discolore

.icons: 17 SPN; art dump

aesc — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 15:27:31 GMT

Holy shit, okay, it's been ages. I suck :(

Some icons today, and a lot of art that I've done in the past year and posted over on aesc.

.18 icons
-all SPN (S5)

.note: Spoilers for 5.16-5.18.

.preview

001	002	003


004	005	006


007	008	009


010	011	012


013	014	015


016	017

.rules/regs
.please comment & credit when taking graphics
.textless icons aren't bases, unless otherwise specified
.if you'd like text added, feel free to ask; I'll see what I can do!
.no hotlinking!
-resources
-faq
-friend for updates

.art dump
Mostly SPN and Merlin. This isn't everything I've done since the last art dump, but it's a good part of it.

.short comics

Sight

Annwn

.wallpapers

Every bended knee
Click to go to post with variants

The apocalypse for beginners
1024.768 | 1440.900 | 1280.1024 | 1152.864 | 1900.1200

ego ipse te adtenui
1680.1050 | 1440.900 | 1280.800
1600.200 | 1280.1024 | 1024.768

Los(t) angeles (Castiel)
1680.1050 | 1600.1200 | 1440.900
1280.1024 | 1280.800 | 1024.768

Los(t) angeles (Dean/Castiel)
1680.1050 | 1600.1200 | 1440.900
1280.1024 | 1280.800 | 1024.768

Dean/Castiel cyberpunk
1680.1050 | 1440.900 | 1280.800
1600.1200 | 1280.1024 | 1024.768

Castiel cyberpunk
1680.1050 | 1440.900 | 1280.800
1600.1200 | 1280.1024 | 1024.768

No other pinions
1280.1024 | 1280.854 | 1440.900
1600.1200 | 1680.1050

.other graphics

Perdition

For the BigBang fic While His Name's Still Spoken

End is here, with oatmeal_queen

Arbor uitae

Pricipium timoris

bandwidth stuff

aesc — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 18:12:48 GMT

I know I've been slow about updating here; I may have some tutorials, walls, and things coming down the pike soon. But that is not today.

Today's update is about hotlinking to stuff on my Photobucket account.

For the cognitively deficient among you: DON'T DO IT. Download the images to your computer and upload them to your own server or a storage place like Photobucket, Tinypic, Box, or whatever. Hotlinking eats up my bandwidth and means that, once my bandwidth is exceeded, other people don't have access to graphics and materials.

Once the 14th, which is when my bandwith is reset, comes around, I'll see about doing a proper update. Until then, those of you who aren't, try being more courteous. Those of you who are, I'm sorry. Images will be back in a week or so.

.tutorial: pretending you paint stuff

aesc — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 03:07:24 GMT

This tutorial is the definition of "quick and dirty." Possibly it's the shortest tutorial I've ever written. First, though, I have to give a shout-out and credit to girlnamedpixley, who was awesome enough to introduce me to a new and different way of using Photoshop filters to achieve a painterly/mixed-media effect with a photo or screencap. I took it and ran with it in a couple of pieces, and am enjoying it immensely. I think it would be great for artists who are trying to stretch beyond their usual set of Photoshop tools (we all have our favorite features, don't we?), or for beginners who are ready for the next step.

This tutorial can be laid at the feet of ran_cl and uglybusiness, who asked ♥

Okay, down to business. Today, we are making this:

.zip file: here. As always, the .zip file includes: the source image, copies of all the layers, the final result, a screenshot of the layers palette (for those with no CS4 compatibility), and a .psd.

.caveat
This tutorial is really only an introduction to a method; the steps you take and the way you take them (blend modes, blurring, erasing, desaturating, everything!) will change a lot depending on the source material you’re starting with.

Software: PS4, but translatable to earlier versions of PS (to PS7, at least)
Difficulty: Beginner/intermediate. You need to know basics like cropping and how blending modes work, how to use the eraser and smudge tool. That sort of thing.

Subject: Arthur! I did absolutely nothing to color-correct this; I like it just the way it is. Ideally, you will crop out the background, if it isn't smooth and plain. Why? For two reasons: first, the Find Edges tool (coming soon!) will pick out the edges of everything in the image, and give you a very busy and somewhat sloppy result; second, and related, I think the effect we're going for here is best suited to a single, isolated subject that you want to stand out; when it's used across an entire image, there's just too much going on and competing for attention. This, however, is a matter of my personal aesthetic, so take it with a pinch of salt and a shot of tequila.

The process:
1.) In the top menu, go to Edit > Define Pattern. When the Pattern Name dialogue pops up, click okay. This sets the background image as a pattern that you will use later to get that painted-in look.
IMPORTANT: If you decide to resize the image later, you will need to redefine the pattern.

2.) Duplicate arthur_orig
3.) Filter > Stylize > Find Edges
->This picks out the edges and borders between colors, and will help create that fine brushstroke effect. Don't worry if it's all crazy now; you can tweak it later.
4.) Set the Find Edges layer to Multiply

Now for the background:
5.) Open jedan (brasaremean) and resize to about 1000px wide
6.) Paste in between the background and Find Edges

Now for the fun stuff:
(You may want to consult this screenshot for clarity.
7.) In the main palette, click the Pattern Stamp icon (the thing that, uh, looks like a stamp). In the menu that comes up, select the Arthur pattern. Make sure that you've checked the "Aligned" box if the option is presented to you.
->Note on pattern stamps: These can be used like brushes, as you will discover shortly. If you look at the screenshot just above, in the stamp menu you'll see the brush icon (right next to the one for the stamp). You can change your brushes here, just as you do with the paintbrush tool. The only difference is that, instead of painting a color, you'll be painting in the pattern. Nifty, huh?
8.) Add a new layer between find edges and jedan and set to Hard Light (this will be pattern stamp – HL 100% in the .psd and layer chart)
9.) Start to paint in the pattern. Because the pattern exactly matches the background image, you're basically just painting in the background, but with the texture that the brush provides. You'll wind up with something like this.

Okay, here is where the variability comes in. There are a couple issues here: tweaking the find edges layer, and playing with the color. We'll take these one at a time.

Toeing the edge
You can see how the Find Edges filter picks out every single edge, and it looks like someone had a field day with some kind of horrible pixelating device. Also, some of the edges in Arthur's profile and neck are very obvious, as is the heavy black line that edges his face. Ways to address these problems can include: reducing layer opacity, changing layer blend, desaturating (or applying a layer mask and desaturating that, then erasing where you'd like color to come through), erasing, and smudging. I opted to keep the color, but get rid of some of the lines and reduce the heavy black line edging Arthur's profile, so I erased a few things and smudged the rest. My result is this.

Coloring outside the lines
I wasn't crazy about all the white space, or about the amount of yellow involved, so I did a few things:
-Back to the pattern stamp! I added two more pattern stamp layers, pattern stamp – CB 70% and pattern stamp – SL 38%, and basically spent some time messing around with saturation and opacity. A good way to start is to paint in the entire pattern, see what you don't like, and take steps to fix it. Another thing I did was go into each of the layers and blur them a little bit. Not much (maybe 30% strength at the most), just enough to make the color transitions a little smoother. The results for both layers are here and here, and as you can see, I ended up erasing quite a bit, as well as desaturating pattern stamp – CB 70% and changing the opacities.

Final touches
I couldn’t quite solve the problem of the white/pale space in Arthur's neck, so I duplicated the background image, positioned it above jedan, set the layer to Multiply and lowered the opacity to 33%. That fills in a bit of color.

The final layer chart:
find edges – multiply 100%
pattern stamp – SL 38%
pattern stamp – HL 100%
pattern stamp – CB 70%
bkg copy – multiply 33%
jedan (Normal)
background

Aaaand the result!

This probably isn't really a finished piece on its own; it still feels a bit rough to me. Still, it might make a start on an LJ header or friends-only/info page banner, and maybe a nice icon. For an example of this technique worked into a much more complicated piece, check out this Castiel graphic. So it is flexible, you see. I tell the truth about these things.

As I said, because I can't say it enough, everything above is totally variable. What you do is going to change by the image you use, and the effect you're going for, so keep in mind that this tutorial is just a way in to a technique you might not have known about. The rest is up to you ♥

.resources: 3 texture packs

aesc — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 20:21:04 GMT

Hurray, finally, resources! For some reason, I tend to post things in threes, so there are three texture packs today.

I've been playing around with different ways of setting up color gradients and blends that aren't quite so plain. "Masterfade" and "A Gentle Acid Trip" are the results of that experimentation, with "Masterfade" as a very gentle end result. It would be nice for using with other textures, or for a simple icon background while "A Gentle Acid Trip" is somewhat grungier and more complicated. "Sweet and Peaceful Rest" is a nice b/w texture good for adding some contrast to other pieces or even using on its own.

