This is my first post after almost three years and it’s just to say that this is my main blog but it’s inactive.
You’re probably here because I followed you with this one but I only post art on my art blog @inimeitiel which is sadly just a side blog, so please head to that one.
I think there was something sort of profoundly beautiful about the Wii.
I don’t know why, but especially with the built-in channels there was something about the presentation and the music that really feels so much different from any other console. I think it’s because it’s the first console that tried to be something a little more than just a gaming device, and the ephemeral feeling that came with trying to blaze a trail while still maintaining an air of “we know exactly what we’re doing and are fully confident in these ideas”.
Looking back on it is like a fully realized glimpse into a reality congruent but slightly skewed to our own. The place on our respective timelines was right after the intersection where the two lines fully separated from each other, but only barely.
this reply made me feel something.
A post about the emotional resonances of the Nintendo wii is something that can actually be so personal
2019 is gonna be a year of love!!! a year of resilience!!! a year of “i did that”!!! a year of finding good music and being moved by lovely things and seeing your goals crystallize and come closer & closer into reach!!! and above all it’s gonna be a year of forgiving yourself for screwing up and pushing through ANYWAY!!!
I’ve been getting quite a few asks about the process for the patterns in my stylized artworks, so I decided to put together a couple of tips regarding them.
Firstly, what you need are
— CUSTOM BRUSHES —
Most of the patterns I use are custom brushes I made, such as those:
For the longest time I was convinced making brushes must be super extra complicated. I was super extra wrong. All you need to start is a transparent canvas (2500px x 2500px max):
This will be your brush tip. When you’re satisfied how it looks, click Ctrl+A to select the whole canvas and go to ‘define brush preset’ under the edit menu
You will be asked to name your new glorious creation. Choose something that describes it well, so you can easily find it between all the ‘asfsfgdgd’ brushes you’ve created to be only used once
This is it. Look at it, you have just created a photoshop brush. First time i did I felt like I was cheated my whole life. IT’S SO EASY WHY HASN’T ANYONE TOLD ME
Time to edit the Good Boi to be more random, so it can be used as a Cool Fancy Pattern. Go into brush settings and change whatever you’d like. Here’s a list of what I do for patterns:
- under Shape Dynamics, I increase Size Jitter and Angle jitter by 5%-15%
- under Brush Tip Shape, I increase spacing by a shitload. Sometimes it’s like 150%, the point is to get the initial brush tip we painted to be visible.
- If I want it to look random and noisy, I enable the Dual Brush option, which acts like another brush was put on top of the one we’ve created. You can adjust all of the Dual Brush options (Size, Spacing, Scatter, Count) as you wish to get a very nice random brush to smear on your backgrounds
The result is as above. You can follow the same steps to create whatever brush you need: evenly spaced dots that look like you painted them by hand, geometric pattern to fill the background, a line of perfectly drawn XDs and so on.
BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE
— PATHS —
But what if you want to get lots of circles made of tiny dots? Or you need rows of triangles for your cool background? Photoshop can do all of that for you, thanks to the magic of paths.
Typically, paths window can be found right next to Layers:
Draw whatever path you want, the Shape Tool has quite a bit of options. Remember, paths are completely different from brush strokes and they won’t show up in the navigator. To move a path around, click A to enable path selection tool. You can use Ctrl+T to transform it, and if you move a path while pressing Alt it will be duplicated.
Now, pick a brush you wish really was in place of that path you’ve drawn and go to layers, then choose the layer you want it to be drawn on. Then, click this tiny circle under the Paths window:
Then witness the magic of photoshop doing the drawing for you while you wonder how tf have you managed to forget about this option for the past 2 years
You can combine special brushes and paths for all sorts of cool effects. I mostly use them in backgrounds for my cards, but you can do whatever you want with them.
I hope that answers the questions for all of the people who were sending me inquires about the patterns. If you have any questions regarding this or any other Photoshop matter feel free to message me, I’m always up for complaining about how great and terrible Photoshop is C’:
I’m sure a ton of people already know how to do this, but I only learned recently, so I wanted to share one of my favorite thumbnailing tricks! Color matching is SUPER helpful to quickly map out potential color schemes :D
[EDIT] this is in Adobe Photoshop, sorry for forgetting to mention that!
