Time Used to Practice Art Skills

I've had so much free time after my 'early' end of the school term recently that I was able to browse so much information on the web and learned so much especially with the help of international contacts on my Twitter. This was an advantage for me as I am not formally educated in creating digital artworks.

Below are the outcomes of some of the work I've done with Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator with the help of some online tutorials just for the fun.

Super Happy Octopus Character - April 9, 2009

This was my first attempt in using Adobe Illustrator to create vector images. I've created vector looking images before but with Photoshop and Illustrator does have its advantages in creating vector images because it's easier to create complex shapes.

The tutorial I followed, titled "Create a Super Happy Octopus Character" could be found here: http://vector.tutsplus.com/tutorials/illustration/create-a-super-happy-octopus-character/

Vibrant Light Effect - April 16, 2009

This was the outcome of following a tutorial on creating simple vibrant light effects on Photoshop which could be found here: http://www.blog.spoongraphics.co.uk/tutorials/create-a-simple-vibrant-light-effect-in-photoshop

The image of my name, "efren", was from an image made by my girlfriend's sister, Erika Rellora, months ago:

Desert Trip (Vintage) - April 16, 2009

I could probably say that I gave my heart in creating this one. I had an early vacation going back home to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia to visit my family and we always had a stop-over at Dubai International Airport because we rode on Emirates Airlines. I had to buy Lara a present and I knew that she wasn't 'that' materialistic. A picture frame at Dubai Duty Free caught my eyes. It had an antique arabian feel with its bronze-plated surface with two functional opening doors.

It left room for me to be creative so I made this image to complement it. It was fun making. What was challenging was to make it appear that 'we' and the background weren't separate images. I also added a sort of sepia/vintage/damaged feel to the image to suit the theme of the frame.

A tutorial on creating vintage effects on Photoshop could be found here: http://www.emanueleferonato.com/2007/10/15/create-a-vintage-photo-effect-in-photoshop/

I hope you enjoyed them as much as I have enjoyed making them! :D