Mindless Scrap

After doing this week's texture challenge, I felt like playing some more with real photos. I grabbed an old photo that just needed a different background (it was taken in my living room). I used Eye Candy Texture Brick! What a cool plug in. But it was far too pristine for the urban feel I wanted, so I used a grunge brush to dirty it up. I love the way this came out! I even added a touch of graffiti. I'm much happier with it now. I got a lot more experience with removing backgrounds, and with brushes, and with my new Eye Candy software. Very fun and satisfying! Tutorial Used: None .

Weeee! My first scrap layout! I had no idea what I was doing with this, but I did it anyway. Boy, it went much more slowly. I wonder if I was doing it properly, or if my computer is bogging down, or what. This was fun. I'll definitely try more of these. Tutorial Used: None .

This tag I did because I was dying to make the tube blow bubbles. I had seen a tut somewhere, though for the life of me I can't remember where. Never did find it. If you know of a tut like that, let me know, will you? I'd love to experiment more with blowing bubbles. I was disappointed, after starting this tut, to discover that the animation was simply to make the bubble appear to glimmer, not to move. Rats. So I set out to find some kind of animation to help me here. I did stumble across a tut that showed you how to make a girl blow bubbles (though not specifically my tube). Cool! I played with it some, and while I'm not completely thrilled with the results, I am reasonably happy with them. I wish I had made more frames to the animation to make it go smoother. Maybe added more bubbles. But it's okay. I loved making this animation from scratch though. Very satisfying. But I wish I had more tutorial help with animations. They kind of intimidate me sometim...

I was looking for an excuse to play around and use one of my new PinUp Toons, so I picked this tutorial. The word art that came with this one was okay, but I wasn't quite sold on it, so I used a different one. I liked this one better. I didn't really learn anything new, just practice. I chose it strictly because I liked how the kit went with the tube. Tutorial Used: http://josbits2-tuts4u.blogspot.com/2009/01/dottie-love.html?zx=a6a11f7177391456 .

I don't usually use textures, but this one intrigued me. I've been wanting to try something with an artistic grungy feel, and this texture seemed to go in that direction. Then I saw one example where the texture did not go through the person in the photo! Even better! I first took a photo and erased all the background. I used brushes to give that grunge look I wanted (scrolls and fairy dust), and applied them to my white background and to the texture itself. I duplicated my photo. Then I applied the texture to the whole thing, and used the duplicated photo over the top of it, to take the texture off the photo. I liked the look! Then I applied a mat and frame. It's a bit funky, I know, but I liked doing it. I will play with this some more in the future. So I thought this would be a simple thing. Pick photo, apply texture as an overlay, done. Instead, I got to practice all kinds of techniques. I used the background remover, used numerous brushes (and had to bring...

For all the Bob Dylan fans out there, yes, that's where I got the title from. :) The scrap kit this week was blue, and my first thought was a forever in blue jeans kind of thing, but the blue idea took on a different twist once I began working with it. It just didn't have that denim feel. And I felt like going with a Janesko tube, and the one that I had that worked best with the frames and stuff I was using was a sad tube, taking the blue theme in another direction. Hence the Tangled Up In Blue. (I love that song.) Tutorial Used: None

Before After Okay, now for something completely different! ROFL! This week's challenges included a caricature challenge. How fun! I glanced through some of the submissions, and there were some really good ones. Not much chance of beating them. So I decided to have some fun with it. I tried to think up the silliest picture of DS that I had. Not too difficult to find one, since he likes to ham it up for the camera. A certain birthday photo jumped to mind right away. Blue tongue, funky glasses... Just the amount of silly I was aiming for! Not only did I get a chance to use the expand and contract tools, but I got to use my first script! (One built into the program.) Cool!! I had a blast with this tutorial. And it wasn't hard. Give it a try! Tutorial Used: http://www.pinoy7.com/psptutorials/9/caricature/p1.shtml .