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 Posted: Wed, 20th Jul 2005 01:41 Post subject: What do you think of this? |
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Take a look:
http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/20757273/
Let me give you a bit of background...
When Syn started his website thread, I decided to chip in with a submission of my own.
At the time (and still) I was/am inspired by Story of the Year's "Anthem of Our Dying Day", or namely some of it's lyrics:
From up here the city lights burn
Like a thousand miles of fire
And I'm here to sing this anthem
Of our dying day.
So I decided to find a pic of the New York City skyline and frame the lyrics in it. Here were the results:
 .
Well, it was impressive (to me), but it just wasn't... burning. So I decided to make it burn.
Over the next hour, I used Photoshop's finger tool to smudge something that looked like fire from the image. The result was good, but not good enough. What I'd ended up were patches of fire with empty spaces here and there. In other words, crap.
So I tried to fill the empty spaces by smudging down from places adundant in light. The result, as I should have expected, is that both the original location of the "fire" and the "fire" effect were lost. I just had blotches of color very near to one another. Bummer.
Well, taking a look back at the whole thing, it hit me... The brilliance and the majesty was not from fire, it was from the colors. The spaces of colors made it all matter. After a due smack to the forehead, I set to work.
About 2 hours, a large glass of wine, and several delighted giggles later, the image was finished. I took a sigh of relief and spent the remainder of the evening cursing at Imageshack, DeviantArt, and my ISP for not letting me upload it (timed out).
It's worth a note that the three pieces of scenery to escape the blur at first held no real meaning. As I was creating the first image, the Empire State Building was not to be overshadowed by the text, that was my aim. So it stayed. The bridge was selected to be saved during the smudging into fire stage, because it was naturally bright, and something just stopped me. The building was saved at the last minute... I just felt something solid would be missing from the bottom of the image if I blurred it.
Of course, you can view them as symbolically saved, but I'm being honest with you.
Overall, I was impressed with the result. Feel free to post honest opinions (as well as snide remarks underlining exactly how much it sucks.)
On a different note, the experience of creating this was worth whatever may come after it. In the country I grew up in, there was no finger-painting in school, so I've never tried it. This was as close as I've gotten to the experience, and I must say, it rocks. Also, the colors were chosen deliberately. Finally, depending on the responses on this thread, I'm considering getting serious with this image... i.e. buying some canvas/paint and making a RL version of the painting.
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sTo0z
[Moderator] Babysitter
Posts: 7449
Location: USA
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| Posted: Wed, 20th Jul 2005 02:39 Post subject: |
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I really like how the building came out, I don't have much to say on the rest though, not really sure how I feel about it at the moment. 
But the building came out really well, I like it. Looks like blue flames are pouring out all the windows.
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Scaramanga
Banned
Posts: 777
Location: just around the corner first street left 2nd house on ur right
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| Posted: Wed, 20th Jul 2005 03:07 Post subject: |
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In reality, much of my influence came from Van Gogh's Starry night, except he was able to achieve an effect while preserving the scene and I was not... but the result is what I think a nice mix of modern art with impressionism, with the abstract underlining the real (empire state building) or blending with it (bridge). Keep the opinions coming though.
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drakgon
Posts: 1167
Location: England
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| Posted: Wed, 20th Jul 2005 03:20 Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | must agree with sto0z except i know how i feel bout the rest and that is that i dont like it one bit but the building is awesome |
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Esel_Gesi
VIP Member
Posts: 3802
Location: Chicago
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| Posted: Wed, 20th Jul 2005 04:08 Post subject: |
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| Accelleron wrote: | | In reality, much of my influence came from Van Gogh's Starry night, except he was able to achieve an effect while preserving the scene and I was not... but the result is what I think a nice mix of modern art with impressionism, with the abstract underlining the real (empire state building) or blending with it (bridge). Keep the opinions coming though. |
yea i dont know about all that. looks more like you just had a field day with the smudge tool. |
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SycoShaman
VIP Master Jedi
Posts: 24468
Location: Toronto, Canada
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| Posted: Wed, 20th Jul 2005 04:11 Post subject: |
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| Esel_Gesi wrote: | | Accelleron wrote: | | In reality, much of my influence came from Van Gogh's Starry night, except he was able to achieve an effect while preserving the scene and I was not... but the result is what I think a nice mix of modern art with impressionism, with the abstract underlining the real (empire state building) or blending with it (bridge). Keep the opinions coming though. |
yea i dont know about all that. looks more like you just had a field day with the smudge tool. |
Ditto |
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| Posted: Wed, 20th Jul 2005 04:21 Post subject: |
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tbh i thought it was shit 
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| Posted: Wed, 20th Jul 2005 06:25 Post subject: |
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a quick 5 min stint on PS and here's my version 
ignore the font and all that, i think the way my buidlings glow is better 
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| Posted: Wed, 20th Jul 2005 06:49 Post subject: |
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| Sublime wrote: | a quick 5 min stint on PS and here's my version
ignore the font and all that, i think the way my buidlings glow is better |
What effect did you use? |
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| Posted: Wed, 20th Jul 2005 06:53 Post subject: |
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erm.. i used the "blur more"and "sharpen" a few times on individual layers. I also just did random smudges like you said and then changed the blending mode. If you want i can send you the PSD
edit: check ur inbox
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| Posted: Wed, 20th Jul 2005 07:00 Post subject: |
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I prefer Acceleron's final version, but I do think you over-did a whole lot the smudging on the city. that tower sure is amazing though, don't change it
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| Posted: Wed, 20th Jul 2005 08:05 Post subject: |
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that text was just the same thing copied out with the first font i had and a 1 or 2 pixel stroke. If you look i left his there (i couldnt be arsed with it.. hey it was a 5min job literally ) I still think my 'night life glow' is better. Of course if i knew what i was doing (the effect just happened half way through) then it would obviously have been much neater + better. Plus the time spent on his and mine... is it really worth it?
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| Posted: Wed, 20th Jul 2005 09:08 Post subject: |
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| Sublime wrote: | | that text was just the same thing copied out with the first font i had and a 1 or 2 pixel stroke. If you look i left his there (i couldnt be arsed with it.. hey it was a 5min job literally ) I still think my 'night life glow' is better. Of course if i knew what i was doing (the effect just happened half way through) then it would obviously have been much neater + better. Plus the time spent on his and mine... is it really worth it? |
I think so... |
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| Posted: Wed, 20th Jul 2005 09:11 Post subject: |
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| whoKnows wrote: | Sublime's try is much better because the text can be read without suffering brain damage  Fix that contrast on your first pic Accelleron |
Like I said, I scrapped the first pic, so I found it not worth the effort to mess with. I think that the second version is beyond the need for text. I may have to think of something to do to it though... |
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Phluxed
VIP Member
Posts: 4911
Location: Oakville, Ontario, Canada
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| Posted: Wed, 20th Jul 2005 09:18 Post subject: |
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As you've mentionned, you've scrapped it, and for good reason. I know you had a concept, and it wasn't a bad one, but it just didn't come out right.
http://www.deviantart.com/view/1020250/
I think that was what I was most proud of a few years back. I don't really have any recent art worth showing on my desktop, most of the stuff is done on the laptop and I had completely forgotten about deviantart. I'm going to have to start updating with some newer cleaner stuff.
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