- 1200.900 texture + 27 100.100 cuts-

-1024.768 texture + 24 100.100 cuts-

-76.1024 texture + 24 100.100 cuts-

.info
-resources (hugely and massively updated with lots of cool new things!)
-commenting/acknowledging is really, really lovely (now that I'm slightly less frazzled, I swear I'll start responding again! I hate not replying... it makes me feel somewhat lame.)
-any questions? feel free to ask!

.screencaps: nip/tuck 5.19 "Manny Skerrit" (1280.720)px

aesc — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 04:31:50 GMT

.screencaps: 133 tasty 1280.720px caps of one very flexible Misha Collins in his guest appearance on Nip/Tuck. Unlike some channels *coughCWSciFIcough* the FXHD logo isn't too bad.

Link: MEGAUPLOAD (102MBs)

Samples: 01 | 02 | 03 | 04 | 05

(One more than usual, but srsly, I could not help myself.)

.rules/regs: acknowledgment and commenting is always appreciated, so I can have some idea of what the demand is, although I'm always willing to upload more :)

I capped this manually, because VLC has been having hissy fits about auto-capping .mkv files today, so the caps are somewhat out of order as I rewound, went back, and tried to get as much as I could when I wasn't too distracted with staring/giggling like a demented schoolgirl. Oh, Misha, you're so bendy ♥ Anyway, if you want to learn how to make VLC cap without you telling it to, see this fantastic tutorial.

.actual art updates: Icons by the end of the month, I think. It won't be as big as I was hoping, but it should be a bit more diverse... SGA, SPN, Bones, and some randomosity!

I've reached a very obnoxious dead-end with a tutorial I was writing, for a collage/wallpaper, and I'm not sure if I have the heart to go back and try it a third time. Any other tutorials you all want to see?

.art dump: 1 comic/collage; 5 covers; 2 wallpapers; 2 misc.

aesc — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 02:18:38 GMT

.big ol' art dump: Most of this stuff is old, material that I've previously posted at aesc, although there is one new-ish wallpaper, modified from the original Hard Time Killing Floor graphic. There's one Castiel (SPN) wallpaper; everything else is SGA.

On the walls, if you want something larger than what is offered, let me know and I will whip something up for you ♥

.escape velocity: A comic/collage in five pages from Vegas!Verse (SGA: John Sheppard)
dogeared and I collaborated on the Astronomy Challenge at artword. Jenns was inspired by this photo from the Apollo 17 mission and wrote a lovely story, which I put to pictures.

.covers


Paradox of Vision, apple_pi	Rebuilding Babel, fiercelydreamed	The Te of John, cesperanza

Arbor, siriaeve

Bound by Will, sheafrotherdon

.wallpapers

color text bw bw text

Hard Time Killing Floor WP

.other graphics/comic collages

Hard Time Killing Floor

companion for The Price that Life Exacts by cathalin

.info
-resources (hugely and massively updated with lots of cool new things!)
-commenting/acknowledging is really, really lovely (now that I'm slightly less frazzled, I swear I'll start responding again! I hate not replying... it makes me feel somewhat lame.)
-any questions? feel free to ask!

.screencaps: sga 5.19 "Vegas" (1280.720px)

aesc — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 23:00:22 GMT

I vanish! I reappear! I bring screencaps!

.screencaps: 657 caps of "Vegas"-y goodness. 1280.720px from the SciFi HD version. (Who took away the SkyOne torrents? Whyyy? OH how I hate SciFi HD and their wretched logos and banners.)

Link: megaupload (566MBs)

Samples: 01 | 02 | 03* | 04

* = my personal favorite. Mmmm, nom, John Sheppard.

.rules/regs: acknowledgement and commenting is always appreciated, so I can have some idea of what the demand is, although I'm always willing to upload more :)

.notes: I took these screencaps in VideoLan using VLC's automatic screencap function. To see how to configure the player so that it will cap automatically, without you having to click "Snapshot," ~~see this tutorial.~~

.eta: Thank you to amethyststeam for finding my original tutorial post and linking to her own, which is infinitely better and also happens to be the tutorial I originally used for my .avi caps. You can find the infinitely more awesome tutorial of hers here!

Apologies for the continued lameness *sigh* I'm planning some things for the next few weeks, including an art dump, possibly some textures and resources, a very very zomgHUGE! tutorial, and another big big icon post with more icons than you can shake a stick at. Right now there's SGA, SPN, and some stock photography on tap, but if there is anything else you'd think would be neat, link me to some screencap sites and I'll see what I can do ♥

.screencaps: SGA 4.13 "Quarantine" (960.528px)

aesc — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 01:44:54 GMT

By request! At last! :)

.screencaps: 868 of these bad boys, 960.528px resolution from the SkyOneHD version. That means no annoying SciFi HD logo, and no annoying SciFi banners \o/

.note on filenames: Because I am lame and forgetful, I didn't change the filename prefix from 410- to 413 before capping these.

Links: 01 | 02

Samples: 01 | 02 | 03 | 04

.rules/regs: acknowledgement and commenting is always appreciated, so I can have some idea of what the demand is, although I'm always willing to upload more :)

.notes: I took these screencaps in VideoLan using VLC's automatic screencap function. To see how to configure the player so that it will cap automatically, without you having to click "Snapshot," see this tutorial.

.screencaps: SGA 5.06 "The Shrine"

aesc — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 00:26:52 GMT

.screencaps: 714 of them! High-resolution, with the SciFi HD logo (alas, but it isn't too intrusive, and I cut out most of the caps with the ads on the lower screen). For those of you looking for reuploads from S4, I will have those up over the next couple of days :)

Links: 01 | 02

Samples: 01 | 02 | 03

.rules/regs: acknowledgement and commenting is always appreciated, so I can have some idea of what the demand is, although I'm always willing to upload more :)

.notes: I took these screencaps in VideoLan using VLC's automatic screencap function. To see how to configure the player so that it will cap automatically, without you having to click "Snapshot," see this tutorial.

.resources: 3 texture packs

aesc — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 19:19:26 GMT

Hey, resources! I just finished a couple of art projects and had time to get this together. Three textures today, including two textures assembled by myself and one 40-piece 100.100px texture set that is some gradients/washes with random stock cuts.

-1200.900 texture + 23 100.100 cuts-

--700.650 texture + 21 cuts-

-40 100.100 textures-

.info
-resources (hugely and massively updated with lots of cool new things!)
-commenting/acknowledging is really, really lovely (now that I'm slightly less frazzled, I swear I'll start responding again! I hate not replying... it makes me feel somewhat lame.)
-any questions? feel free to ask!

.icons: 74 SGA; 26 misc.

aesc — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 04:48:01 GMT

Eight months after the last one... ICONS. ICONS. ICONS. And three wallpapers! I apologize for the stupidly long time between updates of the icon/wallpaper/usable graphics nature :"|

Yeah, I can't believe it either. HOO-RAH.

.100 icons
+74 SGA (55 + variants)
+26 misc./stock

.note: people from the last open icon offer: your icons are in here. ~~I'm just exhausted and sick to death of coding. Tomorrow I'll go back in and note which ones I did for you.~~ I hit my second wind; your names and icon numbers are listed after the icons ♥

.preview

.sga.

1	2	3

4	5	6

7	8	9

10	11	12

13	14	15

16	17	18

19	20	21

22	23	24

25	26	27

28	29	30

31	32	33

34	35	36

37	38	39

40	41	42

43	44	45

46	47	48

49	50	51

52	53	54

55	56	57

58	59	60

61	62	63

64	65	66

67	68	69

70	71	72

73	74

.misc.

75	76	77

78	79	80

81	82	83

84	85	86

87	88	89

90	91	92

93	94	95

96	97	98

99	100

open icons:aurora_84: 75; bergann: 97; clear_as_blood: 48, 57; dogeared: 47, 91; fractalreality: 87, 95; inthekeyofd: 94; kimberweeme: 17, 60; perardua: 93, 100; mellaithwen: 77; saeva: 76; scarlettsawry: 79; theblackeyeddog: 98, 98; triggerhappy: 78; miscellanny: 08, 16

.wallpapers.
+3 SGA wallpapers (reposted from aesc)
+eta 06.21: 1280.1024-res. version of the first wallpaper added on request :)

.teaser

[1280.1024]

[1400.900]

.note on wallpapers: The first wallpaper, and the large variant for the third one, were made just by expanding the canvas size. darsynia had asked me for a large version of #3 for her widescreen monitor, and with no good way to make the image itself larger, I extended the canvas by a couple hundred pixels. The result is that you see a lot of the material left off in the final image, the edges of textures and stock that were cropped off when I resized the image for the final product. I think it's kind of neat to see the rough edges, like the cavas of a painting before it's trimmed and framed.

