Not Half Bad

Wallpaper 65, 1920x1080. As per tradition, full-size files and details of the creation process are available on request.

Journeyistics

My latest wallpaper is air-travel themed. Keeping with the new standards it is 1920x1080, and as usual the full-size file is available on request.

Wallpaper 64 : Journey (Air)

There is extensive use of stock photos in this one: the planes are directly from stocks, and the trails are traced with help from stocks. The figure on the left is built from two stocks (a person with backpack and trolley bag, doctored to have a bigger trolley obtained from a different stock figure) and then edited manually (ye olde brush and eraser) to look, um, vaguely familiar. The picture in the middle, though, is not at all a stock and is built from scratch using only brushes, gradients, filters and shapes/paths, etc. ie. entirely in Photoshop.

Dino's on a Roll

A bit of tweaking an existing piece never hurt anyone.

Wallpaper 63: Dino Summer Slurp

As always, full size files available on request.

My First 1920x1080 Wallpaper

I wanted to make wallpapers for bigger screens ever since I graduated out of my 1024x768 desktop computer. I went through a whole another laptop, still making wallpapers of the old size because I couldn't habituate myself to the new ratio. Finally, having a 1920x1080 laptop, most of my own wallpapers were getting difficult to use, and this summer I decided to make another attempt at making a bigger wallpaper. I had two half-started ideas that I tried to take up again, but then went off in another direction.

Full disclosure: I started with some ground and sky with a horizon, but soon it became a dinosaur's back in my head. The weather outside turned gloomy so my originally cheery background turned gloomy too.

The final result is something like my typical old work, but hopefully better.

So, here's Wallpaper 62, the pioneer in my 1920x1080 series.

Wallpaper 62: Dino Winter Gloom

As before, while the images uploaded give you the right ratios, they are often not the right dimensions. Blogger's auto-compression has different effects on different images (depending on the file size) and I keep it on to consume less internet. Full-size/better resolution/alternate sizes are all available on request. Where possible alternate aspect ratios are also available. Depending on how much work it takes me to provide them, the on-request files are usually free, but not always.

Feedback about the design is always appreciated.

Wallpaper 61

I got back on Photoshop after a long time and messed with some artsy brushes and patterns. The result is below. Honestly, I don't like it very much. It resembles my earlier work, done when I didn't know half the things that I know now.

Better late than never

It took me a tad too long to come up with something for this New Year's. I'd been meaning to have fun with the Doomsday-didn't-come thing, but couldn't find a good way. Even now I won't say I'm satisfied with the product. Nevertheless:

Wallpaper 60

Texture ideas for the header text are from www.vladstudio.com. Learnt the background from www.oktutorials.com. Mayan warrior mask tweaked version of real photo found on multiple sites (real source unknown).

Of Interludes and Creations

It has been a long time. And in this interval, I have had time to think if I would continue with this blog. Meanwhile loads of things have happened in the school: I had my last SPICE Club meeting, where we outgoing members were gifted saplings. I had loads of family stuff, friends stuff, please-let-Obama-win stuff and yay-Obama-won stuff. I also had Runescape-is-launching-Evolution-of-Combat stuff, lost-access-to-my-Runescape-account stuff, and thank-you-mods-for-helping-me-get-it-back stuff. I also read Midnight's Children and The Catcher in the Rye, which I got for my birthday (21st Oct -- I'm 16!) and I have a lot to say about them that I might get to some time in the future. I celebrated Durga Puja and Diwali and went through Carmel Treasures Retreat, which is sort of a seminar for the outgoing students. And in all this time I have decided that this blog deserves my attention from time to time. I am not in a space now where I want to put in too many hours in this: yet I want to put up things I make for all who care to see. So, there will be some changes, at least until I cope with the whole situation involving me being a public exam candidate and having only the last few months left of my 12 years as a student at CCHS (and less than a month of working days). And with growing up.

Interludes are good. They help you think, rearrange, re-prioritize. They are ways in which you do things without doing them too often. Hitherto, my breaks from the blog were interludes. Now, for some time, my posts will be interludes, and the breaks way longer. There will be no regular bite-sized pieces of my life, because I half can't and half don't want to keep up with that rather demanding routine, especially now that my life is just too eventful for me to handle. There will be updates, short ones, like in the beginning of this piece. And of course, there will be my creations.

