Jeremy Saunders has 9 years worth of Key Art experience under his belt and I would like to take this opportunity to share some of them with all of you. But first what is “Key Art”?

A little bit of history

Movie posters have been and still is a big part of the industry since the earliest public exhibitions of films. What began as placards listing the programme of (short) films to be shown inside the hall or movie theater in the early 1900s evolved to featuring illustrations of scenes from each individual film or an array of overlaid images from several scenes. Other movie posters have used artistic interpretations of a scene or even the theme of the film, represented in a wide variety of artistic styles.

What is KEY ART?

Key art is a film poster used to advertise a film. It will be what the viewer remembers about the film long after the film’s original release date. There may also be several versions for one film, with variations in regards to size, content and country of production of the poster. It usually contains an image, or multiple images, composed to tell the story of the film. The titles are often designed to go with the artwork and often the names of the main actors are designed, as well. It might also include a tag line, billing block and contractual logos.

Key art can also be used to advertise a television show. Much of network advertising’s main artwork is known as key art and is used for advertising on web sites, billboards, magazines, city buses, bus shelters and banners. (Source – joseph-rey.com)

And now without further ado, here’s Johnny!

Burning Man

BURNING MAN is the reckless, sexy, funny, moving and ultimately life-affirming story of Tom, a British chef in a Bondi restaurant, who seems to have decided there are no longer any rules he needs to obey. Whatever Tom is up to, his actions seem to be tolerated by those around him.

As Tom descends into darkness, fragments of a different story begin to emerge. All the women in his world are trying in their own, very different ways to help put him back together.

Starring: Matthew Goode, Bojana Novakovic, Essie Davis, Kerry Fox, Rachel Griffiths (Source)

Che

Che is a two-part 2008 biopic about Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara directed by Steven Soderbergh and starring Benicio del Toro. Rather than follow a standard chronological order, the films offer an oblique series of interspersed moments along the overall timeline. Part One is entitled The Argentine and focuses on the Cuban revolution from the landing of Fidel Castro, Guevara, and other revolutionaries on Cuba to their successful toppling of the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista two years later. Part Two is entitled Guerrilla and focuses on Guevara’s attempt to bring revolution to Bolivia and his demise. Both parts are shot in a cinéma vérité style, but each has different approaches to linear narrative, camerawork, and the visual look. (Source)

We Don’t Live Here Anymore

We Don’t Live Here Anymore is a 2004 drama film directed by John Curran. It is based on the short stories We Don’t Live Here Anymore and Adultery by Andre Dubus. (Source)

Here I Am

Karen is a beautiful woman with a dark past, but she’s got potential and she knows it. Upon her release from prison she realises the hardest person to forgive is herself. (Source)

Animal Kingdom

ANIMAL KINGDOM is a powerful crime drama exploring the tense battle between a criminal family and the police, and the ordinary lives caught in the middle.

Starring BEN MENDELSOHN, JOEL EDGERTON and GUY PEARCE, LUKE FORD, JACKI WEAVER, SULLIVAN STAPLETON and introducing JAMES FRECHEVILLE. (Source)

Antichrist

A grieving couple retreat to ’Eden’, their isolated cabin in the woods, where they hope to repair their broken hearts and troubled marriage. But nature takes its course and things go from bad to worse…

Starring: Willem Dafoe & Charlotte Gainsbourg (Source)

Beautiful

Searing and luscious, BEAUTIFUL tells the story of Daniel, a shy and introverted 14 year old boy residing in Sunshine Hills, a suburb living in the grip of fear following the rumoured abductions of three teenage girls. Daniel’s two main obsessions are photography and Suzy, a 17 year old Lolita, a dangerous combination of youth and sexuality. But what starts out as an innocent summer holiday becomes anything but, and they’re drawn into a web of seduction, murder and deceit, from childhood fantasy and into the harsh reality of the real world… (Source)

Lucky Country

1902….the Australian Federation is a year old. Twelve year-old Tom’s beloved father, Nat, has dragged him and his sister, Sarah, to an isolated farm at the edge of the woods. But Nat’s dream of living off the land has died and he is losing his grip on sanity. When three ex-soldiers arrive at their cabin one night Tom, like his father, believes they are providence. But their presence becomes more menacing when one of them reveals a secret: he’s found gold. As the lure of gold infects everyone around him the cabin becomes a psychological battleground in which Tom’s loyalty is put to the ultimate test. (Source)

