Alright I'm finally back at it after taking a break during exams. I went back and played Portal in preparation for Portal 2 and came up with a couple of really simple designs. I actually ended up finished Portal 2 in one sitting last night, I took loads of screenshots for ideas but I think it's going to take a day or two to let my brain settle.
My goal is going to be to churn out something every day or two while I'm not working for the next month. Every bit of practice helps!
EDIT: I updated the second one with the Portal cursor in the center, I knew it needed something else but I didn't think of it until just now as I was loading up TF2. For reference, it was just the circles before, with a couple more smaller ones instead of the cursor.
Aww man those are sweet. I hate those though, it's the kind of simplicity that slaps you in the face and you go AWWWW why didn't I think of that. Just as Olly Moss' stuff does. I love it! (clarification: I don't hate them they're awesome)
Thanks I appreciate it, that's definitely what I'm going for! His work is probably my biggest influence, his style has always appealed to me ever since I saw his stuff on PA a few years ago.
Opened up Photoshop with only a vague idea of what I wanted to do, which I have again learned is not a great idea. Spent the better part of the night just messing about with random things until I ended up with this. Probably wouldn't have come up with this if I tried to plan it beforehand, but I wouldn't have been at it for 6 hours either. Totally lost track of time.
The_Glad_HatterOne Sly FoxUnderneath a Groovy HatRegistered Userregular
edited April 2011
Good luck on the daily challenge thing!
The deathstar looks great! but i think the vader in the back perhaps unbalances it a bit.
Does it really need the vader?
The_Glad_HatterOne Sly FoxUnderneath a Groovy HatRegistered Userregular
edited April 2011
this would look beautiful as a nice big print in a pictureframe. Seriously digging this.
i understood why it was tempting to put the vader in, but for me it's almost perfect now.
i think this could even have some success as a t-shirt (threadless?)
your minimalist stuff is heaps better than your "busier" designs.
I actually wanted to try to come up with some submissions for Threadless this summer but I hadn't considered this piece as a possibility. I'm going to sit down later today, clean it up a bit, and see what I can do about turning it into a shirt! For now I have to finish up yesterday's picture that I didn't quite finish, but I think this might be my project for today.
I couldn't think of anything clever to do with the stems, but it turned out okay for thinking it up on the spot. Three other ideas failed throughout the day (somehow I made a poster for the Captain America movie that seemed to imply that he was a Nazi ). Just wanted to have something finished for the day! I have thoroughly messed about with the circle/line stuff, I don't think I can push it much farther than I did with the Death Star piece so I'll leave it be for a while.
I started in on my Threadless submission earlier today, I'll finish it up and see what you guys think tomorrow.
There's supposed to be a line going across that isn't built yet, that's what I was trying to do there. I'll see if it looks better with a few more lines to try to get it to look the same as the picture, but if that doesn't work I'll probably just shorten that one curved line a bit so it doesn't stand out as much. As it is, I definitely see what you're saying about the smirk (it's particularly noticeable on the shirt).
EDIT: Adding more curved dark lines gives it a Joker-style smile
Neat, my Two Towers picture made it onto someone's tumblr and was well received! I am very pleased. Here's my stuff for yesterday and today. Sorta similar in theme, I thought of the Pac-Man one months ago but never got around to it, which eventually led to the SMG idea which I think is a bit better in execution.
Awesome, the shirt is up for voting!. Please ignore the lame name, I was a bit worried about it getting rejected for copyright reasons so I had to think a little outside of the box.
EDIT: I haven't forgotten my goal of making a few designs a week, but I got an email on Friday asking if I could start my research a few weeks early so I've been a bit busy the past few days. I was working on something for Wind Waker over the past couple of days but it didn't turn out all that great so I decided that I'll revisit it a little later (and then the rest of my night was spent doing stuff for the Threadless entry). I hope to come up with something decent tomorrow night!
It's missing...something that I can't quite put my finger on, but holy crap I'd buy that t-shirt everyday.
Edit: this could completely go against the style you're going for, but maybe make the empty triangles the colors that match the Master Sword itself, like blue cross-guard, silver blade, etc. Just a thought.