First off, I made a wallpaper at the end of Durga Puja, for Bijoya Dashami:

For Carmel Treasures Retreat, we had tasks of writing a poem about ourselves, which I sat down to do but went a little off-topic:

========================================

MINE

They state, I disagree;
They assert, I challenge;
They hinder, I surge.
I purge
Their dreams
Of statement, assertion, hindrance.
They destroy, I rebuild;
They aggress, I avenge;
They control, I defy.
I deny
Them the pleasure
Of destruction, aggression, control.

They abhor clarity—
Confusion
Is the weapon
Of their cunning choice;
My voice
Is stifled.
Rights and duties,
Explanation,
Logic and reason
Are chained to fear;
And disappear,
Trifled.

I breathe, I exist,
My heart beats. I insist
That it’s no one’s business to tell me
When, or
Where, or
How—
If they cannot tell me
Why.
I love, I live,
I say (and so I believe)
That nobody can define me
Or advise,
Or patronize,
Me—
If they are not
Mine.

========================================

Also for Retreat, we had to make a bookmark with an inspirational message to exchange with our friends. This was my design, made from Wallpaper 34 (no Photoshop, just the a textbox in MS-Word and the Brightness and Contrast adjusted):

So there we are. I'm looking forward to watching the Life of Pi movie and playing the new Combat system in Runescape. Also, I'm not going to Vibes this year for two reasons: I don't want to risk an outstation trip in the last months before my Boards, and I have an outside exam to sit for on one of the days.  I shall see you, at the next interlude. Happy life.

Wallpaper 54

#54: Musing about the internet and the connections we make with myriad people. I used a certain photo (available online) as a reference to draw the face. The earth is a preset shape. Food for thought:

Their hands are ours, and in their lines we read

A labour not different from our own.
Remember they have eyes like ours that wake
Or sleep, and strength that can be won
By love. In every land is common life
That all can recognize and understand.
--Para 2/4, 'No Men Are Foreign' by James Kirkup.

I also added a +1 button for the blog as a whole, and another button for adding me on G+, on the sidebar.

Wallpaper 53

#53: Product of laid-back tinkering while indulging in wishful thinking. Aah.

Not much to say today. Just an update.

Wallpaper 51 & 52

Woot! Wallpaper update after long time!

#51: First wallpaper made with my portable Photoshop CS2. However this one doesn't use much of the CS2 magic, except of course the ease that comes with a more inclusive interface. The base of this wallpaper is the cool zoomed pixels idea I got from Vladstudio, which I found through Vandelay Design Blog. I've learnt some other cool things from different websites in all this time: some ideas, some techniques...

#52: ...which have been used to make the next wallpaper, one of the rare ones which I actually have thought out a bit. It uses two prominent new techniques from Vlad: fast hair technique for the monsters and a nice sequence of effects from his Diving wallpaper for 3D leaves. I consider this one of my best wallpapers. After making the monsters and leaves I was completely lost about the background. I was playing around with gradients when I hit upon the default gradient having the base's blue-green colour and white. I used it in conical, and got this base by chance. That brought me back on track, and I added the yellow part of the back, the rainbow, and the little greenish filler in the upper left corner. And, done! I'm really, really, really, happy with this one.

Wallpapers #46-49

As promised:

#46: The shiny bug bit me after #45. Within what I believe was no way more than 40 hours, I had made this one and one more shiny.

#47: Shiny the second. Like those starry-night roof posters for a child's bedroom.

#48: Compilation of preset shapes, followed by colouring, copy-pasting and making the background, shading and blurring and smudging etc.

#49: Rosy world! I played with custom brushes for the background as well as foreground of this one. I love colour and angle jitters for roundish brushes. They have some amazing potential, especially in my self-taught world of wallpapering.

HA! After a long time, since who-knows-how-long-ago, I don't have a single unposted wallpaper on my PC. And, I've posted 50 wallpapers (note that Holiday special was #50).