The White Ribbon

A village in Protestant northern Germany. 1913-1914. On the eve of World War I. The story of the children and teenagers of the choir run by the village schoolteacher, and their families: the baron, the steward, the pastor, the doctor, the midwife, the tenant farmers. Strange accidents occur and gradually take on the character of a punishment ritual. Who is behind it all? (Source)

Candy

A poet named Dan (Heath Ledger) falls in love with an art student named Candy (Abbie Cornish) who gravitates to his bohemian lifestyle – and his love of heroin. Hooked as much on one another as they are on the drug, their relationship alternates between states of oblivion, self-destruction, and despair. (Source)

Suburban Mayhem

Katrina (Emily Barclay) is a 19-year-old single mum who’s planning to get away with murder. Katrina lives in a world of petty crime, fast cars, manicures and blow-jobs. A master manipulator of men living at home with her father in suburban Golden Grove, Katrina will stop at nothing to get what she wants – even murder. When her father threatens to contact social services and take away her child, Katrina sets in motion a plan to wreak suburban mayhem that will leave a community in shock and make Katrina infamous in a way even she never dreamed of. (Source)

Good Night, and Good Luck

Good Night, and Good Luck. is set in 1953, during the early days of television broadcast journalism. Edward R. Murrow (David Strathairn) and his dedicated staff—headed by his co-producer Fred Friendly (George Clooney) and reporter Joseph Wershba (Robert Downey, Jr.) in the CBS newsroom—defy corporate and sponsorship pressures, and discredit the tactics used by Joseph McCarthy during his crusade to root out Communist elements within the government. (Source)

The Motorcycle Diaries

In 1952, a semester before Ernesto “Fuser” Guevara is due to complete his medical degree, he and his older friend Alberto Granado, a biochemist, leave Buenos Aires in order to travel across South America. While there is a goal at the end of their journey – they intend to work in a leper colony in Peru – the main purpose is initially fun and adventure. They desire to see as much of Latin America as they can, more than 5,000 miles (8,000 kilometers) in just four and a half months, while Granado’s purpose is also to court as many women as will fall for his pick-up lines. Their initial method of transport is Granado’s dilapidated Norton 500 motorcycle christened La Poderosa (“The Mighty One”). (Source)

Related readings:

Key Art – The Art of The Process

50 Beautiful Movie Posters

Movie Poster Gallery

Key Art Designs

Where to find Jeremy Saunders on the web

Website: jeremysaunders.com

Blog: Jeremy’s Blog

Social Networks: Twitter, Facebook

He was cool enough to sit down with Prodigal Concepts over digital coffee and it’s a treat I’m sharing with all of you a short Q&A with Jirka Väätäinen.

Q: Can you give us a brief bio of how you got into design?

Ever since I was a little kid, I have always done a lot of arts related stuff. Being creative and designing is what I am most passionate about, so it was a natural choice for me to get a higher education degree in design and turn my interests into a career.

Q: And who were your inspirations if you have any? People you look up to for inspiration?

There are so many talented people, and so much inspiring stuff out there that I don’t think I can just name a few people! Different people have inspired me at different times.

Snow White – Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

Q: Aside from your creative imagination where do you go to or what do use to stimulate creativity?

I draw inspiration from all areas of design and visual culture, whether it is movies, fashion, photography, graphic design or so on. So give me anything visual really, and I am good to go!

Princess Aurora – The Sleeping Beauty

Cinderella

Ariel – The Little Mermaid

Q: What was your creative design process while working on the Disney characters?

The design process has been very casual, since the project was self-initiated and it was just something I explored for fun. Being familiar with all the characters and having a clear idea on what I was looking to portray, the process has simply involved finding appropriate inspiration from real life people and photos, and then just working towards achieving my vision in photoshop!

Ursula the Sea Witch – The Little Mermaid

Belle – Beauty and the Beast

Megara (Meg) – Hercules

Q: Can you share with us (*aspiring creatives) some words of wisdom on how we could harness our creativity and standout from the multitudes of creatives out there?

I would just suggest everyone to have fun and find out what the things are that you genuinely enjoy doing – since after all, standing out will require you to do your own thing!

Jasmine – Aladdin

Esmeralda – The Hunchback of Notre Dame

Pocahontas

Mulan

Rapunzel – Tangled

Tiana – Princess and the Frog

I hope you guys enjoyed this post as I have enjoyed working on it, be sure to share it with your friends. And I would like to thank Mr. Jirka Väätäinen who has been generous enough to share his time and his work with us today.