.rules/regs
.please comment & credit when taking graphics
.textless icons aren't bases, unless otherwise specified
.if you'd like text added, feel free to ask; I'll see what I can do!
.no hotlinking!
-resources
-faq
-friend for updates

.screencaps: SGA 4.17 "Midway" and 4.18 "Kindred I" (960.528px)

aesc — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 16:20:35 GMT

.screencaps: I've been doing a lot of capping lately (can you really have too many?) and I tell you, high resolution is some tasty stuff.

.caveat! Because I wasn't paying attention to what I was doing, the file names for each episode start out with 217- and 218-, respectively.

Links: Midway (523) | Kindred I (650)

Samples: 01 | 02 | 03 | 04

.rules/regs: acknowledgement and commenting is always appreciated, so I can have some idea of what the demand is, although I'm always willing to upload more :) I have a good part of SGA S4 in HD (including episodes not uploaded to stargatecaps), and some SPN S3 as well, so if there's anything you can't come by, let me know and I will see if I can't put it up for you.

.notes: I took these screencaps in VideoLan using VLC's automatic screencap function. To see how to configure the player so that it will cap automatically, without you having to click "Snapshot," see this tutorial.

Icons next week, at long last! I have about three more open icon offers to finish up and a couple more things to do, and then there will be posting!

.helpful post: resources (textures, brushes, stock); zomghuge! tutorial 09 (iconspace)

aesc — Fri, 23 May 2008 18:30:37 GMT

This is a helpful post!

.RESOURCES! A set of medium-sized textures, a brush set, and some paper stock! I've done so much muted collage stuff for a while that I decided to see if I could simplify things and return to bolder, simpler things along the lines of brazen hussy, which I think is maybe one of the more useful sets. The textures aren't very complicated, so you can do a lot of things with them. There are also some soft ink brushes that are good for subtle background work and a set of hi-res scans of some handcrafted paper from Nepal.

.preview:

-@ DA-

-@ DA-

-@ box.net [40.5MBs, 9 files]-

.info
-resources (hugely and massively updated with lots of cool new things!)
-commenting/acknowledging is really, really lovely (now that I'm slightly less frazzled, I swear I'll start responding again! I hate not replying... it makes me feel somewhat lame.)
-any questions? feel free to ask!

TUTORIAL! A couple weeks ago, sweet_tabasco wanted to know how I made the icon on the left. I very brilliantly lost my .psd file of it, and after about ten tries gave up on reconstructing it precisely but instead tried to duplicate the sort of steps I took. For a 100.100 icon there are a lot of steps; most of the steps are due to nuance in shading and contrast, and wanting to mix in a bunch of different types of texture, so while everything is greyscale, there are some swirly textures, cloudy ones, scratchy ones, abrasive ones, and so on. Because this is multi-sectioned with subsections and everything, it qualifies as ZOMGHUGE!, although the image is very small.

.preface
This tutorial, like all the others, is a general guide to thinking about how you can have fun with textures, but how you use the information here will depend on a lot of factors in your own particular composition. Consequently, while you can't duplicate the tutorial precisely, you can take its suggestions and expand/modify/apply them to your own work :) The associated .zip file up at box.net, with all project-related images so you can toss stuff together and see what happens if you'd like.

.caveat
For stuff like this, really the best thing to do isn't covered in a tutorial, and that is to experiment and mess about. I've probably learned as much through wondering "What would happen if I do this?" (a better philosophy for PhotoShop than, say, touching hot stoves) as reading through tutorials. My process of putting collages together essentially consists of hunting for interesting-looking stock, playing with the color a bit, pasting it in, trying different blending styles, erasing things, and seeing what happens.

Software: PS7
Difficulty: Easy, just with a lot of steps and a bit of erasing. Some selective coloring, but only in one step; the rest is adaptable.

A. Subject.
1.) Start off with Joe, capped from his guest appearance in Tru Calling.
-Image > Adjustments > Desaturate
-Duplicate base > SCREEN
-Duplicate base > SOFT LIGHT; drag to top
-Layer > Flatten
-Crop to get rid of the extra white areas
-Reduce to c. 100px wide
-Image > Adjustments > Brightness/Contrast: Brightness +10; Contrast + 30
> result

B. Textures
1.) iamellie_desat (iamellie)
-Desaturate
-Duplicate 2x > both to SCREEN
-Flatten
-Image > Rotate Canvas > 90 CCW

2.) rh_swirl (rain harbour)
-Rotate Canvas > Flip Vertical
-Rotate Canvas > Flip Horizontal

3.) unmasked_icons (unmasked_icons): Desaturate

4.) ofthesky_desat (ofthesky)
-Desaturate
-Duplicate 1x > SOFT LIGHT

5.) sanami_desat (ohfreckle)
-Desaturate
-Rotate Canvas > 90 CCW

6.) gender_flower (dearest): Desaturate

7.) inxsomniax_desat (inxsomniax): Desaturate

8.) blimey_paper (blimey_icons): Rotate Canvas > 90 CCW

C. Assembly
1.) Open a new 100.100 document with a white background

2.) Paste in the following, working from the bottom up (consult final layer order). Opacity for all layers is 100%.
-iamellie_desat > NORMAL
-unmasked_icons > COLOR BURN
-rh_swirl > SOFT LIGHT
-ofthesky_desat > COLOR BURN
-sanami_desat > SOFT LIGHT
-gender flower > COLOR BURN
> halfway mark (this is actually a nice little texture on its own)

3.) Paste in JOE.
-Move so Joe's face is slightly off-center, and down a bit. The bottom of his collar should be at or just below the bottom border.
-Set to MULTIPLY
> Hi Joe hi!

4.) Paste in the following ON TOP of JOE, working up. Opacity for all layers is 100%.
-inxsomniax_desat > COLOR BURN
-gender_grey (dearest) > COLOR BURN
-grey_? (someone?) > COLOR BURN
-blimey_paper > SOFT LIGHT
-iconistas_abr (iconistas) > SOFT LIGHT
> all layers, but... WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO JOE?!

D. Fiddly Things
Okay, going back in to do a few basic adjustments. As you can see, the icon so far is... a wee bit off. The next couple of steps will help brighten the icon up where it needs it, especially in white and light/medium neutral areas around Joe's face, so he stands out.

1.) Erasure. I like using small cloudy erasers, nothing with a very defined border. I use this one by inxsomniax almost all the time.
-set cloudy eraser to about 100px or smaller
-iamellie_desat: erase the top half or so of the texture [result]
-gender_flower: erase the dark blue patch on the left side, and the grey-blue petals in the middle [result]
-inxsomniax_desat: erase the part under Joe's face [result]
-grey_?: erase almost all, except for the bottom and right borders [result]
-blimey_paper: erase most of the center part of the texture, concentrating under Joe's face [result]
-iconistas_abr: erase the right half of the texture, leaving a bit on top [result]

2.) For a little extra scratchiness.
-blimey_scratch (blimey_icons) > Paste above SANAMI-DESAT > SCREEN
-move to the left about 20px
-erase right border

3.) To bring out the contrast a little more and make Joe stand out:
-Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Selective Coloring
>WHITES: Black -34
>NEUTRALS: Black -2
>BLACKS: Black +100

And you're done!

.result:

.the point: When you lay it out like this, it looks like a ton of work; for a 100.100 space, is probably is. But, the icon that sweet_tabasco asked after was one of the icons I did before I started doing large textures, and the lessons I learned doing icons--mixing a bunch of textures together at different blending layers, erasing, developing an eye for fine detail--are all lessons I was able to apply working in much larger spaces. The other good thing is that, once you get used to a certain sort of procedure, you can create something like this fairly quickly; you can also shortcut by learning how to blend much more complicated textures, so you're only using, say, three to five, instead of eight or ten.

Like with all previous tutorials, anything in the .zip file is free for you to use for your own nefarious purposes--just please provide links/credit to the appropriate stock/texture/brush artists in accordance with their policies :> And, if you make something, feel free to link me to it! I would love to see it.

.resources: 3 texture packs, 1 brush

aesc — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 15:56:25 GMT

It's been a busy month art-wise, but not much going on for resources or icons... Most of my effort has been going into large art for challenges and fests and things like that, and I'll probably do an art dump soon with some of the new large pieces. In the meantime, though, I haven't been completely useless, for I bring you some new textures, a brush set, and more OPEN ICON, with new and improved rules. First, the resources (the preview here is for one I'm pretty excited about):

.preview

| @ DA |

| @ DA |

| @ DA |

This texture is similar to crash, in that it contains a lot of small scraps of paper positioned on the background; what I thought would be kind of neat would be to include the .psd file with all of the paper scraps in separate layers, so you can (if your program is PS7 compatible, yes yes I am a fossil) reduce, reuse, and recycle this texture by moving around the different pieces of paper/cardboard/photo stock/thread to make new combinations.

Also, there are two versions of the texture .png file, one with the paper cut-outs on it, and one without.

| @ DA |

.info
-resources (hugely and massively updated with lots of cool new things!)
-commenting/acknowledging is really, really lovely (now that I'm slightly less frazzled, I swear I'll start responding again! I hate not replying... it makes me feel somewhat lame.)
-any questions? feel free to ask!

