After winning the CS5 Master Suite last year, I was lost amongst the vast majority of the apps included, I focused primarily on Photoshop and Illustrator. But now, I’m able to add Flash to that list.

That’s right everyone. I’m planning on making a RPG game.

I feel like it’s an impossible dream, but in actuality, after doing research all morning, I can only conclude even I, with the most simple understanding of the Flash world, can do this. The story, characters, and everything else that would be included in this game are under heavy development, heck, I only thought of it yesterday! But I’m really motivated to give it a try!

Now I’m not one to be known for finishing projects I start. My friends can easily list off at least five projects I have scrapped during my high school career. But what’s different about this project. What’s got me so gung ho about this? Well, I’m focusing this project around something I can honestly say I’m very passionate about. Which I feel can drive you to accomplishing any dream. If you really care about it, why would you give up on it?

Who’s to say though? One day I can just wake up and trash this project like all the rest. But for now…

For now, I want to make this dream a reality…

Thanks for reading.

I’ve been dead for a while, but here is some proof I’m still alive. Classes start up for me on the 23rd, and I’ll be taking art history, drawing 1, and figure drawing! It was really cool taking 2d design and learning about the elements and principles to apply to my pictures last semester though!!

College is going great. I’m learning a lot in Art History and am reenforcing my Design Elements in 2d Design. Not much to say but that! I finished up our “line” project and it was interesting to struggle with something I could *easily* do in Illustrator (inking with a bamboo calligraphy pen is no fun some times…). But this week we are moving onto SHAPE.

Anyway, the poster in the thumbnail was something I did for my cousin, Ali. Her beauty school is doing something with awards or something and she was put in charge of doing the poster. So she did the smart thing and commissioned me

That’s the finished version, but if anyone has anything to critique I welcome it!!…

My first attempt at kinetic typography. It’s only six seconds long, and has terrible audio, but it’s a quote from WWE that made me smile sooo, I’m going to use it as my first try. I’ve had a rough day today, my eyes hurt like crazy and it’s hard to focus on anything. But while I was working on this, I seemed to forget it all, and I got “in the zone”, if you will. I’m sure this is one of the many tries at this, because, besides the headache it gave me, it was actually pretty fun, and I would mind even expanding to longer clips (like a song) and trying new things with it.

I made this with photoshop cs5 and imovie. Crazy right? Why not use after effects? Well because I’m ghetto and use the cheap free program made for dumdums that’s why. Maybe that can be added to the challenge. Master the art of Kinetic Typography and After Effects!… That will take longer then a whole summer I can promise you that.

Speaking of summer, it’s been going great (besides today). I’ve been drawing for myself, and it’s actually very relaxing. I’m still pushing myself to improve, but in a chilled sense. I’m going to Grossmont for college this year, to knock out some GE, and then I can decide where to go from there.

It’s funny, I have been making all these comics nonstop since school got out, and I never once realized how happy I was doing them. Yes, sometimes a page can kind of be hell, but the overall outcome that is created from that, I love that feeling. And that’s why I want continue in that direction as an artist. Obviously I’m still an illustrator (I can do as much typography as I want, it’s not my true calling), and as a comic book artist I’d do just that. Thinking about my future in this business, I’m actually excited. I wasn’t as excited when I wanted to be an animator, no no. I need to do what makes me happy, and seeing my cousin (who transferred from a business major to a theatre major) made me realize that.

audio from the video was taken from a wwe segment on youtube (:

Now I come back from vacation to find out I needed it done by friday. Well, this is what I got so far after nonstop editting. My mom says it needs some black in the poster some where. But I have no clue…

Any help would be awesome!

Thanks.

EDIT: After posting this, I woke up to find that I had 17 spam comments… really? Really?… Wow. I am shocked. (Only if they were legitimate.)

EDIT 2: Whoops make that 25. 8 new spam comments added today.

But, all I could look at was the atrocity sitting before me on my computer screen.

You’d think if it was an “official” facebook, you’d have professionals making the content they post on their page. Apparently not. I was baffled at the lack of… pretty much everything graphic designers apply to make their images look “pretty”. I’m not considered a graphic designer, but there was no way I was going to let this slip. I had to atleast ATTEMPT to improve this… garbage.

