Thursday, February 28, 2008

Hope, Revisited


So, this is one of the projects I've been working on. You might recognize the picture from this post, though obviously it's now more colorful.

I've been learning more about Photoshop in what feels like leaps and bounds- it seems like every day I spend working with it, I learn a tremendous amount about how to make it work. So, since I've been getting more comfortable with using it, and my understanding of it has gone beyond using the paint bucket, I thought it might be fun (and educational, kids!) to revisit some of my older posts with the intent of coloring them, or otherwise applying my small amount of new knowledge to making them look even better.

Yes, I know- this means I'm not drawing as much. It's a little crazy for me, but I'm really starting to appreciate the idea of Photoshop-created art being just as valid as regular penciled drawings. Crazy! But I find my brain does a better job of telling Photoshop what to do versus telling the pencil what to do.

The picture- um, that's probably about 6-8 hours' work. There are 10 or 12 layers there as well, and God only knows how many colors. I think, were I to repeat this, I could do it in half the time. As usual, I do a lot of thinking on the fly, and a fair number of attempts didn't work out. But, I'm really pleased with it. Still not 100%, but a damn sight better than how I first colored the pictures. (One other thing- if some parts of the picture seem a bit flat, or blocky, or the coloring off, the original Photoshop file of this is about 40Mb in size; this jpeg is about 750kb. Not denying it might be me, but I'm just sayin' :)

Cheers!

Music- "Save Me" - Shinedown

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