To see the websites I pointed out in class just visit one of the following links…
www.ConceptArt.org – professional concept painting gallery and forum
www.GoodBrush.com – The matte paintings and photoshop sketches of Craig Mullens
www.DeviantArt.com – Great illustration resource site. Galleries, downloads, tutorials, photography, and anything your peers would want to share can be found there. You can also create your own account and begin sharing your own artwork.
Welcome to the Photoshop class website. Here you will find all the resources you need to learn photoshop. I will also upload the syllabus and course schedule for those of you taking the Westwood course.
The class will meet from 6pm – 9pm on Mondays and Thursdays.
Click here to download your syllabus.
Syllabus
1. I will show you guys some basic photoshop techniques.
2. Once we have mastered the basics I will then show you guys some tutorials on how to do more advanced photoshop stuff. At this point you’ll have more freedom in your assignments and have some say in what kind of work you want to do.
3. Textures for Games. This will be the most essential skill that you gain as game designers. It’s easy to create textures in photoshop. What’s hard is making them look good in 3d. This isn’t a 3D class so for you to make good game art textures you’ll have to use what you learn in this class along with what you learn in other classes.
4. My favorite part of the class is seeing you guys post your work onto your very own website. Creating a web 2.0 website is really easy these days. I’ll show you how to create a site just like this one very easily. You’ll then be able post your assignments to your own online portfolio and show anyone you want.
Click here to download your syllabus.
Syllabus
Here is the first video tutorial I’ve made for photoshop. I find that there are a lot of websites to help you learn certain techniques online, but I rarely see anything that teaches the basics. In this video I’m covering the three windows and the tools you will use the most often in photoshop. Click on the image below to load the videos.
If you havn’t seen it yet you can visit my Webcomic at www.GriefOrGlory.com
This is the biggest assignment you will receive this term. The Goal is to make a portfolio website for yourself showing off your work.
The first step is to create a free online portfolio at www.carbonmade.com or build a blog at either wordpress.com or www.blogger.com.
Lastly I want your site to have a custom image header. This is the image at the front or the top of your website/portfolio/blog. You can download the default image and edit it in photoshop or you can create an entirely new image. The first thing you need to do is find the exact size of the that image.
This is how you will turn in your assignments from now on. This way you can also show your work to everyone else. Your site is yours to do with as you please, but make sure to upload .jpg’s of your assignments and email me, shaundmcmillan@gmail.com the link or url to your site. For instance if your blog is www.jonathonisawesome.wordpress.com then send me the full length name at shaundmcmillan@gmail.com
Have fun, you are now a full fledged web designer.
Shaun
This is a tutorial on how to create a certain kind of logo for your blog.
Looks like Traditional ink and watercolor right? Amazing what you can do with photoshop. It’s all a matter of using the right brushes and dropping in a scan of watercolor paper. I actually turned the paper layer brown as well with Image>Adjustments>Hue/Saturation. If your paper layer has no color be sure to check the little check box that reads, “Colorize.”
Below are my photoshop brushes I use the most often. The last three brushes are the ones I used to create the illustration above. It took me a lot of downloading brushes, experimentation, and digging through Photoshop’s brushes to assemble this nifty little collection of brushes. So I hope you guys apreciate them.
They won’t make up for your lack of draftsmanship, but they do help improve the look of your drawings. The real secret is to draw loosely and not so rigidly or carefully.
1. Just save this file to your computer and then
2. Load the brushes into photoshop by clicking on the little triangle with the circle around it in the top right corner of your brushes pallette and
3. Click on “Load brushes” or “Replace brushes” depending on whether or not you want to keep the brushes you already have loaded as well.
Click here to download the file
Here are some related articles I’ve written…
Here is the second and third video for learning the basics of photoshop. This one shows how to begin painting your drawings or comic art in photoshop. I also added the second part of this comic painting which shows more of how to get smooth shading and painterly style transitions between colors.
space = hand
space + apple = zoom in
space + apple + alt = zoom out
copy = cntrl + C
paste = control + V
SAVE = cntrl + S
new file = cntrl + N
open file = cntrl + O
transform layer = cntrl T
levels = cntrl L
curves = cntrl M
zoom in = cntrl + ( + )
zoom out = cntrl + ( - )
I found a great link that has a wide variety of advanced photoshop tutorials. If you catch up on all of your assignments and you want a challenge then feel free to visit this link and try one of the tutorials. If you run into any questions then just ask me because these tutorials may assume that you know some things I havn’t taught you. I’m looking forward to trying some of these myself.
http://dennisplucinik.com/blog/2007/08/28/60-advanced-adobe-photoshop-tutorials/
