case study

20 things from 2011

paul0v2 — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 15:08:12 +0000

20 things that happened on the internet in 2011 is an amazing image illustrating 20 facts that happened last year on the internet and you have to guess what they are. You can also check the step by steps of how it was done, and see detailed shots of this amazing piece.

The Artworks is created by Peter Jaworowski & Michal Lisowski of Ars Thanea together with Syzygy a digital agency from London.

Perhaps you’ve seen 20things from 2010. This year’s incarnation works much the same way: 20 of the greatest, funniest and most insane internet events from 2011 have been united in a single illustration. It’s an open challenge. Last year a few people guessed 19 out of 20 – we’re hoping someone will crack all 20 this year.

Details

Process

About the author

Hi there! I'm Paulo Canabarro, 26 year old web designer - paulocanabarro.com I'm from Brazil currently living and working out of Providence RI, USA. I'm truly passionate about design of all kinds, finding and sharing inspiration here has become part of my life. If you like to know more about me or get in touch visit my website paulocanabarro.com Stock me at Twitter and Dribbble

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Antonio Bay Case Study by Falcon White

AoiroStudio — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 18:59:29 +0000

It's always a great thing to see how a designer works, it's a great way to learn and also to progress with your own skills. Now I wanna share a case study from Ralf Krause aka Falcon White, who did this piece for Desktopography 2011. I hope you will enjoy it and free your mind on new knowledge.

To know more about Ralf Krause, you can check out his website at FalconWhite.com or check out his Behance.

In Ralf's Words

Like all the other elements, I cut out the main image.

Antonio Bay by Falcon White

For the hair I used a masked picture of a woman.

Antonio Bay by Falcon White

A cracked texture, some colour corrections and increased contrast came into play.

Antonio Bay by Falcon White

I opened a second document to build the background with 2-3 ocean pictures that where blended together by masks.

Antonio Bay by Falcon White

More rocks and a ship where added and on some spots I brushed some „Fog“ and turned the whole background to orange.

Antonio Bay by Falcon White

Time for a third document. There I placed the skull and the background scenery in front of a green coloured cloud layer and started to add some smoke behind the skull‘s hair.

Antonio Bay by Falcon White

Cut out pictures of a neck and a knight‘s armour completed the fog walker. Birds appeared in the back and the skull got a green coloured touch.

Antonio Bay by Falcon White

In this step some shadows where brushed and using Dodge and burn I increased the contrast. The palm leaves where placed and a little bit more fog moves in.

Antonio Bay by Falcon White

Time to place the parrot...

Antonio Bay by Falcon White

that went through dodge and burn. The skull also got a little bit more hair..well, actually it‘s feathers. Then I made everything darker and gave the whole wallpaper a more violet colour…

Antonio Bay by Falcon White

That changed in most spots into blue...

Antonio Bay by Falcon White

and ended up with a green color mood with flat black tones.

Antonio Bay by Falcon White

This wallpaper “Antonio Bay” was inspired by the movie “The Fog” – a true ‘80s classic by John Carpenter. By the way you’ll find a lot of great wallpapers on Desktopography.net initiated by Pete Harrison.

About the author

My name's François Hoang and my alias's Aoiro Studio. I am a self-taught freelance graphic designer from Montreal, Canada. I've been designing for the last 4 years and really have a huge passion for creative work that makes a difference in our world. If you wanna requests some posts; I can be found on Twitter or feel free to contact me.

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"Erínye" Case Study

paul0v2 — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 16:40:53 +0000

Erínye is another piece by the Polish illustrator Wojciech Pijecki. His works are amazing and he loves to share his process which make us a big fan. In this case study he will show step by step how "Erínye" was done for the SlashThree XVII Quote Unquote Exhibition.

For more form Wojciech visit synectic.pl or twitter @wojciechpijecki

SlashTHREE XII Exhibition: Quote Unquote

Illustrations created for international art collective Slashthree. Released and featured within Art Pack XVII: Quote Unquote.

