Hello guys!
Let me start off by saying that everyone did a great job last week! Remember to keep practicing your placement. Its very important to master fundamentals before moving on to more complex things. Often times, it would seem people try to make masterpieces before they fully understand how to compose a good piece. Mastering basic will make you better.
Anyways, welcome to week 2! Week 2 is a pretty basic lesson. I share with you guys how to locate renders, c4d's, and fractals. This week will have multiple assignments as well as more optional tutorials to maximize your learning opportunities. So lets get started.
Learn the terms:
Render: A render is often times a person or object intended to be the focus of your art.
Tips: Never use more than 1 render. I personally think it makes thing complicated and divides attention up and takes away from the piece overall. One of the most important things in signature making is picking HIGH QUALITY RENDERS and properly know how to use them.
C4D: Is a sporadic 3D shape that often comes already rendered, meaning it has no background. These shapes can be used to accent certain styles and pieces.
Tips: C4D's are best used with near realistic images or high quality computer art. C4D's don't look particularly good with anime, manga, or comic images. This is due to the difference in realism and depth. C4D's are not only shapes! People often creates C4D's for lighting purposes and this type is usable with almost all types of art.
Fractals: A Fractal is a series of lines in random patterns often used for lighting effects. Typically they are against a black background are and most utilized using the "Mode" feature in Photoshop.
Tips: Fractals add unique looks to signatures. But be careful, its very easy to over use them. It is possible to use them to help create depth in your art. Fractals can also be manipulated flow with your art.
Renders are very important. You can debate that they are the most important feature of any signature. So, with that being said if you use a low quality badly cut render can you guess which direction your overall work is headed? If you use a bad render your overall quality decreases. Almost instant failure. Finding a locating the best renders for your work is crucial.
C4D's are an optional resource. Not all pieces can handle C4D shapes. In fact, the use of C4D's is a category in signature making all in its own. Artists who use C4D's need to focus on blending, color selecting, placement, depth, and lighting. This often makes using C4D shapes very difficult. C4D's can also be used a lighting. I use fractals and the brush tool more for adding lighting but unique patterns and design can be accumulated when using C4D's as lights. The most common type of C4D lighting is "bubbles". I don't use them often but a former active member of this community named "TreeFrog" mastered them and was able to make spectacular pieces. I would recommend checking out some of his work to see how to use them properly.
Fractals are also an option resource when creating signatures. They are somewhat hard for me to describe. Often times they consists of lines or unique patterns you can use in your art. I find that changing their blending options really can make a piece pop out. However, its very easy to over use them thus resulting in skewed or overly bright signatures.
Learning how to accumulate a library of resources will open you up to using them. The more experience you get with your library or using pieces the better art you can make. Remember, these are not required in every signature you make. You can over do the concepts very easily. However, I recommend practicing with these because it will help you in the long run and you will get a bunch of practice with placement.
This weeks lesson is simple. How to locate resources.
Outcome (not the attempt from video lesson)
Due to the simplicity of the lesson I hope to bring you 2 tutorials this week. Please keep an eye out for them.
Assignment
Using the CSOA sized canvas I want you to create me a 2 signatures different signatures. In the lesson video you get a brief glimpse of layering C4D's and Fractals. I didn't emphasize hardly anything. Without too much of my guidance I was 2 different signatures following these guide lines.
1. Use a render from either Google or Bakarenders.com (Include link with assignment please)
2. Find and use a C4D with a similar color scheme. (Link to C4D if possible)
3. Use a Fractal image on any point of the sig. It don't have to be big or attention grabbing. (Link if possible)
Remember I want 2 different signatures! Do not use the same C4D, Render, or Fractal!
Edited by Chagryn, 22 January 2014 - 05:18.
