Yodelheck's digital baby steps

[» yodelheck]

I started delving into adobe cs3 a few months ago, and have decided to create a diary of my process.

My intention is to eventually build a website for myself....

 

Illustrator:

 

 

This is agape's b+w hand drawing, scanned. I vectorized it and colored it in. (Release date of tryptamonic colouring book TBA):

 

 

 

A pretty simple Photoshop mix:

 

 

More Illustrator, playing with the same shapes as above.

 

My failed attempt at Phong's e-plastic:

 

K, thats it for this week, kids. Any and all feedback is welcome!

[» air]

Nice start, yodelheck.
This thread is a good idea, centralizing your flow.

My advice would be to learn your hotkeys and always use Photoshop with two hands,
doing your best not to search through menus for functions or tools when you can train
your mind and body to do it more quickly and efficiently.  In the long run it makes a big
difference in how many things you can try or get done before fatiguing.

Pod bless Trevor Morris for these amazing hotkey PDFs.

Other than that, experiment with layer properties (learn what Multiply, Overlay and Screen are all about) and
layer opacity.  Use Layer Masks instead of actually cutting into layers altering their shape forever with no way back.

Hit up Phong's tutorials and the ones here on the fora.

I have been using PS for about fourteen years and I can tell you it's deep and there's tons to learn.

Here's a Jedi level tip:  Hold down Command+Option (Control+Option) and right click any part or pixel on a layered file.
Keep an eye on your Layers window and watch the highlighted layer change as you click around. You can grab elements
on different layers this way and once you have them hold down Command/Control to get the Move tool and you're all set to
make some rapid changes.  To move a copy of the element hold down Command+option (Control+Option).  This kind of stuff
and really knowing the power of the Free Transform Tool can facilitate some meta.

 

 

[» yodelheck]

Thanks for the tips, Air. I'm using the hotkeys alot now!

Here's a poster I made, remixing a scan of analog art with new colors, and popping some text bubbles on top.

 

[» yodelheck]

I've been playing around with lines in illustrator and then exporting to photoshop and doing colors, effects, renders, etc. I'm starting to understand why people use waycom tablets, cuz drawing in illustrator is constraining and slow....i'll have to borrow one sometime

 

These three pieces use some of the same shapes throughout that are stylized differently:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Practicing web stylz with a Delvish word:

 

 

My first flyer!! :

 

 

And the header to my new blog:

 

[» yodelheck]

 

 

>>> colors are a bit off for web- this is maybe 25% the size i'm going to print this..... 

[» phong]

^^^ Wow this thing is alive just staring me in the face.

Interesting medium.

 

Have you spent any time studying traditional Native American forms? Or Tibetan Thangka Paintings?

I think your work could be more powerful if it represented actual earth land deities

in addition to these abstrakt elves from hyperspace...

 

Sky, moutains, rivers, cities, birds, fish, humans, whales, human spirits etc?

What's a spirit animal?

 

Fun!

 

 

[» yodelheck]

>>Thanks for the nudge, Phong. I kinda geeked out on some rendering that I just figured out, and feel that ^^this^^ doesn't express my highest vision, more of an exercise to learn the technical skills. I feel that it is a bit too synthetic, lacking the biophilic spirit that energizes my life-force toward planetary healing and wisdom culture. <<

 

I've spent some deep time in the wilderness (mostly wilderness canoe trips in northern and western Ontario, up by Mistassini in Quebec, upper Manitoba and Nunavut and across to Hudson Bay) Jack pines, black spruce, caribou moss, caribou herds, big sky, arora borealis......

 

But my spirit [and art] is most deeply influenced by a two and a half month walkabout and paddle through the Kimberley region of northwestern australia. The ancient Gwion Gwion rock art there, some say 40.000 ys old, second oldest in the world after glyphs in France, is some of the most graceful, sophisticated and timeless stuff I've ever had the blessing to experience.

  (This image is already on the web, so I feel ok showing it...the paintings we saw were even more elaborate, but also had those [pregnant] bulges...)

 

It is very sacred to the natives there, who claim no connection to the distant cultures that created them, but steward them and forbid photographs, always resisting disrespectful western incursions. Only accesible by months of trekking and an initiated guide, the pieces we saw remain hidden from the cameras of helicopter-riding  archeologists. My favorite examples depict what appear to be some kind of higher spirits or maybe a galactic intelligence.

 

I would like to work toward bringing through more of the inspiration from those and other Gaian exchanges. 

 

 

This being said, I altered things to bring a little more balance into the piece, and just got a 30"x30" print made of this new version below [with darker levels], for a benefit at the Church of Bass:

 

[» yodelheck]

digital stuff i've been working on the last few months:

 

 

this is Illustrator shapes that will eventually get color and effects and all that good stuff. I think I need to actually start learning some more advanced rendering shtuff.....

 

 

 

and then i took my favorite part of that and expanded on it seperately:

 

 

(hopefully that ^

will be expanded further....)

 

and here's something that got colored and popped out......kinda need to move beyond the simple bevel/emboss stuff......

 

 

Thats it for this edition of yodelheck's digital baby steps!

 

 

[» yodelheck]

a little more finished version of that piece:

 

 

[» yodelheck]

This is a hand drawing that I scanned and played with a little in PS. This piece is feeling a bit sparse....wondering how to place a subtle background or create more context so that its not just floating above a blank color.

I'm getting a wacom tablet soon, and I think this could be a good candidate to try it out on. 

 

[» yodelheck]

I just learned how to do this smoke effect using /wave/ > /fade wave/ in PS. I also just got a Wacom tablet!! So this is my first little foray into some new possibilities:

 

[» yodelheck]

 i put a little more love into this one.....making brushes out of the smoke stuff.......think i'm gonna play with those grayish blue glossy smoke things a little more......and work on the eyes........this waycom tablet ROCKS!!

 

[» musko]

Whoa! Your most recent piece is coming along great!