sugarpoultry's homeroom

Shapes are very interesting and worth learning. You can do cool things with these that you can't do with brushes.

Question: How the hell do you smudge like they did in the breathe tut? What size brush do you use, and is it a hard one or what? Mine always like like some dumb warped thing.



Look at the state of that. FYI, 65 soft brush.

I sometimes use the leaf brush, splattered to smudge and stuff. You can use almost any brush, as long as its set right.


K, this is the second tutorial. I learned a lot of new things.

ROFL. My attempt at breathe was pretty much a failure. Perhaps I didn't use a stock with enough colour, but Sean William Scott is the boy anyway.

Breathe Tutorial:





I sucked at this tutorial. Is there anything good about it? I seriously had problems with everything. The blurring, the glowing dots, the brush strokes, everything.

EDIT: I could have made it a lot better, but trying to stick close to the tut ended up making it bad. I can probably retry with another stock that has more colour, if you can give me tips on how to do the things I had trouble with. I'll have a go at the other one, too.

You just have to experiment. The glowing dots are just large soft brushes. Sometimes the best outcome is the easiest thing. The lines and stuff I think can be done with pentool. If you don't know how to use those, I can post a few tuts that will help. Also, I think there are a few here on ZU.

I'll try making a sig with this tut later today. This is a sig I made a while ago with this same tut. I believe the outcome was spot on to what the tut wanted.


I think your outcome was very nice, nice use of space. The clipping mask on his arm might be too much.

Bleh, the whole thing looks like a mess. It doesn't blend well at all. I did use a pentool, just a bad use of colours again.

Do I at least get points for the choice of text?

Originally Posted by GKANG

Bleh, the whole thing looks like a mess. It doesn't blend well at all. I did use a pentool, just a bad use of colours again.

Do I at least get points for the choice of text?

Hehe I suppose. The text flows nicely. The font is a lot like mine in the InuYasha sig.

See, tutorials are harder than everyone thinks. Haha!

Originally Posted by sugarpoultry

Hehe I suppose. The text flows nicely. The font is a lot like mine in the InuYasha sig.

See, tutorials are harder than everyone thinks. Haha!

Especially if you don't allow us to deviate at all >_<. One of the biggest problems with my first attempt was that I practically lost the pentool brushes about half way through. You can't even tell they're in that tag. I should have used white or something.

Well, once you do the tut all the way through, without changing things, you learn stuff. You learn what works and what doesn't. You learn to take bits and clips of a tut and work to your advantage.

Hey, just want to apologize for not posting after expressing interest. I've had some internet problems this week and little time to resolve them between school and work, but now it's all cleared up, so I'll be playing catch-up in the next day or so.

That's fine. No rush really.

OK, here's my stab at using Photoshop Actions.



Here's the original and here's the action set I used.

I used all of the 17 actions it provides, though I was very selective with the way the layers stacked. Sort of inspired by the demo pics for a lot of these photoshop actions, I laid it out with strips from each of the different action results, and then erased what I didn't like.

The effect I ended up with is a lot of washed-out colors, starker contrast, and some neat box-lights as if coming through cellar windows or something, which suits pretty well.

It could still use a border, probably something simple, but I might play with it some more first.

I can see actions being pretty useful if I make my own: for borders and effects I use a lot. But a lot of the standard actions I see on DA do pretty simple things with color balance/levels/etc. that I prefer to just adjust myself. The photo border one you used is cool though, sugarpoultry.

Hey that's pretty awesome, but one thing you should consider; your sig is very busy. Lots of guys in it. But its not a bad thing all the time. The main focus is that guy with the dragon on his shoulder. Next time, I'd try just using one guy. You don't want multiple figures in a sig. And if you do (points to your own signature), keep it in one focal area. Liah is so wonderful with sigs.

All right, good point.

I'm working my way through the first tutorial now. Lots of fun.

EDIT: Here's my results with the Breathe tutorial.



Original here.

Though you do a lot of things to it, the color scheme is ultimately determined by your original stock, and like GKANG I'm not sure I like the colors in the end. But it was fun and taught me some cool stuff.

Originally Posted by Ja-kun

All right, good point.

I'm working my way through the first tutorial now. Lots of fun.

EDIT: Here's my results with the Breathe tutorial.



Original here.

Though you do a lot of things to it, the color scheme is ultimately determined by your original stock, and like GKANG I'm not sure I like the colors in the end. But it was fun and taught me some cool stuff.

That's not bad. I'm liking it actually. The colors could be changed a bit. I think the focal (the frog) should stay the original colors and do some different (lighter) colors around it. Nice job.

I'm not a big fan of the border. I'd make it a solid black personally.

I haven't retried any assignment yet, but I have been making a few sigs using tips I've gained from other tuts. You said I could post other works for your critique, so here they are :>





I'll retry the breathe tutorial again sometime soon, as well as the second one.

Ooooh I LOVE the first one! Nice use of clipping masks, great colors, the text fills in the space nice and it goes well with the sig.

The second one looks ok, the image looks a bit low quality (always remember to use high quality images, or else it will ruin your sig). It might be a little to vibrant, but other than that, nice use of space.

Originally Posted by sugarpoultry

Ooooh I LOVE the first one! Nice use of clipping masks, great colors, the text fills in the space nice and it goes well with the sig.

Good good (:

The second one looks ok, the image looks a bit low quality (always remember to use high quality images, or else it will ruin your sig). It might be a little to vibrant, but other than that, nice use of space.

Actually, that background image was better quality than it looks. I just raped it with effects >_<. Also, she wanted it vibrant and happy, so it may be over the top, but bleh :<

Originally Posted by GKANG

Good good (:



Actually, that background image was better quality than it looks. I just raped it with effects >_<. Also, she wanted it vibrant and happy, so it may be over the top, but bleh :<

Ah, requests are different. I wouldn't use those for these assignments, as how you do whatever the costumer wants ya know? Keep those separate. Unless they let you have FULL ARTISTIC FREEDOM. The Bella sig was a request, but he just wanted Bella in a sig, nothing more, he let me do whatever. Luckily he liked it. hehe

I've revised both sigs based on your feedback, Sugar. Better?