About Exhibition

The idea of this theme was to interpret a famous quotes in an illustrative manner. Profound quotes can often provoke deep reactions, but lets not forget "a picture speaks a thousand words". We are hoping that interpreting the quotes as images & music, we will be able to convey the initial meanings of these quotes but with other nuances that you may not have been aware of.

Erínye

Quote

"Metaphor for a missing moment."

A Perfect Circle - Orestes

Breakdown

Case Study

About the author

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"Silhouettes Of Life" Case Study

paul0v2 — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 15:08:25 +0000

Silhouettes of Life is a piece by one of my favorite digital artists Wojciech Pijecki from Poland. This piece was created for the SlashTHREE XVII Exhibition: Quote Unquote" and the result is simply amazing. Check out step by step how this image was done and enjoy the process.

For more from Wojciech Pijecki visit synectic.pl

About Exhibition

The exhibition theme was "Quote Unquote". The idea of this theme was to interpret a famous quotes in an illustrative manner. Profound quotes can often provoke deep reactions, but lets not forget "a picture speaks a thousand words". We are hoping that interpreting the quotes as images & music, we will be able to convey the initial meanings of these quotes but with other nuances that you may not have been aware of.

Silhouettes Of Life

"Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
and then is heard no more; it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."
William Shakespeare

Details

Case Study

Photo approach

faces struggle

We had two quick photo sessions for this concept. First didn't work out quite well, as the concept was still in a developement stage. It kinda changed few times, so I didn't use any of the photos we shot that day, but I still would to thank Patryk Piechocki for shooting this.

Second approach was the right one. It was pretty rushy, without enough equipment and time but the face shapes were caught pretty well to integrate them with the illustration. Also thanks to Anna Kwa?niewska and Tomasz Pijecki for participating in this.

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Reader Tutorial: Wrestlerish Album Artwork by Chris Valentine

abduzeedo — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 05:32:44 +0000

This is a short case study on the album artwork I did for the South African band, Wrestlerish. There were at least 8 different illustrations for this album, so I've decided to focus on the portraits which I combined for the poster design and booklet.Apologies for the low res process pics, but I only had access to my phone during the drawing process.

Step 1

My first step when drawing portraits is to make sure all of the elements of the face are accurately positioned. I first block in the rough shape of the head, and then go in and add in rough positional marks for the nose, eyes, ears etc. I always work very closely from my photograph at this point and use my pencil to measure spaces and convert to the page accordingly. I use a Faber Castelle 0.5mm mechanical pencil with corresponding 2B lead and a putty eraser.

Step 2

I now begin fleshing out some of the details. Once I am 100% sure that the landmarks of the face are accurate, I can start detailing without worrying too much about likeness. I carefully analyse each element of the photograph & try to reproduce exactly what I see onto my drawing. This takes a lot of practice, but with time you start relating value in the photograph to different pressure levels with the pencil and it becomes easier to get your drawing true to the photograph.

Step 3

In this step I started with the beard. This was the most painful part of the drawing as it involved hundreds of tiny little pencil marks with different areas of light and dark. Always remember, the devil is in the details. I try to pick out the dark and light areas of the beard and shade accordingly, using tightly packed strokes for the dark areas and more sparse pencil marks for the light bits.

Step 4

Step 4 is essentially the polishing phase where I add in final details and make sure I've got the likeness right. If it doesn't look like the guy by now it's a bit of a problem; so always try and leave your dark shading until you're sure you have the likeness correct! This step is all about adding the finishing details and highlighting the smaller features of a person's face that aren't immediately noticeable.

Step 5

As you can see in the image, I like to work on A4 (29.7cm x 21.0cm) paper, normally 200GSM as it's heavy enough to handle acrylic inks without warping. I always use masking tape to attach the page to a hard board working surface to press on. Once I have finished my drawing, I scan it in at 600DPI and bring it into Photoshop.