.open icon: [18 places left!]
You'd figure a person with many, many gigs of images on her HD would be able to make icons, but apparently that is not the case. SO.
-here is the deal: I'll take the first 30 people who respond with 5-10 high-quality images and I will attempt to make at least one icon from the options given, and everything will be posted in the next icon batch (probably in May).
-I work best with TV/movie caps; right now my head is still in SGA, but I will take anything (other shows, vacation pictures, other stock images, as long as it's worksafe and won't get me exiled from LJ).
-I will do what the muse or the voices in my head tell me to do, so please no requests (e.g. "could you make this black & white?") beyond the images.

Exciting nerd news: I have decided to stimulate the economy (heheheheheh) by buying a tablet so I can help my country and add something to my scanty bag of tricks. Come on, federal government, aesc needs a new pair of shoes!

.zomghuge tutorial (08): fractals, brush collage, smudge improv

aesc — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 22:15:30 GMT

At long last, another zomgHUGE tutorial! theblackeyeddog requested something with fractals and brush collages, so I put together a tutorial for a 500.200 SPN header that focuses mostly on element arrangement, but with a couple little tricks for turning an unlikely screencap into something to work with.

Today, we will be making this:

.preface
This tutorial, like all the others, is a general guide to thinking about the various topics it addresses (especially color correction, smudging to pick up cropped-out elements, erasing, transparency, color relationships), but how you use the information here will depend on a lot of factors in your own particular composition. Consequently, while you can't duplicate the tutorial precisely, you can take its suggestions and expand/modify/apply them to your own work :) As with the last tutorial, I've put the associated .zip file up at DA, with all project-related images so you can toss stuff together and see what happens if you'd like.

.caveat
For stuff like this, really the best thing to do isn't covered in a tutorial, and that is to experiment and mess about. I've probably learned as much through wondering "What would happen if I do this?" (a better philosophy for PhotoShop than, say, touching hot stoves) as reading through tutorials. My process of putting collages together essentially consists of hunting for interesting-looking stock, playing with the color a bit, pasting it in, trying different blending styles, erasing things, and seeing what happens.

Software: PS7
Difficulty: Hardish? But if you could follow previous tutorials, especially 05, you can follow this. Works with selective coloring, variations, erasing and smudging; however, the focus is on the arrangement of various elements.

Now, come with me and Sam, and let's get started, shall we?

As is my custom, this is a full tutorial subdivided into remarks on composition, image prep, background, and assembly (subdivided into blending and texture work).

A. On composition
I wanted to do something that allowed me to work with some fractal brushes I've done, and in the past profile-type portraits have served me well. I decided to modify that slightly by using a profile cap of Sam Winchester. So that's what I'll do here. (I'd originally tried with this cap of Dean, but it didn't quite work.)

B. Image prep
The cap isn't as bad as a lot of SPN caps: the lighting is pretty decent and the color and saturation are okay. It still needs some work, but not as much. I kept this at full size for color work and smudging

Color correction
1.) Duplicate > Screen > duplicate Screen layer 1x
2.) In the top Screen layer: Image > Adjustments > Variations > MORE YELLOW 1x, LIGHTER 1x
->Edit > Fade Variations > fade to 55% > set mode to Multiply
3.) In the lower Screen layer: Image > Adjustments > Variations > MORE BLUE 1x
4.) New Adjustment Layer > Selective Coloring > (WHITES) B -15; (NEUTRAL) C +4, Y +4, B -8; (BLACK) B +9
5.) New Adjustment Layer > Hue/Saturation > Sat +15
6.) New Fill Layer > #DDDDDD to Color Burn
7.) DO NOT Merge/Flatten image; leave it as is.
result

AT THIS POINT, SAVE A SEPARATE COPY OF THE .PSD FILE, YOU MAY NEED IT.

Smudging (#1)
The texture of Sam's skin came out a little too rough for me, so I decided to soften it with the smudge brush. (Some people do this right away, I do it last because sometimes color work brings out or suppresses various textures.) You need the extra .psd file, or at least an extra, hidden, copy of the lower Screen layer, in case you mess up and need to start over.

Especially for larger pieces where smudging can be more obvious, I use brushes of varying types and sizes, set to low opacity, for smudge work; type and size depend on the texture I'm working with, as well as the space in which I'm working. For Sam's face, I used my all-time favorite brush (inxsomniax).

When smudging, I try as much as possible to follow contour and direction, so I pay attention to things like bone structure, fabric creases, lines in skin and hair, the grain of various textures. Beneath the step below

In the lower Screen layer (the one with the blue variation):
1.) Starting with the smudge brush set to 98px at 34% strength, smooth out Sam's cheek, neck, and shirt, taking note of his cheekbones and jawline and his neck, which is turned slightly.
2.) Switch to a smaller brush size now, around 56px and smooth out his forehead, nose, chin, and underneath his jaw.
result

This bit would make a lot more sense if I was technologically advanced and had video screencapturing so I could show you exactly what I did, but this admittedly very, very crude map will have to do. The arrows indicate the general direction I moved my brush in:

Now you can Merge All (CTRL + E).

Cropping
Crop all the background stuff; I typically use the Polygonal Lasso set to 1px feathering for the body and 2px for hair.
->Cropped .psd is in the .zip file.

And speaking of hair...

C. Hair
As you may have noticed from the cap, the top fifth or so of Sam's head is missing:

And in the preview, his head is very clearly intact. After screwing around with another cap for a while, I lost all patience and decided to use the first halfway decent image that had Dean or Sam in profile, and this was it. So as you can see, there is some work to do; there aren't many steps to it, but it does take a bit of time, and some care--as well as, if you have it, an image with the subject in a similar position but without the camera cropping off the top of his/her head, for purposes of reference. I didn't, but I'm ashamed to say I've perhaps contemplated Jared Padalecki's head more than I should.

It also goes without saying that you really really really need to make sure that you have an extra .png file hidden or saved somewhere. One of the things I also do is work with the subject with a white fill layer as background so I can see a bit more clearly the adjustments I'm making; for this one, I also dropped a layer in behind Sam and drew in a very very rough sketch of the top of his head to give myself an idea of where to stop.

[Note: you can see the brushes I used in Sam's hair in the smudge guide above]

1.) Image > Canvas Size > increase to 400px high and move Sam to the bottom margin.
2.) Using the smudge brush (I used this, which is also in the Natural Brush 2 preset in PS7) set to 49px at 79% strength, start with the large dark area somewhat toward the back of Sam's head, a few pixels beneath the crop line. Carefully run the brush upward--I went diagonally lower right to upper left just because my hand is steadier that way. Repeat until you have worked your way across the section, but stop before you get to the thin strands of his highlights.
3.) For the highlights, switch to a smaller brush size (about 19px, same opacity), and following the fall of his hair, keep smudging. Change the brush size as needed, though 19px is pretty much what you'll need, for highlights and shadows.
4.) Keep going until you've come to where you think a reasonable stopping place might be, making sure your movements start to follow the (hypothesized) contours of Sam's skull and hair. A lot of this is extrapolating from the image you can see, and making sure that your strokes follow the pattern that you're guessing at. Eventually, that brings you to the point where you've once again given him a full head of hair. I used this brush (another Natural Brush 2) set to 20px to round off the top of Sam's head.

(in progress; .psd in .zip file)

5.) Now for a couple touch-up things. Using the Polygonal Lasso at 2px feathering, I cut out some of the blurriness at the top of Sam's head, to give him a smoother appearance.
6.) To get rid of the rough, chunky-looking bits from when I cropped Sam out earlier, and to add some detail, I went through one last round of smudging (brush, 2px, 79% strength) and tried to give the impression of individual strands. Like before, the work here is somewhat subtle; shorter strokes for shorter hair, longer strokes for longer, following about where you think the hair should fall.

This works really well, I've found, for people with spiky hair, like John Sheppard (SGA), and even Dean, when he's rumpled.

result

OMG, done! Finally! Set aside to cool.

D. Background
A rule I've found useful for brush/portrait collages like this one is that the background should be kept to a minimum in terms of obvious elements and in terms of color; otherwise, the entire piece is too busy and the eye is distracted from the subject. This is especially true with the fractal brushes I've used, which are in and of themselves fairly complex-looking--so the fewer things you have competing with them, the better.

That isn't to say the background can't have a lot of elements; it can, and this piece does. The key is subtlety, and a willingness to erase or diminish opacity to let only a couple of interesting things stand out so that background isn't completely monotone. I found that this worked well with Wing, a wallpaper I did last year. (And it even won something! /preening)

[Note: in the .psd file for the project, background elements are marked with 'bkg']

[Another note: there are quite a few layers in this; it helps to label each of them so you keep yourself straight.]

