Welcome to psd Magazine,

The Summer issue of .psd is in your hands now! Have you ever wanted to learn how to use Adobe Photoshop in more ad-
vanced ways, but had no idea where to start? This set of Photoshop tutorials gives you a jumping-off point of interesting
ideas to inspire you. This issues theme is the art of designing computer games. I know there is a lot to say on the subject but
we have only 76 pages... Starting with the cover, we have Fern The Farmer, created by Patrick Beaulieu and Chevisodes Crew.
Next, there is quite a freaky goat experiencing some wild adventures on page 10. As an example of using art to express your
feelings, unleash your creativity, change the world and even create your own world, Morgan Yon describes how he created a
striking illustration to depict his personal feelings and emotions about Nazism. See his Making of Uchronia tutorial on page
14. Did you know you can use your completed digital artwork as background art for computer games? On page 30, Eric
Wilkerson demonstrates how he prepared a digitally painted scene for a computer game. Most impressively, he worked
with only raw Photoshop as opposed to relying on lters and plug-ins to create his effects. On page 38 Steward Bruce of-
fers a 34-step tutorial on merging painting and photography. And the popular Neil Duerden is back with us once again with
a fantastic tutorial where he takes you through the process of making a computer-based editorial style piece. On the CD we have included the latest cover
tutorials from our magazine I hope you like them! You can also nd stock photos, 16 game textures and 3-5 game models created by Zatun Games.
Theres always much more inside the magazines covers as well. Do we really need to convince you to explore it all? It speaks for itself! This is an issue
where experience does not matter, since what the authors present is fun to read while you learn. As always I thank the authors for their submissions and
hope that you will enjoy reading them.
Best Wishes
Ewa Samulska
 contents

on the cd
Battle of Klendathu contributing writers
CD 6 Eric Wilkerson 30 Contributing writers 60
cover graphic Exhaust burn tutorial self exposure
www.the3dstudio.com 38 Steward Michael Bruce
Wild adventures of Fern the Steward Michael Bruce 62
farmer photomanipulation
Patrick Beaulieu/CHEVIsodes Crew 10 Think of the wall reviewer's choice
Stewart Michael Bruce 42 Game consoles
workshops Game over Cyril Roger 68
Making of Uchronia Neil Duerden 50
Morgan Yon 14 review
Jelous bodyguard start with Books review 72
Andrew Berends 18 Shape in sand Software review 73
Marious Soare 54
Darkness monster
Steve Jubinville Making of the divebombing
and Yanick Gaudreau 24 pterodactyl
Ryan Slayter 56
 on the CD

on the CD
Using the .psd Photoshop Magazine CD
The disc contains a valuable collection of valuable textures,
trials, full versions of photo software, pdfs of the latest .psd
covers' tutorials and source les for this issue materials.
This issue we give you the second part of the video-tutorial
about Blog Creation from killersites (First part you can get
from the 3/2008 issue's CD). The disc interface requires
Windows NT/2000/XP or Mac OS 9/X. You will also need an
active Internet connection to make full use of the CD. In
Windows the CD should autorun when inserted into the drive.
OS X Users to launch the interface select the autorun.exe le.
If you have trouble launching the interface, you can nd all
content relating to the magazine inside the CD.

Tutorials & Source Files

So that you can understand and follow our magazine tutorials, weve
included source les. You can nd les to the following tutorials:
Think of the Wall by Stewart Michael Bruce, Jealous Bodyguard by
Andrew Berends, Game over by Neil Duerden and Making of Uchro-
nia by Morgan Yon. To properly view the movies we've included the
codec's, XviD and TSCC, that will install on either your Macintosh or
Windows computer.

6 .psd 04/2008
 on the CD

onOne software plug-ins E-psd

Photo tune
PhotoTune is a Photoshop plug-in that
delivers professional level color correction
in a straightforward, simple to use guided
process. A quick six-step Color Wizard com-
pares different corrected versions of your
photo and you simply choose the one at
each step that looks the best to you. Finally,
professional color correction made easy.
Win and Mac demos.
www.ononesoftware.com
4 tutorials of .psd covers
We prepared the pdfs of 4 cover tutorials from the previous issues.
Enjoy them and learn to do the cover graphics.
Create Amazing Images with 3D Renders by Mark Mayers
www.markmayers.co.uk
Portrait taking a portrait by Emily Snape
Mascot & Me by Bracer Jack
www.bracercom.com
Sanskirt: Light and Airy energy by Neil Duerden
www.neilduerden.co.uk

ADVERTISEMENT

.psd 04/2008 7
 on the CD

Stock photos
30 Free Stock Photos from stockvault.net
Stockvault.net has provided 30 textures and background images which include grungy, dirty and abstract shapes and forms you can use
in your designs. Visit stockvault.net for thousands of free stock photos and textures. The provided images are also available online for .psd
subscribers and can be downloaded at
http://www.stockvault.net/psdmag-downloads/
www.stockvault.net

FREEBIES
Sothink SWF Easy trial + $10 coupon CREATE YOUR OWN BLOG PART 2
Sothink SWF Easy (original name: Glanda) Fast and Easy Flash
Animation Software. An easy Flash animation software for all Flash
fans. Create Flash banners, greeting cards and albums by pre-made
templates within clicks! Various of built-in resources can save your
time to make excellent Flash animation. A large amount of predened
effects and Action Script 2.0 can help you achieve more advanced
function. It is the fastest and easiest way to create your own Flash
works professionally. Blogs are now a fundamental part of the Web ... they're everywhere!
Upgrading from Sothink SWF Easy 5.0, SWF Easy 5.1 continues As such, Photoshop designers will probably be asked more and more
to support all the features of SWF Easy 5.0 and gets some refor- to create layouts for business blogs. So it only makes sense that
mation on the interface to be more user-friendly. Besides that, it Photoshopers should learn about how to use and set up Wordpress
also has many new features. From version 5.1 onwards, Sothink probably the most popular blog software out there today. At the
SWF Easy supports adding more resources to program by installing same, it also makes sense to get your own blog up and running too!
Resource zip le downloaded from Sothink website. Should you have any questions please visit our forums at:
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your own screencasts, demos, tutorials, software simulations and vid-
eos for the Internet without any programming language necessary.
www.allcapture.com

Zatun games Magix - Full version

16 Game textures and 3-5 Game models created by Zatun Games. All
the textures are base textures(metal, wood, brick, tiles, etc) and can
easily be build upon. They can also be used as background while cre-
ating art in Photoshop. The models are very low poly and are meant
for in-game use. Following are the models:

Machine 1 ( An electric meter machine)

Gas Cylinder Xtreme Photo & Graphic Designer Photo & graphic intuitively com-
Crate bined: professional image editing and intelligent graphic design for
Phantom car photos, bitmaps and vector graphics. Top-quality templates guaran-
tee perfect results! www.magix.com
All models are in .OBJ format and can easily be transferred to Maya,
3d Max, XSI,etc.
www.zatun.com

8 .psd 04/2008
 CD

CD here
If the CD contents cannot be accessed and the disc isnt physically damaged,
try to run it in at least two CD-drives.
If you have encountered any problems with CD, please write to:
cd@psdmag.org
 cover artist
Wild adventures
adventures of Fern the farmer
Hi everyone and welcome to the Making Of Fern, a 3D artwork created by the
Chevisodes team. CHEVisodes is an episode based on CG animated movie
featuring Fern. Fern is the main character of CHEVisodes. Other characters may
join Fern in his adventures but this will be yours to discover.
T his is a for the love of this type project, we are a bunch of
friends that really love Cging. We are currently working on
the animation of CHEVisodes, you can still take a look at our
website (www.chevisodes.com) to see some Work In Progress. We
hope that you will enjoy the CHEVisodes as much as we enjoyed
making them. The idea behind the image of Fern was really simple.
This character is really appealing, Fern have his own personallity,
expression and attitude. Our goal was to show his personality in
one image. The pose was really important, create a nice silhouette,
give attitude to the character and show character soul (Figure 1).
We used complementary colors for the character and background to
direct the audience to look at the character. Heres all the members
of the CHEVisodes crew ( www.chevisodes.com):
Patrick Beaulieu Character Animator, modeling
Squeezestudio.com
Jonathan Simard Character Animator, modeling
Pikmin.cgsociety.org
ric D. Lgar Animation TD Ericdlegare.com
Daniel Huertas Character Animator Danimating.com
Daniel Boulanger Concept Artist
Simon Dubuc Texture Artist
Yves Breton Sound Designer
Christian Pacaud Music Composer ChristianPacaud.com
Ruben Mueller Cheerleader/Webmaster RubenMueller.de
10 .psd 04/2008
Modeling
Before I started modeling anything of Fern head, I had to be comfort-
able with the concept (Figure 2), so the rst thing I did was looking
at it for a good moment and imagining it in 3D. I had to take a mo-
ment like that to be sure of all the important shape of the character
face, try to see how the muscle will work together. I often paint on
the concept just to see where important lines are (Figure 3). It's
so important not rushing working on the modeling phase, because
at the end 3D software are just a tool, so if you're not familiar with
what you are going to model, there is good chance you will loose a
lot of time. In this tutorial, you will be able to follow with the progress
picture (Figure 4), the modeling of fern head.
Initial phase done, I was ready to start modeling. Everytime
I start working on a model, I prefer to have a mass that will cor-
respond the proportion. It's really hard to begin with just extruding
edge. So basicly, I start with a simple box with a meshsmooth modi-
er (iteration 1) that I convert in editable poly and start adding edge
and I follow the model sheet. I don't really care if the model is clean
right now, I just want to get the right proportion. It's important to tell
that the proportion will surely not be nal, but at least I will have an
excellent reference to work on. A good tips when you are modeling a
head, is to add ear at the beginning. We don't care if it's the nal ear
or ear from an other character, just add a pair of ear as a place holder.
It will help you a lot of making him alive in front of you at the begin-
ning and it will be a lot easier to work face proportion.
 wild adventures of fern the farmer

So when it's done and I'm happy with the shape, I can focus on use subtools, a great feature added in the most recent ZBrush release.
having a clean mesh that fallow muscle. It's time now to delete part I then imported the OBJ into ZBrush, and used Tool: Polygroups: Auto
and reconstruct it. In this step, I'm not focusing on detail, Im just Groups to give every element a specic group, and then Tool: SubTool:
adding important line, because even if the proportion are correct at GrpSplit to split them into different subtools. Subtools allow for a much
rst, It's easy to destroy it. So during the reconstruction, I always more precise and manageable high-res modeling job because you can
take care to adjust the proportion everytime I'm adding edges, so I subdivide the part you are working on up to ZBrushs allowed maxi-
wont nish this phase with weird proportion. For this character, its mum for your machine, and then return to subdivion level 1 to work
was different then other one I did in the past, because a lot of details on another part. With everything ready, I started sculpting the mesh. I
was concentrated and squeezed near the nose and eye. I had to suggest starting with the main shapes and using the layer system to
keep the right proportion and deal with lots a poly in this area. But I add levels of details. For sculpting, I mainly used ZBs default brushes
knew where the important line were, so I just followed them like you and the stencil tool with photographic alphas. Once I was satised with
see on the progress picture and it ended up well. the sculpt, I rendered the displacement (or height) map, the normal
Like you see, the nal model of the face in the progess picture
it's not like nal fern face (Figure 5). There are lots of difference in
the eyebrows and nose section. On the concept, the eyebrow looked
pretty good, but not as much on the 3D model. So I pass the model
to Patrick Beaulieu. He had a fresh vision of the head, because he
hadn't worked on the face yet. He did a great job reshaping problem-
atic section and keep the model as close as the original model. After
that we did some minor tweak and the head was done.
As a conclusion, you have to make sure that the proportion are
correct at the beginning. Cleaning the model is far easier so I keep
that for later. Follow important line with polygons will keep your
model with better proportion, less poly and will make better defor-
mation for animation.