Where to find Jirka Väätäinen on the web

Portfolio: @Behance.net

Blog: Jirka’s Blog

Social Networks: Twitter, LinkedIn

That being said let’s get down to business.

What we will be making

What we need for this project:

• Castle from imageafter.com
• Hot air balloon from pixmac.com
• RA2 Kirov from cncguild.net StoneDragon.jpg from EA forums
• Elephant from pixmac.com
• PSD file from the skyscape tutorial

“Previously on Prodigal Concepts” we found and used this landscape stock image that we got from pixmac.com

and with the help of Photoshop we duplicated, flipped and cloned parts of the image to make it look like one single shot that would fit nicely in our 2560px work area so that we could finally have this

after that we populated the heavens with stars, planets, clouds and colorful gasses.

So finally we are almost at the end of our journey and moving on to the last stages of our composition. But before we continue make sure you group the previous layers accordingly “landscape” and “skyscape” you can do this by selecting the layers you want to group together then drag them to the folder looking icon at the bottom of the layers panel.

Update the water reflection

Now check out the reflection of the sky and mountain on our body of water. It’s not the same sky right? So first thing we will do is take care of that problem.

If you have your “Ninth Planet” .PSD file open. Create a new layer at the very top of the layers panel and rename it “reflection-sky” then simply Select All or Ctrl + A and make a copy of the entire file or merged layers Ctrl + Shift + C then paste it Ctrl + V to the “reflection-sky” layer we’ve just created, this will be the first layer on the third group which we will call “realm”.

Flip the “reflection-sky” layer image vertically Edit > Transform > Flip Vertical, then reduce the Opacity to around 50% or less so we can see through the image. Start moving it downwards Shift + Down Arrow until the mountain edges of the reflections align, it’s not going to be perfect so just try the closest you can get.

Now let’s add a layer mask to “reflection-sky” layer and with a soft brush tool, brush off all the excess areas that is not part of the water reflection. Use the Blending Mode “Stroke” to help you trim the edges, like what we did for the sky of the original background in the “skyscape” tutorial. Don’t hesitate to zoom in if you need to. Turn Opacity back to 100% when you’re done masking.

Apply Filter Effects

Our “reflection-sky” layer desperately needs some texture. To give it that ripples effect, like there’s a very light breeze running over it. We will add some “Smart Filters” to create this effect, Smart Filters is a non destructive way to add a filter to your images. It will help us preserve the quality of the original image and will give us the option to make adjustments to the filter settings later when we need to. So while the “reflection-sky” layer is still selected go to Filter > Convert for Smart Filters, then click OK. Our layer is now converted to a “Smart Object”.

Now go to Filter > Brush Strokes > Sprayed Strokes and make the following adjustments.

Next lets give it some “Plastic Wrap” filter, go to Filter > Artistic > Plastic Wrap and use the following settings.

For an extra touch add Filter > Blur > Motion Blur, set Angle: 0 and Distance: 2

You should have something similar to this.

Adding details

Now for the fun part, placing the last elements that would finally complete this project. If you guys haven’t done so, you may begin downloading the required stock photos and extract the images from their backgrounds I suggest starting with the “Castle” photo.

Castle

Place the isolated copy of “Castle” photo on our working file, make sure it’s at the top most layer rename the layer “Castle”. Reduce it’s size a bit, I suggest 18% – 20%, and place it on the right hand side just by the edge of our lake.

Lets tweak it a bit, click on the “Create new fill or adjustment layer” button, select “Curves…” click OK then clip it to the “Castle” layer (hold ALT then click on the line between the two layers) open “Curves…” again (double click on the adjustment layer) and try to match these settings.

It doesn’t have to perfect. Your monitor might show a different result anyway so use your judgement here. Click OK. What we are trying to achieve is to make it blend with our background’s exposure.

OK now zoom in near the bottom of the “Castle”, notice the way I cut it out of the background left it with some really sharp edges that doesn’t look nice. For this grab your Smudge Tool (R), but if you placed your “Castle” image the same way I did which is File > Place… (location of the image) chances are your “Castle” layer is in “Smart Object” state. Right click on it first and then select Rasterize Layer now it’s just a regular image and ready for our Smudge Tool (R).

By the way before you click on Smudge Tool (R) make sure your Brush (B) tip is set to Soft Round use the Brackets [ ] keys to increase or decrease the brush tip whenever necessary.

Start smudging, try to stay close to the edge and smudge away. Maintain random strokes and spaces. Spot the difference? After smudging the bottom edge looks more blended to the ground.