Step 6

This is how a drawing typically ends up looking once it's ready to be integrated into my digital piece. I will normally drag the scan into a new document (with a size relative to the job description), and I'll use the levels adjustment layer to bring the darks out and improve the general contrast. I'll also go around the piece with a soft eraser and remove any marks I may have left on the page. It's also important to note that I set the layer's blending mode to 'Multiply'. This removes the white from the layer and leaves your pencil marks so you can work underneath them. Blending modes can be found in the dropdown menu above your layers palette which will say 'Normal' if you haven't changed it yet.

Conclusion

Once I had done this for each of the band members, I brought them all together into one huge canvas and messed around with various paint splatters and watercolor scans, as well as the cover artwork of the Johannesburg skyline. I would love to answer any questions you may have, so feel free to get in contact.

For more information about Chris Valentine visit his site at http://valentinedesign.co.za and follow his Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/christhecook

About the author

Abduzeedo is a blog about design. There are all sorts of articles for those who want to look for inspiration. Also you will find very useful tutorials for the most used applications out there, with a special selection of Photoshop Tutorials and Illustrator Tutorials. You can get in follow us via Twitter at @abduzeedo

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Battlefield 3 Poster Case Study

paul0v2 — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 15:43:52 +0000

This poster is a tribute to Battlefield 3 designed by the Polish Grzegorz Domaradzki. On this post you take a look step by step on how this amazing poster was created and you will get some insights and ideas on how to take on you own project. Enjoy!

For more from Grzegorz Domaradzki visit iamgabz.com

Battlefield 3 Tribute

Close Ups

Case Study

1. SKETCH - Tablet made. Always helpful before you start drawing.

2. DRAWING - Made with Faber Castell 0,5mm mechanical pencil with Rotring 2B leads and Koh-i-Noor 2h pencil. When scanned I used Levels (Ctrl/Cmd + L) to clean it up than zoomed in to around 250% and used hard Brush ( B ) and white color 100% to clean all dirty areas.

3. BASE - I used Magic Wand ( W ) on the drawing layer to select white background area. Than selected inverse (Ctrl/Cmd + Shift + I) and used Select / Modify / Contract with 1px. Filled the selection with grey color on a new layer below the drawing( Multiply layer style ). Than zoomed in to 250% again and used tablet and hard brushed Eraser (E) and Brush (B) to polish up the edges of the grey selection.

4. MIDTONES - I used soft Brush (B) with low opacity( around 5% ) to create shadows on a separate layer and lights on another one to give the image more depth. Placed both new layers below the one with Multiplied DRAWING.

5. BLUE - I needed the selection of the whole main motive: I Select / Color Ranged ( Fuzziness 200 ) the white, than selected inverse and added the selection of the BASE. Saved it. Used it to create a Hue/Saturation Adjustment layer with blue colorize applied. Erased (E) with soft brush on the right side and at the bottom. Than I changed the background color to light grey.

6. FIRE - Graphic needed fire-like colors to look more like a Battlefield tribute, so I used the saved selection again, to apply Gradient (G) made lights on few more layers and played with various layer styles, like Hard Light and Overlay to get the best result. Used soft brush Eraser (E) where needed.

7. FINAL TOUCHES - I drew some extra lines, scanned them and repeated the process used on the main DRAWING. I than used Select / Color Range with Fizziness 200 to remove the white and leave only the lines. Placed the lines on top of all layers and filled them with the background light grey color. Finally added logos, title, quote and my signature.

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Retro Movie Poster Case Study

paul0v2 — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 13:33:03 +0000

Streets of Fear is the name of the movie poster and it was designed by the German; Ralf Krause a specialist in photo illustration. In this Case Study you will see step by step how this awesome retro action movie poster was done and get a feeling of how you can do yours.

For more from Ralf Krause visit behance.net/eyeofthedesigner and falconwhite.com

Case Study

Final Result

About the author

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Insane Clown Case Study

paul0v2 — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 14:58:17 +0000

The Insane Clown Posse is Detroit's own hometown harlequins. Photographer Paul Mobley teamed up with digital artist Mike Campau to put up an amazing series of photo manipulations and here you will see one of them broke down step by step.

