i chose this image because i liked that it was just a plain silhouette of the subject and left the rest of the book free to explore what could be done to this flat black shape, so to speak.

my table of contents was also very basic:

some of my favorite treatments:

the last image was a happy accident – i had tried to make an ox-shaped puddle with food coloring but it didn’t work out. when i soaked it up with the paper towel, however, it was pretty groovy. i really love how the texture came out in the printing, too!

other handmade items included the lego ox above, a play-doh ox, and some handwritten stuff (among others!). as i said, i had a hard-ish time figuring out what to do, and found myself constantly using kitchen stuff! food, food coloring, candy…i tried very hard to limit how much of that went into my book, though.

the computer stuff came easier for me. i think my absolute favorite image is the one where i morphed an image of ox with a hoola hoop – i cut the the hoop out of a picture of my daughter and blended it into the ox picture. so cocol!

my favorite thing about this project, though, is that i now have a very hands-on, tangible ‘thing’ to hold that i made!

when i get home from vacation i’m SO making a cheat sheet for my desk for all the various hotkeys and shortcuts in illustrator and photoshop!

the blend tool lets you….well, blend stuff together. shapes, paths, colors…whathaveyou.

blend lines:

blend shapes:

smooth color using the blend tool:

you can choose specified steps, specified distance, or smooth color when working with the blend tool. specified steps allows you to choose how many of the object is repeated between your original shapes. the distance lets you choose how far away each object is from each other. you can select more than two colors:

and by selecting specific anchor points, you can make cool shapes:

you can blend different shapes:

you can blend along a path:

once you have your blended path, you can change the alignment, change the direction of the blend (spine), and even use blends to create highlights.

this tutorial was…difficult to work through for me. it shows images of what can be done, but doesn’t tell me HOW. it tells me where to find the menus, but not how they work exactly. i got some stuff to work completely by accident! i’m going to keep playing with blends, though, cause they are so fun.

basics of creating 3D objects: http://tutvid.com/tutorials/photoshop/tutorials/3dObjects.php

wow- i was completely unaware of 3D tools in photoshop. this tutorial starts out with him clicking 3D at the top menu bar and then cone…and there’s a 3D cone on his artboard. so easy! i feel like this tutorial concentrated less on HOW to make the 3D object and more on how to decorate it and light it using various 3D tools. i also feel like he did more and explained less than other tuts i’ve seen…i still have no real clue how he got the design to line up on the cone, for example. pretty cool to watch, though!

creating 3D spiraling light streaks or zips: http://tutvid.com/tutorials/photoshop/tutorials/3dLightZips.php

our narrator says that this will be successful with any object, and that it doesn’t have to be 3D, but then goes on to show us how to do this treatment using a 3D object…so not too sure how successful it will be with a 2D one. he basically draws a flat ellipse, adds two anchor points, and then duplicates it up the object. he uses a brush stroke to simulate a pen (set to simulate pressure) to make the zips look…zippy. changes the color, tilts them to a more sassy angle, and then that’s it. this tutorial makes it look nice and easy. there a few of those steps that are a little more involved than they sound, and i think it could be better explained in the tutorial, but overall i think i could follow along with this later if i needed/wanted to.

smoothing and softening skin for portrait retouching: http://tutvid.com/tutorials/photoshop/tutorials/smoothSkinAndSharpen.php

mainly focuses on softening skin and sharpening parts of the face. this mostly relies on making multiple layers and masks and overlays to make it happen. it’s tedius and requires a good eye. he uses the smart sharpen option (and then more masking) to get the eyes, nose, and teeth sharp without losing the smoothing over the skin. i think i’d rather find another way to make this type of change on a photo – this is confusing!

changing hair color brunette to blonde: http://tutvid.com/tutorials/photoshop/tutorials/brunetteToBlondeHairColor.php

one way to accomplish this, though our narrator doesn’t recommend it, is just to color on top of the hair and then mess with the blend mode until you get a desired result.

