Mantis: Attack!
I spent today mediating a truce between Photoshop, my PC and my scanner, in order to work on a logo for my business. After a bit of digital finger-painting with a fresh tube of purple pixels, I have a new logo captured in the form of a journal icon. I hope it looks okay... it was a good excuse to find out how to colour in pencil sketches. The original version is a bit plain without any text, so I made a skyline to put behind it.
Pre-school level photoshop notes: (mostly for my benefit, in case I try something similar in future). One day I'll figure out what the other eight million buttons do...
Pencil sketch: scan, desaturate to remove colour, clean up with brightness/contrast and a white brush. Take a thin black brush and fix up any mistakes.
Colour: Select all the non-picture bits, invert the selection, make a new layer and fill it with purple. Dodge and Burn to add highlighting and shading where needed, drag the outline layer above the colour, and set the layer to Multiply so the white disappears.
Background: Draw some buildings with the Polygonal Lasso tool, fill the selection with a brown gradient. Invert the selection, make a new layer for the sky, and fill it with a red-brown gradient. Dodge and Burn cloud patterns into both layers, and hit the skyline with a few Gaussian Blur filters until it fades into the smog.
On an entirely different note, this (in my wholely biased opinion) could be the Best Game Ever, if Octopus ever release it. 'It Came From Hollywood' lets people play giant monsters destroying major American cities, using a DDR dance pad to stomp on fleeing civilians and topple landmarks... and yes, you can play a giant praying mantis :)
Pre-school level photoshop notes: (mostly for my benefit, in case I try something similar in future). One day I'll figure out what the other eight million buttons do...
Pencil sketch: scan, desaturate to remove colour, clean up with brightness/contrast and a white brush. Take a thin black brush and fix up any mistakes.
Colour: Select all the non-picture bits, invert the selection, make a new layer and fill it with purple. Dodge and Burn to add highlighting and shading where needed, drag the outline layer above the colour, and set the layer to Multiply so the white disappears.
Background: Draw some buildings with the Polygonal Lasso tool, fill the selection with a brown gradient. Invert the selection, make a new layer for the sky, and fill it with a red-brown gradient. Dodge and Burn cloud patterns into both layers, and hit the skyline with a few Gaussian Blur filters until it fades into the smog.
On an entirely different note, this (in my wholely biased opinion) could be the Best Game Ever, if Octopus ever release it. 'It Came From Hollywood' lets people play giant monsters destroying major American cities, using a DDR dance pad to stomp on fleeing civilians and topple landmarks... and yes, you can play a giant praying mantis :)