Ah, yet another piece of art from when I was first learning Photoshop.

I tended to not put too much effort into the composition, perspective, proportions, and really many of the elements of what makes good artwork when I was making these pieces. I was much more interested in learning the tools.

For instance, in this piece I did some shading work, all made with selecting areas to color using a mouse, which I’m sure is a sentence to make a lot of digital artists twitch. I was also playing with the masking layers. Those are invisible black-and-white layers that attach to the normal layers of the artwork to adjust the opacity thereof. For instance, here I masked out the head on the layer containing the rays of light. But I didn’t mask out the wings, which are on the same layer as the head. This allowed a simple automatically generated radial pattern (aka the rays of light) to look as if it were behind the head but in front of the wings. I know, I know, artist jargon.

The last thing I played with here was a plug-in I’d found. Photoshop, especially back in the long-ago times when I made this art, was easily modifiable with small plug-ins that let you do all sorts of fun tricks. This particular one was a “Christmas Sparkles” plug-in, that made little glowing dots and star-like shapes in all sorts of colors.

I quickly started using it for star fields. I did a LOT of space-themed artwork during this time, largely thanks to this holiday-themed plug-in. I doubt the person who created it ever even considered that potential use.

The post An Angel of Mercy. Or Maybe of Shiny Things. appeared first on Under A Rock Art.

Like many of my art pieces, this one was an experiment. I decided to use a reference image.

And not just any reference. I took a screenshot of a nifty looking area in a game I was playing a lot at the time and just outlined all the features.

And then added in a samurai, because what the heck, the area was asian-themed.

This technique does have one major benefit. You’re sure to get the perspective right. It would also work well with photos. So if you’re trying to figure out a background for an art piece you’re doing, just pull up one or more photos and copy away!

Just remember, taking your entire artwork from one place is stealing, but taking it from many is inspiration!

No, seriously, that’s how it works.

Bonus points if you can name which game I copied the background from!

The post Seeking the Dragon of the Moon appeared first on Under A Rock Art.

Six years ago, before I turned fully agnostic and was still attending my parent’s church, the church hit its 50th anniversary. And they held a contest to create the logo for such a special year.

It was a fairly simple contest, just draw a concept and toss it in a box. The coordinators would pick the best once enough time passed. There weren’t too many artistic types in the church, but a small pile still accumulated.

I wasn’t planning on entering.

I never felt at home at that church. It wasn’t the one I had grown up at, and I just wasn’t comfortable enough there. So while I knew I had the artistic skill they were looking for, I didn’t want the extra burden winning would bring, having to make finalized images and deal with the people in charge and the like.

Then my Mom had me drive her to a choir practice. It didn’t make sense for me to head back home, so I stuck around reading. And then I finished my book. There was only about 15 minutes until the practice ended, so I just wandered around looking at things, including the display about the logo contest.

And then an idea popped into my head. A solid concept, one that fit all the requirements and looked nice to boot. So what the hey, might as well make a super-fast sketch and toss it in the box. Only took about five minutes and then I wandered around some more.

A week or two later, I got a call. I’d won the contest.

Darn my professional pride. I wasn’t going to just tell them to use the five minute sketch. I had to pretty it up, make it look like a good logo. Just a simple grayscale image of the front of the church, but it still took time I hadn’t wanted to spend. And yet I did.

I’m both proud and embarrassed by this piece. It seems so odd to me that a five-minute idea-to-sketch was chosen, though I’m not sure if that says more about me or my competition. And I do like the results. But still, it wasn’t something I wanted to do, and I can still feel the reluctance that went into it.

Ah well, mixed bags and all that.

Really do wonder what they would have gone with if Mom hadn’t needed me to drive her that one day…

The post A Simple Little Concept appeared first on Under A Rock Art.

The brain does odd things when it’s overly tired.

For instance, I keep staring at this image and swearing it has a deeper meaning, but when I try to actually articulate that meaning, it slips away.

Something about wave patterns or wavelengths or seashells and ocean waves…

Or perhaps it’s just an interesting pattern with no meaning. That’s entirely possible.

The post The Thoughts Come and Go, Like Waves on the Ocean… appeared first on Under A Rock Art.

Have you heard about pareidolia?

It is, in many ways, an artists best friend.

Our brains, as part of how we interpret the visual data our eyes give us, keep comparing any and all shapes we see to ones we already know. If you’ve seen one apple, you recognize the next. There’s a lot of wiggle room in that interpretation, as well. It’s useful to be able to tell that apple is an apple, even if it’s larger than the first one. Or colored green, or perhaps a bit of an odd shape. But this does lead to errors. Something that mostly looks like an apple, but green, larger, and in a different shape? It might just be a pear.

Those errors are a large part of what makes art possible. Our brains keep comparing shapes, and those two dots and a curved line can all of a sudden become a face. Wouldn’t you agree?

This means, rather than having to have photo-realism for everything, we can explore variations. Simplify forms down to the key recognition points, lengthen some aspects, shorten others, the list goes on and on. And each variation carries with it advantages that give it a place. A simplified human form is far easier to animate than a photo-realistic one; that fact alone caused several whole genres of entertainment to come into being. And that’s just the beginning of the power of pareidolia.

So if I tell you this fanciful arrangement of circles and loops is a bird, would you believe me?

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