the other method described involves channels, color adjustment layers, levels adjustment layers, and hue/saturation adjustment layers. the trick is to layer these layers and build up the adjustments.

i got beyond lost in this tutorial. he kept going back and forth within the adjustment layers to change one or two things…it’s a super long process…and just confusing as can be. i honestly don’t know that i’ll ever want to use this tutorial in the future. looking at it, i don’t feel like it’s the most realistic/successful looking outcome, either.

so cute.

this was actually way easier than i thought it was going to be. basically, the wand is two rectangles – the bigger rectangle makes up the tips, the smaller rectangle is centered in the middle. a linear gradient fill is used on both to create the 3D look to the wand. the background is a radial fill, and the colorful circles are created by using feathering and different opacity levels. i’m constantly amazed how many cool effects are created using just a few really simple steps in illustrator. the ‘sprites’ are a transparent ellipse with another ellipse transformed using the pucker and bloat effect (giggles ensued when my daughter and i saw that). scaling them up and down and changing the opacity gave the magical look to the final image. i really enjoyed this tutorial – and i loved having my daughter looking over my shoulder and helping me pick out colors. *grins* here’s my finished image:

composite/combine multiple images: http://tutvid.com/tutorials/photoshop/tutorials/compositeImage.php

definition: any two (or multiple) images combined together to form one cohesive image.

basically, this is very self-explanatory. you are literally taking elements from two different images and putting them together to make it look like they were originally one image. in the case of this tutorial, he put together a blue transparent bottle with splashing water. he had to mask the water to the bottle to make it appear some was being viewed through the bottle, but this may not always be the case. i got a little lost when he was using channels to select the objects to be removed from the other pictures, since i’ve never done that and he didn’t really explain it all that much, but other than that, i found this to be a fairly straightforward tutorial that wouldn’t be all that hard to follow along with.

photo edit vivid skies and bright grass: http://tutvid.com/tutorials/photoshop/tutorials/vividSkiesGreenGrass.php

to make the grass brighter, he basically plays with the hue and saturation until he gets the color and brightness he wants. to make the sky vivid, he places a black-to-white linear gradient over the image, then changes the blend mode until he gets the desired result. he then masks out the grass to keep it from getting too blown out. this tutorial was okay…i’m still a little confused how and why things work. i don’t feel like it was as explanatory as some of the others i’ve seen.

create sepia-toned images: http://tutvid.com/tutorials/photoshop/tutorials/sepiaToning.php

he shows us two ways to accoplish this in this tutorial. one way is to use the channel mixer – make the photo monochrome, then use the rgb sliders to make the black&white image look ‘right’ (make sure the three sliders percentages equal 100!). then use the duotone treatment with a black and an orange-y brown color. you can control how the overall tone comes out by using the duotone curves. the second way is WAY more involved, using multiple layers and adding noise to make it look like an old-timey photograph. the end result is great, but i would reserve this method for special photos.

this tutorial worked for me. i could mostly follow along with it, though the second method was a bit more difficult. again, i think the first method is the more user-friendly way to go, and is less time consuming and less headache-inducing.

color correcting images and removing color casts via curves: http://tutvid.com/tutorials/photoshop/tutorials/colorCorrectAndCurves.php

he starts out this tutorial explaining the RGB and CMYK color families and how they relate to each other. awesome!

then he color corrects an image that was way too blue. he starts out by showing us how to place a color target to get info on a spot. in this case he uses it as a white point, and shows us how that might not be the best idea (the photo gets way blown out and over-exposed looking). next he shows us how to find neutral grey so that the photoshop autocorrect can color correct the photo. he then shows us how to manually fix it using curves. both methods work, but the curves does seem to be more precise.

correcting skin tones is considerably more involved. there’s actual menus (though not in photoshop) about the levels that should be present for balanced color. skin corrections are usually done in cmyk instead of rgb.