Duplicate the “Castle” layer (don’t forget to include the curve adjustment layer.) Select both layer copies “Castle-copy” and “adjustment layer-copy” then Right Click > Merge Layers rename it “Castle-ref” and drag it below the original “Castle” layer.

Now flip it vertically, Edit > Transform > Flip Vertical and move it down, Shift + Down Arrow right before a gap shows between your two images.

Then repeat the steps we made in “Apply Filter Effects”. Add a Layer-Mask so we can Brush off excess of the reflection that’s not touching the water. Like the left part of the “Castle-ref”.

Do the same for the rest of our images. Unless they’re not supposed to be seen from the reflection on our “Lake”.

I will be placing a couple of elephants on the field, I will give some shadows with the help of brushes and the elephants outline selection.

The hot air balloons will be on the top left hand side. I gave it a dash of clouds from the “cloud” brush pack by JavierZhX, we’ve downloaded from deviantart that we used on the second part of this tutorial.

The rest is just some last minute changes, I went back to the “skyscape” group and using a large soft brush I dabbed on the top most left hand side. Using yellow, purple and green respectively. Gave it a Blending Mode: Overlay, and Opacity: 90%.

After my new year wallpaper tutorial I’ve decided to give this final piece some Optic Flare effects for extra character, that you can get from psdbox.com’s optic flares. Since I’m still in the “skyscape” group folder anyway I figure it’s a good time to include these effects.

And finally we’re done

Finishing touches: Ctrl + (N) a new layer, then get your “Gradient Tool” and set the Foreground color to #5e758c and the Background color to #165a9e now drag it across diagonally starting from the bottom right ending at the top left corner. Set the Blending Mode: Soft Light to give it a more dreamy feel.

Concluded: Part 3 of 3

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A Happy New Year to all the readers and visitors of Prodigal Concepts. I wish you all the best this coming year as we are ushered into the year of the Dragon – 2012.

The holidays are blurring out, (but the holiday weight seems to be staying longer than necessary) and before we all move on to the challenges of the coming year let us go with a bang and celebrate one last time with an out of this world wallpaper tutorial.

What we will be making

What we need

Font
Federation Font from Legacy of Defeat

Textures

Stainless from Photo Bucket

Concrete from deviantart.com

Grunge tile from Lost and Taken

Optic flares

The genius behind psdbox.com came up with some out of this world optic flares that you may find really useful in your future projects get it here.

Nebula
For the second time we will be calling on the Nebula which we are borrowing again from the uber awesome tutorial of Patrick Monkel Making a Superhero Movie Teaser Poster from wegraphics.net. Last used here on A photo manipulation tutorial, skyscape – The Ninth Planet

Set the stage

Open Photoshop and create a new document Ctrl + Shift + (N), make it 1280 x 800 pixels. Name it whatever you like, I’m going to call mine “2012 wallpaper”

Create the mood

Start with a new layer Ctrl + (N) and call it “background”, then set your foreground color to #797978 and your background color to #1a1a1a. Take your Gradient Tool (G) and from the gradient picker choose Foreground to Background and set style to Radial Gradient.

Drag your mouse from the center going diagonal to the lower right hand corner.

Create another layer Ctrl + (N) and call it “gradient-light”, set your foreground color to #c6c05c and the background color to #05394e. Keep the rest as it is and drag your mouse like before. Change the Blending Mode to Overlay.

Mystify the background

Ctrl + (N) a new layer and call it “cloud”, set your foreground color to #835d2c and the background color to #261501. Go to Filter > Render > Clouds, set Blending Mode to Overlay. You should get something like this.

Make another layer call it “gradient-blue” and set your foreground color to #698aab and the background color to #1a5c9f. Get your Gradient Tool (G) and set style to Linear Gradient. Drag it across your stage from top left diagonally to your bottom right. Set Blending Mode to Multiply.

Time to get our “bw-nebula” image out, just go to File > Place (navigate to the location of the bw-nebula image) then click Place. Make sure it’s centered, now we will Edit > Transform > Rotate 180° and change the Blending Mode to Screen.

Add another layer and name it “4gradients”, then get your Gradient Tool (G) from the Tools Palette and click on the gradient picker, the gradient editor window should pop up. Choose a 4 colored gradient then replace each color from left to right with something like Blue (or Cyan), Green, Yellow, Red.

Now starting from the top left drag it across diagonally to the bottom right. And set the Blending Mode to Overlay.

