#
EmoteSecretSanta 2012 - Gift #2 to `
Synfull:
Syn building a huge Rubic's Cube out of snow.
Okay, first things first. I prepared three gifts for you.
This is number two.
After I had finished the
icon, I tried to think of a new idea, because the icon alone didn't seem enough.
Spending a sleepless night, the next day suddenly and idea flashed and I grabbed it before it could get lost.
I remembered you love Rubic's Cubes! So I decided to do one, only out of snow, to stick with the winter theme.
For the sky in the background tried something new and used ~
zozioxp's
tutorial.
Merry Christmas, dear!~
`ChewedKandi has certainly gone out of her way to keep the vector community on the right path. Always making sure that her talents are infinitely scalable, Sharon has put her bezier curves to excellent use, and firmly anchored herself as an inspirational leader. We're absolutely delighted to bestow the Deviousness Award for June 2013 to `ChewedKandi. Congratulations, Sharon! Read More
Sta.sh
First of all I have to say that I think that the transition of the hue between the darkest and the brightest blue is too abrupt.
And I am not really a fan of the dithering, for me the dithering shouldn't be too obvious, it should be nearly impossible to see. (But I am not good dithering :C ) here are 2 more tutorials/tips [link] [link]
Then I think that there is too much snow falling from the sky, I think it would look better if there were less snow. (but then they could look like stars
This brings me to the next issue, tons of snow falls down but nothing of it stays on the emote or on the trees, i think it would look better if some of it stays on the "items".
Firs are such a pain to pixel
I noticed that you used transparent colours to create the shadows, you could save tons of colours when you would use solid colours, but that's not really a problem with a static emote. But you shouldn't submit it to a pixel group they would be upset about it
And the snow itself doesn't seem to be that snowy to me it kinda looks more like ice to me.
Here is a concept of how I would have done it: [link]
I hope I wasn't too harsh :C
Thank you very much for all the advice, it gave me lots to think about. I'll be looking into the tutorials you linked (one of them was already in my faves
About the falling snow... Well, I tried the star-shaped snow in my entry for the Emote Advent Calendar [link], but wasn't quite satisfied with it back then. So I thought it might be nice to have more snow. Plus the snow Syn builds the cube has to come from somewhere, right?
I can see what you mean regarding the firs, it indeed looks better to continue the outline to the inside. Great tip :>
About that transparency, how did you find that out? ;'D I wasn't aware you can see that at all and I always wondered how you guys count your colours... Is there a tutorial or something to find out? (Slso I wasn't planning to submit it to a pixel group anyway, but now I know what not to do
You weren't too harsh at all, I appreciate helpful tips like this alot!
I can't thank you enough, dear!
I have a few ways to check the colour count and to find similar colours. I often save the image and open it in photoshop then I use the magic wand tool to find the same colours.
To see the colour count I simply use the save for web option, it tells me how many colours there are. And I use it to reduce similar colours by copying the colour table, then I use the magic wand tool with different tolerances to see which are pretty much the same. It helped me when I was working on the frame by frame project xD
Another tool that can count more than 256 colours is [link]
Thank you very much for showing me all these ways to count colours! I'm not very familiar with PS yet, but with the help of a few tutorials/ forums I found the features you mentioned ;) Also, the page you linked to is helpful as well! I've learned a lot :>
Which version of photoshop do you use?
No more zooming in and out
Oh and something else: If you are lazy (like me) and you need to add dithering to a bigger piece, you can do this: (I am not sure if it works cs2) First of all you need the colours of the of the piece( [link] ), then you go to File-save for web, there you should see the colour palette, next to the colour palette should be small arrow, there you can save the palette.
Close the window and go back to the document, now you have to blend the colours ( [link] ), then you go back to the save for web window, there you have to load the previously saved colour palette.
There should be the option to change the dither style (it has: no dither, diffusion, pattern and noise) You can now decided which one you like more, pattern or noise, I like pattern more xD (pattern - [link] , noise - [link] )
This is how I did some backgrounds
On another note, would the 'lazy' method be considered tooling? Since you technically use the blending tool.