this tutorial was okay…it was sort of hard to follow, but not too terribly confusing. i really liked that he had the rgb/cmyk info at the beginning. i’m thrilled he pointed out that landscapes can be done in rgb, and skin needs to be in cmyk. at the end he also notes that in a photo with people in it, making the skin ‘right’ might screw up the integrity of the overall photo and that you should keep in mind what the focal point is and make your decisions from there.

since i keep seeing this cool tool mentioned, i thought i’d learn how to use it! there are several ways to access kuler: website, widget, or the kuler extension in CS4 products. kuler is a nifty website/collection of color palettes that you can use for projects. this tut walks us through how to sign up and get started using kuler.

if you open the kuler window in photoshop it looks like this:

i wanted to see what the website version looks like, though, so i followed the tutorial for that. here’s the kuler page before signing in:

kuler lets you add or get info from the site. you can even customize your search to a certain time frame, highest rated, most popular, newest, or there are even several other options. you can limit your results by searching for certain creators, colors, or tags. in the mykuler section, you can save favorite themes that you’ve seen by clicking the favorite button. any themes you’ve created are also saved in mykuler.

if you use the kuler website, you can download swatches to your computer when you’re signed in. cool! with CS4, though, you can just view the kuler in your window and add swatches from there. as a member of the community, you can comment on swatches, receive feedback on any you’ve created, and rate stuff.

you can create a theme from colors or an image. here i chose to create a theme from an image – you are given the option to look at your own images or at flickr images. i picked a random happy photo to play with from flickr:

basically you move those white circles around to assign colors to your theme. pretty easy!

you can also create a theme totally from scratch, and kuler helps with that by allowing you to utilize different harmony rules, a color wheel, and sliders to adjust brightness and angle and all that good stuff. the harmony rule you set essentially makes finding a theme effortless: you choose a base color, and kuler chooses the other four colors based on the harmony rule you use. you just drag and drop the white circle and watch the magic happen. here’s my monochromatic theme:

if you still can’t get just the right colors, you can change the values by entering numeric values in the spaces below the colors. changing from rgb to cmyk, for example, can help, too.

this tutorial was great – although i’m sure if i spent enough time in kuler i could figure it all out there, too. it’s still nice to have something to follow along with, though!

how to create an identity package in illustrator: http://vector.tutsplus.com/tutorials/designing/how-to-create-an-identity-package-in-illustrator/

this tutorial tells us how to make business cards, letterheads, and envelopes in illustrator. it focuses on setting illustrator up rather than the actual graphics design process. basically, you’re guided through how to set up a bleed with the artboards, told to offset stuff by -.25, and how to convert shapes to artboards. using whatever logo you have set up, make it a symbol and drag it into your artboards where needed.

i think this tutorial will be helpful if/when i’d like to set up more than just a quickie business card. it breaks down some of the necessary steps to make the workspace work for you. the author goes on to show how to make a proof (complete with drop shadows) and how to print. i feel like this tutorial would have been better if it concentrated on the process of making the actual products instead of splitting the focus between making proofs, printing, etc.

how to create funky 3D springs in illustrator: http://vector.tutsplus.com/tutorials/tools-tips/how-to-create-funky-3d-springs-in-illustrator/

to accomplish this, we use the 3D revolve tool. so neat! didn’t even know this existed. it does incredibly cool things to circles. basically, you use different settings with the 3D revolve tool to get the half-springs to turn in the right direction, then line them up, and repeat until you have the spring as big as you want it.

this tutorial makes this look both complicated and simple. in essence, this is nothing more than a circle altered by settings. the right choices in the settings is what makes this happen – well, that and precise alignment when connecting the ends together! i do wish they had shown us how to do the other springs pictured on the tuttorial, specifically the ones that are bent in an arc…i’m sure massive playing around with settings will garner results, though, and once i have my computer back i plan on trying!