Texture
In this section, I will explain the process used for mapping, high res- Figure 2. Concept 00
olution sculpting and shader creation that I used for Fern. First, I took
the model from our modeling team and examined it thoroughly for
anything that might hinder the texture job (uneven polygon density,
stretched polys, triangles, etc). Next, I unwrapped the model using
3dsMaxs unwrap modier for the greater part (Figure 6), and also
the handy relax function of UVLayout. After some tests, I decided to
use 3 UV regions, one for the head and arms, one for the eyes and
one for the rest of the body. This is because I want to keep apart the
parts that will have very different shaders applied to them.
With every part properly unwrapped, I exported an OBJ le con- Figure 3. Fig 1
taining all the body parts as separate elements. I did this to be able to

Figure 1. Viewport 01 Figure 4. Fig 2

.psd 04/2008 11
 cover artist
and cavity map with Zmapper (included with ZBrush), and I exported
back into 3dsMax for the shader job (Figure 7).
For Ferns skin, I used mental rays fast skin shader. It renders
fast and gives good results for the sub-surface scattering. I made a
diffuse map using photos, and a specular map from that diffuse. The
displacement map was used to give detail to the characters silhou-
ette. The eye has a modelised cornea and iris to make it catch light
in a realistic way. The iris has a high specular value, and the cornea
renders only reexion. A normal map is used on the suface of the
eye to make it look wet and imperfect, and to help with the bulge
of the cornea. Finally, the rest of the body uses standard maps (dif-
fuse, normal, specular, reexion), with a bit of sub-surface scattering
for the thinner cloth parts (Figure 8 and 9).
About Fern's Rig
The main idea behind the rig was to make it very intuitive for the anima-
tors, that's why the visual interface was created (Figure 10 and 11).
Basicly it controls evrything on the rig, instead of using slidders,
that some animators just can't stand, buttons in the interface handle the
IK/FK switching as well as the dynamic linking and even the selection
and the trajectories. Also whats intersting is that it's quite accessible,
making such a visual interface does not requires an high level of script-
ing skills, for exemple, when I was at school I made my very rst visual
interface in 3dsMax using only the macro recorder and visual MaxScript.
Making those interfaces is fun so just try it yourself !
Figure 5. Fig 3
Figure 6. Viewport 02
12 .psd 04/2008
Actually, the less complicated by longer step was the skin-
ning, beucause of the Deformation Layer (Figure 12) on top of the
Control Rig (Figure 13), there is a lot of bones in the skin (Figure
14). On this image I'm showing the enveloppes to show you how
much bones there is in Fern (yet I don't use enveloppes to skin
characters). For the skin I used a thechnique that I would call sub-
strative skinning, for exemple, I would skin evry point of the leg to
the thigh bone, and then I would go on the calf bone to steal some
weights to the thigh in the knee area, then all the foot area would
be weigthed to the calf and then the same thing goes, the foot
would be stealing some weights to the calf, I nd this technique to
be very good to create a rough skinning (before the painting) or to
skin low resolution characters.
This kind of project is a good opportunity to learn that some
techniques work well and other should be avoided. This will be
shown in DPuppet, a new rig in progress that will be available
for free so animators can enjoy some Fern-Like animation (the
visual interface will be included too) stay tuned on www.D-
Puppet.com for updates !
Figure 7. Zbrush
Figure 8. Head
Figure 9. Body
 wild adventures of fern the farmer
Figure 10. Interface
Figure 11. Facial ui real
Figure 12. Deformation Layer Figure 13. Control Rig
Compositing
The compositing was the easiest part in the creation of this picture. We
created this character for a webisodes. Fern was build to give us the
ability to render animation sequence really fast, without render passes,
without complicated process, one click, one render. For the picture, we
added some tweaks on the nal images, add background, try to remove
the 3D effects, adjust brightness contrast and add some details like
that. We used the lighting effect tool in Photoshop on the nal images
.psd 04/2008
Figure 14. Enveloppes
Figure 15. Compositing
Figure 16. Webpage
to adjust lighting. It give a good job to boost colours, intensity and mixte
background with the character (Figure 15).
Conclusion
Finally, I hope you have appreciated this article. Like you can see,
there a lot of work behind this character, our team worked really
hard to create this character. It was great for us to make Fern and
see how we can work together. We are happy with the nal result,
hope you enjoy this character too. Dont hesitate to contact us on
Chevisodes.com for questions. It will be a pleasure for us to answer
your questions. Im entirely at your disposal if I have the time...
(Figure 16).
www.CHEVisodes.com
by CHEVisodes crew
13
medium | 15 h | tutorial on CD
Adobe Photoshop CS3 | Autodesk Maya 8.5

Making
of Uchronia
I have always been interested in history, particularly the period from 1939 to1945,
and I decided to make a couple of illustrations to depict my personal feelings and
emotions about this subject. Thus this picture, Uchronia is one of these in which I
tried to suggest to the viewer a scene of uchronie: what would have become of the
world, in particular in the city of Paris, if Nazism had triumphed.

14 .psd 04/2008

T hrough books, lms and war documentaries, one of the things
which certainly most shocked me was the concentration camps
and their particular atmosphere which only some pictures and
the memories of deported people enable us to still feel today. I thus
imagined what the Nazis madness would have kept on doing to pro-
ceed with its Final Solution, for example the construction of colder and
more impressive buildings similar to the monumental architecture we
found at the time.
So, I imagined those huge crematoriums in form of skyscrap-
ers overwhelming the city, as if there was not enough place on the
ground to park the prisoners and so beginning this vertical ascent in
these towers of death.
These towers which arise from the depths of the city are used
as a promontory to constantly indoctrinate the population about the
impurity of the imprisoned populations... Put aside the prisoners
while showing them to everyone.
I did not want to insist heavily on these deaths factories and
thats why we understand their purpose only while viewing a second
time the image. My intention was not to shock but rather to try to
give the viewer a small shudder of illness at the vision of this envi-
ronment.
.psd 04/2008
making of uchronia
Playing with these taboo subjects is even today a bit delicate and
quickly leads to confusion, which is why there is no distinguishing
feature which could make the reader think that this image depicts a
fascination for Nazism. The red banners however give us an indication
about the origin.
So, in this illustration, the rst wish was to make the reader feel
above all a heavy and disturbing atmosphere. The sky thus needed to
be impressive and I strengthened this feeling of coolness by adding the
snow in the last steps.
I also tried to work on the reading of the image. The path our eye fol-
lows in the rst reading is extremely important. Indeed this natural path,
if it is made without any problem, is going to allow us to better dread
the image and to understand it, or at least try to understand what the
author wanted to convey. So I tried to envisage the eye path regarding to
the main light of the scene. One begins by taking charge of the brilliant
zone, then discovering these huge buildings and in the last reading, the
city and the soldier in foreground. We understand afterward the scale
between the various plans.
This is all naturally brought by the shape of clouds and the perspec-
tive that creates buildings. In this image, I chose to avoid the constraints
of perspective by using 3D tools with Autodesk Maya software. 3D has
15
 workshops
Figure 1. Mental Ray rendering
Figure 3. Specify levels
the very positive side to offer innite freedom in the choice of the cen-
tring and the light. This is something which becomes more and more
recurring in my work, a huge saving of time which allows me to concen-
trate much more on what I have to tell rather than sinking into technical
problems. Now let us see how I proceeded, following six main steps, to
go over Uchronia.
Steps description:
Step 1
As I have said, I began this image by creating a 3D base to erase
the constraints of perspectives. This 3D base was quickly taken up
under Autodesk Maya 8.5, by using very simple forms and a pass of
basic lighting with a main light source.
Once my framing was found, I made a rendering under mental
ray creating this dear .tif le with its alpha channel allowing me to
start my illustration under photoshop. I spent about 1 hour under
Maya and all the rest of the process continues under photoshop.
That is why I do not consider it as a 3D illustration because almost
95 % of the job was a work of texturing/painting in 2D.
Step 2
After switching softwares, lets go for painting! My image is ready for
texturing but before all, let's start the process with the backgrounds.
16 .psd 04/2008
Figure 2. Background rst draft
Throughout the process, I keep my image in grey levels and I put the
colours only once the balance of grey suits me.
The sky comes from a personal photo over which I painted in order
to restore its density and balance of grey. I also tried to connect this
layer of sky with mountains in the background by a sequence of multiple
layers of fog created with the basic brushes which photoshop offered.
In this rst step of conception, I let myself go through many
ideas, I thus painted an area of water and I began to work on the city
to quickly put together a general view of my image and see if the
circulation of the forms and spaces worked together. Using level and
curve tools, I more accurately dened the balance of grey.
Step 3
In this stage, I nally decided to replace the area of water for several
reasons: in the end it cut the image and aerated it too much, it damaged
the sensation of a huge hostile place which I wanted to create. So I kept
on working on the city by using this time squared custom brushes al-
lowing me to create a rough and sharpened aspect in the forms and
their rhythms. The background is henceforth in the fog intensifying the
atmosphere and I added far off another tower far off which increases the
global depth of the image. So, I began to dene more exactly my idea of a
crematorium by painting smoke which escapes from those tours/ovens,
using custom brushes in colour dodge mode. These smokes joined in the
sky which becomes there only darker. Last addition in this step, the work
on the foreground by clarifying the forms of the building and imagining

