Oh yeah.. forgot to mention that i’m busy learning how to model in 3D.. here is the link to my youtube site so you can see em if you want  go there.

expect some more soon.

Artmonger

“All I’m writing is just what I feel. I Just keep it almost naked. And probably the words are so bland.” ~Jimi~

The people in your life are precious! Even if you don’t understand why.

Last year, I moved in with my long standing friend from my high school days (about 18 years ago) for a short period. I wont go into all the details of this, but… because of this living situation, I have to say a few words on friendship. His main assets, in my mind, are loyalty; creativity; intelligence and most importantly (to me anyway).. acceptance. I have a screw-ball mentality and his acceptance has  helped me through some social-situations and acceptance of myself that i dont think he even knows about. Not everyone is blessed to have such a friend. I give my 5 star rating to this friend and would recommend that if you have a friend or acquaintance who is just themselves no matter what, that you keep them around for the rest of your life!

Now in this time i was introduced to a fine group of people, in fact the best Ive really ever come across. For the sake of confidentiality i will keep them anonymous, though from the descriptions i give they will know who they are.

+The Teacher!

Wow i had a hard time trying to get along with this beautiful soul. I don’t think she’s come to accept me beyond her boyfriends friend, but I don’t really know. One thing for certain (in my opinion) is she is absolutely brilliant and i feel like i have to share this. Her influence on the world goes way beyond that of a regular teacher. Yes i could sit there for hours arguing against her points, yet most of the time (in fact almost all of the time) i found it hard to disagree with her. The thing that struck me as amazing in this woman is her strong hold on her own beliefs. Being true to ones-self is probably one of the most amazing traits that we should cherish as far as being human.  I play devils-advocate a lot to keep an interesting conversation, whether its on religion, politics, art, society.. etc, alive. This woman, no matter what angle i came at her with would always keep true to her first feeling or thought on the topic and elaborate to make her point. I admire her greatly and would like to say a big Thank You! to her for being exactly who she is and staying that way. Her lesson on inspiration for me is to stay true to yourself. Sometimes you’ll be able to appease em all, but every once and again you wont. Keep your integrity, it is the most important trait in being human. Holding onto your beliefs will bring out a facet that is genuine and pure from your soul. People will catch onto this in all aspects of your interaction with them.

+The Creative!

Another teacher in her own right. This woman has all it takes to succeed in anything she attempts. Her passion for food was prominent, but her ideas behind it all were amazing, and thats what had me falling head over heals in love with her creative side. In fact, just thinking about my dinner tonight brought me to how she influenced my cooking (i had meatloaf).. its what then brought me to write this article. The preparation and care she would undertake on a meal was precise. She knows right away what flavor would be used to convey her creativity. She is damn good at it too! I took from her the lesson of spontaneous creativity with a disciplined outlook that made every little thing she did, OUTSTANDING! As far as reflecting on inspiration using her as an example i would say she taught me to “Know what you’re getting into, but keep a fresh outlook on it as you plow through the challenge at hand, bigly.” (thanks..)

Finally “The Navigator”

OK being well rounded on all aspects of my life was never my strong point, having the ability to handle anyone and anything that came my way was and still is daunting. This man was an instant friend. Intellectually and creatively this man could roll with the punches and keep his head on straight. I admire his ability to balance all the aspects of his life with prescision and drive that is refreshing to see in someone. So cheers to the man with the accent.

I miss all of you greatly, and i am glad i had the chance to know each of you for that short time..

(i’m sure i’m going to have to go back and revise this, but you get the point) every person you meet along the path on  this short journey  has something to offer and take from it what you will. but dont forget to give back.. its more rewarding that way.

Welcome to Ispiration 101.

Have you ever started a project and just fell into a funk?  Lost the innovative mindset you had while working on a project and are just afraid you’ll never get it back? There is an answer and its simple. When diving into any task you are in the process of creation, whether it is painting a masterpiece or creating a spreadsheet for your boss. You rely on your senses to “guide” you through the process, and your mastery of the skill gets better through practice. One thing i’ve come to hold dear to my creative process is Inspiration.

dictionary.com‘s first post on the meaning of inspiration is as follows. (a few meanings removed)

–noun

1.	an inspiring or animating action or influence: I cannot write poetry without inspiration.

2.	something inspired, as an idea.

3.	a result of inspired activity.

4.	a thing or person that inspires.

5.	the act of inspiring; quality or state of being inspired.

6.	the drawing of air into the lungs; inhalation.