how to create a landscape wallpaper for your desktop: http://vector.tutsplus.com/tutorials/illustration/how-to-create-a-landscape-wallpaper-for-your-desktop/

this is almost deceptively easy! the grass is made starting with a rectangle, then you distort it, use the mesh tool, and choose the colors. the sky – another rectangle, filled with a radial gradient. the sun is just an ellipse with an outer glow. the mountains are hand drawn using the paint brush tool. the clouds are done the same way. basically, everything is drawn by hand using the paint brush tool and grouped as desired. the hardest part, in my opinion, would be to judge how to put in the shadows cast by the sun. i think i’ll try this some day, though, since it gives such easy-to-follow directions on how to achieve the image. even though my drawing skills are questionable, i think i could swing this!

changing eye color in photoshop: http://tutvid.com/tutorials/photoshop/tutorials/changeEyeColor.php

this is super easy – and the tutorial is great at showing how to do it. basically, he just used the elliptical marquee selection tool to select the pupil of the eye, then inversed the selection so that when you color the eye you’re leaving the pupil intact. pick a color, then color the iris. change the blend mode to color, then have fun! i’ve colored eyes before, but my method was a bit more involved, so this is definitely a better way to try!

i figure this might come in handy at some point. LOL okay, so i didn’t have any fancy tattoo-ready art to apply that looked any kind of realistic, so i just used a silhouette ox from our final book project. to add a tattoo, you duplicate the original image and desaturate it – save it as displaced! then you drag the desired tattoo art to the original image and place it. click filter -> distort -> displace, and then place the displaced image. this makes the art wrap around the desired body part to look real-ish. if there is clothing or other objects in covering where the tattoo is going to go, you need to quick select it, inverse the selection, and then make it a mask on top of the tattoo layer, so the tattoo goes underneath. finally, you duplicate the tattoo layer – the first tattoo layer gets set to saturation, then the duplicate gets put to overlay; play with the opacity to make the tattoo look realistic and voila!

getting it off again…is easy, if you’re lucky enough to have the tattoo in a not-too-detailed area. simply use the healing brush to ‘paint’ over it!

how to create a sparkling fantasy photomanipulation: http://psd.tutsplus.com/tutorials/photo-effects-tutorials/how-to-create-a-sparkling-fantasy-photo-manipulation/

right off the bat this tut is cool for me – it tells us how to create a nice textured background. using a LOT of blurring, saturation, brightness, and other color/light changes is basically what makes this image manipulation happen. paying special attention to how lighting falls on the image is key. little details i picked up: the rays of light are made using a gradient overlay on the path, and the smoke is made cooler by using the warp tool. i think i’m going to come back and revisit this tutorial to see if i can make it happen myself. the instructions are fairly detailed and mostly clear. the trick is finding images!

how to use depth of field to create portraits with blown-out backgrounds: http://psd.tutsplus.com/tutorials/photo-effects-tutorials/how-to-use-depth-of-field-to-create-portraits-with-blown-out-backgrounds/

this is useful, i think. how many times have you had a snapshot that would have made an awesome photo…if it weren’t for a crappy background? i know i have lots. most of this tutorial was how to SHOOT the photos to begin with, but the last few steps gave pointers on how to achieve a blurred background using photoshop. basically, you very carefully select the subject, then inverse the selection so that everything but the subject is now selected. then you apply a gaussian blur to it – but not too much, or you lose the natural feel of the photo and get a halo around your subject. easy peasy!

comprehensive introduction to the type tool in photoshop: http://psd.tutsplus.com/tutorials/tools-tips/a-comprehensive-introduction-to-the-type-tool/

photoshop has four basic type tools. the horizontal type tool is for ‘normal’ typing; left to right, top to bottom. the vertical type tool is for top to bottom, right to left typing, such as Chinese or when you want to mess with design stuff. the horizontal and vertical type mask tool creates a quick mask using the type shape as a selection.

there are two ways to create a type layer – point and paragraph. the point type makes one line that breaks have to be put in by you hitting return or enter.

the paragraph type layer is created by typing text into a bounding box. first you create a bounding box, then type in it – the text automatically wraps into the shape. using the transform options, you can then resize and transform (warp, skew, rotate) the text.