Figure 4. Color intention
Figure 6. Lively details
what could take place there. I tried to paint those buildings as bunkers to
really plunge the viewer into an uchronie of the WW subject.
Step 4
Here I began to put my rst indications of colours. This colour was
created thanks to a brown / sepia layer in overlay mode. It gave me
a quick primary idea of the general colour scheme which I would
change afterwards but it allowed me to better link my elements.
My work on bunkers has still evolved and I also began the process
of texturing. I also decided to plunge the height of the sky in an even
more important twilight as if this last one came to press on the city.
The feeling of claustrophobia was interesting in this image that is
why it remained until the nal version. Another pass of levels and
selective colours bring us to the following step.
Step 5
In this stage, I continued the process of texturing the buildings
facades. All these textures are applied with appropriate blending
mode and worked again in their colour scheme using the selective
colour tool. All the pierces in the walls were hand-made by using the
lasso tool and the textures of wire nettings were put afterward. Then
I dened slightly better the ames and I linked plans together again
with a couple of fog layers painted with huge round basic brushes.
Finally, I worked colour by colour the entire image by using the chan-
nel to mixer tool and I tried to nd a harmony between them.
.psd 04/2008
making of uchronia
Figure 5. Pick texturing
Step 6
As it often happens in my process of creation, I changed radically
and it is what happened for the city. Indeed, these ruins did not sat-
isfy me on the idea of uchronie and one would have been able to
imagine any place. I thus had to go through my stock of photos
and I decided to replace the city by a sight of Paris. Thus by using
a picture reference, I repainted above by adding layers of snow on
each building and I tried to give a little of life by adding for instance
smoke which escapes from replaces. I also decide to add a over-
hang in foreground to be afterward able to stage a character there
whom one would perhaps have noticed if he had been posted farther.
I also bring my last retouch for the atmosphere; snowakes are for
many, painted thanks to a lot of white point motion blurred. I worked
nally the very last details, the electric cords, the ravens and the
soldier with his disturbing look. In fact, a lot of small graphic details
strengthen once again the cold and hostile aspect of this place.
Finally, and I believe that it is the most exciting step of the pro-
cess of creation, I made the last retouch of colour by using all pos-
sibilities that photoshop offered. Color correction, selective colour,
photo lter and many others helped me to nish this picture which
in the end took me about 15 hours of work.
Its done! After writing this I think my own technique is a little bit
messy, in my mind, but I hope you will nd it interesting.
by Morgan Yon
17
medium | 10 h | tutorial on CD
Adobe Photoshop CS2
 jealous bodyguard

Jealous
bodyguard
Jealous Bodyguard was made for a personal project called Companions.
A childrens book, of sorts, each image focused on the relationships between the
human inhabitants and the local wildlife of a ctional island. Jealous bodyguard
was created with the idea of a trained guard for a young, regal, women. The thought
pattern centred on a creature that was graceful yet erce which led to the idea
of a large domesticated cat not unlike a Bengal tiger. Fierce but capable of affection.

Setup
For this image I only used the one type of brush, the hard edge (Figure
1) not for any particular reason nor do I not use other brushes, I just
felt that this gave me the most control. The only adjustments I make
to these settings were to the opacity and ow and in my own case
I change the, ow, opacity and size jitters respectively to pen pres-
sure (Figure 1) only because Im using a Wacom tablet. For this image
I made th e canvas an A4 size and shape at.

Sketchy behaviour
I usually sketch out the image I intend, scanning it in as a guide
and adjusting the levels to make the lines stand out a bit more. In
this case however I used both my original sketch and added to it in
Photoshop with a same hard edge brush. I also employed the talents
of my associate Samantha to act as model for the young women and
base the facial expression and skin tones on hers (Figure 2 and 3).
Before I blocked in any colour I made four separate layers, the
bottom being skin, the next being the garments beneath her long
dress and nally one for the dress itself.

Blocking in
With Sams face sketched into the image, and enough separate
layers to easily be able to adjust things down the track, I began
the blocking in phase. I settled on an orange and blue/violet colour
scheme (Figure 4). I also established that her cat companion would
be a white creature not unlike a white tiger or lion so I based its skin
as a beige tone that I could build up on over time.

Figure 2. Initial sketch

Figure 1. Brush settings Figure 3. Reference sketch

.psd 04/2008 19
 workshops
Figure 4. Blocking in
Concerning her skin tone, the original photo shoot with Sam
was in a poorly lit room so some adjustment was necessary to
accommodate the fact that the image is light with sunlight in
mind not florescent lighting. For now though I simply select the
darkest tone of her skin in the photo, which was in this case
the point of deepest shadow beneath her chin. This allowed me
to more easily build on her skin tone with white and pink high-
lights.
Highlights
Using the hard edge at about 50% opacity I laid down some
highlights as well as darkened the shadowed areas of her face
and made her lips redder to suggest cosmetics of some sort. As
I continued this process I sampled some shades that appear in-
between the darker and lighter tones and used these shades to
soften things up around her face and neck. I also blocked in hair
and eyebrows to better adjust the shadows around her eyes, then
gave the whole thing a once over with the smooth tool at 15% opac-
ity to soften her features even more.
Figure 5. Facial tones and highlists
20 .psd 04/2008
Figure 6. Color and buildup
Next I added her eyes, darkened the edge of the lids, put a slight
highlight to her hair and gave the hanging strands some direction
with the smudge tool at 20% (Figure 5).
Dressing up
This trend continued with the blocking of the tones in her dress
(Figure 6) using the burnt orange to increase the highlights and
darken the shadows in the folds of the fabric. I modied the wing,
for lack of a better word, on the front of her dress to look more like
a shield and follow the form of her body more closely.
I wanted to make her dress look less plain and more ornate so
I decided to include a pattern (Figure 7) to the blue of her upper
dress and to the draping fabric down her legs rstly making an-
other layer so I didnt do anything I couldnt take back. I settled on
the design and attened the blue dress layer and the pattern layer
together, adjusting it to t the folds of the fabric across her chest,
around her shoulders and down her front (Figure 8).
Figure 7. Dress detail

Figure 8. Further dress detail
Figure 9. Headdress colors
Figure 10. Cat fur buildup
.psd 04/2008
jealous bodyguard
Head Gear
The next step I took was to assess here head dress design which I mad
into an engraved hemispherical piece of jewellery and tried inlaying a
bit of detail. After this I found that it still looked to boring and plain so
I added the ring hanging in the centre of the crescent which I had con-
sidered leaving out from some of my initial sketches. The only other
real decision was whether to make it gold or silver (Figure 9). In the
end I felt that the gold was too bright and too ceremonial I wanted it to
look like she was out for a stroll in the court not at a royal precession.
The cat
The cats fur followed a similar pattern to how I layered up the tone in
the womans skin. The main difference was that because this was fur
it meant I had to make all the edges hard with minimal blending of the
colours. This helped the fur to look matted and rough. This was still all
done using the same hard edge brush which in retrospect was a bad
decision considering how much fur I had to paint (Figure 10).
Once I had everything laid down I used the smudge tool at half
strength to move the fur around a bit and nally I gave the area
some shape denition, as it seemed to at, by adding in some darker
stripes to emphasize some bulk.
21
 workshops
Figure 11. Cat builduo
Figure 12. Composition
Cats head
Meanwhile the cat s head followed a similar process (Figure 11)
of laying down tone then slowly building up the detail. This was
still obviously quite time consuming considering I was only using
the hard edge brush. After this I began working in the eyes and
tongue, like most large cats I gave the exposed skin around the
lips and eyes a dark brown colour and the inner mouth a lighter
reddish brown. I also made the nose a dark brown rather then
the characteristic pink of a tigers nose and pointed the ears
a bit more. I added some deep blue eyes and yellow tinted teeth
as well as a lightly striped pattern to its fur both on its face, neck
and legs.
Background
Once I had the two of them completed for the moment I got to the
background (Figure 12) not honestly having had much thought
22
about it until now. I wanted to try out some stuff but I wanted to
try and get the shadows as accurate as possible so I used some
3d modelling to establish a basis for shadow and perspective. Once
I got what I wanted out of my 3d study I painted in a bit of brickwork
and the shadows cast along the stone oor. I added some draped
ags to ll in the extremely boring walls and blank space and as a
nishing touch added in the pink cherry blossom petals to a layer
above the rest.
Finished
Well the nished product is something I enjoyed and hopefully
youve enjoyed this little explanation of how it came to be. I wish you
all good luck in your own work and thanks for your time. Please if
you have any questions dont hesitate to contact me.
by Andrew Berends
.psd 04/2008
medium | 100 h
Adobe Photoshop | Softimage XSI | ZBrush

Darkness
monster
In creating this character, our main goal was to test ours skills by creating a
realistic, but fantastic creature. In order to do so, we drew some inspiration for
certain aspects from movies such as The Lord of the Rings (inspired the characters
height and the all-over fantasy look & feel of the movie), King Kong inspired us for
the creature battle scenes and War Harmer and the War Craft inspired us when
designing accessories and armors used for the lm. Our concept is mostly based
on the use of lighting: we wanted to create a bright and well-lit atmosphere, which
is contrary to more popular dark and evil creatures we usually see in these types of
animations. We also wanted to focus on the characters traits and expressions.