Yuletide

So, Merry Christmas, if you celebrate it. Happy Winter Holidays, and Happy Summer Holidays if you live south of the equator. I live atop the Tropic of Cancer, so there's no snow in my town, though the northern bit of my own state is a Himalayan area and houses snowy tourist destinations. But winter does come, and Yuletide comes with it. Before school closed, on the 17th we had a Creative Carolling contest at school between the classes, and the great ninth ( :D ) won in the seniormost group. We got the biggest applause: we had Disney characters, two girls under one cloth for a reindeer, and we burst party poppers on stage, so of course we won. :D:D School reopens on 2nd, btw. :(
I hate weekend festivals. They eat up holidays.
Anyway, here is the Holiday wallpaper, which is also special as my 50th:

I last posted wallpapers till #45. Wallpapers #46-49 will hit you shortly. So will the blog's Yuletide look. Goodiebyes!

Catching Up

I was away from here because my internet betrayed me. Anyway, meanwhile I have finally used the T-shirt markers that a cousin gifted me quite some time ago. I did three practice runs on torn tee material. I drew a bouquet, a girl, and a block of houses with just them 6 shades: red, yellow, blue, green, orange, black. I am overwhelmed with how good they turned out given it's my first ever time with this medium. I can't say if there will be photos. Also, I'm doing good with my new phone. The inter-school fest Vibes, run by us, the students who are coordinators at The Statesman Voices, went well just like the past two years. This Saturday we had an exhibition displaying our craft work. There was some spontaneous rivalry between classes even though there was no official reward. Most classes had some innovation in their presentation, and our class's display was a hit.
I haven't made a wallpaper in ages, and I think my considerable collection of unposted ones is taking my attention off that. So I'm gonna post some right now:

#41 was made while I tried to create painting-like effects in Photoshop. It portrays a caveman crouching in his cave behind a fire, locking eyes with the dangerous beast outside, clutching at a piece of rock just in case. Good for keeping on your desktop if you're feeling unlucky -- it'll remind you of how much worse your life could be. I made with the different watercolour brushes on Photoshop, using the finger painting setting of smudging.

#42 was inspired by a salwar suit my Mom bought. It is everyday wear, with rather simple black flowers on dark blue. I liked the dark blue and black combination, and also the shapes of the flowers, which matched a preset flower shape in Photoshop. I added and subtracted a few concentric flowers to create the shape I wanted, and then coloured it. I also created the background, but I wasn't completely satisfied. I played around a bit and then did the curvy lines, tinkered with blend modes, painted the background colours and copied in more flowers. Then I blurred the flower layers, merged them and applied the plastic wrap (of all things!) filter on it. I like the final product.

#43 is another one I made with repeated use of preset shapes. I remember that I began this with no idea in mind about what I'd do. I did a row of green branches and made two more copies of it. I overlay those copies with yellow and red. Then I used different blending modes, bevels, etc. and transformed several copies in different ways to get this. You will notice that there's nothing in this but that leaf pattern, even in the background. Even the filling of the leaves is actually more overlays of the same layer, moved or rotated a bit.

#44 was completely whimsical. I took the four watercolour brushes, and set them to have the maximum rotation jutter, spacing, scatter and colour jitter. I did some random brushwork with my colour set to black. Then I changed the settings, the brush shapes, the set colours, the jitters and speeds and everything else I knew how to change about brushes. At one point I had enough on my canvas to proceed more logically, which I did. I think I used something else for finishing but I don't remember what.

I dig #45, because it actually involved some conscious creation from the beginning and was spontaneous at the same time. I used the bonfire and the spiral from the preset shapes, loads of gradients, blending modes and masking. I also used some fab colours: the flames are blue and purple. The basic colour I hit upon was the onion-peel colour that I really love. It's a bit metallic, and a bit soft as well, this colour. Another reason I love this one is because it shines! I made something shine, at last! I remember almost everything about the making process for this one, but I fear that I am so self-taught that I will use wrong language for half the things I did. Yes, I know the terms. But there I things that I know can work, but don't know the background workings deeply enough. I also don't have enough training to know the general effect of some tools, and only know what situations I have worked with. And this wallpaper involves a lot of those things. Otherwise, in all this that I have said, I might as well have told you the process. I'll see if I feel any spunkier one of these days: spunky enough to tell you in my amateurish way.

CIAO!

More experiments

Some more of my wallpapers. Here's #36:

It's half-experimental and half-planned: texture was planned, colours and effects were done on the job. Now #37:

It looks like something under a microscope, I think. Result of bold thoughts, tired mind and lots of time. Next, obviously, is #38:

It came to me while playing around with pictures: I was having laughs, converting stuff from Cartesian co-ordinates to polar or vice-versa, and dabbing colours randomly, when I had a nice ring-like shape of rainbow colours on a bluish base. So I started working with those colours, and did a little more of co-ordinate fun, and discovered the waterfall-like possibility. Then I used several masks and blending modes for the effects. I did the horizontal mist lines to reduce the vertical effect of it. I still think it's a bit too much, but I didn't want to overwork it.

