musical zombie's homeroom of danger and muscles

welcome

as you can see now, i don't have any flashy banners and stuff to denote which parts of this topic is which. that's because i don't really care - my job isn't to show you my work, it's to teach you! as such, i don't think i need fancy little headers and things like that, although this might just be because i have no inspiration for such things and i'm much too lazy.

Me

so. a little bit about myself - i've been making graphics for upwards of two years, give or take a few months, and i use photoshop cs2. i taught myself how to use photoshop using photoshop 7 and eventually upgrade. i prefer to work in abstract, though i can make things that have a focal point that is a person or a character or whatever something like that yeaaah



if you want to be a student here, please pm me this application and i will get you on to my list.

Application
Program: (what program do you use to make graphics?)
Experience: (how long have you been using said program?)
Subject Matter: (what do you want to learn how to do? do you want to learn to make signatures, or abstract art, or what?)
Reason(s): (why do you want me to teach you, and why do you want to take the class? is it merely to better yourself, or do you want to do things for other people, etc)
Examples: (give me one or two examples of work you've done before.)

that's 'bout it


Pupils
Zant (Davy Jones, Tacheon, etc)
Shroomeh




Assignments
Tach: First, I just want you to make me a signature or a piece of art and incorporate one certain color scheme, but not so much in the sense of "blues" or "greens"; try using "vibrant" scheme, or "pastels", or something of that nature. I want to see how creative you are with your colors. Interpret the signature however you want, it doesn't matter to me. I need to "assess your ability in color use", whatever that means.

Shroom: create me a large piece with whatever you want to use so I can see where you're at in terms of your here-and-now skill.

alright, now that i have some pupils (tach and shroom), i will make your assignments. keep in mind, however, that your assignments will most likely be separate from each other; due to the fact that you both want to learn from me but you want to learn different things, your assignments will be specific to you and only you.

alright, so for tach, who wants to learn colors:

First, I just want you to make me a signature or a piece of art and incorporate one certain color scheme, but not so much in the sense of "blues" or "greens"; try using "vibrant" scheme, or "pastels", or something of that nature. I want to see how creative you are with your colors. Interpret the signature however you want, it doesn't matter to me. I need to "assess your ability in color use", whatever that means.

Shroom: create me a large piece with whatever you want to use so I can see where you're at in terms of your here-and-now skill.

err...this


...hope you like

editt: grr, wont let it show, theres a naughty word in the title. how gay

edit: ok, there we go

Quick crap but considering it's the first piece I've made in close to six months I'm happy with it.

Also, **** you shroomeh you're not allowed to be that exponentially better than me.

haha dude dont put yourself down. dont talk me up either, itll go to my head

oh and mz i have realized i dont really use or know anything about the dodge/burn tools. Any instruction on the subject would be great. cheerz boi XD

This hasn't been stickied yet, so I'll go ahead and do it.

Good luck with your class bro.

okay guys, i'll make a double post in a little while - sorry if i've been a letdown, but i've been totally busy and i was at a football camp at the local college and i was doing stuff so yeah i will judge your stuff later, teach some stuff and give new assignments

um k

Can I join?

shroom: i quite like it, but the outlines to the V's seem a little blocky, maybe try to smooth those out. i love the effect on the side with the realistic photo, it almost looks like a mirror. maybe try and make the vector side flow more gradually into the realistic side, as it's a pretty stark cutoff, especially with that black line dividing the two, though that may have been the effect you were going for, in which case fantastic job. when i use splatters, i try and go for a sense of symmetry (and this piece is based on symmetry) so maybe even out the splatters - the side towards the bottom seems a bit more lackluster than that of the top.

tach: i love the idea, but the only thing i absolutely hate about your color choice is the background. the gray dulls the colors and makes them stand out less, especially where the teal blue meets the gray. maybe choose something lighter, like a beige or something like that, so the colors have a chance to really show their stuff (look at me, giving life to graphics). watch your sharpening, as well - where the three colors meet at a point it's WAY too sharp and you can tell by looking at those discolored pixels. i like the shines you put on there, but maybe make them a little sharper and put a more gradual stop to the shiny bits as well


okay, new assignments and some teaching:

first the teaching though
shroom - burn and dodge tools are fairly easy to use and their great tools to know, as well. basically the burn tool makes things darker, and the dodge tool makes things lighter. it's great for lighting effects; if you want to change the implied direction of a lightsource on an object, for instance (eg if you wanted to make light shining on a person but the reflection on their skin was off a little bit). it's also good for general darkening and lightening if you need it. i tend to set the exposure to 50% so i can do it gradually if needed.

as for the "Midtones", "Highlights", and "Shadows", that refers to the part that you are actually darkening/making lighter. for instance, if you select Highlights on the dodge tool, it will only lighten the lightest parts in something, and will make them much lighter, as if light were shining directly on it. vice versa for shadows on dodge/burn, and midtones is pretty much the middle ground.

for your next assignment i want you to make a piece in which you use the dodge/burn tools and any other light tools to make your light source clearly evident and make it work nicely


tach - so i like your color choice, and the colors fit well. the main thing in color theory that you need to think about is if they're going to work together to create a sense of unity, whatever that means. when you're picking colors, think of things like complementary colors - colors that are across from each other in the color wheel.



generally the colors across from each other on the wheel are good matches and they can create harmony within a piece when used together

so for your next assignment i wanted you to pick two complementary colors and use them to the best of your ability in a work - it can be vector, a regular sig, whatever.

so, what's the next assignment?

for you, hyrule, i want you to make me a piece where you utilize geometric transparency. this doesn't necessarily mean that you have to make a piece of a bunch of triangles floating in the air, but rather that you can use geometric shapes to cut out of a piece. i want to see how well you can use ordinary shapes to make something creative.

not exactly satisfied with this, but