24 .psd 04/2008

I n this frame, the character stands out because there is a ray of
light streaming from left to right through the clouds of a stormy
sky, which helps accentuate the focus on the character and
makes it seem come to life. Also in this setting, weve focused on
the characters height and proximity so it dominates its environment
and seems like its about to jump of-screen. Weve taken care to not
show too much of its body, putting the focus on the creatures face
and its cold and cruel stare.
Research and Concept Drawings:
The rst step before drawing a character is to nd a subject. The look is
very important, but it is also essential to consider other aspects, such
as: what kind of character do we create?, should it be big or small?,
what kind of environment does it live in?, etc. These aspects directly
inuence skin texture and color. For this particular character, we wanted
to create something fantastic and so we mostly oriented our research
towards Tyrex dinosaurs, albino crocodiles, (big) birds feet and bulls.
Since we wanted to create a strong character with a mean and crazy
look the albino crocodiles was the obvious choice as our main guideline.
It was, however, a very big challenge to achieve this particular type of
skin using Sub Surface Scattering. See the Figure 1 & 2.
Modeling, UV Mapping & Zbrush
Once the concept is ready, I like to start my model with a low rez
mesh, which makes it easier to picture the characters main features.
.psd 04/2008
darkness monster
2007Hybride, Steve Jubinville & Yanick Gaudreau
I personally don't like to start my models with a box: I prefer starting
with a simple quad, duplicate the edge, and then I look for the main
line. This technique is quite effective in order to create the characters
muscle contours. The advantage of making a low rez version rst, is
that it is possible to send it to the rigging department early on to test
the modeling deformations. See the Figure 3. Once my model is done,
I like to unwrap each part of my model before starting with Zbrush,
then I unwrap the pieces with UvLayout, and Unfold 3d. The important
thing to remember about the Uv's, is that you need to make sure ev-
ery square on the character is equal, which makes the texturing part
easier plus, no texture scaling will be necessary after this step. See
the Figure 4. When my UvLayout is nished, I like to use Zbrush, which
helps to make a better shape using polygons and helps add very spe-
cic details. Details are also made using different kinds of alpha, and
brush techniques. It is also possible to extract Displacement Maps,
Normal Maps and Cavity Maps. See the Figure 5.
Texturing & Shading
To create custom textures, I like to start with basic surface textures in
Photoshop then correct them using the paint, color and mixing tools.
The monsters morphology is highlighted by making the skin very pale
and by giving him very dark eyes. Moreover, the paleness of the skin
helps bring out the different tones of color in the armor and in the ac-
cessories. As for the Render Tree, it is really simple: I use a phong for
the shader and some maps for the texture. See the Figure 6.
25
 workshops

Figure 5. Zbrush details

Figure 1. The research

Figure 6. Photoshop texture

Figure 2. The concept

Figure 3. XSI basic shape

Figure 4. UVs layout Figure 7. Texture & lighting test

26 .psd 04/2008
 darkness monster

ARTIST PROFILE

Steve Jubinville: Yanick Gaudreau:

stevejubz1@hotmail.com yanickg@hybride.com

Now because the modeling is very high in detail, we use a sim-
ple Diffuse Map alongside a Displacement Map and at this point,
the sub-surface scattering (SSS) shader is not connected because
I add the (SSS) in a separate pass. Figure 7. For this specic image,
we used a very High-resolution mesh, which is faster for rendering.
For the nal animation shot, we put a lower mesh in the scene and
I applied displacement using the Render Tree. Figure 8.
and add sun to recreate a nice rim of light on the back border of the
head, or object. In reality, a reection is created when light hits an
object and for this reason, we needed to add an environment map in
order to simulate reality, complete with natural outdoor details and
cool variations. With a bit of imagination, this creature really could
come to life. See the Figure 9. Final gathering and caustics can help

Lighting and rendering

For the lighting, it is not necessary to create a complex rig: you
simply need to insert some light to recreate an outdoor atmosphere,

Figure 8. Shader tree example Figure 9. Light setup

.psd 04/2008 27
 workshops

Figure 10. Occlusion render test

Figure 11. Final render before compositing

achieve look, but it is very long for the render so weve recreated the
look by diffusing light all around the character varying its intensity
depending on the lighted areas. We tried to imagine rays of light fall-
ing on one object and then bouncing off a second and this is the
phenomenon we tried to apply to the character. See the Figure 10 &
11. Rendering is done using Mental ray in Softimage Xsi.

Post-production
Post-production for this image was done using Photoshop, which is
great for composting if youre working on a still frame, and Shake
or Fusion are used for the nal animated shot. Using a motion blur,
which was inspired by an action shot picture of a repeated move-
ment, breaks the images static feel. We then added a Hair pass to
make the transition with the background more natural.

Conclusion
Yanick Gaudreau Steve Jubinville In short, all of the enumerated aspects are what make the essence
of the image: weve carefully proportioned lighting, textures and paid
special attention to modeling details to ensure a extremely realistic
feel to the character and its surroundings.

by Steve Jubinville & Yanick Gaudreau

www.steavejubinville.com
www.yanickgaudreau.com

28 .psd 04/2008
medium | 10 days
Adobe Photoshop CS2

Battle
of Klendathu
Welcome to my digital illustration demonstration. There are many ways of creating a
digital painting. This is just my way. Ive been trying my best to mimic my traditional
oil painting with digital media and have found Photoshop CS2 ideal for this purpose.
I tend to stay away from various lters and plug-ins while I work. I have a big library
of custom brushes that I hardly ever use. Most of this painting is done with the same
4 brushes used at varying sizes and texture levels. These 4 brushes mimic the ats
and lbert brushes I normally use in oils. Throughout this illustration I used very few
layers. One for the background, foreground and separate layers for the gure and
foreground aliens. A few adjustment layers and thats about it. I dont have a super
fast computer so having few layers keeps my le size down and allows me to slush
pixels around without any slow downs.
 battle of klendathu

.psd 04/2008 31
 workshops
T his Illustration is a remake of the cover to Robert Heinleins
Starship Troopers. Before I had ever heard of Robert Heinlein,
I saw the lm based on the classic Hugo award winning novel
and thought it was just a terrible big budget rip off of a cancelled
TV show called Space above and Beyond. So you can imagine my
surprise when I discovered that the movie was based on Heinlein's
book and that the book inspired a whole sub genre in science ction.
GIANT MECHA!!!! I was never fond of any of the covers done for this
novel so thought I'd take a shot.
Figure 1. Sketch it up
Figure 2. Reference
Figure 3. Bug war nal line art
32 .psd 04/2008
Concept Sketches
Each Illustration starts from creating thumbnail sketches. For this
painting I wanted to stay away from a static pose of troopers standing
around with a star eld or training camp in the background. I thought it
would be interesting to depict a scene from an event that was lightly
touched on in the book, the battle of Klendathu. I worked up sketches
to convey the idea that the viewer is looking up at the cap trooper from
the bugs point of view. In each sketch I wanted the gures body to
be exposed in some way to show that even though he is incased
within this heavy machine, he is still in imminent danger. Background
troopers were added, but since the focus of the illustration was the
interaction between the exposed cap trooper and the bugs, I decided
to remove the background cavalry.
While creating rough drawings I am thinking about mood,
lighting, atmosphere, size relationships, composition and overall
concept. After producing some loose thumbnail sketches I create
Figure 4. Klendathu at dusk
Figure 5. My digital controlled palette
 battle of klendathu

Figure 6. First wash of color

Figure 7. Finishing the background

Figure 10. Smoothing it out

Figure 8. Painting the claw

Figure 9. Working on the cockpit Figure 11. Adding surface details

.psd 04/2008 33
 workshops

a rough nal drawing as a guide for my next few steps. For me this
stage is the most fun. Here I begin focusing on character and cos-
tume designs, architectural detail and other background elements.
Depending on the illustration, machinery and other conceptual de-
signs are all worked on as well (Figure 1).

Gathering Reference
Now that I have a fairly good idea what the composition and overall
concept will be, I set out to nd reference materials for the gure,
mecha and environment. I spent time looking at desert landscapes

Figure 12. Cockpit nearly completed

Figure 14. Introducing the Honda RX 308

Figure 13. Exposed cockpit complete Figure 15. More dents, scratches and dirt

34 .psd 04/2008
 battle of klendathu

and sunsets. Photos of cars, reective metals and rusted, scratched

painted metal were collected. A photo shoot of a professional model
was done for the gure reference. I also looked up photos of spiders
and screenshots of the bugs from the movie. I then spent some time
in 3DS Max to build quick reference of a robot arm and some other
details I didnt want to make up (Figure 2).

Final Drawing
When Ive nished gathering my reference, all that is left is to complete
a detailed nal drawing from which to paint. My line drawing is done
completely in Photoshop. Some illustrators prefer to draw on paper and
scan in their nal drawing. I'm most comfortable working every stage
digitally. I take my rough sketch and scale it up to 14x24" at 300 dpi,
the size I want to paint the nal illustration. A second layer is created