And on the 7th layer we almost rested… but not, because we will make one final layer for the background and call it “light-effects” fill this layer with #ffffff, then go to Filter > Render > Light Effects. Change style to RGB Lights, and set Intensity to 60 and Focus to 96 click OK. Go back to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur give it a Radius of 100% then set the Blending Mode to Overlay and reduce the Opacity to 75%.

Type treatment

Take your Type Tool and set the font family to the Federation font we downloaded from “Legacy of Defeat”. Set your font size to 130px and font tracking to 100.

Since it’s just a couple of days till the year ends why don’t we welcome the coming year by typing

Turn this into a selection, Ctrl + click on the type layer, then go to Select > Modify > Expand (Expand by: 5px). Now create a layer below the type and name it “outline” fill your selection with white. Temporarily hide the type layer by poking the eye on the left of the layer.

Go to Blending Options and set the following settings:

Drop Shadow > Blend Mode: Multiply, Opacity: 75%, Angle: 45°, Distance: 20px, Size: 10px

Inner Glow > Blend Mode: Screen, Color: White

Bevel and Emboss > Style: Inner Bevel, Technique: Smooth, Depth: 100%, Size: 25px, Soften: 10px, Angle: 45°,

Color Overlay > Blend Mode: Screen, Color: #3f464d

Stroke > Size: 1px, Position: Outside, Color: #dddddd

Place the Grunge tile texture above the “outline” layer and make sure the entire selection is covered now clip it to the outline by using Alt + click between the two layers. Add an Adjustment Layer – Brightness and Contrast then clip this to the Grunge tile texture and give it a -75 Brightness and -24 Contrast.

Unhide the type layer, and set the following

Blending Options > Drop Shadow > Distance: 21px, Size: 21px, Angle: 45°

Then place the Stainless texture above this type layer and clip it.

Blending Options > Color Overlay > Blend Mode: Soft Light, Color:#001d29

Do the same for the Concrete texture after placing it above the Stainless texture, clip it then set the Blend Mode to Overlay.

Group this set and call it “content”.

Give it some POW!

On a new layer with your Elliptical Marquee Tool (M) draw a very thin ellipse, I made mine around 206 x 19 pixels, deselect then go to Filter > Blur > Motion Blur Set Angle to 0° and Distance to 90px click OK. Duplicate this layer then Edit > Transform > Rotate 90°, duplicate this layer then rotate 45° to the left.

Shrink the last copy to around 40% and the first copy to 60%. Group them together and name the group “glint” now duplicate this group 6 times (or more) and place them randomly on our content somewhere around the edges of the type layer.

And finally, place some of psdbox.com‘s Optic Flare effects, I will be using Optical-4b and Optical-8c. Just set the flares Blending Mode to Screen and drag it to where you feel it could give the optimum effect. Play with it until you are satisfied.

That’s it I hope you guys enjoyed this tutorial and be sure to share it.

A very Happy New Year to everyone!

May this coming year bring us all closer to our dreams, woot, woot, woot.

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So even though I’m not a huge fan, I am an admirer of greatness and I recognize greatness when I see one and Steve Jobs is one of the great minds of our generation have produced. He will be terribly missed. So in my humble way I would like to say goodbye to him by sharing with all of you a round up of some art work by fans and how they see the genius, the visionary, the innovator, the inspirational digital icon that is Steve Jobs.

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most importantly, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.” – Steve Jobs

To infinity and beyond…

adayday

koinoi

dylanroscover

Jboogieman

pequeno3d

wretneck

WorkByNight

donnieraycrisp

entertailion’s photostream

Metin Seven

DonkeyHotey

Photo Giddy’s photostream

karagos

Yo-tan

weird-science

The Ideal Beauty of the Human Body in Art

The idea of the perfect human body is a result of culture: religious functions, economy, advertisement and other factors.

The definition of beauty is not an immanent and objective quality of things, since every age, place and social class formed its own ideal of it, ideal beauty is corresponding with the aesthetic feeling of people of a respecting period.

“History of art” as a relatively young science earlier was called subjectively “aesthetics”. Art was supposed to evoke religious contemplation and/or sensuos and mental delight., as the ancient poet Heliodor postulated.

However according to the great historian Ranke the task of an historian is plainly “to tell as it really was..”, and not his own opinions or feelings.

Actually nowadays we are not any more allowed to call something objectively beautiful, only “to me it is beautiful” or “I like it”, especially since art expresse the disorder and confusion of mankind.

