put on your retrospectacles...

...cuz we're gonna take a look back at works from the past, in true spirit of the brink of a new year. following are some graphics that i've done back in the days of auld lang syne. i've been so busy with classes and projects this semester that i didn't have the time and energy to sit down and do a tutorial. hopefully next semester will be better, but don't count on it. but optimism never hurts!

to the right there is cosmic christmas, a desktop wallpaper i created back in december 2001 with paint shop pro. i was very proud of it at the time. i was in both a spacey- and christmas mood, so that image captured both feelings perfectly.


next, we have just lookin', a graphic i drew with paint shop pro back in the fall of 2004. i ended up using it as a header for my blog over at tabulas, when tabulas was the in-thing among my web friends. heh. man, those were the days. i was obsessed with reflections and trying to make things look shiny.


river raft and rainy night are 2 of my favoritist (yeah yeah yeah, i know that isn't a word. sigh.) graphics. once again, these were created with paint shop pro, in summer 2004. i was mostly fooling around with the different tools. rainy night was a complete accident...i wasn't intending to make a figure in the picture (it was just meant to be an abstract landscape), but the shape just happened to look like a body with legs so i embellished it a little. with river raft, i was just tryin' to have some summer fun!





now, in the spring of 2005, i was drawing a bunch of animals for a multimedia project. i changed my project at the last minute so none of the animals were used, but i put quite a bit of effort in them so i'm proud of how they came out. here is a malaysian sunbear, which came out the best out of all of them. i did it in (guess) paint shop pro using the usual tracing method (found a photo, posterized it and then traced over the colored regions with the vector tool, adding in shading and other details in the end). It's not perfect, but I like it all the same.

finally, i wish to end with 2 images i drew following tutorials from pixel2life.com. they are a cartoon airplane and the now old-fashioned 1st generation ipod nano (with my imagined colors, of course). these were done with photoshop, in summer 2006. enjoy!


well that's it! hope you enjoyed my blast through the past, and more new things to come in the near future!

Another Extracting Exercise

Here's another pop-out effect, using a different technique. I think it's pretty cool!



The tutorial I followed is here, and the photo I used came from here.

An Extracting Exercise

I'm back! Started graduate school in information science. I miss doing graphics. I've got a new Macbook Pro 15.4" (my first Mac!) and have just downloaded a trial copy of Photoshop CS3 and here's my first creation with this new setup:


Used the extract tool in Photoshop to cut out part of this statue of Jesus Christ. Masking effects were then used to make the cutout appear to pop out of the original photo (below):



Photo is from Stock Exchange.
Here is the tutorial I followed.

thoughtprints: the revival

wow, it's been over 3 months. lots of things happened since i posted last. got a new job, got lots of freelance web design projects. got too lazy to devote any time to this. but i want to start it up again. soon. don't get your hopes up too high though (as if anyone's really reading this blog).

a tribute for collar

we had to put our beloved family cat to sleep on february 1, 2007. i will miss his 16 1/2 years of companionship. this tribute is just the first of many to come in his memory (though the other tributes will likely be in the form of physical scrapbooks).

cosmic scene #1

first attempt at space art. not bad! render clouds, lens flare. i also had my first introduction to advanced blending effects in photoshop to make fine adjustments to the blending. time: approx 30 mins. this tutorial.

christmas is not over

photoshop cs2. bevels, gradients, drop shadows and the pen tool. time: 1 hour, 40 minutes. i followed this tutorial. my trees don't look as smooth as theirs do because i haven't mastered the pen tool. that's something i definately need to practice this year. overall though, i'm happy with this and i learned some cool things you can do with bevels and gradients.

would make good stationery

adobe photoshop cs 2. playing around with gradients and filter effects. time: approx 25 minutes.

the 'roarer

photoshop cs 2. blending, filters, gradients, brushes. 25 mins. following tutorial: http://www.newtutorials.com/northern-lights-tutorial.htm

i'm not sure

media: photoshop cs 2. filters, layer effects, gradients, brushes, rotation. time: 15 mins.

introduction to the experiment

this "blog" is a new experiment. this entry will be the only one to contain text. the remaining entries will be strictly visual.

my primary media will be adobe photoshop, paint shop pro, illustrator, fireworks and maybe even ms paint. i'll experiment with all kinds of digital expression, from vectors to vexels to photographs to photo-illustration. i want to practice using art as a means of expressing myself on a regular basis. i will also use this blog as a learning lab -- that is, i plan to follow many of the wonderful tutorials out there on the web and post the results here.

this is my first attempt at a visual journal. i am by no means a traditional artist. i can't draw to save my life. i rely on tried-and-true methods for digital art and never had the time and patience to expand my skills. with this blog, i hope to change all that. i'll experiment with something new each time. whenever i follow a tutorial, i'll always give the tutorial site credit by posting its url. most importantly, this does not need to be a time-consuming pursuit. 15 minutes is plenty of time to create something halfway decent, especially as i gain more experience. it'll be interesting to see how much i grow as a digital artist by the end of the year.

with that said, sit back and let the experiment begin...