1.) Open a new document, 500.200
2.) Starting with this stock texture (FEEL, which is a totally awesome site!):
->Resize to 500px wide
->Image > Adjustments > Desaturate
->Duplicate 2x > set both to Screen
->Merge Down and paste into the 500.200 document
->Move down so that the top of the ridge in the texture is just above the lower margin
3.) rough paper texture (sxc)
->resize to 500px wide
->Image > Adjustments > Desaturate
->Paste in > Soft Light
4.) wall texture (sxc)
->Resize to 500px wide
->Image > Adjustments > Desaturate
->Duplicate 1x > set to Screen
->Merge down and paste in > Soft Light
5.) graffiti (sxc)
->Image > Adjustments > Desaturate
->Crop out the musicians and paste into a new document
->Resize to about 300 px
->Paste in, move to lower right side > Color Burn
6.) scratched board (halo)
->Resize to 500px wide
->Paste in > Screen
->Move around to your satisfaction
7.) tiled wall (sxc)
->Resize to 500px wide
->Image > Adjustments > Desaturate
->Paste in > Color Burn

E. Assembly
Okay, getting there! Slowly.

Blending
1: Erasing!
I covered a substantial bit of this is tutorial 05 when I talked about erasing; the same kind of techniques are used here, and even with the same brush.

After resizing the canvas to about 200px high, paste Sam into the 500.200 document and move him over to the far left side. Then:
1.) With the fuzzy brush set to about 143px to start, erase the crop line on the right and lower margins, the CW, and Sam's back up to the seam that runs down his shoulder.
2.) With a slightly smaller brush (about 98px), erase the back of his neck.

2: Some color work (I try to do this after the major erasing is done)
1.) To sharpen Sam a bit first:
->Filter > Sharpen > Unsharp Mask >
2.) Duplicate Sam 1x > Set top to Multiply and lower to Screen
3.) In the Screen layer:
->Image > Adjustments > Hue/Saturation > Sat +100
4.) In the Multiply layer:
->Image > Adjustments > Hue/Saturation > Sat +8

Texture work
Now the next fiddly part comes in, when you start arranging the detail elements--the fractals, brushes, and light textures. Again, there are similarities to tutorial 05 here. My process behind this was really just to grab stuff that looked interesting or promising and play with it. If it fit, great. If it didn't, I scrapped and started over. There really is no system to the process at all, so the following steps reflect an order that doesn't actually exist.

[NOTE: Pay attention to where the layers go! I'm working from the bottom up for the most part, but a couple of the textures are below Screen!Sam and between him and Multiply!Sam. Also check out the final layer order; the names in bold below match those in the layer palette.]

1.) discolore fractal (discolore)
[Quick note on the fractal: I made this in Apophysis, a freeware fractal-generating program. I am probably one of the least qualified people to explain how to make the things, so I will suggest that you check out Apophysis' Wiki, which has links to tutorials of all sorts.]
->Desaturate
->Paste in above: bkg graffiti CB > Multiply
->Edit > Transform > Flip Vertical
->Edit > Transform > Flip Horizontal
->Edit > Transform > Rotate (clockwise) a few degrees
->Move behind Sam's head, so the center is somewhere just beneath his head, erase a bit of the center and the long "tail" and tendrils [example]

2.) vector (design bum, Designed to Help series)
->Image > Adjustments > Replace Color > click anywhere in the main body > Lightness +100 (i.e. render white or pale grey)
->Paste in above: discolore fractal > Multiply
->Rotate, though I messed around so much I lost track of what I did [example]
->Move to the back of Sam's neck; the curve of the vector comes close to matching the line of his neck and shoulder
->Erase most of the background and the beige/tan parts of the vector--you just want the red, mostly

3.) gears (sxc)
->Resize to 150px high
->Paste in above: bkg sxc tiled wall CB > Color Burn
->Move to the right of Sam's head
->Erase pretty much everything except the large solid gear in the center [example]

4.) thread (sxc)
->Paste in above: sxc gears CB > Multiply
->Move so some of it overlaps Sam's shoulder
->Rotate counterclockwise so that part of the thread matches the curve of Sam's shoulder and neck, and the thread seems to loop over the top of the gears (it won't be exact, but close) [example]

5.) In a new layer above sxc thread MULT, you can either paste in this or with a 2px round brush paint in your own little bit of text. I used "Go to it, Jazzman," from a Carl Sandburg poem.
->Set to Color Burn
->Move to low on right side

The next couple of layers are light textures to brighten Sam up a bit.
6.) chaotic light (chaotic)
->Paste in above: sam 01 SCR
->Set to Screen
->Move so the light texture overlaps the desaturated fractal--you should pick up some thin threads of yellow values in Sam's skin

7.) blue light (Anica)
->Paste in above: chaotic fractal SCR > Screen
->Edit > Transform > Flip Horizontal
->Move so one of the blobs of light overlaps with Sam's neck (I positioned them low and to the back)

8.) Sam's hair is a bit too heavy and dark, so using the fuzzy eraser at about 150px, click a couple times near the back of his head--not much, just enough to lighten him up a little.

9.) Duplicate the Multiply!Sam layer
->Move the duplicated layer so it's on the right side of the gear
->Desaturate
->Duplicate 1x > set both duplicates to Screen
->Merge Down (CTRL + E) > Soft Light
->Flip Horizontal
->Erase all hard lines with a small eraser (you don't need to be careful; the idea here is just to hint at Sam enough so that his gaze takes you back across the image).

[From now on, all new layers except the last mentioned will be above: sam 02 SL]

10.) Open this brush (apparating)
->With the Brush option in your palette selected > Edit > Define Brush
->Back in the document, set color to #B97074 and click the brush once
->Edit > Transform > Flip Horizontal
->Move so the thicker part of the brush is over the fractal, running (about) through Sam's hair and with a couple of the splatters following his cheekbone and temple. This adds some red values to balance out the ones in the design bum vector
->Set to Soft Light

11.) Speaking of design bum... brush, adapted from a vector study)
->Define Brush, as above
->Back in the document, set color to #FFFFFF (white) and click the brush once
->Edit > Transform > Flip Horizontal
->Move so the outer curve runs (about) along Sam's cheekbone
->Set to Soft Light

12.) For fun, (design bum)
->Desaturate
->Paste in very low (some of it is actually cropped out by the margin), around the red vector study.

13.) Now just a few last things to balance out all the weight on the left side. The following three elements (pliers, clipping, cornflakes), and dots are from the same study as #12.
->The only prep you need to do is to desaturate clipping and flip it horizontally, and scale cornflakes down to about 45px high
->Paste in all four elements and move them to near the upper right-hand corner. dots will be positioned (roughly) about 1/3rd of the way down the canvas--it's actually a little higher, but somewhere in the neighborhood is fine.
->I tried to give the impression of a rectangle here, with pliers pointing to one formed by clipping and cornflakes.
->All elements are set to Multiply

14.) One last thing! To tie the small collection of stock in its lonely right-hand corner with the collage proper over on the left, I decided to revisit what thread gestures at, and to see if I could find some way to "continue" the thread, so to speak, so there would be a continuous, if subtle line, between Sam and the pliers/cornflakes/clipping/dots collection. I didn't have thread stock that did what I wanted, so I used this instead: wall (sxc)
->Resize to 500px wide
->Duplicate 1x > Screen
->Merge Down (CTRL + E) > Desaturate
->Paste in above: bkg sxc tiled wall CB
->Set to Color Burn
->Edit > Transform > Rotate counterclockwise so the contour of the upper line of the crack in the wall seems to flow out of the end of thread and connects with dots before flowing off the page.

Holy God, done at last!

FINAL LAYER LIST

.the point: This seems like an awful lot of work--and probably is--for something that really doesn't seem to have a lot to show for it. Despite that, I like it! Collages with complex elements like fractal designs are a good way to practice how to achieve nuanced effects that, on their own, don't seem to add up to much, but collectively all work together to produce various interplays of texture, light, and color. And there are also a lot of different types of material here-stock scans, splattery and messy brushes, elegant fractals and clean-lined vectors, cracked walls, tile walls, smooth metal, light and shadow, and all sorts of things. So it's not a lot of the same stuff, but a lot of different flavors that, unlikely as it may be, can taste great together.

As ever, the magnificent resource post, freshly updated as of the 10th with some tasty new things.

Like with all previous tutorials, anything in the .zip file is free for you to use for your own nefarious purposes--just please provide links/credit to the appropriate stock/texture/brush artists in accordance with their policies :> And, if you make something, feel free to link me to it! I would love to see it.

.resources: 2 texture packs; 1 brush

aesc — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 01:44:35 GMT

Geez, I have not been very resourceful so far this year, and I really really apologize for that--there has been more insane busyness, and graphics block/general lameness on my part. But at long last, there are resources! I finally got myself together enough to put together two textures, as well as a set of feather/wing brushes someone had asked about... um, last year. So yay! Things!