Figure 17. Rasczaks Roughneck

Figure 18. Working on the shirt

Figure 16. Forearm gun turrets and bug lights Figure 19. On to the arms

.psd 04/2008 35
 workshops
Figure 20. Remembering Buenos Aires
Figure 21. Working the face
and lled with white, and then the opacity is dropped to around 75%.
This acts as a translucent veil that allows me to still make out the rough
sketch and use it as a guide for the gure placement and background
details. I add a third layer and begin my drawing (Figure 3).
Color Studies
Before starting the nal painting it is necessary for me to settle on
a color scheme for the illustration. My color studies are done at
a much reduced scale from the nal painting size. Though I some-
times set out to create an analogous color scheme, I ultimately
stayed in my comfort zone and stuck with complementary tones.
Since a complementary scheme has the most color contrast
I thought it might work best, especially around the mans body. The
sunset sky is that one dominant color that affects everything else in
the painting. Complementary tones are then used for color accents
and to highlight important elements (Figure 4).
While working out color, I create an adjustment layer and drop
the saturation to 0%. This allows me to see my study in grayscale so
I can check my values. I need to be sure there is enough light/dark
contrast in the painting. I keep in mind that in an exterior lighting
scenario, as objects go back in space they lose contrast, chroma and
become lighter than foreground values.
36
Final Painting
Now for the main event. When working in oils I follow the Frank Reilly
system of painting. This method taught me to paint with a controlled
palette. Almost all my essential colors are pre mixed into value
strings from light to dark. When I decided to work digitally I saw no
reason to change that approach. I have a PSD le that has a value bar
for the entire color wheel and a grayscale bar next to it. Im able to
adjust the chroma of a hue simply by picking the foreground color
and its gray equivalent. With Photoshops color dynamics turned on
and switched to pen pressure I can control the intensity of color by
how hard or soft I press down on the tablet (Figure 5).
Once Ive settled on a color scheme I create a new le with my
attened line drawing as the base layer. I take my color study layer
and scale it up to my nal working dimensions, then lay it over the
base layer. This eliminates the white canvas and serves as my rst
wash of color. A step I would traditionally do in acrylics (Figure 6).
I create a new layer above the color wash and begin working in
the background. I always work from background to foreground while
constantly checking my values and light/dark contrast (Figure 7).
Once I have established color and my values for the painting and
have a general idea where the piece is going I tend to just move across, up
or down through a painting until complete. As I work from background to
foreground, I start to see the painting in quarter sections that need to be
completed as I go. I like to see my under drawing road map as I paint. As
you can see from (Figure 8) Im just about nished with the background
and have moved on to the middle ground robot. When creating this illustra-
tion I knew I wanted it to be another exercise in rim lighting. Continuing my
study of Orientalist painters. I didnt want the gure details to get lost in
silhouette. I establish that there is a diffuse main light coming in that helps
to softly illuminate the gure and robot in a cool purplish hue.
Textural Details
Now that Ive nished painting the background and ships I continue
on working the robot. I spend time adding chipped paint marks and
textural details to the metal as I move across the mecha. I work out
the inner cockpit and surrounding details (Figure 9-15).
With a majority of the mecha complete, I wasnt satised with the
drama in the scene. I decided to add machine gun turrets to the robots
forearm. Doing this gave me the idea to have the bugs in the extreme
foreground rim lit by the machine gun re. I always enjoy painting in
glowing light sources so painting in all the reected lights to help de-
ne form was the most fun part of the illustration for me (Figure 16).
Juan Rico- Cap Trooper
With everything else complete, I move on to the mans body. When
I rst started painting digitally I got caught up in that paint every skin
pore treatment. I dont have the patience for that anymore. I prefer to
keep everything pretty loose and painterly when seen at 100% image
size. When it comes time to paint the gure I usually have the works
of my mentor Garin Baker and contemporary artist Scott Burdick on
the screen for inspiration. I always paint the gure last. Working and
adjusting the gures skin tone to t the environment, never the other
way around. I paint thinly both in oils and digitally. Ill often times
leave some of the original drawing to show through. Not as a design
choice but simply to save time. It isn't necessary for me to render out
every little detail. Working with my paintbrush set with color dynamics
checked and at between 50-70% opacity I begin building up the mans
shirt and face. Painting with a low opacity gives the impression of
working from thin to thick. Each brushstroke builds up the color and
helps me to shape and mold the form while still allowing me to see my
underdrawing (Figure 17-21).
Finishing Touches
Scratch marks, rips in the shirt, ear rings and other little details are
added to the face and body. This illustration took about a total of 10
days to complete from start to nish. This is my normal workow. My
stages of development (concept sketch, color sketch, reference gath-
ering, nal drawing and painting) are unchanged from my traditional
approach. I hope it gives you an idea of how to approach a painting.
by Eric Wilkerson
.psd 04/2008
 workshops
Exhaust
burn tutorial
Exhaust burns are the effect of hot gases and particles of carbon, oil and
other substances that discolor the sheet metal around exhaust pipes. These
discolorations increase with age and use of the vehicle and can be found on cars,
aircraft and other vehicles with sheet metal in the proximity of the exhaust outlets.
T he larger the exhaust outlet the larger the area effected by the ex-
haust burn. The smaller the outlet the inverse is true. Jet exhaust
will burn the sheet metal more but put fewer particles on the
metal than a reciprocating engine so the result is less dark particles and
more blue gray metal from heating. These burns also follow the prevail-
ing air currents and gradually lesson over distance. Jet engine exhaust
will lesson faster because the speed they travel through the air cools the
metal faster than the reciprocating powered aircraft. You will also notice
that these burns will curve and ow along the surface with the airow.
P-51s are a great example. The P-51 has 6 exhaust pipes on either side of
the nose and they spew out exhaust just below the shoulder of the nose
just ahead of the cockpit. The airow along the fuselage there is gradu-
ally pulled upward only slightly until it reaches a point even with the
canopy. It then is pulled downward with the airow as the cockpit and
wing aerodynamics take effect on the airow along the fuselage. This
exhaust burn then gradually nears the back of the wing and disappears
as the exhaust is mixed with surrounding air. Image showing exhaust
discoloration of the fuselage sheet metal aft of the exhaust stacks. Note
that the exhaust discoloration follows the natural airow of the aircraft.
The purpose of this short tutorial is to give you some idea of how to
make exhaust burns on your sheet metal project and with practice and
experience, make it appear realistically. We are providing a model and
sheet metal textures to practice this tutorial with. The remaining pro-
cesses will be included in this tutorial.
Applying a heat discoloration to the sheet metal diffuse material
Applying a particle discoloration to the sheet metal diffuse material
Applying oil streaks on the sheet metal diffuse material
Applying Heat Discoloration to the sheet metal diffuse material
Open the material called MtlDif.jpg in Photoshop (Figure 2). Image of
material you will edit. Select the Brush Tool and change the settings
as shown in (Figure 3). Image showing brush manage selection is
made with the Activate brush manager and modify the brush set-
tings as follows (Figure 4):
The3dStudio.com
THE 3D RESOURCE SITE
The 3d Studio
Figure 1.
38 .psd 04/2008
Dry Brush
Master Diameter 59 px
Mode Normal
Opacity 19%
Flow 29%
Image showing the brush conguration and selection Create a New
Layer. In the area of the exhaust stacks, you will need to discolor the
metal a little to the dark gray blue. This is from the heat of the exhaust
and does not go very far from the rear of the stack. Use the Brush Tool
and make the patch of heating discoloration as shown in (Figure 5).
Image showing the discoloration patch that has been Brushed on.
Using the Smudge Tool with 30% strength and the Blur Tool with 100 %
strength, edit this patch and blend it to be smoother and more consis-
tent. It should not however be completely consistent (Figure 6). Image
showing the blended heated discoloration patch after the blur and
smudge tool have been used.
Applying a particle discoloration
to the sheet metal diffuse material
Create a New Layer and select a new color. The new layer will be for
the exhaust particle trail discoloration. The color will be a medium to
dark gray. This patch of discoloration will have more effect on the color
of the sheet metal because it is substances that adhere to the metal.
They will also be apparent longer although gradually fading away to
nothing (Figure 7). Color Selection is open and the darker gray is se-
lected as the new color. On the right you can also see the new layer in
the layer manager window. Now Brush in trails of smoke discoloration
from the left side of the gray blue patch to the right side of the material.
Using the same Brush will allow the streaking that naturally occurs from
the forward velocity of ight (Figure 8). Image showing the exhaust
streaking discoloration brushed on. Using the Blur Tool and the Smudge
Tool, blend the streaks to be less apparent and less diverse (Figure 9).
Smudge Tool and Blur Tool have blurred the tracks and edges of
darker areas somewhat. Now change the opacity to this layer to about
The3dStudio.com
Figure 2.
 exhaust burn tutorial

The3dStudio.com The3dStudio.com

Figure 3. Figure 6.

The3dStudio.com The3dStudio.com

Figure 7.

Figure 4.

The3dStudio.com The3dStudio.com

THE 3D RESOURCE SITE

The 3d Studio

Figure 5. Figure 8.

37% and change the opacity to the layer with the heat discoloration
to 24%. This really diminishes the effect and you can increase or de-
crease these settings to achieve the results you want (Figure 10).
Image showing the nal adjustments to the opacity to the two
layers with the discoloration. Applying oil streaks on the sheet metal
diffuse material Add a third layer. Open the Brush Manager again and
select a Small Brush about 6 px of the same type. Leave the other cur-
rent setting alone (Figure 11). Image showing new Brush Settings in the
brush manager. Note the brush setting close up provided above in Figure
12. Brush is a 5 px dry brush, mode is normal, opacity is 19% and ow is

.psd 04/2008 39
 workshops

The3dStudio.com The3dStudio.com

Figure 12.

Figure 9.

The3dStudio.com The3dStudio.com

Figure 10. Figure 13.

The3dStudio.com The3dStudio.com
THE 3D RESOURCE SITE
The 3d Studio

Figure 11. Figure 14.

29%. Carefully brush on tracks of oil from various locations on the materi-
al to the right some distance. These tracks should begin at the locations
of a few rivets, or cracks between sheet metal. These oil tracks are not
usually large and are not generally visible from any distance more than
about 30 feet (Figure 13). Image showing oil tracks streaked across ma-
terial from front to back (left to right) starting at rivets screws or breaks
between pieces of sheet metal. Now save your work as a jpg overwriting
the MTLDif.jpg. Do not close the PSD le without saving it as a PSD so
that if need be you can edit it later. Close Photoshop. Open 3D Studio
Max. Open the le called Exhaust Burn Model.max. When you open the
le your work (if saved properly) should already have been updated on
the material le and will appear on the model initially (Figure 14). Render
it and determine if you need to make adjustments to the material le in
Photoshop. If so make them in Photoshop and reopen the tutorial model.
Note the burn discoloration under the exhaust stack. Now practice with
the provided materials and then try it on your own projects.
by 3dStudio.com www.The3dStudio.com

40 .psd 04/2008
 medium | 120 min. | tutorial on CD
Adobe Photoshop CS3

42 .psd 04/2008
 think of the wall

Think
of the Wall
Stewart Michael Bruce merges painting and photography to create
phantasmagoric images that capture the imagination. In this tutorial we will
work extensively with the layer palette to create our image. Dont be intimidated
by the layer palette basically, just drag-and-drop your photographs onto your
canvas. Well also work extensively with the lasso and mask tools.

01 Creating a new canvas 03 Creating backgrounds

To begin with, open up Adobe Photoshop, go to File and select
New Document. Set the image size of new document to Width
7.47 x Height 11.023 inches, the Resolution to 300 dpi, the color
mode to RGB and 16 bits. Name the canvas Think off the wall and
click OK.
I like to create all my own backgrounds for these types of proj-
ects by painting or drawing the feel that I am looking for on wa-
tercolor paper. From there, I scan the washes that I have made and
le it under a separate folder. I feel that by using these watercolor
washes, I add something special to my images and give them an
overall ne art look.

02 Blank slate 04 Transform your background

You should have a transparent canvas on which you can now Open up the folder Think off the Wall from your CD and drag the
start working. Name this rst layer Think off the Wall. folder onto your hard drive or on to your desk top. Next, go to
File>Open>Images and double click on Background 1. Drag-and-drop
this image onto your new canvas then go to Edit>Transform>Scale
and scale the image to t the canvas.

