My Never Changing Username

Okay, I just tried to change my profile username to match the one on my other blog, but I just can't do it!!!

Something to do with emotional attachment... or something....

I even went so far as to change the name and save it, but it just looked wrong and bothered me that not even 5 seconds later I had to change it back....

Now that I think about it, that's actually kind of embarrassing....

Well, I guess that's kind of what a blog's for, you know, telling people stuff that you may or may not actually want them to know.

Anyway, I decided I'm going to try to continue this blog, but it's not going to be nearly as consistent as the other one. I'm still really busy, but I'll try to start it up again in a few months. I'll try to inform you guys whenever I'm going to put this blog on temporary hiatus again.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot. If anybody has any requests for projects that you would like me to do in the future, feel free to put them in the comments and I'll make sure to get to them in my free time.

Until next time!

New Things

Sorry for not posting for a while, I suddenly got dumped with a lot of activities and wasn't able to get them all done very quickly.

By the way, I've started a new blog with Wordpress, and I'll be posting stuff on it more frequently, but it's slightly different from the stuff on this blog.

Here's the link:

temporarilythoughtful.wordpress.com

Names

So, recently I noticed how boring and unmeaningful (Blogger is saying that I am making up this word... either that or I'm just misspelling it) the name of my blog was, so I've been spending weeks just trying to remember what I wanted the original name to be, and even more weeks trying to think of a good name for it in the first place.

So, the other day I was looking through this spontaneously multiplying pile of paper (I seem to really like long words today), and I found my old list of names that I could use.

 Eventually I selected "Drawing Crafts," partly because of the URL for my blog, and partly because I liked it. Usually I'm pretty bad with coming up with names for things like this, so I tend to choose something completely random (like when I wrote the URL). But, this time I think it turned out reasonably okay (does that make sense? Maybe not).

Well, I'll try to come up with more stuff to post, but for some reason, I can't find those pictures I took the other day (okay, okay, last month). Oh well, I'll still try to post things more often, but I'm not very good with remembering these kinds of things...

Branching Out

Now, most of the stuff that I've posted have been things that were created on a computer using common software. I've been thinking that my blog is pretty boring so far, so I'm thinking of adding more things and branching out into different areas to make it more interesting...

Yeah, I'll just come up with them later...

Deforestation

This is a poster about deforestation in the rainforest. It is a replica of the original; so I made it, but it wasn't my idea. There was no tutorial.

The techniques I used were the patch tool, messing with vibrance, I selected the birds to cut them out of the original pictures, used layer masks to blend together three different pictures for the background, added drop shadows to all the text, created a box using a selection and changed the fill to about 50% (opacity). Oh yeah, I also used the brush tool to make my selections and layer masks more precise. I think that is all the techniques, but it's already going fuzzy...

Scrapbook Applied

The following are two scrapbooking templates I found that I liked.

I chose this one because I thought it was cute and I liked the theme.

I chose this one because, to be honest, I was and kind of still am a fan of Pokemon.

Wedding Rings

The follow-up to the Wedding Collage. I think they turned out better than I thought they would at first. The colors certainly look better now than before rendering.

Wedding Collage

This is a simple wedding collage for someone's wedding. That's all really.

Interview Magazine Cover

Here's an Interview Magazine Cover using a tutorial from the book I mentioned earlier.

Eco-Multi-Column Ad

Here's an Eco-Ad once again made with the Adobe InDesign CS5 book. I'm going to stop putting the name of the book I used because I'm getting tired of typing it.

Sporktown Brochure

Here is a brochure for a resort called Sporktown which may or may not exist.
This is from tutorial 2D, from InDesign CS5 (the book).
 Once again, try to ignore the giant gap in the center.

Time Spread Sheet

The following is a lovely Time spread sheet. It's tutorial 2Cfor Adobe InDesign CS5.





















Please try to ignore the giant gap in the middle.

Uninspiration Poster

The following is an Uninspiration Poster! Enjoy!

 P. S. There is a disclaimer at the bottom that you should read (you might have to zoom in).

This is from tutorial 1C from Adobe InDesign CS5 (as in the book).

Pop Art

From reality... to pop art.

Here's the tutorial:

http://www.melissaevans.com/tutorials/pop-art-inspired-by-lichtenstein

Photoshop Frames

The following are several photos that I embellished with some cool Photoshop Frames I made using some tutorials.

The first one is called Out-of-Bounds:

This one was made using several layer masks to cover and uncover different areas. It also used Gaussian Blurs to make the shadows look better and the opacity level as well as the blending mode were messed with too.

Here's the tutorial for this one:

 http://www.worth1000.com/tutorials/161043/tutorial

This next one is called a Leaves Photo Frame:

This one was made by creating a leaf-shaped brush tool and changing the blending modes. I had a little difficulty making the frame bright enough, so I went back over the colored leaf frame and repainted it by selecting and recoloring the leaves with a soft brush.

Here's the link for this one:

http://www.adobetutorialz.com/articles/845/1/Create-Leaves-Photo-Frame

And finally, the Illustration Effect:

This one was made by using a Smart Blur and setting all the settings to the highest except for the Mode which stayed normal. Next, another filter was added, the Unsharp Mask and it was complete. I think mine looks pretty blurry because the original picture was a little blurry in the first place, but it still looks cool!

Here's the link:

http://www.photoshoproadmap.com/Photoshop-blog/photo-to-illustration-effect/


If you want to look at more tutorials like the ones above, here's a link to a site with a bunch of cool effects:

 http://www.photoshopwebsite.com/photoshop-tutorials/70-cool-photo-frames-and-borders-photoshop-tutorials/

Now, here are the original pictures:

Scrapbook Template

So, I tried making a scrapbook template (even though I'm pretty bad at scrapbooking). And I don't think it turned out too bad.

Anyway, I used two different tutorials... One was for making a ribbon effect (I only needed it to create a ribbon that looked like a ribbon), and the other was for designing the actual template.

In the end, I made a mostly red template with five paper layers, one of which is acting as a layer adjustment, and another which is a "ribbon" border. I messed around a little with the opacities and blending modes. Also, I used several gradients and added an inside stroke to the places for the photos.

Here's an image of the template:

And here are the links for the tutorials:

https://thedailydigi.com/how-to-make-your-own-digital-scrapbook-template

http://textuts.com/curled-ribbon-text-effect/


The second tutorial is for the ribbon effect and the first is for the scrapbook template.

Signature Sheet

Here's a lovely signature sheet that I made all by myself (no tutorial!!!).

Here are the original pictures:

Clipping Mask Text

The lovely text made from the photo sheet below.

Adjustment Layers

Here are examples of the many many adjustment layers.

Starting with the original.

Now,

Brightness/Contrast

Levels

Exposure

I feel like they all kind of look the same, so how about something different.

Vibrance

Color Balance

And...

Channel Mixer

I used adjustment layers on each one, the picture corresponds with the label above it. Each one was relatively simple to use if you know what each one is supposed to/able to do.


Here's a reference link which is very helpful for finding out which one can do what:

http://99designs.com/designer-blog/2013/12/02/how-to-use-adobes-adjustment-layers-photoshop-cs6/

Quick Adjustment

And the ducks are back in full force! Just a little bit sleepy, that's all.

Here's the original underexposed picture.

I haven't done anything yet, but the male mallard's tail feathers look like they're glowing, weird.

Anyway, here's the same picture, but with a Shadow/Highlight adjustment. I didn't have to do much for this one, just adjust the shadows and highlights a little.

The link for the tutorial is as follows:

http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/how-to-fix-lighting-with-shadows-and-highlights-in.html