After some early brainstorming and pre-production meetings with Paul, we chose our strongest concepts to execute on set. We were on a tight schedule and wanted to capture as many shots as possible, so we decided to shoot ICP on green screen at their own studio. Then we went on to Greene's Hamburgers in Farmington Hills to shoot the diner image. Next, Paul spent a couple days shooting downtown, precariously positioning himself on the edges of rooftops and coming back down to ground level for shots of dramatic Detroit architecture. And finally, the fun part — putting the pieces together. I created the balloons, Bomb Pops, and color block background entirely CGi, then composited the rest using everything Paul shot in the city. He dropped by the studio to work with me on some finishing touches and overall style decisions, and after a ton of strips, a few sliders, and a little bit of face paint remover we were done clowning around. It was a great experience. Now if we could only figure out why people kept calling me a Juggalo...

Case Study

About the author

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Case Study "Call of Juarez" by Ars Thanea

aloa — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 17:24:18 +0000

At this years OFFF Festival in Barcelona Ars Thanea first presented their Case Study for the game cover "Call of Juarez" for Ubisoft. In a rather detailed way we show you how the cover was done.

http://www.arsthanea.com/

Call of Juarez by Ars Thanea

Sketch

3D

Final Image

Details

About the author

Aloa is the moniker of the german/greek graphic designer/filmmaker & musician Alexis Papageorgiou. Im glad to share great artistic work with the readers on Abduzeedo. Contact me on aloa@abduzeedo.com or follow my Twitter and Facebook page

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Case Study "Out Of Space" by Mosk

aloa — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 17:23:19 +0000

We love personal projects, we love case studies & we love Mosk. Just right to the start of the weekend, we spread enough love for everyone. Enjoy this incredible case study

For more information about Mosk please visit his website www.mosk.pl and make sure to add him on Facebook

Out Of Space

Details

Case Study

Final Image

About the author

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Case Study "Year Zero" by Pawel Nolbert

aloa — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 15:36:23 +0000

The "Year Zero" piece from Pawel Nolbert was part as Ars Thanea's submission to the same-titled book for the design festival OFFF 2011. The specialty about it is the Type which was made out of plaster by Pawel himself.

Year Zero by Pawel Nolbert

Details

Case Study

The typography was created from a plaster poured into a letter forms cut out of paper, then foiled not to get too much water from the liquid plaster.

After about two days, it was removed from the forms, then sculpted to create cracks, holes (except for bubble holes) and to diversify the surface a little bit.

After that, the type was photographed, then retouched and composed together with the rest of the elements in Photoshop. Some particles were additionally created in 3dsMax. - Pawel Nolbert

Where to find Pawel Nolbert on the web

Behance
Facebook
Twitter

About the author

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Case Study: TWC4 by Dobak Zsolt

aloa — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 17:21:41 +0000

Dobak Zsolt was one of the winners of last august "The World Collabs" competition at Abduzeedo. Today he will share with us his PSD file so we can check his steps and techniques. Enjoy!

Where to find Dobak Zsolt

http://cargocollective.com/dobakzsolt
http://hicky2.deviantart.com/

Starting Image by Joao Oliveira

Case Study

Ddownload the .PSD file

About the author

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Case Study "Sippin that Juice" by Parker Gibson

aloa — Sat, 28 May 2011 15:14:59 +0000

As a saturday morning special we present you a case study of a graffiti inspired typography done by KDU & IN member Parker Gibson.

Find more of his work at http://www.helloparkergibson.com/

This is a short creative process for a piece I created for the latest release at Intrinsic Nature. I started with a sketch, and then using my tablet I was able to paint this in, and create some visual effects I found appealing, as well as the use of some texture and other design elements.

Final Image

Case Study

After scanning in my drawing, I outlined it using a thick brush stroke, and the pen tool.

At this point I began exploring colors.

More progress has been made, with some details, and change in the approach of filling in the background and the words.