Ooh, that was a long story. #39:

I was looking at all the available custom shapes, and the hands fascinates me. I just started drawing them randomly. I was dozy and some gathering nearby played really disturbing loud music, out of tune, and my head went buzzing. That prompted me to do the ripples. It was all in grayscale, when I had some real ideas and decided to actually make it a wallpaper. I made a few layers between my shape layers and experimented with very basic colours and diverse brush modes. It looks shocking even to me.

I didn't know that I remembered so much about the process until I started writing, heh. #40:

I was experimenting with the watercolour filter. Some day if I have patience I'll try to make something that looks like a real watercolour. I started a few times, and figured out more or less how to get the basic effect, but I never had the patience to sit with it for long enough to finish it. The filter is very gradient sensitive, and so unless I account for every layer with it's own required brush settings, I won't get much graded effect.

Adios for today, subsequent wallpaper updates probably won't come this frequently or in so large batches. I was making up for the absence, during which I made so many that I have lots not uploaded yet instead of the usual one or two. Also, wallpaper page is updated till #34. Alignment issues are not solved yet, so that will continue to be a slow process.

Wallpapers Galore, but with regrets (31-35)

I'm putting up loads of wallpapers today, overdue from my absence. However, I cannot update the Wallpaper page, as it is a time-consuming job.

31: Random experiment with filters: looks like some futuristic environment-saving thingie.

32: First attempt at sceneries. Drew a rough sketch with a light brush and applied mosaic and other effects.

33: One of my favourites, and the definite winner with my Mom. I didn't draw the kingfisher. I modified an internet picture. I'm going to try that more often: composition-based wallpapers, y'know.Worked hard on this one. Lots of brushes, filters, blending modes and editing. Still isn't perfect, but I didn't want to risk overworking it. And yes, I know I can always keep a copy and do it, but I don't have a clear idea what to do yet.

34: I learnt a lot about paths from a tutorial. The black and gradient-based background and the curves are (partly) from there. Then I added my own schemes to it. The pointillizing, the rings, lines, lighting effects and stars. Applied lots of new knowledge about layer handling too. I extensively used shape layers, fill layers and masks. One of my most technical ones yet. I can actually recreate it almost to the tee.

35: Ooh, chillies. Another whimsical one. Was playing around with radial gradients.

Wallpaper 30 : How not to do it

I was going for a spooky effect with the red and black. Everything was fine, until I decided to add a little surreal lighting with the sparkle setting of paint daubs and a few distorts. I left it midway, saving it and closing the file, and when I came back, I had no history, and no memory of what steps I'd followed. I had no way to use the exact same sequence of distorts and my effects were left unfinished. I was too apprehensive of experimenting even more with the mess. Lesson learnt: save it but don't close it, you just might forget. This will make a good addition to 'never split sittings on a wallpaper if you're just experimenting with no concrete target in mind'. That's something I learnt long ago, fortunately that time the results were not as disastrous.

Wallpaper 29, busted UPS

The result of experiments with brush modes of the same colour with a little filter applied in the end. Looks better in original size, as usual.
This one won't be available on the Wallpapers page right away, as I've decided that the page editor hates my images too much, so my wallpapers will be put up in twos from now on -- putting up a single is more trouble than I can handle, especially with a busted UPS. Yes, I'm working on direct power. A single power cut and all my unsaved stuff gone poof. Along with a little bit of my computer's life.

Absence Makes...

...the wallpaper grow better.

Another one that looks better in the original size. (#28)

When I have nothing else in mind...

...I fall back on my collection of wallpapers. The one above (#27) is basically random brushwork of black on white, treated with several filters, including a blue neon glow.

Wallpaper 26

I'm feeling quite brave about the wallpapers again. Because I have a considerable number in queue now. I discovered lots of new techniques with the filters in Photoshop. Self-teaching is FUN. This one is done in Gimp, though.
Presenting Wallpaper 26:

I used different brush settings and map filters for this one. Hope you like it.