.psd 04/2008 43
 photomanipulation
05 Name the layer
After you have resized the image to t the canvas, set the
layer to Normal and the Opacity to 100%. Save this layer as Back-
ground 1.
0 6 Abstract backgrounds
Next open up the folder Think off the Wall and open the image
Background 2. As you can see, I have created a very abstract
collage using paint, paper, and wax crayon. Have fun playing around
and creating your own background. While the lters in Photoshop
are good, its also nice to get paint on your hands and the satisfac-
tion that you have created something without going to the programs
lters.
07 Looking at bit muddy
As in Step 5, drag-and-drop this background on to your canvas
and resize it. In the Layer palette, set the Layer to Overlay and
the Opacity to 100%. (This will momentarily render the image very
muddy, but just stick with me and it will soon all become clear).
44 .psd 04/2008
08 Chance meeting of photographer and art
This photograph was taken one day when I was on one of my
walks. I came a cross this old car that had been crushed, burned,
and left in a eld with the word THINK ! written across it by the po-
lice. It certainly did make me think thus, this tutorial. If you can,
take your camera out with you whenever possible: you never know
what you will come across or how it might inspire you!
09 Think before you work
Go to the sub-folder Image and open up the document called
Think. Add this photograph to the canvas. Set the Layer to Light-
en and the Opacity to 100%. Use the Photoshop Transform feature to
adjust the layer to t the main subject. Name this layer Think. Make
sure that you adjust the layer to t, as in the picture below.
10 Pulling into the station
This photograph was taken at the Bank Street Underground Sta-
tion in London, England. Go to your Images folder and open up
the le named London Underground.

11 Going Underground
As in Steps 5, 7, and 9, drag-and-drop London Underground onto
the canvas and resize it to t. Naming the new layer Underground
Station.
12 Add a mask
To isolate just the piece of the image that we want to feature,
erase the extra information using the Mask tool. Next, go to the
Mask tool and add a new mask to this layer. With the Brush tool re-
move all of the sky from the original image. You should be left with
just the building.
13 Brushing away the sky
Now that you have taken out all of the sky, you should end up
with the Layer looking like this (below). I like using the mask
and the Brush tools. I get more exibility in using this method: if, at
a later stage in my creation, I feel that I need to put back or take out
any part of the images I am using, I easily can with this method. Of
course, if you feel more comfortable using the Lasso tool, please feel
free to do so.
.psd 04/2008
think of the wall
14 Switching on the layers
Set the layer palette to Hard Light and the Opacity to 100%. With
all the layers switched on, you can see the nal image slowly
start to emerge. It still looks a bit of a mess, but all will come clear in
the next couple of steps.
15 Stopping trafc
Next go to the le Police Bike from our folder Think Off The Wall.
Open the photograph in Photoshop.
16 Overlay
Add the image Police Bike to the photomontage. The idea is to
make the police motorcycle appear as if it is driving across the
word THINK. Youll have to play a little with the size of the image to
get it to t just right. Set the Layer to Overlay and the opacity at
100%. As you can see the photomontage is slowly starting to evolve.
45
 photomanipulation
17 Masking out
To build the images depth, continually add layers. Highlight layer
Background 2, select File>Layer>Duplicate Layer. Add this dupli-
cated layer on top of the layer Police Bike, set the layer to Lighten,
and add a Mask. With the brush tool, take out most of the informa-
tion from the left-hand side. Keep switching the layer off and on to
judge how much you have to take away from the background in order
to reveal the building underneath.
18 Upping the depth and the color
As you can see, removing some of the background from Back-
ground copy 2 brings back some of the information that was lost
from the rest of the image. Play around with the image as much as
you like to get the quality that you are looking for.
19 Losing the mud
To further enhance the images depth and color, duplicate the
layer Police Bike and set it on top of the layer Background copy
2 with mask. Set the layers Overlay at 100% opacity. This step visu-
ally strengthens the details in the image that before were muddied
and lost.
46 .psd 04/2008
20 Think is the word
As a sculpture chisels at a block of marble to reveal the gure
hidden within, so are you doing to the different layers that will
ultimately come together to create the piece you envision. Duplicate
the layer Think and drop it on top of the layer Police Bike Overlay.
Add a layer mask.
21 Cutting back the word
Slowly take out all of the background until you are left only with
the word THINK! Cut in as close to the word as you can (as in the
example below) and set the layer to Overlay and opacity at 100%. You
can use the Brush tool or if you prefer, the lasso tool works as well.
22 Saturate the image with more color
Switch on all of the layers to see the effectiveness of adding the
layer Think. As you can see, the word Think now shows thought a
lot clearer, thus adding more depth to the photomontage.

23 Masking out the background
Go to the layer Background 1, duplicate this layer, and rename
this copied layer Background 1 with mask. Add a Layer mask to
this new layer and take out the background around the gures in the
top left-hand corner. Change the layer to Soft Light at 100% opacity.
24 Refocusing on the image
These next steps change the color settings and refocus the over-
all image organically and without having to articially generate
this effect with lters. (Personally, I think that its more challenging
working this way, being more creative in my creativity.)
25 Photographs over paints every time!
Whenever possible, I use my own photographs as background
color instead of going to the paint bucket in Photoshop. Just tak-
ing samples from different areas within a photograph would work for
just about any given image. Rather than manufacturing the sky by
using the ll-in tool, I prefer to use photographs as my palette. I feel
that doing so helps maintain a realistic, organic image.
.psd 04/2008
think of the wall
26 Blue Sky
Back to our image. Next, add Blue Sky background from the folder
to the working canvas. Add this layer on top of the layer Back-
ground 1 with mask. Go to File>Transform>Scale, and ll the canvas
with the blue sky that you have just opened up. Name this layer Blue
Sky and set the layer to Soft Light at 100% opacity.
27 Bringing the Underground aboveground
To neutralize and soften the distracting colors from the top of
the image, you need to bring forward some of the colors from
the under layers. Click on the layer London Underground. Duplicate
this layer and move the duplicated layer on top of the Blue Sky layer.
Name the new layer Underground Station Copy 2. Remember to de-
lete the mask layer from this section before continuing to work on
this layer. Set the layer to Color and the opacity to 100%.
28 The perfect body
The next step is to add the photograph Body Basics to our pho-
tomontage. (Fun fact: this photo was taken just across the road
from Liverpool Street Station London England.)
47
 photomanipulation
29 The Perfect Body
In order to work on only the Body Basics image, click on all of the
layers in the palette and set them to off. Place the image at the
bottom of the layer and resize it to t the canvas. Set your layer to
Overlay and Opacity at 100%. Name this layer Body Basics.
30 Looking good now
We have now placed the Body Basics photograph at the bottom
of the canvas. At the moment, its looking rather muddy you
can hardly distinguish the Body Basics image that was just placed
into your photomontage. Somehow, you have to get around this
problem and bring Body Basics back, so
31 Welcome back Body Basics
Duplicate Body Basics this layer will now be named Body
Basics with mask. Add the mask and with your Paintbrush tool,
slowly remove the elements above the ledge of the Body Basics and
The Arcade storefronts, as shown in the image below. Set the Layer
to Hard Light at 100% opacity.
48 .psd 04/2008
32 Looking for the Body
Switch back on all of the layers. As you can see, your image now
looks very close to the nished image. Just one nal step left,
were almost home!
33 Blue Sky All The Way
Adding a very light wash in a single, complimentary color will
help pull the image together. To do this, duplicate the layer Blue
Sky. Name this new layer Blue Sky copy 2. Set this new layer to Soft
Light at 100% opacity. Adding the layer Blue Sky copy 2 (the dupli-
cate of the layer Blue Sky) lightens and refocuses the entire image,
clearing away all the muddiness.
34 Finish
I hope that you enjoyed this tutorial as much as I did design-
ing it. To nd out more about my Photomontages, check out:
www.stewartbruce.clara.net
by Stewart Michael Bruce
 photomanipulation

medium | 3h | tutorial on CD
Adobe Photoshop | Adobe Illustrator

50 .psd 04/2008
Game
Over
Game over! Computer graphics
are everywhere, from the games
themselves, the internet and lately
a whole host of computer generated
ad campaigns. They have become
common place and we are so used
to seeing them that they are a part
of our everyday lives, and in some
cases all people think about (you
know who you are out there sat
infront of your PS3 all day).
In this simple tutorial we will step
you through making a computer
based editorial style piece. This style
is very adaptive and can be used
for almost any subject matter with
simple changes to the content so
lets begin.
 photomanipulation

01 Type 04 3D time
Firstly create the text game over in Illustrator and choose the The two letters on the right most side are going to be blown away
typeface you wish to use. Id keep this quite simple a if the font is so apply a 3d effect as in the screen grab. Now, rotate your let-
too fussy it wont work. ters to give them the effect they have been blown away.

02 Perspective 05 PSD time

Create a no ll in the text and give your font a keyline. Next use Now, copy and paste the whole graphic into Photoshop and
the free distort function under Filter>Distort>Free distort to give position in the bottom left corner. Duplicate this layer and add
it a little perspective. through the layer effects an outer glow through the layer effects.
Make the colour match your designated colour scheme.

03 Great corner! 0 6 Fill it up

Now, place your text into a corner and draw in perspective lines Now, ll the background image completely black. This will make
to give it more ow. This can go totally off the page if you like or your glow effect stand out more and give the nished piece a
be a curve, the choice is yours. lot more depth. You may needed to duplicate this layer to get the
desired effect.

52 .psd 04/2008
 game over

07 Resource 10 Back detail

Now, get the ball graphic from http://www.sxc.hu/browse.phtml? Now, paste in a background that will complement your piece, this
f=download&id=955614 and cut and paste it into your piece. Then can be anything that ts from vectors through to photography or
mask out the black to create the ball hitting the text. You may need to in this case a mix of both .
extend the balls re trail to get the desired result.

08 Blurrrr 11 Fill those holes!

Now, create a motion blurr on the two 3d letters by duplicating Now, nish the piece off by looking foe holes within the composi-
the layer and blurring it. Use your own personal judgement to get tion and lling them in. You again can use all sorts of elements
this right and also make sure you place the blurred layer behind the that you think work.
original.