.preview

|large & icon textures @ DA|

|large & icon textures @ DA|

|15 brushes @ DA|

.info
-resources
-commenting/acknowledging is really, really lovely
-any questions? feel free to ask!

.screencaps: SGA 4.10 "This Mortal Coil" (1280.720px)

aesc — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 20:57:15 GMT

.screencaps: In celebration of figuring how to get VLC's auto-cap function to work, I present you with about 700 hi-res screenshots from SGA 4.10 "This Mortal Coil."

These are pulled from the 1280.720px .mkv file of the episode, which is (so far as I can tell) the only hi-res version out there. I've included some not-color-corrected samples below the links so you can see for yourself. As you can see, there is the small SkyoneHD logo at the top, but it's nowhere near as intrusive as, say, the SciFi logo is. (It's also easy to work around, if you're in it for art purposes.)

.eta: Reuploaded 08.28.08. I've removed a bunch of blurry/dark/useless caps to make the uploading a bit easier on my connection, but all the good stuff is still there.

Links: 01 | 02

Samples: 01 | 02 | 03

[There is a flaw in my file somewhere around the 32-34 minute mark, so there's a couple minutes of material missing. Other than that, though, the only shots I've taken out are duplicates, ones without people in them, blurs, that sort of thing.]

.rules/regs: acknowledgement and commenting is always appreciated, and if you'd like more of these, let me know and I'll see what I can do!

.clarification on rules: as you will see if you consult my faq, you will see that I've added a request asking that, if you like a large piece of art and would like it iconized, you ask me instead of doing it yourself. I'm more than happy to do it :)

.eta: Now with tutorial on how to get VLC to auto-cap!
When I say "auto-cap," I don't mean the manual screencap function, where you click Snapshot in the top menu (which is what some people I've talked to think the auto-cap function is); this is persuading VLC to take screencaps itself, automatically, without you doing anything beyond changing some settings in Preferences.

.resources: icon textures (x3)

aesc — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 23:37:41 GMT

There's been more craziness in my life than you can shake a stick at, but despite that, here are a few texture sets. I've been playing with wing and feather brushes lately because someone asked some time ago about them, but so far I haven't made anything that looks remotely bird-like.

Anyway, textures!

-+6 100.100 & large-

-+20 100.100-
[large texture used here]

-+21 100.100 & large-
all hail Gary Larson

.stock/scan credits
[other than myself]
brasaremean
dearest
kekoah
rain harbour
stock xchng

.rules/regs
Please comment/acknowledge \o/ I really do like hearing from people, and I love love love all the support you've given me. And if you like it here, please join the comm :>

.icons: sga, c. black, spn, devil's dictionary

aesc — Sat, 06 Oct 2007 17:12:57 GMT

asdlkjf at last I think I kicked my icon funk enough to put together a decent icon post. And there is even a wallpaper/header, yay!

.large stuff
+1 mckay/sheppard wall (1024.768) & header (500.288)

[wall] [header]

.eta: on the header size, I can probably resize/rework it (within reason), if you let me know what dimensions you need :>

.54 icons
+36 stargate atlantis
+6 claudia black/vala
+7 supernatural
+5 devil's dictionary

.preview

.sga
01. 02. 03.
04. 05. 06.
07. 08. 09.
10. 11. 12.
13. 14. 15.
16. 17. 18.
19. 20. 21.
22. 23. 24.
25. 26. 27.
28. 29. 30.
31. 32. 33.
34. 35. 36.

.misc: vala, bierce, spn
37. 38. 39.
40. 41. 42.
43. 44. 45.
46. 47. 48.
49. 50. 51.
52. 53. 54.

.rules/regs
.please comment & credit when taking graphics
.textless icons aren't bases, unless otherwise specified
.no hotlinking!
-resources
-faq
-friend for updates

*quotations in icons 1-3,5, 49, 51-54 are from The Devil's Dictionary, by Ambrose Bierce.

.resources: brushes, icon textures; also, art dump

aesc — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 15:29:54 GMT

Oy, finally got enough stuff together for a proper update *sigh* I seem to have lost my icon mojo somewhere along the way, so I'm holding off on them until I make things that won't cause me to want to spork my eyes out.

Consequently, I'm sticking with textures and resources for a while, and have been playing around with a few other things. So today there's something a bit different in the way of brushes, and three texture sets (100.100 with their collages). There are also a few art pieces that have been posted elsewhere previously but are here because I like having all my stuff in one place.

.brushes
I've been experimenting with Apophysis, a (free!) fractal generating program. My general approach has been to play around with the fractal in Apophysis (the program generates a set of fractals, which you can manipulate almost endlessly), then export the file as a .jpg for further manipulation in PS7.

My personal feeling is that these work better on a smaller scale, but I've left all nine images large for purposes of flexibility. Like the "Phoenix" set in my last resource post, the images are full-color so you can use them as design elements (as in the examples below), and I've included the .abr file as well if you want to use them as brushes.

.itex
All the file info for each texture is included in its respective DA post :> For some reason, I've found myself attracted to smoky blue stuff lately.

.art
I've posted this stuff elsewhere previously, but I'm reposting here for purposes of consolidation. They're all large pieces, which seems to be most of what I'm doing lately... Anyway, the first two are story covers, the second is a little piece I did for a story I wrote, and the last is my art entry for the anotheratlantis challenge (and which I happen to be proud of).

.stock/scan credits
[other than myself]
brasaremean
halo
rain harbour
stock xchng

.rules/regs
Please comment/acknowledge \o/ I really do like hearing from people, and I love love love all the support you've given me. And if you like it here, please join the comm :>

In other news: Many thanks to oxoniensis for offering web space for image-related stuff in the light of last month's PhotoBucket blackout. I'm in the painfully slow process of converting all my tutorials to full HTML for reposting there. You don't even want to know how long it's been since I've done anything more complex than code an LJ post *flail*

Wow. Hey.

aesc — Sat, 11 Aug 2007 04:16:19 GMT

So the last zomgHUGE tutorial pretty much devoured most of my PhotoBucket bandwidth for the month, which means I have about 25MBs remaining until the 14th, when the new cycle starts.

If stuff vanishes to be replaced by the wretched "aesc is a cheap loser & CAN HAS NO BANDWIDTH" PhotoBucket images, it should (I hope) return by the 14th. If it doesn't.... I'm in trouble.

Also, I would like to take this opportunity to say:
-please no hotlinking ever, but especially not for the next few days.
-working on 200 members! Woo hoo!
-icons & more resources coming with bandwidth permits.
-in case you haven't noticed, new old layout, newkidfan's awesome "Joe" code, available at interlinea. The graphics are mine. Mmmm, tasty Joe Flanigan.
-recently, I ran across a very interesting (FREE!) fractal generating program, Apophysis, and have been using it as a way to produce fractal-based brushes and some light textures. I haven't done much with it so far, but here's one of my first experiments:

This'll probably go as-is into a piece of art, but we'll see :)

.zomgHUGE tutorial (07): large texture collages

aesc — Sun, 05 Aug 2007 03:29:36 GMT

I wrote this for namiuchiha at DA, who wanted to see how I put textures together. There's no easy way to explain it, so I put together another zomgHUGE tutorial, which may not explain things very well but at least has the virtue of being long :>

The previous tutorials all included texture work, though they were geared mostly toward making textures with a specific end in mind (the piece of art that came from them). However, the principle is really the same, without taking into consideration things like the subject, subject/background relationships, and so on.

So today's project:

-click for full-

.preface
Like the earlier tutorials, this is really just a general guide for ways to think about persuading various components of a collage to interact with each other. As is standard practice, I've posted the zip file with all project-related images at my DA account**** so you can try things out for yourself. The collage's name, "Atthis", comes from one of the subjects/addressees of Sappho's poetry, though I suppose another name might be "aesc on vacation" because a lot of the stock comes from my vacation albums, which means you'll see photos from Sicily, Maine, and a few other places in the stock folder of the tutorial .zip. Also, there is a picture of my dog.

.caveat
I am a very random person, and my method of graphics making is just to fling things together and try different stuff out to see what I like. Consequently, I believe in flexibility; your resource collection can be used in all sorts of ways and you can modify even a single texture, stock image, and brush until the cows come home--and you can even get unlikely things to do what you need them to do, and some of that will be done here.

I should also say that this is fairly time-consuming. I clocked this at about 8 hours start to finish, though it took me a bit longer because I had to stop to write things down. Either way, these do take a while but hopefully the time spent is worth it :>

Software: PS7
Difficulty: Hard, in the sense that it's long and involved. On the bright side, no selective coloring, curves, variations, &c., so this should be translatable.

NOTE ON THE .ZIP FILE
The .zip folder does not include the .psd file, because the file alone is 38MBs and DA doesn't like that. Instead, I've uploaded that HERE; if the link expires please let me know and I'll re-upload!

