Tadd Mencer

Posts Tagged ‘Cs3’

Today’s ‘Tutorial Tuesday’ is brought to you by the great 10Steps web site. This site is stocking up on some fantastic ideas!

This tutorial uses Photoshop CS3 and Illustrator CS3 and the results are pretty sweet! I’ll be working on the next wallpaper for December, and this tutorial will DEFINITELY come in handy!

http://10steps.sg/photoshop/create-a-3d-flowery-text-effect

Some of you may know I’m working on a graphic novel with a friend of mine, Todd Morris. We’re hoping to start  the story soon (like, this summer) and we’ve been working on the creature design. Last night, in a fit of insanity, I started working on a human character. This is what I ended up with.

How I did it:

Creative a male in Poser 7. Make the pose and everything through there. Exported the rendered image as a TIF and imported it into Photoshop CS3.

In CS3 I copied areas of his body that would have the clothes. The legs and pelvis for his pants, torso and arms for a jacket and his feet for shoes. I desaturated these and started using the Liquefy tool to move the pieces around to make look like clothing. Then I started adding a few details to the jacket like the stripes and the zipper.

I started on the hair using two shades of brown and a 1px brush. The Wacom Graphire2 worked wonders and I just softly flowed his hair in a winded direction.

The glowing power hand I just make a soft circle, used the smudge tool and then motion blur. The sparks are a seperate brush that I painted and then added a glow to.

TADA! Here there it is!

Ok, I’m going to brag up my job. Why? Because I want to explain why this job is so great for me.

I arrive at around 8:30ish .. and that’s the time I set for myself. My manager said “eh, 8:30 – 8:45 or so” and I just personally decided earlier was better. So I usually get here before 8:30am (I was here at 8:15 today).

I get free breakfast and lunch – everyday. That’s right, they supply bagels, hashbrowns, hot pockets, bacon, eggo waffles and really anything that I might request to eat for breakfast – they’ll get. They also have all kinds of stuff for lunches: microwave dinners, lean pockets, panini, soups … all kinds of stuff. They have awesome single cup coffees (yum) and sodas galore. I think I’ve started actually eating HEALTHIER since working here since 2/3 of the foods are from diet type companies. Heck with two kitchens, you know I’m eating well!

I have a kick butt computer. It’s not top of the line, but DAG it is fast. Two 19″ LCD WideScreen monitors look fantastic. Bluetooth keyboard and mouse. Wacom Intiuos 9×12 tablet … great stuff. I have teh full Adobe Creative Suite CS3 which is fantastic. The new Photoshop is amazing. And I have to admit … I like Vista. It’s pretty slick. Has some nice features on it – though I honestly can live without them.

The job itself is pretty intensive. Fixing graphics sounds pretty lame, but there are a lot of things you need to do -whether it’s a static graphic, animated or a Flash graphic. Compression, branding, borders, disclosures … all kinds of stuff. I’m pretty busy with it, which is good – keeps me out of trouble. I’m also pitching graphic ideas for the new corperate website. Which, I’m hoping I can rock out hardcore.

Did I mention the THREE game systems we have? That’s right, we have a Nintento Wii, Sony Playstation 3 and an XBox 360. They’re on a pretty slick plasma screen … very cool gaming times. Not a ton of great games – but some pretty good ones. COD4, Assassins Creed, Uncharted … good games.

And the to top the cake: The people here are awesome. There isn’t one that I don’t like. Some will probably rub me the wrong way, but overall I like everyone. There are some that I feel more comfortable with right away. Others that kind of grew on me. But I’m feeling pretty happy here. I get lonely sometimes … people get their clicks or get over busy – but overall it’s great.

God is good.