09 Step and repeat 12 Be proud!

Create numerous more vector graphics that t within this theme Now, atten the image down and your nished. You should
and them paste them into your document and apply the same ef- have a great piece so be proud of yourself. You can use these
fects. You need to consider the composition at this point and also a techniques for numerous industries and will always get a rst class
making a sketch may help. result.

by Neil Duerden

.psd 04/2008 53
 workshops

medium | 15 min. | tutorial on CD

Adobe Photoshop CS3

Shape
in sand
In this tutorial I will show you how to draw a shape in sand, rock, snow or
whatever you want to.

54 .psd 04/2008

01 Drowing in sand
Lets start. First of all you must to open your source. For this tu-
torial I choose to draw something in sand but you are open to do
it in everything you want.
02 New layer
After you do that, next step is to create a new layer and put your
shape in it and set blend mode to Overlay. For best result use
black shape.
03 Contrast
With layer still selected go to Adjustment>Brightness Contrast
mark use legacy button and set Brightness to +100 Contrast+20
(in earlier version of the program set Brightness +100 Contrast
-100). In that moment you will not be able to see the shape.
.psd 04/2008
shape in sand
04 Blending
Now its time for Blending mode. With shape layer selected
go to Layer>Layer style>Blending option and set it like in the
pictures.
05 Lightness
One last step and you are done. I want you to go at Image>
Adjustments>Hue Saturation or click [Cltr]+[U] from your key-
board. Now play with lightness sidebar until you get a perfect match
of source color like in picture below. For my picture I must set light-
ness to +21 but thats depend from picture to picture. Press Ok and
you are done. Hope this was helpful for you see you next time.
0 6 Final touch
This is the nal image. I hope this tutorial was helpful to you.
by Marius Soare
55
medium | 10-15h
Adobe Photoshop CS2
 making of the divebombing pterodactyl

Making of
of the divebombing pterodactyl
Swooping down from the clouds, a manic pterodactyl hones in on his next meal.
This demonstration will show you the steps I used in creating this silly guy with
only a very basic knowledge of Photoshop, proving that given enough time
(not to mention trial and error), something interesting can result from it.

A fter deciding on the type of pose to use for this months

theme, I scanned it into photoshop and quickly dropped
some colours into it (Figure 1). My initial sketch had the
fellow with a big white scarf and aviator goggles because I really
wanted to play up the goofy side of him, but the goggles obscured
his eyes too much and in the end I decided to leave him stark
naked. My next step was to gure out a lightsource direction, and
with the outstretched wings, it seemed like a fun idea to have the
light off to the side and a little behind to play around with the idea
of slightly opaque skin (Figure 2). With his bulging eyes, I wanted
an old-fashioned animation look to them and am kind of thinking
about him being like the old WB cartoon characters in personality
and style.
Now Im starting to rene the image a little bit (Figure 3 and 4),
I esh him out with some highlights along the wing, and try pump-
ing up the veins in the wingaps. Ive also changed his pupils
because they were too stylized and at for what I am hoping to
do with the body. I should explain that for the large highlights on
the wing, I tend to use a very large round brush with 0% hardness,
and also set the airbrush setting on with a fairly low percentage to
build up the intensity slowly. With the backlighting part, I simply
chose a highly saturated and more reddish colour than the rest
of the body to make it feel like youre seeing the light through the Figure 3. Figure 4.
skin.

Figure 1. Figure 2. Figure 5. Figure 6.

.psd 04/2008 57
 workshops

The dino is starting to get there, and now the background is

bothering me. Its too plain! I was still thinking about the old car-
toons that I love so much, and went with some really stylized and
cartoony cloud shapes (Figure 5). The cloud angle is set to make
it look like the pterodactyl is screaming down towards earth and
Ive tried placing them so that they help frame everything nicely
(wingtips and beak in front of the clouds to make them stand
out). Still more highlights are added, as well as the reflection
from the sky is made more apparent. Things are coming together,
so I decide to try my hand at adding some textures with a brush
other than the standard round one! I use a brush with a scat-
tering pattern and quickly run up and down the body with two
colours, one for light, and one for sky. I also work on bringing
out the eyes, since I want them to be a real standout feature to
him (Figure 6). In the next image(Figure 7), I added some little
rubbery/leathery stress points along the skin of his wings to
make them feel a little more like all that skin was actually at-
tached to the bones somehow. I also applied a motion blur filter
to the clouds running in the direction that the bird is flying to
give it a sense of motion and to put more focus on the shapes in
the foreground. Right now Im thinking that its pretty much done,
but something seems to be missing. After a little thought, I real-
ize that I had forgotten all about the nostrils! I drop them in and
consider it done. There you have it, my thought process behind
this carnivorous dinosaur!

Figure 7. by Ryan Slayter

ADVERTISEMENT

58 .psd 04/2008
 contributing writers

.psd contributors
cover artist

Patrick Beaulieu / CHEVisodes crew Eric Wilkerson

He was born in Quebec (Canada) in 1981. Since he can remember
he has been interested in graphics and animation, therefore, in
1999 he has decided to get a 3D formation in Quebec city at The
Athena Institut. He has discovered animation and character cre-
ation so he decided to invest his time in animation and cartoon
design. He is a fan of cartoon, it is the style he prefers to work on.
www.chevisodes.com
Eric Wilkerson is an award winning painter & illustrator living in
the New York Hudson Valley. He has worked in publishing, logo/
concept design for feature lms and various television com-
mercial projects. His work has been included in Spectrum: the
best in contemporary fantastic art Vol 9, 12. Expose1,and most
recently Digital Art Masters Vol 1 from 3D total. He also has an
unhealthy addiction to StarTrek.
captainofds9@yahoo.com

Andrew Berends Steward Bruce

He is a multimedia designer working out of Melbourne, Victoria. As
a multimedia designer he has worked on everything from Corpo-
rate design and Web to Matte painting and Concept design.
www.hawkshmedia.com.au, aberends@hawkshmedia.com.au
Stewart Michael Bruce merges painting and photography to create
phantasmagoric images that capture the imagination. With the
help of masterfully employed technological tools these digital pho-
tomontages take on a quality of serving as illustrations for real life.
His work has been shown across Europe, Asia and the US, and has
been published in national and international digital art magazines.

Steve Jubinville Neil Duerden

Graduated from the NAD Centre, Steve Jubinville is passionate
about character modeling and digital sculpture. His talent and
sense of great detail has brought him to model the main char-
acters of the companys licenses such as Prince of Persia, Tom
Clancys Rainbow Six, Far Cry and Assassins. Actually working at
Hybride Technologie, he has also worked on some contracts for
Meteor Studios and Ubisoft. He teaches at the NAD Centre.
www.stevejubinville.com, stevejubz1@hotmail.com
Neil Duerden is a self-confessed Mac monkey based in a rural
miners cottage 20 miles north of Manchester in the UK. He creates
pieces that combine elements from mixed media and photography
that are interlaced with complex vectors for clients all around the
world. These clients include Saatchi and Saatchi, The Sunday Times,
Virgin, Fairy, Stella Artois, and Nike.
www.neilduerden.co.uk

Yanick Gaudreau Morgan Yon

Graduated from the NAD Centre in 1999, Yanick as the chance
to start he career at Buzz image on some commercials. Actually
working at Hybride Technologie since 2001, Yanick Gaudreau is
a Senior Textures and Lighting artist. He as the chance to work
on some nice feature movie like Spy Kids, Sin City, Snakes on a
plane and 300.
www.yanickgaudreau.com, yanickg@hybride.com
He is 25 and after graduating from art school in 2005 he joined
Quantic Dream Studio in Paris working as a concept artist for
characters and sets. He started being interested in concept art
only 2 years ago and he hopes to remain as long as possible in
the video game industry.
morgan.yon@gmail.com, www.morgan-yon.com
Other contributors:
Marious Soare, the3dstudio.com, Adrian Mccanna, Cyril Roger

Production Director: All trade marks presented in the magazine were used
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60 .psd 04/2008

Stewart Michael Bruce:
Illustrator, Photomontage
I rst started off in the traditional art mediums drawing and
painting. I wanted to incorporate this history into my current
artwork. I want my work have a ne art feel and not just straight
digital look. As I came from a traditional background, I wanted to
bring that element into my photomontage. I used to do oil paintings
and printmaking, some batik. I wanted to bring all those elements
into my art.
I attended Great Yarmouth College on an Art and Design
course, passing my BTEC Diploma in Art and Design and Graphic
Design. From there, I studied at Norwich School of Art and Design
where I graduated with a BA (Hons) in Illustration and Graphic
Design. While at university, I was honored to receive the Noel
Spencer Award for Illustration.
Then, in the mid-nineties, I came across a magazine called
Computer Arts. This particular issue featured an artist named
Hannah Gal. She had several of her art pieces in there. I had seen
photomontage before but this was the first time I had seen digi-
tal photomontage and it inspired me to find out how she created
the images. I went on a quest to find out as much information
as I could on the software that she used to create her images,
something called Adobe Photoshop. Back then it was version 3.1
(now its in version CS3). That was the first step of my thousand-
step journey.
Now, I try for a different look than whats out there. Most
of the digital artwork you see in magazines is very mechanical
looking, sharp-edged and crisp. Like all artists, I want to create
something that looks different, something that people would
see and hopefully remember. I try to maintain an organic look by
using drawings, painted backgrounds, handmade text, and any
other object that I can find to put into my work.
I also really enjoy photography and incorporate my pho-
tography into my art whenever possible. When I got a hold of
Photoshop, I found that its versatility allowed me to experiment
with my photos to create completely new images. This was so
.psd 04/2007
stewart michael bruce
exciting! Also, it made my job a lot less time consuming because
the process of using traditional photography (film) takes so
much more time from taking the picture to development to
scanning to starting work on my image. Now all I have to do is
take the photograph and the images are as good or better than
the standard film process.
I come home, plug in my lead into my computer, and down-
load my pictures into Adobe Lightroom, which is a digital dark-
room that offers more control over my images and allows me
to start the creative process almost immediately. Once I get an
idea, I can go out and take the images I need, come home, plug in
the connection into my computer and Im there. I can start work-
ing on the piece that day instead of a couple days later.
I find that my emotions and passions, things that I care
about and want to share, find life in my art. For example, Life
in Full Colour my response to the demonstrations in London
about the Iraq war. Life Is Sweet is about how sweets take you
back to your childhood going to the shops with your mum,
looking through the glass, choosing the best way to spend your
ten-pence worth of pocket money. Going down your childhood
memory lane and how happy you were having your penny-chews
those kinds of happy memories that sweets invoke, thats what
I wanted to express.
Another one of my pieces, Im Still Waiting, is about my
nephew, Wesley. His dad died when he was only nine months old.
Hes always asking his mum where his dad was and why other
children have daddies and he didnt. For a long time he couldnt
work that out.
One day we went to the beach and I was taking photographs
of him. When I developed the film, this one image stood out. He
had his arms outstretched and there was this shadowy figure in
the background. It reminded me of him asking for his dad, as if
he was reaching out for a father who wasnt who couldnt be
there. He just wanted to be hugged, to be loved just like all the
63
 self exposure

