Monthly Challenge 7, January 2012 Options

[CrazEric]

MDC - January 2012

Welcome to the Monthly Design Challenge
The challenge for those who are truly passionate about learning photoshop designing.
In short – this is a month long challenge where you will create something new and original, drawing & coloring every pixel yourself using Photoshop only.

After some consideration I'm going to try and keep the MDC going into 2012.
For the next 3 months we will focus on learning - therefore I will only be accepting Photoshop entries.
Your photoshop psd must contain the vector shapes you drew with the pen tool.
I hope that with the help of some tutorials we'll get a few more people to join us this month (and the 2 months after that).
This month we will focus on creating vector shapes with the Photoshop Pen Tool. At the end of the 3 months of "learning" (if we have enough participants) we will continue the MDC as usual.

So here's what we are doing this month ...

Topic: Bird wallpapers
Create, draw and color a bird character of your choice. The focus of this challenge is the creation of the bird character but after creating your character you will also create a background from scratch (a simple color or gradient or pattern background is all that you need) and then upload your wallpaper to the gallery.
It can be based on any kind of bird - owl, parrot, vulture, penguin, twitter bird, etc.
Remember that I want to see the vector shapes you drew with the Pen tool in your psd. If you need to convert the shape into a Smart Object and/or Rasterize is - copy the layer first and keep the original vector shape in your psd. You should be doing this anyway in case you need to make changes to the shape or size later on.

Dimensions: The bird character should be between 400 - 900px wide or high.
The wallpaper size will be 1024 x 1024px (Apple iPad gallery)
(please only post a smaller preview of 650 x650px here is the forum)

Closing Date: Sunday 29 January 2012

To help you get started I've posted some twitter bird tutorials here: Click
(you can also try the RoC bird tutorial I wrote in post #4)

If you get stuck with any tutorial then please ask about it here & we will try to answer your questions.
And remember it takes time and lots of practice to get good results with the Pen Tool - but you will get better!
I recommend that you look at this twitter icon video - he covers just about all the basic techniques you need to know about using the Pen Tool to create your own vector shapes Link

Participants:

- Aleena143
- mohamedali05
- sp0rtskiller03
- soumyadeepbshn
- anulubi
- your_mother
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This post has been edited by CrazEric: Jan 18 2012, 01:33 PM

[your_mother]

Hmmm.... ok... that might be a stupid question, but is it okay like that too?

Layers
(IMG:http://www.dumpyourphoto.com/files3/89502/4rZBLqVfGs.png)

Paths
(IMG:http://www.dumpyourphoto.com/files3/89503/lxNfCW5DQv.png)



Great work with the penguin, by the way!!

This post has been edited by your_mother: Jan 2 2012, 06:13 AM

[CrazEric]

Hmmm.... ok... that might be a stupid question, but is it okay like that too?

Great work with the penguin, by the way!!

Thanks (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

I want to see at least 1 or 2 of these vector shape layers in the psd (depending on how complicated you birds shapes are)

(IMG:http://i39.tinypic.com/35ddtoh.jpg)

so just keep 1 or 2 vector shaped layers and then you can use your paths + other techniques as much as you want.
All I really want to see is the everyone faces the "demon" of creating shapes with the Pen Tool (how much you use it then is up to you) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/laugh.gif)
I don't want to stop you from using the techniques you already know altogether.




Everyone - I've added some more tutorials in the Introduction Thread link (IMG:style_emoticons/default/byebye.gif)
(pen tool video at the beginning and bird tuts at the end of the last post)

EDIT: Some people say they learn more from looking at psd's than from reading tutorials ...
so here is a link to a couple of bird psd's LINK they dont contain vector shape layers so dont even try entering them as your work! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif)

This post has been edited by CrazEric: Jan 2 2012, 10:52 AM