Because there's no actual subject, I can't divide stuff into their usual categories *flails in confusion* Instead, I'll improvise and divide them up into sections composition, main background, and stock/blending. The section on composition is a bit longer, mostly so I can talk about ways most of my textures seem to work out.

A. On composition
As I've said elsewhere, these tutorials are really artificial--I'm not this organized :) The steps below are only distillations of a much longer process involving trial and error. Also, when making texture collages I usually start out with only the vaguest ideas of what I'd like to end up with (speaking in terms of color, or how much texture I want), so the collage kind of develops randomly as I go along.

There are some constants, though, things I try to think about at various points when I'm starting to put in the small details. They are:

+ vector and perspective lines: If you take a look at the stock folder, or the tutorial album in my Photobucket account, there are a few images of building exteriors, some landscapes, spiral stairs, and a large close-up of (what I think is) a palmetto heart. Very odd and different, but they do serve a purpose; perspective lines not only add texture, they give a sense of movement across or up and down the image. Most of the time the images are kind of hard to detect in the collage itself, or if they are they don't look much like the stock they came from. Which leads me to my next point...

+ using weird stock in weird ways: Because I spend a lot of my time on tiny details, the actual subjects of a lot of my stock don't really matter--they'll be shrunk down, blended, and otherwise difficult to make out. What does matter for me is what the image in question can bring to the collage. For example, this old building doesn't announce itself in the collage, but the perspective lines at its corners are primarily what I'm interested in. The picture of my dog I used mostly for the light in his eye, which draws attention to the colonnade in a cathedral close. Other stock adds some texture or deepens color, and so on.

+ levels/types of texturization: a collage isn't going to have the same texture throughout most of the time -- it isn't going to be uniformly rough or smooth. I like to have some areas that are more texturized than others, and some that are fairly clean. Mostly this is because I cut icon-sized textures from a lot of them and I like having variety in a texture pack, but also, while I love making complicated collages, I like my icon backgrounds to be simple.

When making this texture, I wanted to do something fairly representative of what I do. As I've said, "what I do" usually equals "trial and error," so while this tutorial is documented as fully as I could, I've likely left out things. If you have any questions on how something works, please let me know :>

Oh, and one more thing:

NOTE ON SIZE RANGES: Because Photobucket's a bitch and I'm cheap, I can't upload anything larger than 1024.768, which is inconvenient and which I didn't think about while writing this. I wrote the tutorial with the .zip file dimensions in mind; if you want to work with the images uploaded to Photobucket, reduce the size of the stock in the stock/blending section by 50-100px (so instead of a 600px stock image, use c 500px, etc.)

B. Main background
I tend to start out with very simple bases, either a fill layer or else a slightly textured piece of stock, because the less you have to start out with in terms of texture and color, the more you can add --there's less that's going to be dictated to you, and less that you'll have to work around.

In the .psd, layers that belong to the main background are marked with [mb].

1.) Open a new document, 1024.768 OR 1200.900 (hereafter 'collage')
2.) wall texture (by me)
if using the .png in the zip file: Image > Adjustments > Image Size > 1200.900
-> Image > Image Adjustments > Desaturate
-> Duplicate > Screen
-> Flatten > Copy > Paste into collage
3.) In collage: New Fill Layer > Gradient > something medium orange (one should be in your preset gradients in PS7) > Overlay
[This starts to build up some orange/red values, which I decided on after I realized that I make a lot of blue stuff *g*]
4.) corroded paint (random stock texture)
if using the .png in the zip file: resize to 1200.900
-> Paste into collage > Color Burn > move to top edge
-> Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur to 12.6 px
-> Using my favorite eraser (inxsomniax), get rid of the bottom edge
5.) polaroid (dearest)
-> Paste into collage > Color Burn
[The bubbles and rough spots on the lower side help give the texture a sense of depth. Variations in the types of stock images you use really make the collage what it is, not simply an aggregation of similar things.]
6.) blue sky (random stock texture)
if using the .png in the zip file: resize to 1200.900
-> Paste into collage > Color Burn
[I decided at this point I wanted parts of the texture to be heavily saturated, and that's what the blue burn layer will do.]
7.) metallic texture (sxc)
if using the .png in the zip file: resize to 1200.900
-> Image > Adjustments > Invert
-> Paste into collage > Color Burn
[More color again, with neat little texture flecks at the bottom.]

You'll notice at this point that the color saturation in the texture follows the gradient, with values skewing toward yellow and white as you move down the image, and that's what I want. Now that we've got that, time for the detail work.

C. Stock/blending
This is the beginning of the fiddly part, and where most of the stock comes in. There's about twenty layers here, and that's a lot, so I've tried to organize things in some kind of comprehensible way. The easiest thing to do in terms of understanding what goes where is to look at the .psd file, but if you can't, I drew up a sort of schematic that may be a little easier to follow than my directions.

If you have access to the .psd file, the layer properties appear in the layers palette like so:

[number] description e.g. [1] lantern

Where the number in brackets corresponds to the step in the tutorial with which the layer is associated. So [1] lantern indicates that instructions for the layer can be found under step 1.

Also, because there are so many pieces of stock involved, I've resized a lot of them to keep the .zip file manageable. With everything at full size it ended up being somewhere around 32MBs, which is a bit much.

PASTING IN, BLENDING, & POSITIONING
[1] lantern (sxc)
-> Duplicate > Multiply > Merge Down
-> Resize to c. 430px wide
-> Paste > Screen > move to upper right corner (dark orange-red space) > 27% opacity
[I like scarcely-visible light textures; they add a bit of interest to a space that's pretty much one color.]

[2] smoke (?)
-> Resize to 400px wide
-> Paste > Color Burn
-> Position so the line of the plume of smoke roughly follows the crack in the wall texture (a bit left of center)
-> With the cloudy eraser, get rid of the sharp edges. [erased]
[The erasing doesn't have to be perfect; blending at color burn gets rid of the most noticeable edges.]

[3] paper stock (rain harbour)
-> Paste > Color Burn
-> Position in the lower left-hand corner, so the top line of the paper connects to the darker line of the crack in the wall texture.
-> Erase a little bit of the text from the center, but leave the larger text pieces intact. [erased]
[Leaving some text will help give the white space at the bottom some interest, so it's not just there, and hooking the top of the texture with the crack in the wall texture is a nice continuity between elements.]

[4] palm (halo)
-> Resize to c. 450px wide
-> Paste > Soft Light > 76% opacity
-> Position low along right edge
-> With the cloudy eraser, make the vector lines a little less obvious & clean up the sharp edges. [erased]
[This is one of my favorite stock pieces to use--it's really great for radial lines, and so flexible. The soft light and lower opacity keep the most prominent lines only, which is what I want, so the image isn't too intrusive--and that side of the texture is getting busy anyway.]

[5] proem (halo)
-> Resize to c. 500px wide
-> Paste > Edit > Transform > Flip Vertical
-> Position low along left edge; the text will overlap with the dark patches in the [mb] gender layer
-> Erase some of the sharp lines and some of the text to make it a bit less obvious. I tried to make the text look like it swirls or twists a little. [erased]
[This will tie in with another element coming up soon.]

[6] beach (mine)
-> Resize to c. 800px wide
-> Paste > Soft Light
-> Position low in right corner
-> Erase sharp lines, some of the wooden lifeguard stand thing. [erased]
[Adding a little more texture into the white space. That space is desaturated and light enough that not much will fill it in without being obvious, so the solution is to keep that area relatively smooth but add in some elements that will make it interesting.]

[7] windows (mine)
-> Resize to c. 500px wide
-> Paste > Soft Light
-> Position low in right corner so the bottom of the top row of balconies is at the lower edge.
-> Erase sharp lines. [erased]
[They're not very visible, and not identifiable as windows, but the lines on the sills and frames still suggest different vanishing points.]

[8] old building (mine)
-> Resize to c. 300px wide
-> Paste > Desaturate > Soft Light
-> Position at the bottom edge in the middle. One of the higher balconies should come to just above the edge of the image.
-> Erase the top lines. [erased]

[9] tile (mine)
-> Resize to c. 500px wide
-> Duplicate 3x > Screen (all duplicates) > Flatten
-> Paste > Desaturate > Soft Light
-> Position as in the schematic, so the outer angles of the pattern look like they're branching out from the crack in the wall texture. (I'm sorry I can't explain it better.)
-> Erase edges and some of the outer pattern. [erased]
[Straight lines, when used sparingly, can be interesting. I tend to keep them relatively unobtrusive and only hinted at, because lines all over the place can be confusing. Even barely there, though, they can direct the eye in different directions. The tessellation here, positioned where it is, suggests branching off from a central line into a few different directions as you move across the page.]