in photoshop the text itself can be altered as well. fonts, color, text size, kerning, tracking, vertical and horizontal scaling, baseline shift, italics and bolding…there are SO many things to do with text! this tutorial describes what anti-aliasing is, which was something i never knew – it means that the text has smooth edges so it blends into the background instead of becoming very pixelated and noticeable. cool! there is a whole menu of options for hyphenation of words (again, something i never knew existed!) that allows you to set how many letters at the beginning or end of a word can be hyphenated. just like in illustrator, you can draw a path and then apply text to it, and warp text. i think one of my favorite features of text in photoshop is the type mask tool, though – you can mask out a word so that a photo behind it only shows through the letters. nifty!

how to create a mosaic portrait from a photograph: http://vector.tutsplus.com/tutorials/illustration/how-to-create-a-mosaic-portrait-from-a-photograph/

this is done in illustrator. the first step is to open a document and place an image; make sure the link square is unchecked, and then embed the image. to start the mosaic effect, make sure the image is selected and then go to object -> create object mosaic. in the number of tiles boxes, put in numbers that are 1/10 of the total image size (ie if photo is 300×400, put 30 and 40 in the boxes), and make sure the delete raster box is checked. ungroup the mosaic. now you can select individual squares, click effect -> convert to shape -> ellipse. in the shape options box, click absolute, and enter 10 in the boxes. if you want, you can put a colored box behind your image for contrast, and voila! from here you can use the appearance panel and tweak the shapes or just play around with different effects to see what happens.

i liked this tutorial – it’s very clear and easy to follow. even though they tell you to use a certain size of image to begin with, they also remembered to give the pointers of how to choose the mosaic tile size so you can apply this treatment to any size photo.

i picked this cause it looks pretty darn nifty. it’s also a treatment that i feel like you have to have JUST the right photo to work with to get it to come out looking good. i played around with several photos, and even played around with the settings in different steps throughout the tutorial, but none of mine came out quite as pretty as the sample image they gave me. i think the trick is finding a rather simple image with bold colors and delineated shapes…and maybe one with little minute detail to get muddled up when applying the filters. this tutorial relies very heavily on filters, with little room to wiggle the settings around to get the desired effects. here’s the before and after images that i was happiest with in the end:

plastic jelly styles text: http://psd.tutsplus.com/tutorials/text-effects-tutorials/plastic-jelly-styles/

i read through this one as a comparison to another jelly-type tutorial i’ve read/done in the past. i have to say this one definitely left me wanting more help! i think the author of this tut assumes the reader knows their way around photoshop already. several of the steps in this were left very vague and unclear – and one offered the download as a tool for getting additional steps, but when i downloaded the psd file, it was just another picture of the finished image. i think this tutorial would have been better if it clearly outlined the steps needed, rather than the fuzzy directions provided. he tells us the pre-determined settings for bevel and emboss ‘suck’, but doesn’t describe how to fix it (again, maybe i’m having technical difficulties and can’t get to the download file he mentions). give me clear steps that i can follow along with and i’m happy – this tut made me sad!

removing glasses with photoshop: http://tutvid.com/tutorials/photoshop/tutorials/removeGlasses.php

i thought this tutorial sounded interesting – i often end up with photos of friends that would be more awesome if their glasses hadn’t picked up some random reflection or something. he uses the clone stamp tool, the healing brush, new layers, and history states/snapshots to remove the glasses from the sample photo. he gets the easy stuff out of the way first by using the clone stamp tool to remove the parts of the eyeglasses that are on the background or larger patches of skin on her face, leaving the eyes and nose for last. i don’t think i’ve ever seen the spot healing brush used in a tutorial yet – and i know i’ve never really used it all that effectively myself – but watching it used in this video just clicked. when he first removed the glasses on the edge of her face, the skin colors were all mismatched and terrible looking, but then he dragged the healing brush around and it melded them all together very well and made it look ‘right’ again. i really like how the narrator in this tutorial makes sure to tell you exactly what he’s doing and, more importantly, HOW he’s doing it. he tells us which settings to use with tools and such to get the desired results. all in all this seems like it just takes a LOT of patience and detail-oriented work…but i think this tutorial is do-able, even for someone who isn’t advanced in their photoshop skills. one thing that really stands out for me in this tutorial – you see him screw up and then work through the corrections. makes it much easier to understand how to fix my own mistakes; this tutorial is very successful, in my opinion!