Final Image

Find more of his work at http://www.helloparkergibson.com/

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Mirage Case Study by Peter Jaworowski

paul0v2 — Thu, 19 May 2011 14:20:39 +0000

Peter Jaworowski needs no introduction, we have featured his work here plenty of times and the quality never goes down as he keeps impressing us. This case study is another amazing piece by Peter and the cool part about it is that Mirage is a personal work piece from him, and you get to see step by step how it was done. Enjoy!

For more from Peter Jaworowski visit his behance gallery, check out his design studio Ars Thanea or simply follow him at twitter

Mirage

Personal Project - This is the first personal piece that I've done in a while...and it feels good!

Close Ups

Case Study

About the author

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Case Study: Mux Mool Poster

marcos333 — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 04:11:08 +0000

Today I'm going to show a case study of a personal illustration I did recently. Having the will to experiment some new techniques, I found out that I should try more to include my drawings on my artworks, as artists like Sara Blake, Ian Macarthur, Gabz and others already do.

Mixing manual and digital medias can be really handy, since at the same time that you got a unique trace on the original drawing, you can also erase the errors you did on the computer and enhance the details. Also, I thought about a tip that James White once said, about making a fan poster of a artist that you like. So I decided to do a series about it and the one I'm gonna show you is the second one poster, a tribute to the electronic musician Mux Mool, non commercial purposes, of course. So in this case study I will show you my creative process, from the first sketch all the way until the end.

Sketching

Ok, I must admit, my project sketches are horrible, I use it just to get a preview of what I'm going to do, but isn't that what a Sketch is all about? Don't worry guys, I put some subtitles so you could understand it better hehe. My initial concept was to make a joke with the name of the music, "No black crayon", using a carachter with many crayons on his hands, but I suddenly though that it would be more rad with I drew a more remarkable carachter and so I came out with this eyed old and dry tree. I also thought to use a Black Metal inspired typography for the name.

Outlines

I know this may sound obvious, but even if I'm doing a drawing in Photoshop, I always begin with the outlines and shapes and after I do the fill and shading. I'm just saying this because some people tend to think you should do the three steps at once. What may happen is that one will lost the proportion of things, so you better do first the outline before making the fill.

Shading - iris

Isn't that hard to make and iris, you just got to know how to fill it with dash in a circular direction, also add some reflects.

Shading - body

Achieving this type of wood texture it's about practicing and observation, later I will enhance the wrinkles on PS to give some depth.

Adding color

I've always found always better to add color on photoshop, but this is about my way to do things, of course, everyone has it preferences, I like because you can commit mistakes and experiment a lot of things. After I finished the drawing, I scanned it with 1200 dpi, it's a good resolution to get a lot of details and print it in a large scale, but you still can get great results using only 300 dpi scanned pics. Back to the coloring process, I basically make a layer above the drawing layer, I use some soft brushes to make the gradients and blends and use Multiply to apply it to the drawing.

Outline

Again, first i did the outline of this typography, I really wanted to give a strong lookto it, so I got inspired in some Black Metal Band logos.

Dot Sading

Dot shading isn't a new technique, but it's quite awesome and I must admit I'm quite addict to it lately. Basically, you make the shades and create depth by the distance of the dots, yep, this takes some good time to achive, the video bellow exemplifies this step.

Dot Shading from Marcos Torres on Vimeo.

Adding color

Outline

Dot Shading

Adding color and gradients

Final Result

Well, there were some few experimentations till the final result, but the focus of this case study was about the drawing process, If don't got a good drawing, Photoshop won't save you probably. Some may say I should have used the white background instead of the black, but the idea was to make impossible to have a black crayon in there, If there was one, you wouldn't see it heheh just kidding. Hope you enjoyed and learned some quick tips.

About the author

My name is Marcos Torres, I'm Graphic Artist from Porto Alegre, Brasil. You can get to know more about me by acessing my Personal Website or by following me on Twitter: @marcos333. You can also see some of my last projects at my Flickr.