Lets break this down a bit and get a handle on true inspiration.

an inspiring or animating action or influence:

The keyword here is influence. Think of your project at hand and find sources that would influence you based on what your final outcome is intended to be. For instance, I’m currently working on a logo project for a jeans company called Retro Jeans. I needed some kind of influence to kick-start me in the right direction so i went and sought out competitors of the client. I also dove into the true meaning of retro, and i decided to listen to some music that I considered “retro” (George Clinton, Parliment, James Brown, Rick James, some Bossanova, and New Jazz) though its not my favorite, it set the mood for designing for this client. Pandora Radio is a great way to find music pertaining to your influential phrase or idea. Now through the images from their competitors, the meaning behind the word and the music i had pumping into my headphones i believe i came up with a good design (i’d like to share it with you, but since the project is still in progress, i’ll wait till the client is 100% satisfied before posting the final result).

something inspired, as an idea:

This goes back to the last paragraph. I used the word retro as my “something inspired” and pulled from it the meanings behind it that i would incorporate into this design. You can use anything that incorporates the basic “idea” into your inspirational gathering. One of my favorite tactics on gathering what the client needs is using their own personal favorites in color, music and food. The first time i asked a client what their favorite food was i got a look of  “ARE YOU CRAZY!!” but after i explained why i was asking, they were willing to give it to me. The project was completed in about 1/2 the time as normal because i was catering to the clients creative mind. Using this technique you can draw out a mood and sense of what they will be looking for in the final project.

a thing or person that inspires:

Pouring a bit of influence from a person or thing  into your bucket of inspiration is a very effective technique. I did both on the Retro Jeans project i was working on. First of all when i though about  jeans, what was the first name that popped into my head? Calvin Klein? Levis? Well i went and put on my most comfy pair of Levis and sat there staring at them for about 5 minutes brainstorming the emotions incorporated with wearing a pair of nice jeans. Comfort, Style, Fun, Durability, Relaxation.. all these words popped into my head. I wrote each adjective down as I sat there admiring my Casual Friday. In essence, the physicality of or knowledge from someone or something closely tied to the project at hand gives the inspiration a jump in the right direction.

the act of inspiring; quality or state of being inspired:

Think back on someone you have inspired through your actions or words. Your influence on someone else is a great lesson for getting over that creative funk. If you put yourself in the mentor role, what advice would you give to a friend or colleague to get out of their current funk? Have you ever finished giving advice and said “now if i could only follow my own advice” well, YOU CAN! This is a very important part of inspiration is knowing you are your best source for it. You know how your mind works better than anyone else and can draw on your own experiences of how you’ve inspired to set yourself up for success. I’ve been working closely with a friend on her introduction into photo-shopping and showing her techniques and such. One thing that she keeps running into are walls of frustration in not getting the outcome she desired. Of course this will come to her over time with a bit of practice in techniques and such. My advice to her when she would hit these “walls” would be to back away from the project completely and pick it up once her mind wasn’t focusing on the frustration. It seemed to work well for her and hearing the elation in her voice after some time had passed on how proud she was of the outcome of her projects gave me a bit of pride knowing that it worked. “now if i could only follow my own advice” *grin*

the drawing of air into the lungs; inhalation:

NOW That is some great advice for inspiration. BREATH!! the act of breathing is neglected more than we care to realize, especially sitting at our desks and working on a project for hours on end. Breathing increases blood flow to the brain which in turn increases awareness and creativity. So in conclusion just breath and reflect a moment. Inspiration comes in many forms, and your techniques for deriving an inspirational bucket to carry with you to your project will be full in no time.

To summarize.

Use your senses, All of them! Music, Art, Quotes, but most importantly use your own personal inspiration you’ve given to others. Oh and don’t forget to breath.

(if you liked this article, PLEASE link to it and spread it around. All comments are welcomed and thanks for reading)

~Artmonger~

©2010 artmonger.wordpress.com

Hi there people, i’m bored and i wanted to make a quick tutorial. This is for people who are using photoshop, although you can use GIMP or any other image manipulation program.

Step 1. Get your images.

I chose a nice lighted pic of mario and one of the pageant girls in a bikini.. i dont have her name. One thing to pay attention to when selecting pics to work with is the position of thier faces, try to get a match on the direction of thier face as well as lighting.

Step 2.
Open your mario picture in photoshop. Cut out the face. Oh the fun things you can do with photoshop. Using your marquee tool.. I used the polygonal lasso tool. This little tool is click and make a straight line then click and make another line. There are other ways you can do this, but for the purpose of this tutorial we’ll keep it at that. You want to get as much of the face as possible and avoid the hair for this step. To copy the contents of what you have selected. Press (ctrl-c) or go to .. edit—>copy ..  from the top menu.

