20% Time 1/26/08

This week I found quite an interesting tutorial from masters of photoshop.  I originally started off following the basic design, except with blue in the background, but I actually believed that the overall result could be changed completely.  So really, this tutorial showed me some ideas for the shape, but not much else.

When creating this picture, I quickly discovered that the creator of the tutorial did not intend for this to be made with Photoshop 7.  (I actually find that a lot, but I am usually able to manage.)  First of all, I did not have a “wrap” feature and had to hand draw the base shape.  After that, I applied the appropriate gradients and shadows, along with multiplying the layer over about eleven times, finally got the cool little graphic shape.

Then, once blurring the copy layer of that image and rotating it, the result was totally different than the tutorial.  I then went on to use “stylize-find edges” and then “artistic-smudge stick” by this point, the final shape was there, but just too rough so I then smoothed it over with “noise- median” finally, I got this–

However, I was not done.  I then went on and shrank the image to four times the original size, added different colors, and made copies of everything.  That result looked a little cheap (to me at least) so I continued on and smudged the gradients with the liquify filter to create an energy orb kind of look.  For a final touch, I created two copies of the original shape, enlarged it, and set the bottom one to darken and the top one to difference blending.

If this seemed a little confusing, it is.  The overall result took me about three hours to figure out.  Speaking of orbs, I’ll include a section about a tutorial to create a more detailed one that I found a while back next week along with whatever I find.