5 ways to customize adobe illustrator: http://vector.tutsplus.com/tutorials/tools-tips/5-ways-to-customize-adobe-illustrator/

i’m finding myself drawn back to illustrator tutorials since i’m less familiar with this program than photoshop! this tutorial is great for giving you ideas on bits of illustrator you can set up customizations for to make it more workflow-friendly and personal. the key here is that you have to know what you want! the first item mentioned here is keyboard shortcuts that you can implement into illustrator. as someone who has yet to memorize the shortcuts, just knowing how to get to this list is helpful for me! most things already have assigned shortcuts, but this allows you to make new ones for those that don’t. coolness.

next we have a bit on custom workspaces. this is great if you tend to like your screen set up a certain way. this is one i plan to do once i figure out how to KEEP my screen set up in a way i find the most comfie. LOL the author also gives us the pointer to save all these settings to an ipod or thumb drive for those instances we may find ourselves working on someone else’s computer – that way it’s our way no matter what!

the third customization given in this tut is for a new document profile. this is really cool, actually, as it makes it so that whenever you open a new document, the screen is set up how you like it, instead of the default illustrator way. this trick is built in to illustrator, though, and he links us up to the tutorial provided by adobe for this.

next up: scripts! this step was sort of unclear to me. i THINK scripts are sets of instructions that tell illustrator (in this case) what to do in a specific document to create a specific effect. for example, round any corner. the script runs illustrator through the steps, prompting the user to decide what radius you want, but then it does the actual rounding (versus the user having to do it?). this tutorial just tells us to load some scripts up. *shrugs* not too sure about this one, personally, but i wouldn’t be surprised to find it useful down the line!

lastly we have kuler. again, this doesn’t seem like a personal customization so much as just a tool to visit, so i don’t know why it was in this tutorial. it IS cool, though! kuler is an online collection of custom color palettes that illustrator users have created. it’s a great resource for inspiration and new color ideas. as a color junkie, i LOVE this!

illustrator’s paint brush tool and brush panel: http://vector.tutsplus.com/tutorials/tools-tips/a-comprehensive-guide-illustrators-paintbrush-tool-and-brush-panel/

this tutorial touches on the different paint brush-type tools and what they do. the paint brush works like the pencil, letting you ‘draw’ lines, but instead of just being a line, you can set predefined vector art to the paths you create. the calligraphic brush looks like an ink pen or paintbrush. the scatter brush (is fun!) does just what it sounds like: scatters predefined vector art/shapes on the path you create: think scattered stars, for instance. the art brush will define vector art as a brush. the pattern brush allows you to specify patterns and then apply them to a path.

you can either draw with the paintbrush or apply the brushes to a path. to draw, you would select the paintbrush tool, choose a brush from the brushes panel, and then draw. to apply, select an existing path and then select the brush from the panel.

i was stoked to see that this tutorial totally walks you through the preferences and explains what each one will do. i always feel like i need an encyclopedia to figure out what is what, so i found this incredibly helpful. the brush panel is also broken down for us here, and each option is described. 

this tut explains how to create(define) a new calligraphic, scatter, art, and pattern brush – and how to edit them and save them! nifty! we are also given places to check out brushes others created and encouraged to download them to try and figure out how to recreate them ourselves.

i give this tutorial two thumbs up. *grins*

so far, i’ve only done a handful of the computer generated photos so that i have the ten to post to my flickr page by classtime tomorrow morning. last minute much? 

