Holiday Card for Soldiers #1

I was having trouble finding a good idea for the card so I focused on my favorite part of the holidays: making snow angles. It seems like a small thing to get happy about it but you don't realize how great it is until you can't make them anymore. The soldiers in Afghanistan won't be getting snow this holiday season unfortunately so I encouraged them to make sand angles. I had some trouble getting the words to match the curve of the wings so I had to make it three separate text layers and curve them one by one. 

Book Cover #2

I had to get Trevor to explain to me the plot of a book that I've never read before and he chose to tell me about the book "Moneyball" by Michael Lewis. I went for a play on words when I first started but then I went for perspective. It took some time but I finally got the bass too look like it was being hit out of the park. I had to duplicate the picture and scale it down a few times while lowering the opacity. I also blurred the background to make it look like the camera was focusing on the ball flying towards it. I enjoyed making this book cover.

Book Cover #1

I recreated a book cover for the book "Handle With Care" by JOdi Picoult. The book is about a little girl named Willow with Osteogenesis imperfecta (OI), also known as brittle bone disease, who's mother decides to fight for her behalf no matter what she has to do. OI is a very dangerous disease where a persons bones are incredibly weak and can break very easily. When an OI patient's bone break their eyes get a blue tint to them, especially when the break is severe. The book really struck me because the it was a very moving story so I wanted to make the cover striking but simple. I altered the picture to bleach it out a little bit then I used a layer mask to get her peeking through the cover. As a finishing touch I put a scratched texture over it to somewhat match the letters.

Poster #2: Tailgate

This is the second poster of spirit week advertising. This one is about the tailgate that happens before the homecoming football game. I made footballs out of hamburger patties and hot dogs. The, to add a little something extra, I put ketchup as the laces on the footballs. The text was a little hard to read so I did my best to make it recognizable but I suppose it depends on your point of view how well you can read it or not.

Autumn Art Show

This is a quick poster I came up with to help advertise for the autumn art show that my school hosts. All the information on it was required but I chose to add the wreath and make the font look greek-like. At first I was just going to have the orange wreath that I cut out of a tree in the fall but when I placed it on the already existing black wreath I thought it looked kind of cool. It made the wreath more dimensional. I enjoyed this project but at the same time it was a bit hard to come up with something without any guide lines. 

The Color Yellow

For this project we were told to take six pictures that showcased a certain color. My partner Trevor and I chose the color yellow/gold. We went around school grounds and took pictures of things that fit the criteria. Some of the yellow things were a bit faded so I increased the saturation to make the color more prominent. That way the focus is on the color yellow no matter what picture in the series you look at. Trevor edited the yellow leaves and trophy while I edited the mailbox, the WA symbol, and the field goal.

Poster #1: Karaoke

I made this poster for a lunch time activity for spirit week at my school. It was super simple the only difficult part of this process was making the glare. I actually made that glare from scratch and defined it as a brush so that I can go back and use it whenever I so desire. I had to inverse the picture's colors so instead of the glare being white and the background black, the glare was black and the background was white. That way, when I defined it as a brush, the color would be on the inside of the outline the brush created. I enjoyed this project. It was easy and it looks clean.

Tutorial #2: Filters

I went onto photoshopuser.com and did another one of their tutorials. This one was just messing around  with filters and blend modes. The first picture has only one filter on it because the actual picture was quite yellow in the first place. The second one has two on it. I was planning on putting the second one of the girl in the rain in a picture of a window so it was as if you were looking outside on a dark day and saw this. Unfortunately, I was having a lot more dificulty than I thought in finding a window to put this in and I had to post this ASAP so here is the unfinished product.

Tutorial #3: Fog Horror Film

This tutorial involved a lot of masks so I learned about how I can fill them with black or white and color them out with the opposite color but Im still not sure what difference it makes whether or not you use a black mask or a white one. The purpose of this tutorial was about making a face in the sky like when there is an intense part in a movie such as in Harry Potter when Voldemort's face appears in the cloudy sky. I a bit of trouble with getting the wisps of fog to make it look like they were being sucked into the holes where is mouth and eyes are supposed to be. 