Yeah I see what you're saying, I tried it but I think where I used few triangles as possible it doesn't seem to lend itself well to that picture.. I'm going to try it with the Hylian Shield though, I'll let you know how it turns out!
I gave it a shot but the shield didn't turn out so well, I'll leave it for a while and revisit it when I come up with a fresh idea. Been a little sparse on the arts the past week, my work schedule is getting a bit more structured so hopefully I won't be as worn out in the evenings. Here's last night's project:
My goal this week is to make something a little more dynamic than just a small, centered image with lots of blank space.
I love the painterly stuff coming out of the exploding Ark, but the texture in the background could be either toned down or put to better use. Right now, it's just kind of blank back there, and the texture doesn't do much for it. You could allude to the canyon-y setting that this actually takes place in, and use that texture to help define that stuff (a simple lighter or darker color would suffice to create the canyon silhouette).
I gave it a shot but it looked a little wonky perspective-wise (it looked like the arc was sorta floating there) and the more I tried to fix it, the more layers I had to add. After a while it looked like I was trying to recreate the scene exactly, which I wasn't really digging. I think I'll leave this one as is, it was an idea I had a few months back but never got around to it. I tried a few different things with it, adding a bit of depth to the ark and such, but I didn't account for it in the planning stages so trying to change it at the end wasn't yielding great results. Oh well, now I know!
I actually did try that, but I thought it looked pretty awkward. The bottom of the guitar is fatter than at the neck, so if you flip it in this perspective it gets all weird and looks like a spider. Moreover, if I move the guitar any closer to the bottom, the foreground gets rather small. Here are a couple of mockups, thoughts?
EDIT: To be honest, the buttons at the bottom were a pretty late addition so I didn't really thoroughly think through the logic of having the frets continue below the body of the guitar. But I really like the perspective and colours, and would totally do a Rock Band one if I can think of a better way to do it.
thats essentially what I meant, yeah, but thats a little faint. I don't know if theres a way to give it a little more boldness without making it weird.
Been working on this for the better part of a week now, along with similar ones for Prime 2 and 3, but it just isn't sitting well with me overall. I think I'll cut my losses and come back to it if I get any better ideas. At the very least it was fun to make the planets for each game (I actually did Zebes as well).
Posts
My goal is going to be to churn out something every day or two while I'm not working for the next month. Every bit of practice helps!
EDIT: I updated the second one with the Portal cursor in the center, I knew it needed something else but I didn't think of it until just now as I was loading up TF2. For reference, it was just the circles before, with a couple more smaller ones instead of the cursor.
(clarification: I don't hate them they're awesome)
Live - MrObersmith
PSN - Obersmith
I think I have a thing for concentric circles.
The deathstar looks great! but i think the vader in the back perhaps unbalances it a bit.
Does it really need the vader?
EDIT: Yeah I like this a lot more, thanks!
i understood why it was tempting to put the vader in, but for me it's almost perfect now.
i think this could even have some success as a t-shirt (threadless?)
your minimalist stuff is heaps better than your "busier" designs.
Can i have some more?
I started in on my Threadless submission earlier today, I'll finish it up and see what you guys think tomorrow.
I also need to come up with a name, hrmm
EDIT: Adding more curved dark lines gives it a Joker-style smile
EDIT 2: Got rid of it instead!
EDIT: I haven't forgotten my goal of making a few designs a week, but I got an email on Friday asking if I could start my research a few weeks early so I've been a bit busy the past few days. I was working on something for Wind Waker over the past couple of days but it didn't turn out all that great so I decided that I'll revisit it a little later (and then the rest of my night was spent doing stuff for the Threadless entry). I hope to come up with something decent tomorrow night!
I'd suggest adding a couple of triangles to make a ricasso with parierhaken for a more distinctive appearance.
Edit: this could completely go against the style you're going for, but maybe make the empty triangles the colors that match the Master Sword itself, like blue cross-guard, silver blade, etc. Just a thought.
My goal this week is to make something a little more dynamic than just a small, centered image with lots of blank space.
EDIT: To be honest, the buttons at the bottom were a pretty late addition so I didn't really thoroughly think through the logic of having the frets continue below the body of the guitar. But I really like the perspective and colours, and would totally do a Rock Band one if I can think of a better way to do it.