i had to hand-select ox (and the hoola hoop in the pic below), cause apparently i’m blind and/or the powers that be decided to remove the extract tool when they released cs4. the help file was no help at all, as it came up with 0 solutions. i googled and checked out one hit (just now, again) to check out better help files, and now that i’ve already done all that work, i find a download that will give me the wonderous extract tool. SO…i will be doing that and then re-doing my original images again, methinks, this weekend. i want prettier extractions!

i’m so proud that i figured out how to add the hoola hoop semi-realistically here – just had to share. *grins*

that hoop (that i made, cause that’s what i do!) was pulled out of a picture of my daughter hooping. then i dragged it onto the ox picture, transformed it til i liked how it sat on him, and then used the eraser tool to get rid of the “backside” of the hoop – the trick i learned for this is to click the checkbox at the top menu bar (when you have the eraser tool chosen) – it says erase to history….this is MAGICAL! instead of having to clone stamp or bandaid everything, it literally just erases like you never dragged the object over. of course, ox was on a background (and thus locked) layer, so he was the history. so helpful and neat!

making the vector patterns and 4-color paint options was actually harder for me than choosing photos to use for the image option. i’m a photography junky, so have TONS of images that i love. i ended up using a photo i took (and manipulated) a while ago that has always been one of my personal favorites. it’s always felt sort of mystical and creative to me, so i felt that it really fit the art buildings well. i used the eyedropper tool to pull out the purple color found in part of the iris of the eye image to apply to the flanking buildings. purple is a color that has many associations with ideals held by the art community as a whole. plus it’s just really cool!

for the four-color option i ended up pinstriping all four structures with thin bright orange stripes interspersed with thicker aqua stripes. this sort of happened on accident, as i had an overall plan to have buildings on either side of the main art building have two different patterns (one vertical stripes in two colors, one horizontal stripes in two different colors), and then have them ‘mix’ on the art building and form a plaid. the plaid thing wasn’t working out for me, so it got ditched. after several favorable comments about this pattern, i stuck with it.

for my final proposal i decided to go vector. i LOVE this pattern! i don’t really know what prompted me to use polka dots…i’m sure it was something deep and meaningful, though. i didn’t want too much color added, but i really wanted to make it pop, so i went with just random spots getting any color. i really love bright, clear, candy colors, so of course i had to incorporate those in here. the pink flanking buildings just looked tasty, and the other colors i tried kind of took away from the main pattern.

for me, it was rather difficult to come up with what to write about in my proposals. i knew the basic premise of what we ‘should’ have…but i really wanted to make them more ‘me’. so a little tongue-in-cheek sassiness got added, which i hope brings a few grins to folks reading them! LOL

i had lots of fun with the letter patterns. it was challenging to find ‘regular fonts’ (ie not symbols or decorative that no longer looked like letters and numbers) that i like enough to play around with. don’t get me wrong, fonts are fabulous – but for making a pattern, i got really picky.

this image was created using the number six in desdemona font. i really like the swirly look to the eye of the six. by rotating the individual numbers and reflecting them, i was able to create an almost fleur-de-lis shape. i really like how the negative space took on such interesting shapes here, and the out-line only form of the numbers keeps this from being too heavy or overwhelming.

this was made using the capital letter w in giddyup std font. i created this totally by accident! i was having issues with the align function in illustrator, but loved the outcome, so i went with it. i like how this mimics the old spirograph designs i used to make when i was a kid. i also like how alternating rows appear slightly darker – i think this makes it more visually appealing and keeps this from being too repetitive.

this was made using the capital letter z in zapfino font. as with all the other patterns, my goal was to keep these from appearing like the letters or numbers they are. here i lined up the bottom (or top) of each z with the spine(?) of the one before it. the end result, i think, is simply fantastic! *grins* they look like pinwheels or some crazy flower. because the top of them are diagonal the overall lines ended up diagonal, which gives massive movement to this design. i think this would look awesome in colors, too!