[10] spiral stair (mine, and that's my foot too *g*)
-> Resize to c. 300px wide
-> Paste > Soft Light > opacity 45%
-> Position along left edge, near the blotches in the [mb] gender layer
-> Edit > Transform > Rotate so the steps look like they're radiating out from a center point located somewhere in those blotches.
-> Erase the edges a bit. [erased]
[schematic, which may explain it better :>]
[Another favorite, which gave "Spiral Stair" its name.]

[11] rock (mine)
-> Resize to c. 500px wide
-> Paste > Screen
-> Position just above the plume of smoke near the center
-> Erase edges and most of the background, leaving only the rock and the man standing on it. [erased]
[Just a small detail, but it brings out the smoke texture a bit.]

[12] monreale (mine)
-> Resize to c. 300px wide
-> Paste > Lighten
-> Position along the upepr edge so the windows are in the dark orange bit
[The stock is there mostly for its perspective lines; you don't see the mosaic work much at all (which is a shame). It'll tie in with the next piece of stock.]

[13] canterbury (mine)
-> Resize to c. 600 px wide
-> Paste > Light (NOT Lighten! Light.)
-> Position along left upper margin
-> Erase almost everything except the rose windows and the arches. [erased]
[The Light blending and erasing will get rid of most of the straight lines--remember, they're really only hinted at--and leave some of the decorative work in the arches as points of interest.]

[14] dog eye (mine)
-> Resize to c. 400px wide
-> Paste > Screen
-> Postion near upper left corner, so the light point in the right eye is in the center of one of the cathedral arches
-> Erase edges and some of the interior stuff (mostly it's the light point you want). [erased]
[As I said, mostly it's the light point, but not quite erasing the rest of his face suggests curved lines.]

[15] cloud (sxc)
-> Resize to c. 350-500px
-> Paste > Desaturate > Soft Light
-> Position in lower right corner (with [7] windows)
-> Erase edges. [erased]
[Small bit of texture to fill up the lower corner.]

[16] shattered glass (sxc)
-> Resize to c. 500-600px
-> Paste > Desaturate > Soft Light > 53% opacity
-> Position where the lines from the paper texture and wall texture meet
-> Erase sharp edges and most of the glass (leave the larger piece and a few others) [erased]
[To fill in one segment of that general area which didn't quite go with its surroundings. When doing these sorts of things, I try to transition slowly from one texture area to another, with rougher or more involved parts gradually smoothing out into cleaner ones, with few or no abrupt shifts.]

[17] blue texture (mine)
-> Paste > Desaturate > Soft Light
-> Position flush with lower right corner
-> Erase sharp edges on left side. [erased]
[A little more texture in the lower right corner.]

[18] seaside (mine)
-> Resize to 500px wide
-> Paste > Desaturate > Color Burn
-> Position flush with lower left corner
[And something for the lower left.]

ZOMG DONE! Almost :>

FINAL LAYER ORDER
I saved this for last, because it's easier to explain this way rather than trying to work it into each separate step, and that is putting your layers in order. The final layer order, from top to bottom, looks like this:

[1] lantern
[15] cloud
[mb] inverted
[14] dog eye
[13] canterbury
[12] monreale
[11] rock
[10] spiral stair
[9] tile
[8] old building
[7] windows
[mb] gender
[6] beach
[5] proem
[4] palm
[3] paper stock
[mb] blue sky
[2] smoke
[18] seaside
[17] blue texture
[16] shattered glass
[-> the next few layers in the .psd are text layers I added in. Completely optional! For hidden text, I use Garamond or Georgia at around 14pt or smaller, with color and blending that will fade them into the background so they're barely legible. For lighter colors, use Color Burn; for darker, Soft Light or Screen<-]
[mb] corroded paint
[mb] orange gradient
[mb] wall texture

.the point: I love making textures, I really do. I love the subtlety, and sneaking neat little things in here and there. A lot of times, the textures' names have to do with the stock I used to make them, or things hidden in them; "East Meets West" got its name from two pieces of stock, one of which was a photograph I took in Italy and the other of which was a Japanese painting of a flower. "Atthis" got its name, as I said, from one of the women who appear in Sappho's poems, and some of her poetry, as well as other bits of love poetry (Neruda, Song of Songs, Amy Lowell) that are squirreled away in the texture in various places. It's fun taking a bunch of random stuff and turning it into something fun to look at, with lots of little details that can appear at odd moments when you look at the image.

So, yeah. That's it :>

End!

.Icon appendix
What I usually do when cutting icons from larger textures is set the rectangular marquee to Fixed Size and pick something with an area between 250.250 and 600.600, then shrink everything down to 100.100. It keeps the texture from being really obvious.

And to see how they might work in practice:

.Credits & resources
+ resource list
+ tutorial request

And as always, if you've found this helpful and have gotten anything out of it, I really would love to see your work, so drop me a link to your journal or put the image in a comment so I can check it out :>

.resources: brushes, icon textures

aesc — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 20:16:49 GMT

This is the stuff the last post was going to include, but impatience and depression broke what was going to be one massive post into two smaller ones. Sigh.

Anyway, there's still several things today. First up, I tried something different and designed a small set of brush collages, which you can see below, and there are two 100.100 texture sets as well.

.brushes
These are brush collages done using brushes adapted from design bum's vector studies, plus brushes by dearest, regen, and these. I left the collages in their original colors so you can use them as design elements if you want (as in the first two icons, where they're just pasted in), or as brushes (as in the third).

-DA: image pack & .abr[PS7]-

.itex
The first set is some icon-sized textures clipped from this piece I did for my anotheratlantis prompt. I liked how the background turned out and decided to share :) The smokiness of them might be useful for grunging or darkening up smoother textures. The large texture isn't included, mostly because it's something I've used previously in my own work.

-+13 100.100-

-+25 100.100 & +1 large-

.stock/scan credits
[other than myself]
brasaremean
dearest
halo
rain harbour
stock xchng

.rules/regs
Please comment/acknowledge \o/ I really do like hearing from people, and I love love love all the support you've given me. And if you like it here, please join the comm.

.resources: brushes, textures textures textures, stock

aesc — Sat, 14 Jul 2007 03:33:24 GMT

Wasn't going to post until next week, but the day took a turn for the suck and I needed something to help me perseverate for a while. Yeah, did not escape unscathed from Friday the 13th :/

For your delectation: A lot of resources in the form of brushes, large textures, icon textures, and stock photos. There is also a very important question at the end.

(In the preview you will observe some representatives of the brush set, as well as some of the large textures reworked for icon-sized space.)

.brushes
A set of 18 ink/wash brushes from an impromptu decision to fling ink around my study to celebrate buying a new set of brushes because I lost my old ones. (When I say "celebrate," I'm being sarcastic. Still annoyed.) Anyway, the preview shows them used in icons, though the brushes are larger and of varying sizes.

-DA: image pack & .abr[PS7]-

.stock
+9 1600.1200 photos of various walls in my house and old apartment. Some of them have worked really well as bases for the collages I've done--they add a bit of texture to the background without being too complicated. There are also a couple of winter sky stock photos I tossed in because I like them but haven't got anything else to go with them.

-DA-

.large textures
+7 large textures, mostly around 700.300. They tend towards bold colors because I realized I don't have enough bold stuff in my collection :)

-DA-

.icon textures
+3 sets of 100.100 textures. I included the large collages I clipped them from in the .zip file.

-+20 100.100 & +1 large-

-+20 100.100 & +1 large-

-+18 100.100 & +1 large-

.stock/scan credits
[other than myself]
brasaremean
elli
dearest
myrasis
oxoniensis
halo
rain harbour
stock xchng

.rules/regs
Please comment/acknowledge \o/

And now, the question! My general practice with textures is to make large images, cut out squares of various sizes and resize them to 100.100. and include the large images in the .zip file for people to experiment with. Is the making of icon-sized textures, then, kind of a redundant action? I'm kind of curious as to if people prefer the large textures to the icon-sized.

Very definitely answered :) Thank you so much!

.multifarious: SGA, SPN, original art; 2 textures

aesc — Wed, 04 Jul 2007 22:51:46 GMT

Kind of a multi-purpose post today. I has three artz to show you and two texture sets. Joy!

.sga
the_oscar_cat has put together a lovely audio anthology of comment!fic written for sheafrotherdon's McKay/Sheppard "kissing" challenge, and I hath committed the cover art for it!

-full-

DL DL DL PODFIC!

.spn
1024.768 wallpaper!

-full-

.original
A collage based around a photo I took several years ago. I think it's of the close at Canterbury Cathedral, but I can't recall.

-full-

.textures
2 100.100 texture sets with associated large textures. The second one is the collection of textures made for the huge tutorials I just finished doing, collected in one place for ease of access and the convenience of not having to download zillions of megabytes.

-@ DA-

-@ DA-

.stock/scan credits
dearest
oxoniensis
ohfreckle
halo
rain harbour
stock xchng

+please comment/acknowledge \o/

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