Photoshop Brushes in Action

My postcard design using brushes

Here is a quick example of using some of those free textures I posted a little while back, the fonts, and some of these free brushes. I’d love to see something you guys do with these resources.

Free Photoshop Brushes

Personally I don’t use brushes often, but I have seen some really cool work done with them. In a perfect world I would spend all the time I want custom designing vectors to place in my designs. Of course we don’t get that much time for some of our projects. This is where I see brushes coming in. I found a website that has a pretty extensive collection of brushes and they seem to be compatible with most trends we are all familiar with. Let me know if you have any other cool brushes you’d like to share. Cheers

first cup news: How much should I charge for my work?!

I wish there was a tool like this back when I started. I really like how easy and quick this tool is. If you need to figure out what you should charge according to your expenses, what you want to earn and factor in your actual billable hours, this is the tool for you. Let me know what you think. Click here for the calculator.

first cup news: google, the dark knight

Sometimes when i drink coffee early in the morning i come across things that i want to share. here are two quick ones that i think are interesting.

Ledger as Joker.

First of course should be The Dark Knight, and of course it’s beating all sorts of records. I just wanted to get this out. $314 million in record time (10 days). Pirates of the Caribbean did that in 16, sorry Depp. The next record to beat is Shrek II’s $400 million in 43 days. Apparently Batman will do it in 18 or so. It’s nice to have a good movie on the screens again. I just want a movie to take down ‘the titanic’.  Now the question is, what do we do with mr Bale who in real life is having some law issues, i guess he’s not batman all the time.

Google about to get a bite from the past. Apparently some component to this giant search engine, which btw is my fav engine, were developed by an ex employee. Here name is Anna Patterson. Now she is saying that she has built something much better but it’s not for sale, at least not to google. ?!?!? eh? Is it boasting time or just greed? or maybe it’s lame.

Ah, it’s the way it reads the website and ranks it. She claims it actually looks deeper into your content and presents the results in a magazine look and feel. Interesting. Usually i am an advocate to the underdog but this time i don’t think she stands a chance. google and searching the web are synonymous. it’s almost even a brand. you say, “google it” not search for it on the internet. right? good luck miss patterson.

Branson, Rutan’s Mothership – Spaceshipone

What kind of money do you have to have to be in the first space tour bus? I know this is the most random post coming from a team of graphic artists, video editors and designers, but hey, it’s early in the morning and this was my coffee read…

I wonder if we will have space orbit tours within our lifetime. You know, fly up in space, call your friends, “you’ll never guess where i am”, etc…  

Flood – 3D concept art

So here are some really early concepts for the video. Michael has been kicking out some sweet pipes, etc. Lovin the direction. We’ll be searching far and wide for some good textures. There are certainly some huge hurdles here, what does the boulder look like, how do we deal with compositing water, etc. but please take a look and let us know what you think. cheers.

 

no texture, pipe concept in the ground

The Flood Story Board V1.0

I made some quick drawings of what the story would look like. These are obviously some quick sketches, but it helps tell the story visually to the decision makers, camera crews, 3D artists and actors. I left out a lot of b-roll and extra footage, but I might draw them later just to make sure it’s all there. Love to hear the feedback. If this doesn’t make sense, maybe you should read the screen play i posted last week. Cheers.

Varmints – Film

 

Studio Aka

 

If you have never heard of this piece, you should really check it out. I am not familiar with the book at all, but I stumbled upon their site and loved the animations… worth a check out.

Dark Knight Review

Why so serious?

I tried very early on not to sneak into information on this movie. I really wanted to just go to a theater and see it with no real expectations… I think they are finally achieving the “darkness” of batman’s story. They have always tried, but really, this is what I imagined in my head when I read the stories//comics. wow. What did you all think? Do you agree that  Heath Ledger was even better than expected? I’m still really sad that Heath died, but he definitely left on a very strong performance. I am curious to know what you all thought.

- my favorite batman “the dark knight” poster We already know what batman looks like, here is a real enemy.
- The dark Knight wallpaper (still haven’t found one)

The Dark Knight: Wally Pfister’s cinematography is simply stunning. Gotham has never looked so good, so big and deep. His wide shots purvey a dirty aura and contribute to the feel of the film. Without it, it may not have been the same. Another Oscar worthy portion, THE MUSIC! With Hans Zimmer AND James Newton Howard at the helm, how could it go wrong. The score sets the mood in every scene, giving an epic and thrilling tone. During action sequences it really ups the adrenaline. And on that topic of action, The Dark Knight succeeds in have the best fight sequences and car chases in a comic book adaptation yet. With no obvious or over-use of CGI, the explosions and accidents are the real deal.

Based on the DC Comicscharacter Batman, the film is a sequel to Batman Begins (2005). Christian Bale reprises the lead role. Batman’s primary conflicts in the film include his fight against his arch-nemesis the Joker (Heath Ledger) and his strained friendship with district attorneyHarvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart).

professor lynda – friend or foe?

I was reluctant to pay $25 a month for ‘unlimited’ time with the tutors on lynda.com. I have to say i was pleasantly surprised with the amount of material there. it is well worth the money if you are trying to learn about an adobe product. some of the teachers were difficult to understand, but in general, it was pretty good. the video was easy to follow and i learned a lot. anyone have similar experiences? would you recommend it?

Radiohead last album or just getting started??

 

anyone think ‘in rainbows’ could be radiohead’s last album? curious.

The album seems so goodbye ish to me. I don’t know why. I know they always talk about breaking up every few weeks, but really, they are involved with some individual endeavors that it wouldn’t surprise me. and don’t get me wrong, i hope they stick around forever, i’d love to see yorke playing piano and singing ‘no surprises’ at 70.

Crazy Thom

Fairfax.cc Pre Show “The Advance” 3D Set

 

The Advance 3D set

The objective was to design and implement a 3D set like you would see on tv. There would be sections for the outreach/missions teams, the youth and other ministries to present their updates/content in a new way. We are all familiar with the tech look the News channels have, so we wanted this set to share the same interior look and feel that the church had.