The secrets on how to make artwork of the Sam/Jack ship family thread

[Regularamanda]

Gorgeous wps and headers kids.



We use them on LJ?

If you want info on LJ don't hesitate to ask. I spend as much time there as I do here on GW. Some days even more.

Me too I love GW but LJ is just so different from it. It's really super fun though, once you get the hang of it.

Speaking of which, I had to "" today because someone mentioned that I make a lot of communities, I think the person was in a few of mine and just never said anything because I didn't recognize the person.

[Krissie678]

I'm on livejournal so much more than I'm on here. I like it b/c I feel I have more freedom to say what I want there.

Why is it that I have awesome ideas for artwork and wallpapers when I'm doing homework? I have an awesome idea for a Ronon/Amelia wp, but really should be doing school work.

[starlover]

Tutorial for Silhouette wallpaper.(first one is a new version I made to remind myself how to do it again)

Program: PS CS4( I have no idea if it is translatable; depends on if you have the right tools)
Time: 2 hours...thus grab a cup of coffee etc. or take breaks because this one is going to take a while (at least it did for me!). It took me from 0:52 am till 3:42 am to make the wp and write this tutorial(and I think it was 3 am when I finished the wp)
Difficulty: Medium; it's mostly a lot of work.

Spoiler:

Step 1:
Open a white new file(wallpaper size) and open a picture you want to use as silhouette of your choosing. The size of the picture and the quality doesn't matter at all...as long as you can see the silhouette of your object/person in it. Preferably not a lot of cut of sides on the picture because you want it to be your main focus in the wallpaper.
Also no pictures with persons on it and "inner gaps" don't gutterize that people; we're doing something serious in here. I don't know how to vectorize the inner gaps...

Ok I'll wait till you all have done that*looks at busy people*

Everyone found their picture? Okay...
Step 2:
Grab your Pen tool on the left menu thingie. It's shaped like a pen; if you can not find it just press "P".
Make sure that the window below the whole menu bar looks like this:

So have the same parts selected and make sure that your color is BLACK!

Now the fun and long part to do. You all have your pen tool set and ready to use right? Gooooood. Then start in a corner and just click on the "edges" of the silhouette. Don't keep your button pressed but just make sure there pop up a "point" everytime you click. You'll see a black silhouette starting. It can be that it sometimes covers parts that you don't need to cover; lower the opacity then. In the end close it with ending at the start. Sort of like you ues the lasso tool you also have to close it.

*sips some coke* Any questions? No. Then lets move further.

Step 3
You now have your shiny silhouette on the ugly old background but since we don't want that we just drag our "shape" layer from the picture file to the empty wallpaper size file.
There you right click on the "shape" layer and click in the row on "rasterize layer". Now you have an normal layer again. Grab the Magic Wand Tool and delete the white background in this layer!!

So far:

Step 4:
Pictures in sihouette

This is a very time consuming thing but very repetitive and boring so I shall just say the basics if you haven't already guessed how to do it.

You search for a lot of awesome pictures you want in your silhouette and minimalize them in PS. Open the first one and resize etc. it till you've found a nice place in your silhouette to put it. Then go back to the "shape" layer and use the MWT(magic wand tool) for the empty area, keep it activated while going back to your picture layer. (make that one active again). Press delete.
You do this with all your pictures but make sure that you don't leave too much empty space in between, the white will be added randomly after this so no need to worry for the lines in between(I did that the first time and used because of it a way to fat line)

Have fun and I'll go eat a bag of chips while y'all are working on it.

Done?

Well...this is how mine looked so far:

Step 5:
The white lines.
Make a new layer.
Just grab a basic round brush tool of 4px(or perhaps even smaller you don't want to have fat lines do you? They should be nice in shape and well trained instead of lazy, big and fat )
Use the color white or the color of your background.
Press on top of a "break" once and then hold down your shift key on the lower part where you want to end your line. Click. You have a line. This way is good to use for between "breaks" of pictures, not good for random lines because they will get crooked. I had that problem with the first version of my wp. I solved it like this:
Grab the marquee bla bla tool and just go up or down or to the side so you have a place where you can have the line. Fill it up with white. After this you can reshape it(make it thinner) by going to edit-->transform-->scale. You get the right size you want then.

I think this is an easy step but you just need to figure out where to find the right tools.

