From Africa with Love

[HugeBlack]

Hey my first post on CA, woohoo!! \(^o^)/

Here are a couple of wall paper designs i'm working on. Mostly personal stuff. But well, here they are in order of creation.

Play: this was done after i saw a TED piece on "serious play" to remind myself to involve some serious play into my workflow. Basically, to play around with my tools and techniques to see what i would be able to come up with.

Repeat till Fade: You know when you read the lyrics to a song and you get to the end of it? Yeah, this is a visualization of "repeat till fade".

Pixel Revolution: I was having a hard time motivating myself to pick up my digital tools (mostly a Wacom tab that i bought for a kidney and was not even making good use of).
I read an interview with Lorne Lanning that also helped inspire me to do this image
( http://venturebeat.com/2008/08/23/qa...e-digital-art/).
I love that Q&A.haha, funny he should mention a kid from Ghana in his last sentence... guess where i'm from?
So, this is for everyone fighting the digital art fight.

Crits are as usual, more than welcome.

[HugeBlack]

Actually on checking, not my first post on CA but the first post with my work, my first "showing" if i can say that.

[HugeBlack]

wow, my first comment, thank you kind sir.

[Migma1]

that last one with the fist and the tablet...wow.

[LuckyDevil]

Don't like the first one, the purple and pink don't go with the blue on the background.
Like the second one , and i LOVE the third image. Though the words "pixel, la" get lost cause is so dark with the background, try making it white instead, the red letters will still stand out even if it's white.

cheers.

[HugeBlack]

@ Migma1: Thanks.

@ LuckyDevil:

Play- I wanted to have contrast between contained chaotic "play" and orderly "play". But hey, it could have been "worse", i could have used red and yellow

Revolucion-I spent a couple of hours trying to figure out what i'd do with that text. Every other colour made it too "loud" and drew the eye to it immediately. I wanted the main focal point to be the fist and the text "revolucion". I had similar problems with the Tablet. But hey here's what i'm talking about in the attachment. Still think it's better? See even though the text is smaller than all the other elements having it as white still makes it quite "loud". Tried grey, no help either.

[LuckyDevil]

You are right, the white does make the image heavier on the left. I think that grey wouldn't look to bad. Here i put the same grey that you are using on the stylus for the letter to tie everything together colorwise. Not much you can do to that tablet, anything you try to it will make it pop and draw attention away from the arm. But it's large enough where i think its fine like it is.



On a side note, whenever i am working with logos, i create them in black and white first so i know that they read in different color backgrounds since most of the times logos are used for promotions that will go on t-shirts, hats, documents...you name it. After its done in black and white i create a color version for the final, most important part of logo's is the readability. Pixel, la revolucíon logo is very iconic and memorable with the fist and red star good job on that.

[HugeBlack]

Thanks.Yeah the grey is not too bad. I did do a couple of black and white versions. I didn't want then to be conventional black and white though. You know, like the "inked comic book" look. Thanks for the feedback greatly appreciated. Here are the B/W(/R) i settled on:

[manlybrian]

I understand the reason for the solid white and black in the repeat till fade one, but I think it would be easier on the eyes if you darkened the white and lightened the black a bit. And maybe if you made it a low-saturation tan hue instead of the gray, that might make it more interesting. Just a thought.

[HugeBlack]

@boftiftroni: Did you manage to find Chris? Will the real Chris please stand up.

@manlybrian: I tried tinting and shading the various elements. Didn't quite work for me. Everything just started looking a bit grayed out and that didn't help with the fading out part of the pattern. Hahaha, funny you should mention a low saturation hue. I wanted to use a blue hue but then all my designs would be predominantly blue (it's a colour present in almost everything i do, i try to sneak it into everything,i should stop...soon ). Yeah it is harsh on the eyes but that was one of the reasons i kept it. Having smaller motifs make it more bearable but there was something about the harsh effect i liked (duration for which i used it as wallpaper: 2mins).

[HugeBlack]

thanks tookeypopsi. I'm glad you like it. It's for everyone burning through nibs.

[HugeBlack]

hmmm...i'm unable to view new replies.

Thanks Emdat, I'm glad you like it.