Tutorial 1: Watercolor Painting

For this project I went onto photoshopuser.com and watched a tutorial about how to make a picture into a watercolor painting. I think it turned out pretty well. I learned about a few more features of photoshop when I was following the tutorial so I think its a win-win. I used a lot of textures in this and some turned out more prominent than others but I tried to stay as true to the tutorial as possible. I think the most influential texture was the canvas background so it looks authentic. Mrs. B said it would have been even cooler if I knew the people in the picture so I will work on getting pictures from the my house and sending them to myself so that I can open them up on here and alter those. I enjoyed this project I thought it was fun and I would do it again!

Wood Woman

Mrs. B showed us a calendar that had a black and white photo with multiple things going on for each month. Ours was a symmetrical background and driftwood. There was also a woman whos body was transparent yet her head was fully visible. Then there was a dark shadow be hind the woman. This was Trevor, Morgan, and mys best shot at it.

Tool Bar Project: History Brush

Trevor and I had to create a basic description about how to use History Brush. We went step by step to cover the process so that a new Digital Imaging student would be able to follow along. It wasn't difficult at all in fact it was almost too easy. 

Side Projects

While I was surfing the internet one day I came across some really cool pictures that looked like they were turned inside out. So, me being the curious person I am, looked up how to make such wonderful pictures and this is what I came up with. This wasn't a project, just personal intrest. Enjoy!

Cumulative Project

For this project we were suppose to put a few pieces that we've done this year together in one image with some fake info about us as if this was our business card. I personally made each of the elements in this project. I made fireworks in the skyline picture, the lighthouse to the sailboat picture, made the city picture into a circle, and took a cut out of the Colosseum.

Anime #2

This is my second anime and this time I chose to brighten a few colors along with cartoonizing a few elements. I made the boat a bit bigger and spruced up the girls dress. You may not be able to see it very well but I also posterized the rest of the picture as well.

Anime #1

For this project we were suppose to cartoonize a picture. We needed to accent a few features of the picture so I chose the eyes and her hair clips. I tried to make them look 3D so that the picture really popped. 

E Pluribus Unum: One out of many

Throughout the movie Paul constantly showed his courage and willingness to help people in danger. He has chances to leave where he lives but he stays behind to help those who have no where to go. He is stepping up and standing out in order to do what is right.

Movie Poster

Our task was to make a movie poster for the movies Hotel Rwanda. I chose two of the most striking images from the movie in my opinion. Both of the pictures capture true fear of what will happen to them. 

Text Illistration

Our assignment was to choose a word and illustrate it using pictures and themes from the movie Hotel Rwanda. I chose fear and used some of the most touching and prominent scenes from the movie. Then instead of cutting the picture out to spell the words I cut out the words from the picture. This way I got to use more of the image and get the full effect of their fear. 

Hidden Image

Our teacher showed us a picture where a man's face was hidden in an up close picture of coffee beens. She challenged us to make our own hidden picture. I tried to do the same kind of thing with these bees and a pair of moth wings. One of these bees does not look right can you find it?

Silhouette: Mask

This project is similar to the other silhouette picture I made recently but in this one I used clippings of my photos I made myself. I didn't like the part that we had to use our own photos. I started doing this with really interesting landmarks but then I realized it had to be our own work so I settled for this. It was somewhat enjoyable non the less.

Silhouette: Hands

For this project we were suppose to take pictures and cut out part of them in any shape we wanted. Once that was done we put a different color overlay on each picture. I enjoyed this project because it was fun getting the perfect cut. Projects like these give the perfect guidelines because they tell you what to do without being too restrictive. 