My wp so far:

Step 6:
Other side:
Repeat steps 4 and 5 for other side of the silhouette(Sam)

Step 7:
Background and B/W.

I now "stamped" my picture(shif+ctrl+alt+e) and desaturated(shift+ctrl+u) it. I made it B/W because it IMHO looks better than colored(less busy).
Then I went back to my "shape" layer. grabbed the MWT again and again selected the empty parts. Went back to my stamped layer and delete the white parts there. Why not use the stamped layer for this? Because you then also delete the parts of your shiney white lines. and we won't want that right.

Background:
Work behind the silhouette and just create a BG you like...preferably desaturate it too...I at least did that because it was "in tune" with my picture.

WP so far:

Step 8:
Da Finish

After this it is just about finishing the wp. Perhaps use some adjustment layers(brightness and contrast/levels) and make it fancy as you like. Also add some nice text and voila...you're done
Font used in this wp: Karat.

Lookie how it looks:

My layer palette(except for the shape layer since it got too long)

Spoiler:

[jasminaGo]

Me too I love GW but LJ is just so different from it. It's really super fun though, once you get the hang of it.

Speaking of which, I had to "" today because someone mentioned that I make a lot of communities, I think the person was in a few of mine and just never said anything because I didn't recognize the person.

Well... it's not like they weren't right.


Thanks for the tut Jann!

[es!]

Awesome tut, starlover! Looks like A LOT of work! O.o

[josiane]

Wow, thanks for the tut Jann! That does look like a lot of work, but it is a great effect

[Sarai]

Tutorial for Silhouette wallpaper.(first one is a new version I made to remind myself how to do it again)

Thanks for the tut Jann, looking forward to giving this a go

[wine_buyer]

Thanks for the tut starlover! The humor sprinkled throughout was much appreciated as well.

[Samantha.Majka]

I like the style of this - Sam / Jack Wall

It is a great job.

[Blacky Kitten]

Jan, thanks forn an aewsome tut! Great job!


We placed a little new year three and my kitty isn't interested in it yay!

[Jumble]

Hey GimPS

Just running in to show off my new sig and avi

The sig is taken from a wp that Humanityspotential made a while back, so not really my work Avi made from the original pic

[es!]

Hey GimPS

Just running in to show off my new sig and avi

The sig is taken from a wp that Humanityspotential made a while back, so not really my work Avi made from the original pic

http://i247.photobucket.com/albums/g...he-ice-sig.jpg

I told Jumble on three occasions already - this sig is plain awesome.
Does anybody know how to get this coloring? A custom color profile? I'm really lost here and I'll be very grateful if anybody gives me a hint

[starlover]

I'm atm working on a 2010 calendar...not quite finished yet(muse needs a break) but so far I got January and February(and March is opened in PS)
It's a thunky SG/Sanctuary men calendar...filled up with some other hunks since I couldn't think of more SG/Sanctuary ones(plus it was all B's idea/order so I had to add in two certain men for her )

Spoiler:

January – Ben Browder
February – Kavan Smith
March – Jason Mamoa
April – Joe Flanigan
May- CSI dude of B(George Eads)
June – RDA
July – Micheal Shanks
August – Patrick Dempsey
September- Hugh Laurie
October- Christopher Heyerdahl
November- Robin Dunne
December- Ryan Robbins

[es!]

I'm atm working on a 2010 calendar...not quite finished yet(muse needs a break) but so far I got January and February(and March is opened in PS)
It's a thunky SG/Sanctuary men calendar...filled up with some other hunks since I couldn't think of more SG/Sanctuary ones(plus it was all B's idea/order so I had to add in two certain men for her )
/snip/

What a great idea!!
Do I have to worry because I know less than a half of them?
And where's Tesla?
*ducks and runs for cover*

[starlover]

What a great idea!!
Do I have to worry because I know less than a half of them?
And where's Tesla?
*ducks and runs for cover*

See...I knew I forgot someone!

*looks in list of who to delete*

Spoiler:

January – Ben Browder
February – Kavan Smith
March – Jason Mamoa
April – Joe Flanigan
May- CSI dude of B(George Eads)
June – RDA
July – Micheal Shanks
August – Hugh Laurie
September- Jonathon Young
October- Christopher Heyerdahl
November- Robin Dunne
December- Ryan Robbins

And don't worry about not knowing everyone...means you'll see some new thunk. Yum