It seem, that there is no more ideals and “anything goes”…

- A Short Introduction to European History of Culture

I have always been fascinated by the “Death’s-head Hawkmoth” used in the “Silence of the Lambs” poster ever since the movie came out way back when. For those who are not familiar with it, these moths are easily distinguishable by the vaguely human skull-shaped pattern of markings on the thorax. But if you look closer, the image used in the movie poster incorporated an original sketch by Salvador Dali which he later collaborated with Philippe Halsman called In Voluptas Mors (1951) where he used actual women to form a large skull.

It is by some creative chance that I’ve stumbled upon a similar imaginative individual who celebrates the human body in all it’s glory, manipulating stock images to create a totally new concept. Let me introduce you to the dreamlike but artistically talented works of…

Cecelia Webber

Our featured artist for today once questioned why we are made to feel so ashamed of the human body especially in the Western culture and so much of the rest of the world? “Isn’t the body a beautiful, wonderful thing, deserving nothing less than to be celebrated?” Cecelia alighted upon a petal in her mind, a new-found platform from which she could quietly challenge the status quo: she created a digital image of a flower constructed entirely from photographs of the naked human body.

Caterpillars and Butterflies

Traveler

Reach

Chrysalis

Cerulean

Monarch

Fuchsia

Vivid

Flowers

White Dandelion

Sunflower

Sunflower (blown)

Blue Bell

Blue Lilac

Cherry Blossom

Jungle Pink

Dragon Flower

Note: Cecelia also dabbles in paintings as a medium, you can get a taste of her works of surreal cityscapes in black and white by heading over and viewing them all from her updated website.

Where to find Cecelia Webber on the web

Website: ceceliawebber.com

Blog: Cecelia Webber’s thoughts (NA)

Social Networks: Twitter, Facebook

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Last week we picked our winner for the UPrinting.com contest which we had here at prodigalconcepts.com last May 9 – 15, 2011, and our lucky winner is… “drum roll goes here”

Ms. Dolly Coffman

We sent you an email notifying you of being selected and confirming your email address. The representatives of UPrinting.com will contact you regarding details of your shipping preference.

I would like to thank each and everyone who have participated in this momentous occasion, I hope that you could all check back often to read our latest articles and join our future contests. To get the latest updates of what’s going on at prodigalconcepts.com please like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter.

I would also like to thank the guys at UPrinting.com for their support and for giving prodigalconcepts.com the opportunity to be a big part in their online promotions. Cheers!

Update: May 16, 2011

Contest ended, winner will be announced!

This is a very exciting day for us here at Prodigal Concepts, because we have teamed up with the guys from UPrinting.com a leading company for online printing services based out of Los Angeles and Van Nuys, CA. to give away some US$80 worth of die cut Business Cards or Postcards to one very lucky visitor.

Postcard prints from UPrinting.com

About UPrinting.com

UPrinting.com is an online printing services company, that has established itself as a major player in the industry with its distinct vision and clear approach to helping small businesses grow. They have earned customer loyalty by offering more customizable options than other online printers. The company is popular for its Free File Review, a complimentary proofing service which requires no upfront payment.

And aside from online printing services they also offer convenient marketing support such as design services and direct mailing to help the small or medium-sized businesses grow. They are committed to social responsibility and eco-friendly initiatives that support non-profit organizations and environmental sustainability.

Business card prints from UPrinting.com

How to win

1. All you have to do is leave a Comment on this post letting us know which set of prints you would like to win. And make sure you leave your name and a valid email address so we can contact you. Simple as pie!

2. Then you can either subscribe to our RSS feed, “Like us” on Facebook or follow us on Twitter so you can get updated when we have picked the winner and news of future contests.

This contest will end on May 15, 2011 (one week), winners will be randomly chosen.

What you can win

The winner can choose from a set of Business Cards or Postcards

100 Postcards
5” x 7” 14pt Cardstock Gloss
Front Only printing 2 Business Days Print Turnaround Time

OR

250 Die Cut Business Cards
1.75” x 3.5”, 2” x 3.5”, or 2” x 2”; 2.5” Diameter (Circle)
Die Cut Business Cards (Rounded Corners, Leaf, Rounded Single-Corner, Half-Circle Side, Circle);
14pt Cardstock Gloss / Matte / High Gloss (UV), or 13pt Cardstock Uncoated
on a 6 Business Days Turnaround; Front Only or Front and Back printing

Disclaimer: This giveaway is sponsored by UPrinting, no monetary compensation was given. For more information about postcards or business cards, please visit UPrinting online printing services.

Restriction: Limited to US residents 18 years old and above only.

