Wonderful public-submission how-to site Instructables always has all kinds of contests going on, and with Halloween approaching, they unrolled a whole lineup of Hallow’s Eve themed contests. From costumes to jack-o-lanterns, they’ve got it all. But mostly, the photomanipulation one caught my eye. The deadline’s tomorrow, so sorry if you’re getting late notice, but I’ve been working on my entry for the past two weeks or so. Check it out after the jump.
When I was living in Vancouver, after my VFX studies, a friend of a friend asked me to design a logo for a business he was opening in town. Unfortunately, I was never able to see the business in the physical, since I moved back to the US shortly after finishing the job, but I’ve seen photos of the sign up since I left. It’s pretty cool to see something you’ve designed taken to the next level on that scale.
You can visit their website and see a photo of the sign here.
I was asked to do some pro-bono web and graphic design work for a short film entered in the Movie Magic competition. It won first place and the director and star actress went to Sundance. I learned a lot from the job, and am happy with most of the work.
What was pretty cool about the process was I had the house to myself most days, so it was the HorrorPops, Photoshop and me. I never actually met the guy, I was recommended by a mutual friend and for critique and review we Skyped, I’d fix something and send it back to him, he’d OK the direction and I’d keep working from there to polish it up. Next time I’d use some sort of screen-sharing, I didn’t think of Skype’s screen-sharing tool at the time.
You can watch the short film here.
I really liked working in dark palettes and hiding things when I made these pieces, and manipulating a lot of photos to make whatever came to mind as I was creating. I’d literally sit down and find a random photo and just start messing with it and some idea would begin to form, and I’d find new photos to add into the collage to manipulate and make into what I was envisioning (best example is ‘shiny’, the white-and-gray guy looking upward with fireworks in his chest). It was spontaneous and limitless, I miss doing that a bit, it was fun.
The sunset photo is actually two separate images, the sunset was taken outside my family’ apartment window when we lived in Colombia, and the photo of myself looking out at the lake was taken on a weekend vacation when we lived down there. It’s gotten fantastic response on DeviantArt.