So I immediately took it into Photoshop. First thing I noticed was that it was a dinky 698×462 jpeg, and the pixelation was intense. Not much you could really do to help it there, though (they didn’t have a higher resoulution anywhere). Next was to rid this perfectly fine image with the horrific text scattered mindlessly around it. Using the skills I learned today actually, I used content-aware fill to remove a bulk of the pixelated trash and used the clone stamp to clean up. (It took forever though, Adobe made a pretty magical tool, but there are some glitches they need to fix…)

Pretty good so far.

Next, I used the marque tool to make a feathered trim around the edge to really make it pop. It took less then a minute.

After that back breaking work, it was time to enhance the image. It was so dull, I used “curves” and “hue/saturation” to really bring the color out of it.

Then the text. Looking at the original, I think it’s biggest flaw was color choice. Red, green, black, and white on a blue background… there’s not much consistency there… So I stuck with white, since it’s easy to read on the background and goes along with it as well. Another flaw I saw was that it was random typefaces, so I chose a single font “Boycott” and used only that and dropped in a drop shadow to help readability.

I know it isn’t “perfect”, but I think it’s a huge improvement from the original…

(I edited the text just now. Hopefully it’s easier to read!)

(I edited the quote to what he actually said, so hopefully it makes sense now!)

See for yourself!

I decided to upload the drawing process that I went through to make this image (you know, the one that inspired my blog theme).

I’m still unsure what to do for my tutorial videos though. My digital arts teacher makes it look so easy. I stumble over myself and get tongue-tied a lot… but I’m learning! I tried making a quickie on the polygonal tool for coloring as well as clipping masks for shading. Should I combined the two into one video to make it longer? Or should I keep them really short? Stuff you honestly don’t think about when you see a tutorial online until you have to do one yourself I guess.

Just a quick blabber out of overly energized Julia, or maybe an epiphany…

WHO KNOWS.

I have links to add, but I’ll do it later because I am currently in class right now! I put in some amazing links to amazing things!

I also fixed up my blog to get rid of the junior feel to it and replaced it with my senior aesthetics. I hope you like it as much as I do.

Why did I decide that to be one of my main resolutions? Well, the other day I went with my cousin and saw Disney’s “Tangeled”. When I was going to see it, I figured it would be one of those mediocre 3d movies they’ve been coming out with recently. I was second guessing myself if I really wanted to work for them in the future.

And then I saw the movie. It was so beautifully done. All the backgrounds were beautiful and I couldn’t help feel inspired. Especially this one scene that made me want to draw the picture in the thumbnail. When I saw it, I could really feel the warmth coming from all the oranges emanating from the floating lanterns. The scene was just ultimately moving. So I attempted to recreate something similar, and although it wasn’t entirely as beautiful as the movie, I’m happy with it.

This movie just pumped me up for college in the future. I’ll be attending a JC for some life drawing classes for a year or two, and then transfer over to one of the MANY art colleges I’ve been looking into. I’m also planning on working on that portfolio next year, I… just hope it will look as good as it hopes so I can ONE DAY work for Disney.

Either way, those days are over. Since, I know I defiantly am not even close to being perfect. But I know now that I have my whole life ahead of me and I shouldn’t be so rushed. I guess this is just me “growing as an artist”. Either way, the picture to go with this post was some sketches I drew last night looking at some sprinters and of course football players. Why do I have such a fascination for football? (no not soccer, football!) My family is crazy for football! Football players and coaches everywhere! No not really, my little brother and cousin are football players, my cousin actually graduated in 2009 and now coaches freshmen players this year… so that counts right? OKAY ANYWAY, football players are really fun to draw, I just want to go to a game, and sit on the bench on the field and sketch some of their movements.

Speaking of which, just one more year and I can start going to life drawing classes! I was on the internet a while ago and looked for classes where minors were welcomed, but alas, only classes with nude models were being drawn so I have to be 18 I guess. But I can make due with google images. It’s a great tool for me whenever I try to get inspiration/anatomy. I’m also taking physiology next year… I can’t honestly say I can handle the human body… but in order to improve as an artist I must! (Dissecting a cat… well… I’m trying not to think about it…)

Okay that’s enough, I’m getting a little nauseous thinking about it…

Thanks for reading,

~Julia