What we will be making

What we need for this project:

• The “landscape” we made from the previous tutorial.
• Planets (image pack) by Obsidiandawn
• Clouds by JavierZhX from devianart.com
• Grunge Tile texture from unsigneddesign.com
• Brick Tile texture from premiumpixels.com
• Nebula which we are borrowing from the awesome tutorial of Patrick Monkel Making a Superhero Movie Teaser Poster from wegraphics.net.

It’s time to re-open our “Ninth Planet” .PSD file. First create a new layer below our “landscape” layer and then place the downloaded “bw-nebula” image we borrowed from Patrick Monkel’s tutorial by going to File > Place > (image file location) luckily for us its dimension fits our working canvas so we don’t have to work on it much, in addition the layer is converted to a “Smart Object”. Rename this new layer “nebula”.

Flip our “nebula” image using Transform > Flip Vertical, then nudge it upward. Do this while holding down the Shift key then with the Up Arrow key nudge it up 20 times.

With the help of a nice soft brush, we will mask the “landscape” layer’s sky a bit. To do this make sure you have your “landscape” layer selected and then click the button that resembles a Japanese flag to Add a layer mask to it.

Get your Soft Brush and make its diameter around 300px. Set your foreground color to #000000. Start brushing away some of the sky. Follow the curves of the mountain as close as you can. To make sure you don’t miss any stray pixels use the Blending Options and add a Stroke.

Clean up the stray pixels then remove the Stroke, Right Click on the layer Clear layer style.

Our sky needs a thin atmosphere, so create a new layer above the “nebula” layer and rename it “atmosphere” set your Foreground color to #a0c7fe and with the Gradient Tool set to Foreground to Transparent, drag it vertically starting from the bottom going up.

The skyscape feels a bit dull, it needs more tint or color. Let’s give it a nice gradient map. Set your Foreground color to #4a94f9 and the Background color to #32445c. And make sure the “nebula” layer is selected, simply click on the “Create fill or adjustment layer” button below the layers palette, it’s the one that looks a bit like a Yin / Yang symbol next to the “Add layer mask” button.

Choose Gradient Map…, this will create an adjustment layer using the foreground and background colors we have set on top of the nebula image. And since we only need this for the nebula layer we have to clip it.

To do this hold down Alt key and hover your mouse over to the line between the “Gradient Map” adjustment layer and the “nebula” layer, the cursor will change to a black arrow with two small circles over lapping each other, click your mouse. The “Gradient Map” adjustment layer will now have an arrow pointing down. This means that it’s clipped to our “nebula” layer.

It’s still feels a bit weird let’s add another “adjustment layer”, repeat the previous step this time using “Hue/Saturation”. First tick on the Colorize box then set

Hue: 215
Saturation: 45
Lightness: +5

To finish it off, add another “adjustment layer” this time a “Curve”, give it an

Output of 150 and an
Input of 120. Don’t forget to clip it.

I think we got it now, time to add some clouds using the cloud brush pack by JavierZhX that we have found on deviantart.com.

Create a new layer at the very top, and rename it “clouds”, now I will leave you guys the option which cloud style to use just make sure you cover the entire width of our work area. Start brushing the clouds above the mountain range, you can use more than one style (mix it up) don’t worry if it overlaps the mountains. We can clean it up inside a mask with a brush afterwards.

I would like to add a mystical effect behind the clouds, first duplicate the “clouds” layer and rename it “aurora” place it behind the clouds layer then go to Filter > Blur > Motion Blur and set the following;

Angle to 45° and the
Distance to 250, click OK.

Now open your Blending Options… for “aurora” and give it a Gradient Overlay, use these settings;

Blend Mode: Exclusion, and set gradient to
Rainbow to Transparent
Style: Linear
un-check Align with Layer
Angle to -45°

You should have something like this.

We are now ready to add some planets, initially I was all set up to use Obsidian Dawn’s image pack (Planets) but when I placed the Mars2 image which was what I used with the original “Ninth Planet” photo manipulation it was dwarfed in comparison simply because the canvas of this tutorial is four times the size of the original piece. What a predicament!

Let’s improvise and make our own! Open the Grunge Tile texture in Photoshop. Turn this into a Selection (Ctrl + A) to see the dimension on your Info Palette, it shows that we have 3264 X 2448. So while the image is still selected Copy (Ctrl + C) it then Create a new file (Ctrl + N) and make the dimension 2448 X 2448 (square) and Paste (Ctrl + V) our texture here.