Setp 3.

Paste the face. Open your picture you want to manipulate. and press ctrl-v. this will paste what you have on the clipboard (from step 2) onto the new picture. The best part of this is that it is on its own “layer” so you can move it around resize it and play with it to get it just right.

Step 4.

I use the move tool and position his face over hers.

Under the menus at the top of the screen there is a tool options bar that changes for each tool you are using. In there is a check box for “show transform controls”. Make sure that is ticked. and one other good hint at this is to set the opacity or the fill of the layer down so you can match up thier eyes and mouth a bit better. You can find that in the Layer Panel.

Step 5.

&once you position the picture and resize it so it fits over the face of the body the way you want you have to apply the transformations. an easy way of doing this is to select another tool in the toolbox such as the eraser. I use the eraser around the edge of marios face to make it a bit more seamless into the models face. then i use the blur tool to get it even more precise. IMPORTANT: dont forget to set you fill or opacity back up to 100% in the layers panel after your resizing is finished or it wont look right.

Step 6.

Click image –> Adjustments –> Hue/Saturation (ctrl-u). You’ll have to tweak these a bit to match the skin tone. Once you have it all set the way you want, it should look pretty natural.

Step 7. Save it and share it.. .

I hope this tutorial helped any beginners out there just diving into photoshop.. One thing to remember. Keep playing, have fun and dont stop. I’ll be posting more of these over time,  so add me to your rss feeder or subscribe (over there on the left, up at the top if you want to recieve emails or notifications of new posts).  - ARTMONGER

Hello Pat,

John Boyd here, Just got your message about the picture in facebook. The reason i was there looking through your work, and on all your other sites was to really understand the magnitude of what my mother was telling me. She was right , you are an amazing artist!

She keeps pushing me to check your work out, so i finally did. and i’m more than impressed. IN FACT, it occurred to me while surfing your sites that you were a big inspiration to me becoming an artist myself. I remember being a kid at Anne’s house and loving the pictures of gnomes and such around the house. I came across a picture in your portfolio that spun me right back to my childhood and i smiled BIGLY! I never knew it was you that did all those. I guess now is as good of a time as any to say Thank YOU! Being from the same bloodline as Anne, i’m sure you’re just as awesome as she is. ((if you couldnt tell i really love my aunt))

The reason i’m writing this though, is a bit more than a thank you. I am seeking some advice, and i’ve never asked anyone to be my mentor before so this is a bit odd for me. Let me explain a little. This past November i was laid off from my job as a chef/cook (not the most glorious job, but i got to be creative which is very important to me. Since then i have made a choice to fully pursue this creative gift that i have and fuel my career with it. I want to be a full fledged freelance graphic designer. 1. No, i dont have “formal training” past high school. 2. Yes i have worked as a designer/type editor/layout,prepress person before and have gotten paid, quite well actually. 3. Being self taught, i know how to use the programs needed in the industry (photoshop, illustrator, dreamweaver, a bit of flash, some 3d modeling/animation and video editing) 4. since December i have have been honing my skills and soaking up all the information i can… but i’m stuck.. I have no idea what i’m doing really. I guess what i’m getting at is, would you be my sensei? I look at how much work you’ve put into getting yourself set up, and i’m sure you have a bucket full of resources and ideas that I have not even begun to think about. so how about it?

I’m sending along an unfinished sample of an Owl i am working on for a friends band and a logo that i am quite proud of (both done in illustrator) and a digital image that i did in photoshop (its a bit racy). I have a ton of other samples, but that should give you an idea of the level i am in with my programs.

Thanks in advance for your time! and I cant wait to see more of your works as i follow your blog out ((52 weeks of peace is great!))

John.

Illustrator Logo

Illustrator Picture

Photoshop Image

Within a few hours she had read the Email and responded with pretty much a yes. So, I have a sensei! well at least a bit of guidance from a pro- in the field. I cannot wait to hear some of her insight on where i should go and what i should do.

So thats been the excitement of my day today. I have some words of wisdom that came to me this afternoon while updating my facebook page that i would like to pass on to you:

Pursuing dreams and scheming schemes. Its a funny thing when you wake up and realize that your dreams have been with you since you were born. Sure they change and grow with you, but most importantly they are there. So smile bigly knowing that you’ve always got something to hold onto.

My name is John Boyd…. I Design.