Grunge Photo Effect Walkthrough

Because I'm doing a grungey-type cover I scrolled through google in search for suitable tutorials, but this time focusing more on photo manipulation. I found one here, and decided to try it out but making my own adjustments to it.

Photo Stock | mjranum-stock on DeviantART

So I first downloaded the stock provided that I thought was suitable for a grunge effect in Photoshop, and duplicated the background layer. This is because I was going to do lots of editing on it so I didn't want to ruin the original image in case I went wrong. I called this duplicate "Grunge".

 

The Client & Their Needs

General Information


Name: Jonny Pain
Members: Connor Moor - Vocals/Guitar
Tom Fricker - Guitar/Vocals
Rob Qureshi - Bass/Vocals
Larry Turner - Drums
Genre: Post-Hardcore, Rock & Metal
About: "Taking a love of Post-Hardcore, Rock, Metal and all alternative styles, with brutal pig squeals, catchy riffs and epic chorus lines.Born out of an old project taking the songs and adding to them with a fresh perspective, new musicians and new songs." - Taken from their Facebook page, Jonny Pain

Image Source: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Jonny-Pain/175601632525413


Inspirations: Iron Maiden, Deaf Havana, Foo Fighters, Bon Jovi and Metallica.

The Dance

Drew this when I was just about to go to sleep. It’s a wonder what happens to you when that happens. One minute I was curled up in bed and the next I was sketching away. Even though I do like the sudden spark of inspiration it’s a bit of a pain having to drew whilst half asleep.

This is dedicated to my mum and dad who were both born in the year of the rabbit. Planning on giving this to my mum - my dad passed away 3 months ago - to show her that even though he’s gone he’s still watching over her. 

Metallic Grunge Type

Did some experimenting in Photoshop today with different layers styles by following this tutorial. I don't want to look at just how many screenshots I took of each step...

To see my screenshots of my step-by-step process please click here.

Typeface | Rothenburg Decorative
Brushes | Subtle Grunge Brushes 

LizJOwen - Metallic Grunge Type

I did some experimenting with layer styles in Photoshop today because I wanted to start playing around with different typefaces (as the main focus is on typography after all). I used this tutorial that I found by typing "grunge type tutorials" and I thought it would be really good to use in future.
I took some screenshots because it's a bit of a habit now, and I also want to show you how I did it step-by-step. It wasn't really necessary as you could easily just look at the tutorial... But oh well!

Typeface | Rothenburg Decorative
Brushes | Subtle Grunge Brushes 

I first start by creating a new document at 72dpi and 1800x1300px. I filled in the background layer with black and then created a new layer - Grunge Brushes - and just took a couple of the brushes and dotted them around, varying with different styles to create more texture.

To-Do List

My projects always start with a to-do list of some sort. I don't know why but I just find it so much easier when I have one of these lists because during those projects I didn't... Well, imagine me just rushing around the room waving my arms like a lunatic. Yes, I have panic attacks when I don't know what I'm doing.

I've been doing these lists for as long as I can remember - I do them on a daily basis when I know that there's a pile of things I needed to get done but I had put off because I am procrastinating too busy. I like to be organised and know what kind of "deadline" I was working under.

So this is my to-do list for my Live Music project:

• Mood boards - business cards, logos, CD covers
• Design Brief & L. Outcomes - analysis
• Background info. on band
• Sketches
• Screenshots
• Evaluation
• Tutorials 
• Research - type, business cards, music genres, logos, CD covers

I'll just tick these off when I have done them.

(Okay now that I've done this I'm kind of worried that I won't have time... I guess that is a downside to creating a to-do list!)

Live Music Brief & Learning Outcomes Analysis

As usual, I have taken parts of the design brief and the learning outcomes that I find are the most important key points. I would have to abide to every one of these key points in order to come out with a successful project.

Live Music Design Brief

University of Kent at West Kent College

HND  Graphic Design

Year 2, Term 1/2

Project:   Live Music Brief

Module: Graphic Design and Typography 2

Une Annonce Importante

(Feeling a bit of the ooh la la vibe of la France.)

In case you don't know French, I have an important announcement to make! From this day I shall be using this blog for my uni work. ("Uni work?" "Ah, oui.") This is because I learnt a very important lesson that working on Word and having to print out everything the day before the deadline is a killer; it takes far too long and I have several panic attacks when I thought I hadn't saved a document etc etc.

This means that I'll be blogging a lot more (yay!) and it won't be of endless sketches and final pieces, but also of my research stage. I normally hate to put out my research to the public because of people just strolling along and copying & pasting my words and using them as my own, so I have included a little notice on the side of my blog saying please do not steal my ideas. It would be great if you could follow this as well! I might make it bold and shiny so that it'll attract your attention or have like a cat gif or something, tehe.

Aherm anyway enough rambling for now - I really shouldn't have drunk that tea - and onto whatever post I'm going to post next! I suppose I might as well start with a to-do list... Hmm.

Until next time,
Lizzie.

iPhone Apps

So in my first year of uni one of my projects was to create an App of seven measuring devices: thermometer, pedometer, barometer, anemometer, speedometer, altimeter and decibel. In all honesty this project gave me much grief because I had lost all of my work as I was halfway through the project, so not only did I have to start my designs all over again I also had lost all of my previous projects. Taught me never to solely rely on memory sticks ever again...

