Art beats Math

Last Friday, I finally had the chance to visit MV Logos Hope.

For those who aren’t yet acquainted with that name, it’s the world’s largest floating book fair. What I love about it is that it’s owned by a Christian charity org (GBA Ships - Good Books for All) and that it is entirely run by a volunteer crew of different races; so imagine the culture on that ship! This is probably the 4th time I stepped aboard, with the first two times back in Brunei and the last time also here in Manila circa 2009. It was called MV Doulos back then ‘til its new ship followed after :)

I have nothing but praise for the whole improved experience! I rave at the extremely affordable prices of books!

One particular thing I got was The Complete Pattern Library.

Only for 200php! Can you say major steal?! :D

So informative, with all the various art styles and their history.

As you can see it comes with a CD on the cover. It contains the softcopy of all the patterns from the book, in .eps (vector) and .tiff (bitmap/pixel) formats!

With my new part-time job designing posters (yes, i got hired already and even received my first paycheck :D), this book is a huge help!

I’ll be going back later today (March 13) which is the last day it’s in Manila before it sails for Subic Bay, so if you have the time, visit MV Logos Hope!

For the curious (and to my friends who keep asking), here’s how i worked on the post-processing:

I gotta say, i learned a lot from this shoot; mistakes and failures always teach you and i had quite a bit of that.

1) Firstly, i don’t know what mood the studio lights were in during the shoot, but i’d gotten pretty annoyed when they wouldn’t flash like 80% of the time. And when it came to picking the best photos, all the good poses happened to be in the ones where the lights didn’t flash :/ 
A number one rule of thumb when taking photos is to get the best exposure so much time wouldn’t be spent on post-processing/correction. But alas, i had to break this rule as i stuck by my model’s best pose here. Hence, i fixed the underexposure with curves.

2) Again, facepalm moment here. With all the excitement during the shoot, i forgot to take that one crucial shot without the table. -_______-“ 
Fortunately, i did have one shot, however it was slightly zoomed in. So i placed this over the original photo and scaled it down ‘til it fit right. Finally, i was then able to erase out the table. 

3) Cloned out distracting elements such as the lines and “mini drain” from the floor, and the diagonal line at the rightmost window (+ added a horizontal edge to be uniform with the first two column of windows) then lots of other zoom ins and fixing of the background.

4) “Pushed” my model’s knees down and other tweaks to make her body look more arched.

5) Window cloning proved to be done in vain when i decided to crop the photo in the end :)) I wanted it to look like she was emanating radiance so i brightened up the photo a bit, then added a slight vignette. Lastly, i used the dodge tool for that extra glow on her dress.

That’s it! Hope you guys learned something from this. :)

You wouldn’t believe how much time i spent just looking for good images/stock photos of fruits that aren’t already watermarked >___< so yeah, i had no choice for some but to edit them off (cloning FTW!) It made me think though, that should i be a “legit” designer soon i might need to get a Shutterstock subscription or something…

Just a few little tweaks in this infographic i’m doing and then i shall tumble into bed. #perfectionism

it’s almost 4am and i can already hear yaya cooking breakfast downstairs @____@ 

Update: here’s the finished version.

Rendered in Photoshop and Illustrator. 

   I almost forgot about this drawing! I specifically drew it for
   Adam Young, after seeing his tweets about loving Tangled.

   I then gave him this drawing along with a letter and some photos
   in a box during a meet-and-greet last October :D

   Hence, another addition to my “Stick Princesses” series:

I have yet to polish the other princesses above ^__^

Unlike Rapunzel, i used the pen tool in Photoshop here to outline them all from a scanned drawing since i didn’t (and still don’t) own a tablet.

What’s your favourite princess? :)

An employer who saw my resume on onlinejobs.ph contacted me and had me do some sample work for her. She provided the quotes for me to work with, wanting it in bright & bold typography. So these are the 3 that i created. Hoping she likes what she sees and decides to hire me! :)

Compact mirrors featuring holographic images of Ball-Jointed Dolls caught my eye during a quick run to 7eleven. And the first thing i thought of was how nice it would be to photograph an actual person who possess the same stunning features that of a doll… supermodel Gemma Ward comes to mind, but since having her model for me in this case seem far off, i got inspired instead to create my own:

 

Now, i’m not into gore but there’s something about spilt blood and crime scenes that fascinate me thus, this face stock i found rendered quite perfectly! All edited in Photoshop (i wish i could say this was painted digitally, but it isn’t :< digital painting is a skill i have yet to acquire!) 

I call this, a Murderdoll. ;)

A few hours after posting this on my old dust-collecting deviantArt account, a stock model/photographer loved it and requested that i edit any of her photos in the same way. And after looking through her gallery + an hour later, i came up with this:

“Made of Plastic”

(stock used.)

Hello there, barbie doll. 

My CREAPHO (creative photography) prof gave the class the freedom to shoot whatever concept we wanted. For some, they had a hard time figuring out what to shoot since there wasn’t any theme to work by, but I instantly knew what I’ve always wanted to shoot — Levitation! So i busied myself with pegs-hunting:

My inspiration for this shoot would have to be Miss Aniela! Most of her well-known photos are of levitation, and she is BOSSwhen it comes to conceptual photography. Check out her other works in her stream!

Anyway, based from the last photo, i wanted the same ethereal look/feel so what better place to shoot than in my school. ;)

And here’s my final output:

…TA-DA! \:D/

Trivia: my model Sheila wears a gown that i wore in my parent’s 25th wedding anniversary about seven years ago.

My friend Carla assisted me in the shoot by helping me look for a table and carrying all the heavy equipment back (thanks a bunch again, Carla! ^_^)

Here she is testing out the zero gravity, lol

A blog on how i came about this process to follow soon! :) 

Hello Tumblrverse!

This is my first attempt in an art/design blog. I never intended to start one until I figured that Facebook’s not the ideal place to post this kind of stuff.

So here we go…