame series. The game heavily revolves around money, and so instead of letters or words, I used a dollar sign. When drawing both black and white dollar signs, I realized that I could make a sort of burning or splattered effect. Also since the picture was a simple sketch, I knew that I could not get a high resolution, and so I went for a more pixelated or arcade-y look. 

The font for the logo and dollar signs is also quite close to the actual font used in the game. The slogan below the face is a pun based off the name of the game series. I also added a sort of fractured look to the words, to match both the rest of the picture and the style from the games. And lastly, I could not pick which color scheme to go with, so here are all four.

You can find the tutorial here: 

http://members.photoshopuser.com/article/brush-and-text-effects/

WAHS Event Poster 2

This is the second poster for the same assignment. I chose to display the schedule for the different days of Spirit Week. I went with a blue and gold theme for the school colors, and used black to bring out the gold more clearly against the blue.  I went through several effects and gradients to get the right font. I used a few different brushes to get the right "torn" effect around the letters. For the background, I used the free drawing program, Alchemy, and then used filters and gradients in Photoshop. Overall I'm happy with the result, even though it feels like it is missing something, but I'm not sure what.

WAHS Event Poster

For this assignment, we were to design an advertisement or poster for a school-related event. I decided to choose the fall play, "The Importance of Being Earnest." I used Illustrator to trace a stage curtain, and then various gradient settings to make the curtains more dynamic. I originally had the curtains closed, but later thought open was more appropriate. I altered the hue and saturation in Photoshop, to get a nice blue that reflected the blue curtains in Western's Auditorium. I added a drop shadow to the text that was against the blue. Below the title is all the information a potential audience member would need to attend the production. Overall I am happy with he result, though I had a difficult time choosing some of the borders, and some of the curtains could be smoother.

Andy Warhol

For this assignment, we were to alter a photo so that it resembled an Andy Warhol painting. Instead of a  person, I decided to go with my sister's cat, Wilbur, who has a nice natural contrast with his black and white fur. I made the blacks and darker colors into a more bold dark, and the whites and lighter colors were altered for each image into highly saturated hues to pop more. I did a similar process with his green eyes. Overall I'm pleased with the result, and a little detail I like is that his collar is still readable. 

Collage

   For this assignment, we were to slice up an image and make it appear as if it was many pictures that make up one, in a collage-like style. My first collage was used with a scene I set up and posed within Source Filmmaker, with some photoshop-like edits. I decided to start out with a simple format of eight photos. For my second collage, I took a photograph of a flower hanging from a tree. I was pleased with the focus on certain parts of the flower, and decided to go with a more jagged-like setup with thirteen photos. I stressed more on angles by using the polygonal lasso tool. For the backgrounds of both collages, I messed around with gradients and textures. Overall I'm happy with the results, though there are some corners that could be sharper.