We have to center our image so turn it into a Selection (Ctrl + A) then make sure you have your Move Tool (V) selected hit Align horizontal centers button located at the top of the staging area.

Next we will squeeze our texture image to fit our square canvas, go to Transform (Ctrl + T) then highlight the Width option and start squeezing using the Down Arrow keys up to around 75%.

Next go to Filter > Distort > Spherize, with the following settings;

Amount: 100%
Mode: Normal

Hit Ctrl + F to do it one more time. To extract our sphere from the rest of our image, we will use the Ellipse Tool, just drag it across our canvas while holding the Shift key starting from the top left corner. It doesn’t have to be perfect but try to get as much of the sphere as you can. Use “Vertical and Horizontal align centers” to keep it centered, Ctrl + Enter to turn the ellipse into a selection. Select the texture layer and Add layer mask to isolate the sphere.

There you go, instant planet! We can now use this in our project.

Place the planet image below the “atmosphere” layer and rename it “planet-x”, position it to the far right and make adjustments as you see fit. I wanted the bottom left to be seen with what looks like craters so I rotated my “planet-x”. Now we will add Blending Options.

Outer Glow
Blend Mode: Screen
Color: #FFFFFF
Size: 60px

Inner Glow
Blend Mode: Overlay
Color: #FFFFFF
Size: 250px

Almost there, set the Foreground color to #3399ff and the Background to #a0c7fe create a new layer and rename it “x-atmosphere” then go to Filter > Render > Clouds and clip it to our “planet-x” layer, use Multiply for the Blend Mode.

To give it a dark side (of the moon-ish effect), add another layer above the “x-atmosphere” layer then select the outline of our planet (inside the mask) and turn it into a Selection (Ctrl + click), now set your Foreground color to #0e1722 and your Gradient Tool to Foreground to Transparent. Drag a gradient starting from somewhere in the middle of the selection going diagonally up and left, use your judgment here. Add Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur, Radius: 25px, then clip it.

Now that we have an imposing planet I think it’s safe to use our stock planet images from Obsidiandawn I will be using Mars2 and Saturn3. So start isolating your planets. If you’re not sure how to do this check out my article on How to extract an image from its background in Photoshop.

Once you have isolated the planets, start incorporating them to our work stage. Make sure you place them below the “atmosphere” layer. I’m going to start with Mars and place it off center near the left hand side. I think we need to add some color to Mars by giving it an “adjustment layer”,

Hue/Saturation
Colorize tick it on
Hue: 360
Saturation: 23
Lightness: 0

You may want to give it the same treatments as “planet-x” from this point on, the settings would vary but basically we will use the same glow elements. Do the same for “Saturn3″. You can add more planets using other textures like what we have done for “planet-x”.

Final result

Click the image for a closer inspection and enjoy.

To be continued: Part 3 – A photo manipulation tutorial, realm – The Ninth Planet

When Captain America throws his mighty shield,

All those who chose to oppose his shield must yield.

If he’s led to a fight and a duel is due,

Then the red and white and the blue’ll come through

When Captain America throws his mighty shield.

- opening theme from the 1960′s Marvel animation series

Captain America “The First Avenger”, is the latest Marvel live action incarnation. This will feature Chris Evans as Steve Rogers “Captain America”, and Hugo Weaving as the “Red Skull”.

Captain America first appeared in March 1941, created by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby. Steve Rogers, was a sickly military recruit enhanced to the peak of human perfection by an experimental serum to aid the United States war effort against the “Axis” powers in World War II. Wearing an American Flag themed costume and wielding a disc shaped shield made of an experimental alloy called “Vibranium”, which was originally intended to be made into tanks. The vibranium was created by accident and never duplicated, attempts to reverse engineer it resulted in the creation of “Adamantium”. Which was later bonded with Wolverine’s skeleton and bone claws.

The movie “Captain America – The First Avenger” will be part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and is scheduled for release on July 22, 2011 in 3D. I hope you all enjoy and find inspiration with this roundup. After all “Cap’n” is known for being relentless, surrender is not a part of his vocabulary, a good trait to have for start-up’s in the web design arena.

ninjaink

cruzaderazn

Ashmantle

herobaka

mbreitweiser

ANDREA11179

isikol

hobo95

agustin09

xzykho

Valzonline

deadhead16mb

sneedd

Ceshira

FlowComa

buchemi

zenithuk

Konjur

xxnightblade08xx

NineteenPSG

Jam-Wah

drawsgood

lovetherobot

Cinar

RentonAlex

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