this is created using the number 2 in bauhaus 93 font. i LOVE how this turned out. each ‘eye’ shape was made by taking the number 2, and then i reflected that both horizontally and vertically, and then reflected one of the other numbers, and then i put them all together at the bases. this ended up being a very heavy-feeling pattern, but i think it works well. the negative space is very interesting, and the shapes themselves appear to be staring at the viewer. creepy almost…but i like it! again, i think this would be fabulous colored.

creating swirling rainbows: http://tutvid.com/tutorials/illustrator/tutorials/swirlingRainbow.php                                    

this tutorial was alternately easier and harder than it looks. the swooshes were created by making an ellipse, direct selecting the bottom anchor point, and then deleting it – which resulted in a half-circle. copy and past that, reflect it horizontally, then move it over to make an ‘s’ shape on its side. copy and paste that and connect, join them all together and you have a lovely swirly shape. to get the lines all nice and pretty, you have to expand one, offset the path, ungroup, and make it the color you want. repeat as necessary until you have the number of lines you want. select them all and group together. pretty rainbow! he didn’t, unfortunately, go into how to do the masking and stuff to make it look neon like in the picture above. (boo!) i guess i’ll have to search out more tutorials for that. here’s my rainbow:

vector abstract glowing 3D ribs: http://tutvid.com/tutorials/illustrator/tutorials/lightRibsVector.php                          

this one ended up being much cooler than i thought it was going to be. the blend tool was used in this one to get the ‘ribs’, as he keeps calling them – basically the gold-colored stripey wave going from left to right in the photo above. he showed how after using the blend tool, you can select one side of the image and change the color – the other side will stay black, so it actually fades from one color to another. neat! i’m loving the blend tool like no other. *grins* here’s the part of this tut that is done in illustrator:

then we pull that stuff into photoshop on a picture (in this tut, anyways). to make the glowing effect, he duplicates the swooshy ribs, turns the top layer pure white, and then groups them – that’s how we can get the electric, neon-y glow! i’ll be trying that on my rainbow later, too. 

create iphone icons: http://tutvid.com/tutorials/illustrator/tutorials/iPhoneIcons.php                                                        

i thought this tutorial was going to be more of what i’ve watched already from this site, but i was kinda interested in how they made iphone-type icons. there is a totally practical use for the tilde key in illustrator! *grins* if you click to draw a line with the line tool, and then hold the tilde key down while dragging the mouse in a circle you get an awesome vortex-looking collection of lines! like this: (side note: that’d be kinda cool to see on the art building! LOL)

he also uses the pucker tool here, to really make the lines look like they are streaking inward. this is another tutorial that relies heavily on masking and various levels of opacity to get the desired effect. i’m still amazed that, basically, it’s nothing more than shapes added one on top of the other can give a flat object such convincing 3D effects. i couldn’t see a huge difference, but he actually showed a second set of steps in this tutorial that made the icon look more like a real iphone icon – something about the image being cut out instead of just dropped on top. 

super quick black and white images: http://tutvid.com/tutorials/photoshop/tutorials/quickBlackAndWhites.php                      

i decided to start hitting up photoshop tutorials since we’re staring that program in class! he shows us how to create a ‘decent looking’ black and white photo in this tutorial. quick and dirty, as it were. *grins* he basically makes copies of the original layer and plays with blend modes until he gets a desired look, desaturates it, and he’s done. this is only recommended if you’re totally pressed for time or have a bunch of photos you want to batch process and get ‘decent’ images when you’re done. for the good stuff, he tells us to check out the channel mixer or the black and white adjustment layer, or to check out the camera raw dialogue box. 

soft focus wedding photograph effect: http://tutvid.com/tutorials/photoshop/tutorials/softFocusWeddingEffect.php

this is a LOT of work for something that could easily be accomplished with a camera. he made several layers, cut out their heads, rearranged the layers, changed colors, changed opacity levels, applied several blurs…*breathes*…and all to warm up the photo and make the background blurry. it’s nice to know how to do this well, just in case you didn’t get the ‘right’ image from the camera, but i don’t see myself using the info from this tutorial often at all.