Animoto

http://animoto.com/play/XSc61szCkZSxBrLroeIj5w

I made an Animoto video out of some of the projects that I've done throughout the year so far. I really enjoy the Animoto website because it's quick, easy to follow, and fun to play around with. The free version is only 30 seconds so I put in some of my favorite pieces. I would definitely  like to do this again sometime.

Photoshopuser: Fireworks

This was the second tutorial that followed that wasn't a video but screen shots and instructions instead. I prefer the videos because I can listen to the instructor while I work on my own photo rather than having to switch back and forth from page to page like in the written article. The Fireworks tutorial showed me how to use a layer mask and color overlay which was helpful. This was a quick and easy to follow tutorial.

Photoshopuser: Neon Glow

This tutorial was about drop shadows and inner glows applied to live text. The great part about applying these effects to live text is that if you misspelled something you can go back and change it without having to start over. I also learned that it doesn't matter what color the text is to start out with because you can just make the opacity 0 and it will go away, that is if you only want the glow to show. In this case I do because it is a neon sign and neon glows quite a bit. This was a quick and easy project which was alright.

3D Chair: Graffiti

For this project we had to make a chair 3D with random pictures from the internet. I was thinking of cool designs to make the upholstery for the chair when I found a bunch of graffiti. I ended up making a face with the pieces I found. This project is alright I just don't understand why we have to make two because one took long enough. I warped each image to fit the odd shape of the chair and in the end I had to adda drop shadow so that the chair looked 3D. 

Photoshopuser: Metal Text

This tutorial was about making text and a simple design resemble a metal plaque. I didn't quite get it right  because it only looks like a basic bevel and emboss with a shiny gradient. Unfortunately it was the best i could do. Even so i think it turned out somewhat metallic which is good if we are trying to get a shiny gold. The tutorial was easy to follow and I enjoyed making this.

Photoshopuser: Flower Vortex

Our assignment was to go to photoshopuser.com to watch some tutorials and then replicate what we saw in the video. The cool thing about the tutorial i watched this time was it showed me how you can record all of your actions and then play them back again, doing the same things over and over. This saves so much time compared to going through each step every time you make a new layer. I twisted the smaller pictures so it looked even cooler. I really enjoyed this tutorial and I am happy to keep exploring!

Inside Out

This is an orange with the actual fruit part cut out and different images replaced it. All of these images are purely from nature. Every one of them are pure and unaltered by humans. There are trees, insects, rocks, and plants. It represents that oranges are also made by nature and aren't altered by humans, unless you get all critical about off season and what not when they add chemicals to them so that they grow in excess quantities. Nature is beautiful without the harsh things that us humans put into it such as garbage littlering beaches, cutting down trees to build housing developments, and even putting insect poison on plants so that they will protect the plants but kill the insects. I believe that the most beautiful things on this planet are made by nature for us to enjoy but not to mess with. This project is probably my favorite so far.

9 Different Filters

For this project we had to take a picture and put 9 different filters on it to alter the image and arrange it any way we liked. I took a picture of me and added a variety of filters, some of which were vertical grain, posterize, bloched, history brush and more. I enjoyed this project I just didn't have much time because I was out when most of this project was being completed so it is late. It didn't take too much longer to finish then I had expected. This project was fun and enjoyable.

Midterm

For the midterm I used a a few of my own work and a few off the internet. I personally made the lemon lime one while in the middle of producing this work. I somewhat enjoyed this project but at the same time it would have been nice to have some guide lines on the what pictures we should use. Such as making the pictures only be of circles or something. I attempted to make a checker board with different shapes in every other box. 

Christmas Card

This is a quick holiday card that I threw together. The pictures are both just random families from the internet. One of them was colored and one of them was on a grey scale so I decided to just make them both on the grey scale. At first I put red and green christmas lights along the red curves but it took far too long and it didn't look as good as I was hoping it would. Thats when I came up with the idea of holy, which i think turned out pretty nicely if I dont' say so myself. It was a nice, easy, quick project. I enjoyed it