Photo’s by: Gary “Freehand Profit” Lockwood. Aside from a crop, addition of text, and a lil shadow, this is basically what Gary sent me when I told him I needed some pix for my Channels exploration. GOOD LOOKIN OUT GARY!!!
A spin on #drawsomething as a stress reliever. I’ve never played it before but the guys at work are ALL ABOUT IT!!! I made a template themed after the real game in Photoshop. Here’s what I came up with:
Download it and show me your FACE!!!
SMART OBJECT WTF?!?! =D So now that I had a chance to play with them since N.S.L WK.16 I kinda can’t live without them now. Mirage was wondering what all the fuss was about and I figured I should learn how to use them correctly since I use them so much… 2hrs of Deke’s “The Power of Smart Objects” and my head was stuffed! I’m sure I forgot other shixx cuz that was a bunch of info =D
Every 3months, I decide my website needs a facelift. I’m getting a jump on it and I used what I learned about Smart Objects to create this header:
I brought in Rocky & the pattern from Illustrator as Smart Objects. I created new Smart Objects in Photoshop for grouping and color adjustments.
I had no idea what I was getting myself into when I started trying to understand patterns in Adobe Illustrator. Super brain drain, but what kept me going was symmetry. Tedious, OCD, SYMMETRY!!! I keep saying Adobe software is a lot like the game Zelda. PATTERNS PROVE ME RIGHT!!! but now I am “in the loop” and it’s time to slay these patterns. The trick is all in the rectangle. It must be a rectangle using the rectangle tool, no fill, no stroke, and sent to back. Sounds easy enough, but I messed it up a couple of times before actually getting it right.
I looked up One-On-One: Advance- Patterns by Deke for CS4 & CS5. I just followed him step by step on my first try. Here’s a couple shots of the steps along the way:
If you told me last year that Adobe Acrobat can do more than just show me PDF’s,,,, we woulda been fighting cuz I woulda thought you were lying to me =D These past couple of months have been a huge eye opener for me. That’s what makes this “Never Stop Learning” exercise like a drug for me. I just keep learning all kinds of crazy shixx that I can do with my Adobe Suite that makes me a way better designer (still got a long way to go). The Adobe Suite is like Zelda. It’s just this long journey that never ends with all kinds of secrets hidden inside =D
(CLICK IMAGE)
Above is the Cover Sheet/Link to my first crack at making a portfolio in Adobe Acrobat Pro X. It’s a WAY BETTER look than how I use to do it. I would ask people for their email so I could send them jpeg’s and tell them to just view it in preview… HOW EMBARRASSING!!! or I’d try and get “fancy” and make a giff that would fade from one image to the next and wonder why my gradients would look horrible… smh
I’m learning how to use Photoshop and Illustrator to make cool designs. Now I’m learning Acrobat Pro so I can make cool portfolios to show off my cool designs. Now I found out that I can custom make my own portfolio layouts in Ai and Flex… so now I gotta learn Flex TOO??? Man, I got a lot of work to do!!!! =D
Just in case you can’t open the portfolio, here’s a screen shot of it:
I decided it was time to jump into some Gradients in Illustrator when I was at the Digital Media Artist meetup. Channa Messer was a presenter and she showed us a really cool way to add a gradient to text while still keeping it fully editable, AWESOME! I realized I kinda shy away from the gradient tool in Illustrator… I’d have to say because I can’t control it as easy as the one in Photoshop. Thanks to Deke, I got to see what these gradients can do in Ai.
Here’s my basic outline:
Sebastian Bleak 