Et voila! Here are les designs (or dessines en francais, but I can't really remember whether it is that or not...) for my app of which I dubbed "MD Apps" for Measurement Devices Apps. It was one of the rare occasions where I had only used illustrator to produce my designs but I still feel that I need to practise on it a bit more.

I quite liked my apps because of the consistency in the designs which meant that you could tell they all belonged to the same group. Woop woop!

Avicide Illustration

In my last couple of posts I showed you the final design for both of my unsual words, but I thought I'd create a post displaying the illustrations themselves.

First up is my illustration for Avicide, my favourite out of the two.

Avicide means "the killing of a bird or birds" or "the slaughter of birds, bird-shooting". Pretty gruesome huh?

Tools | Biro | Photoshop to paint blood and do the blur

Art Improvement Meme

Yesterday I realised that I shouldn't be ashamed of my old work; why should I be ashamed when it is a record to show my journey in the art world? So I "un-hid" all of my old work on DeviantART and just sat back and started flicking through them.

It's just such an amazing feeling to just look back and think: wow I've definitely improved on anatomy, on facial expressions, on hands (OH GOD THE HANDS... I just love picking out the things that I now am pretty good at whereas before I spent hours pouring over reference images just to draw one little finger. 

Anyway, so I decided to fill out this improvement meme on DeviantART by kamaniki to see how I'm going so far!

Now I'm dying to do more illustrations and things, and try out different techniques :D

Let It Snow

When I saw the contest on DeviantART called “Let It Snow” I immediately wanted to submit something to it. It had been ages since I signed up for any competition, and because England right now is downright miserable it’ll be easy to come up with some snowy.

But I didn’t want that; I didn’t want to do a drawing of a snowman or any of those other stereotypical Christmas things, I wanted to do something personal.  Christmas to me means being with my family and just spending time together without worrying about those things you have to do for work or uni.

Spending time with every member of the family, even those we have lost.

Even though it’s been three months I still miss my dad. It’s getting easier to cope but it’s still difficult. I still get those moments where I just want to curl up in bed and cry without anyone asking what was wrong – because it was so obvious, wasn’t it?

So this is probably what I would do as soon as I go home for Xmas; give my dad some flowers, tell him that I miss him, and to have a very Merry Xmas.

I wanted to do a really simple illustration as I have lately been very inspired by Simon's Cat. I think I might want to go to doing illustrations for Children's books as a career but shall have to do more experimentation and research before I dedicate myself to that.  

Tools | Watercolour pencils (without water, so sticking to their pencil form) | Watercolour paint

Unusual Words - Final Designs

I managed to finish my project two days before the deadline, woop woop!
I actually did a lot better in this project than I had done before. I guess that's because I had only researched on what was relevant instead of rambling off on one topic or another that wouldn't help me at all through my sketching and designing stage. Hmm.

Anyway here are my final designs, and I've also included a photo of when they were all printed out and pretty. I'm just so happy with them! Especially Avicide... Really tapped into my creepy side with that (not that I have a creepy side though!)

Printed out:

Made myself a new signature, woop woop!

I'm still not quite sure whether or not to use this or my tumblr as my main blog, so I decided to create a brand spanking new brush so that I wouldn't have to worry about continuously updating my URL to match the website/blog I frequently use!

I swear it took ages for me to do it... I don't know why but when placed under pressure I can't seem to write properly. Managed to create one in the end with my own handwriting.

Isn't it so beautiful?

Updated this illustration after a very long time! I wasn’t really satisfied when I finished it all of those months ago and my mum kept commenting on how she “had too much hair on that tiny head” so today I finally caved in and erased a whole chunk of it. I have to say that she does look a lot better now and not as if thousands of wigs had been placed on a skull!

Can't you see my new sig there? ;D

Guess that's all for today! I was going to create a post on how I made an epic blog design but I kind of gave up the idea of hassling around with codes to "improve" the look of this blog. I kind of like it how it is right now anyway.

And now I’m off for a nice bubble bath because it’s absolutely freezing today o_o Until next time!

Blogger vs Tumblr

I'm a bit caught up in a dilemma  I can't figure out whether or not to make this my main blog, or just leave it with my tumblr.

I post all of my sketchbook work, WIPs and finals on Tumblr and post final things over here, but wouldn't it be easier to do everything on here? It's so confusing!

I guess I'm only thinking of this because my current signature is "lizjowen.tumblr.com" and I don't know whether to change that to "lizjowen.blogspot.com" as I want it to look more professional. WHAT DO. 

Margate Poster

Hello all!

I'm back again, and this time with a fairly old piece that I did in my first year at uni. Just thought I'd update this blog with all of my old posts from tumblr because I've decided to blog a lot more, so the next few posts would consist of my old work.

The Brief:

"Create a poster that is a (mainly) typographic response to your visit to the Turner Contemporary and Margate in general. This poster could be commissioned/used by the local tourist board to promote art in Margate in general and at the Turner contemporary in general. Please present this at A3 portrait format."

Find me at Tumblr | Facebook | DeviantART | 

Falling Feathers

Just some illustrations I have done this past week for my uni project.

I went and bought some feathers the other day from Hobbycraft because I think I might settle with the idea of having some falling feathers stained in "blood" for my Avicide piece. I have just decided which one to post but I thought that I might as well post them all here.

1 & 2. Used watercolour for the background, white feathers, and also some watercolour for the blood. 

3. Used biro and then scanned it into Photoshop to do some blood splatters and make some of the feathers blurry.