I’ve closed msn and all those chat things that could bother me and put up the Kanye West album Graduation. The song Flashing lights helped me get ideas and creativity so it’s in the video to hear. I fasten the video about 10x so you wouldn’t be looking at it for an hour but just as long as the music plays.

Although i noticed i could have left the last frame up for couple of seconds. So below are also the images of the final product and a 100% zoom to view the details.

Hope you like it.

Here is the video:

Flashing lights my way, graphic design from darjanpanic on Vimeo.

And here are the images:

So after another day of hard work on my graphic design projects, i took some time for myself and did something i sketched a day before. I call it “Almost winter” and is a practice of the composition and i really like how it came out.

The thing i liked was, that i used something from the class, put it on paper at home i inked it and now it’s here. MY little inked Bézier curve monster I learned 2 things from today, that i know how the Bézier curve works(again) and a little tip on how to get your concentration back for a while Anyway here’s the inked doodle:

Nothing much or special but i liked the idea of using something from the class and it was a nice practice.

Here’s a video, that shows, how can be bend time and see how we would look like in couple of years from now. Isn’t Phogoshop great?

Time from Aaron Nace on Vimeo.

Barcinski & Jeanjean

Nokia Music Almighty – All Styles, All Music, Almighty.

Hello Sour Sally!

Monster Lab

State of tomorrow

HUGO & MARIE – Creative Direction & Artist Management

Rubens Lp

Online portfolio of UK designer and illustrator Mike Harrison

Jose Ortiz – Motion designer

Epsonality

over one hundred songs, photographs, illustrations and animations

and is titled “NOIR”. One of their best chapters so far is a black and white one.

Less talk today here so you can have more time to view their work.

We have Photoshop today and can undo or delete our mistakes in the history. But just by looking at that print matrix for a second i noticed that each cut had to be the right one from the first try. It was about A3 format and lines were one by one. But the biggest thing that stroked me also was, it had to be inverted and mirrored so the picture would be good when printed!

Anyway the composition practice was inspired by the middle age graphic art prints. We got couple of sheets of paper where there were black and white copies of the middle age style. Our goal was to cut down the elements that were on a abstract level and then using the to make a composition.

Above is a sample image of one of the sheets. I’ll post a link below so you can download all of them and work the composition practice for yourself.

Starting the composition practice

So the first step is to find interesting elements and cut them out. As you zoom in on them you can still see the unique style of each line that is only made by a middle age graphic technique, it’s hard to fake these with photoshop. Here’s a image of some of my elements i have chosen:

Now when having these little elements, you need to think in a abstract way and position them so they work well with each other, connect them and make a balance. Add or remove items and see what it does. Spots and small circles have a really big impact in a composition. Triangles are also useful and powerful. Try using the shape/anti shape effect.

You will be finished, when you’ll get to the point, when if you take a element away, or add a element, the whole composition isn’t really going to work anymore.

Here are 2 examples that i have made:

Download the middle age prints and start your own composition practice

Here is the DOWNLOAD LINK to the layered psd that contains the middle age graphics.

Wanted to try something out today but it didn’t come out as i wanted. Was playing a bit with a pattern and the image. Too bad i didn’t have more time for it so here’s something made by me in 20-30min.

Things you need:

• Photoshop ;D
• Picture of a bottle or product – click here to download sample one
• Picture of a water splat, click here to download a free HQ one that also has transparency.

First open your picture of the product, i’ll be using a Finlandia bottle since i’m a fan of it’s design and quality. If you’re a fan of photography, you make make such photos in a 5€ macro studio. Also import the transaprent water photo (download it here). Duplicate it and hide the bottom one so you keep a clean original layer for later use. Set the other ones blending to “Screen”.

After that “scale down” and “position” the water layer to the product like the first picture shows below. The second picture is a zoom view. I have used the “Rectangular marquee tool” and used it on the “water layer!” but the width and the height is applied to the bottle since this is going to be blurry because i want the water splat too be behind the bottle. Use the “Layer via cut” option when right clicking.

On the new made layer, change the blending again to “Screen” and then go to Filter -> Blur -> Gaussion blur and blur the image. I have used the setting of around 3px. Clean the image a bit so it really does look like it is behind the bottle.

On the same layer, add mask to it and use the “Gradient tool” from left to right to make the ilussion perfect. Right click on the layer and use the “Free transforma”. Again right-click and choose “Warp”. Do a similar warp transofmation like the second picture below, apply when done. This will give the layer the look like viewing something through the bottle.

Duplicate the hidden water layer and make it visible, rotate it and scale it down like the first picture below and place it in the right position like the second picture shows. Try to really use the water and blend it with the object/product you are working on. Try to experiment with different shapes. Use a soft eraser and erase the left part that is too big.

The next step will be to delete the bottom right part of the bottle and break it’s shape. There is now a line that needs to be deleted (the first picture below). Mak a new layer and use a “white soft brush” and make the hole in the bottle like the second picture shows. After that, just hit “CTRL+I” to invert it to black. You can skip the white brush step though, i just did it like this to show you where i used the brush since you can’t see it in detail when you use black color on black.

The next step will be adding more water so again duplicate the original hidden water layer and use the “Eraser” to delete the unneeded parts like the second picture shows. I hided the other layers to easily see the whole water layer.

Make the other layers visible again (first picture). Duplicate it 3 times and make it a half circle that will fit the half-circeled lower part of the bottle. After that you will need to clean it. Use the eraser for that on the lover layers.

And you’re done. Play with it and use your own creativity to make it eben better. Here’s the final image:

How do you like my fanart? I hope you enjoy the tutorial.

And here it is…