Exhibition and Magazine Articles for 2007 and previous

2007: Advanced Photoshop The Premium Collection, Published in Volume 2 of Advanced Photoshop The Premium Collection. A Photomontage Tutorials Workshop, (Wel-
come to Hollywood) showing the reader how to create stunning photomontage with out using lter in the new Photoshop CS3. Page 84 89.
2007: Digital Arts, Published in December Issue of Digital Arts Magazine UK. (The Game) was Showcase on page 16 with other arts.
2007: Hangar 1018 Gallery, Down town Los Angles, A Group Exhibition, Fastforward and Rewind Taking a fresh look at how the electronic age has shifted our mentality.
Exhibition at Hangar 1018 Los Angeles From October end November.
2007: Tracy Park Gallery, in Santa Monica, Solo Show, Storybooks and Visionscapes: Exhibition at the Tracy Park Gallery in Santa Monica on Ocean Avenue from May 1st
30th 2007.
Tracy Park Gallery, in Santa Monica to Host City Hearts Fundraiser With Where Peace Lives Author, Debbie Robins on May 24.

Stewart Bruce's work will be for sale during the City Hearts fundraiser on May 24, with a portion of proceeds from the sale of his art benetting City Hearts. For more informa-
tion, visit www.cityhearts.org

2007: A short documentary about the artist Stewart Michael Bruce produced by David Clark, to see the documentary goto the Current TV Website @ http://www.current.tv/
watch/33069289?list=newVidsByProducer&lterone=16377149&ltertwo=-1&sid=33069289&fr=0
2007: Advanced Photoshop, Published in April Issue 30. A Photomontage Tutorials Workshop, (Welcome to Hollywood) showing the reader how to create stunning photo-
montage with out using lter in the new Photoshop CS3. Page 58 63:
2007: Photoshop Creative, Published in April Issue 20 of Photoshop Creative. A photomontage tutorial workshop, (Metropolis Eye of the City) showing the readers how to
create stunning ne art photomontage in Adobe Photoshop CS2. Page 64 71
2007: Computer Arts Magazine, Published in March Issue 133. Page 114: Showcasing, (LA Angel, Heroes, Gasoline and Life in Full colour)
2007: Infusion Gallery, Downtown Los Angles, A Group Exhibition at the Infusion Gallery Downtown LA March 8th 27th 2007.
2007: Tracy Park Gallery, in Santa Monica, Exhibition is at the Tracy Park Gallery in Santa Monica Live Nude Girl February 17th March 10th 2007,
2006: NAPP Website, A Photomontage Tutorials Workshop on the NAPP website, showing the reader how to create (Think off the wall) a stunning photomontage with out
using lter in Photoshop CS2.
2006: Digit Magazine, In May Issue 2006 Illustration in Digit Showcase (Stress City, London Tube, Im Still Waiting) Pages 76 77:
2006: Illustration/Publishing Design Client: Community Connections: College in the Community Learning Prospectus.
2005: Illustration/Graphic Design and Publishing: Client: The Priory Center for there Advertising Brochure.
2005: Graphic Design and Publishing: Client: The Priory Center for there Bridge to Music Report on be haft for the NHS Trust.
2005: Illustration/Publishing Design Client: Community Connections for WW Net, an English and Europe partnership as a non-prot organization. Looking at Woman and
the Labour Market.
2005: SBS Digital Design, April Issue, (Stress City) was on the Front cover on SBS Digital Design. Merging Lanes: Stewart Michael Bruce switches up the Photoshop color
Mode for a gritty take on city life. A two-page tutorial on his work. www.sbsdigitaldesign.com
2005: Digital Creative Arts, February Issue Seventeen, Photomontage Tutorials of (Metropolis Eye of the City) Workshop Create a stunning watercolor photomontage in
Adobe Photoshop CS. Give your digital illustration an outstanding edge by creating it with a natural feel, such as an eye-catching watercolor look... and Adobe Photoshop
CS is just the tool for the job.
2005: Design Graphics, (Havana, Stress City & Im Still Waiting) Illustration featured in Design Graphics: Portfolio Issue # 112, page 32 33 (USA & Australia).
2004: Digital Creative Arts, (Life is Sweet, Think off the Wall, Life in Full Colour, If you nd it, Memory) Featuring in Digital Creative Arts Issue Fifteen Portfolio Page 64 65
2004: Refocus Now 2005 Calendar Competition, August (I'm Still Waiting), 2005 Calendar
2004: Olympia, Illustration exhibited at On The Wall Olympia 29th Sept 3rd October London England
2004: Business Design Centre, Artist and Illustrators Exhibition 22nd 25th July 2004, at the Business Design Centre in Islington London England
2004: Waterloo Gallery London England, Exhibition I LIKE LOOKING AT PICTURES An exhibition featuring the work of photographers, illustrators & artists. WATERLOO GAL-
LERY 14 Baylis Road, London England 5th 16th July 2004 http://www.refocus-now.com/Pages/ILLAP.htm
2004: Deluxe Gallery Hoxton Square, Cocktail III Exhibition at Deluxe Gallery Hoxton Square, London England, A group exhibition from 2nd 10th February 2004.
2004: Computer Arts Project, Featuring (The Cry, Financial Time, Metropolis), Illustration published in Computer Arts Project (Issue 55), How to get into Galleries.
2001 2004: Facing Faces project, a worldwide, Internet- and gallery-based, anti-violence campaign (http://www.prophitart.com/ffgallery/stewart_bruce.htm) (www.the-
cause.org) through the Coalition of Artists United for Social Engagement (CAUSE). The mission of CAUSE (www.the-cause.org) is to raise awareness of and ght violence
against women and children. The nal goal of Facing Faces is to present in real time and space the human condition, about being able to feel the pain and suffering of a
ve year old girl living in Mxico, but also about human fears and dreams. Over the last few years, Stewart has worked on a series of images for Facing Faces and CAUSE
(http://www.the-cause.org/facingfaces03/tour-selection.htm)
2003 04 Facing Faces exhibit traveled throughout America and Canada, (Los Angeles and Hollywood, California; Toluca, Ohio; Richmond, Virginia; Fredericton, New
Brunswick); Belgium (Antwerp and Leuven); The Netherlands (Utrecht and Amsterdam); and the Philippines (scheduled November 2004, Sto. Thomas, Mindanao).
Artwork from the rst Facing Faces Exhibition shown at the Museum of Art and History in Juarez City, Mexico.
2003: Deluxe Gallery, London with Refocus-Now, Showcase at the International Open Image exhibition at the Deluxe Gallery, London England.
2003: Period Gallery Lincoln, Nebraska, Exhibition at the Period Gallery (Lincoln, Nebraska, USA), in the Digital Experimental III Exhibition; Award of Excellence.
2003: Digital Photographer, (Breast Cancer, Code, Financial Time. Flamingo Park, London Girl, Poppys, Barbara & Dancing) Featuring in Digital Photographer Issue Eight
Imageer Prole: meet a man who's a dab hand with an image editor as he explains the ups and downs of working with digital pictures in Adobe Photoshop.
2003: Gallery 47, Bloomsbury, London England, FUSION Group Exhibition at the Gallery 47, Bloomsbury, London (December), with Refocus Now London (www.refocus-now.co.uk).
2001: EFX Art and Design, (XXY) Feature in EFX Art and Design: Photographic Special (Sweden).
2000: SeaChange Gallery, Great Yarmouth, England, A solo exhibition
2000: Design Graphics, (Poppys) Featured in Design Graphics: Portfolio Issue (Australia).
1999: State College, Pennsylvania, Exhibition in the Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts (State College, Pennsylvania, USA).
1999: White Crow Gallery, State College Pennsylvania,
Exhibition at the White Crow Gallery (USA).
1999: September Song Soho London England, Exhibition in the September Song Soho Multimedia Festival (London).
1999: Colville Place Gallery London England, A Group Exhibition Showcasing Stewart work at Colville Place Gallery (London).
1999: Metro Imaging Gallery London England, Group Exhibition Showcasing Stewart Photomontage

To nd out more about Stewarts art, visit his website at: www.stewartbruce.clara.net.
His work can also be viewed at the American Artist Rep website: www.amerartists.com/index.

64 .psd 04/2007
 stewart michael bruce

.psd 04/2007 65
 self exposure
CAREER NOTES
Exhibition and Magazine Articles for 2008
Agora Gallery, New York
Pixel Perfect The Digital Fine Art Exhibition Apr 18 - May 8
Press Release
Stewart Michael Bruce merges painting and photography to create
phantasmagoric images that capture the imagination. With the help
of masterfully employed technological tools these digital photomon-
tages take on a quality of serving as illustrations for real life. At the
same time, with the integration of drawing, watercolors, charcoal,
and handmade texts, the works retain more of a fine art patina than
a highly-digitized, glossy sheen. He avoids the use of filters, which
make the work look more mechaniclike graphics rather than art.
His subjects range from the political (the protest against the Iraq
war) to the sentimental (childhood recollections), from cityscapes
to deeply personal nostalgia. Bruces works are consistently organic,
seamlessly integrating his training in oil paintings, (digital) print me-
dia and batik, always with an eye for the ephemeral. Stewart Michael
Bruce studied Art and Design at Great Yarmouth College and Norwich
School of Art and Design. His work has been shown across Europe,
other children. That heart-wrenching moment somehow found its
way into my work.
At the moment I work from home. This works quite well for me
at this time, I feel comfortable in the knowledge that all I have to
do in the morning to go straight to work is get out of bed. When the
ideas are not owing, I have my books and the TV at hand, to nd
inspiration or just to relax. I am always working on new projects and
techniques. As an artist, I constantly have to challenge myself and
my art form. The next level that I would like to explore is video instal-
lation art which I feel would push my current technique into some-
thing even more creative and challenging. After that, who knows?
To find out more about Stewart Michael Bruce, please go to
www.stewartbruce.clara.net.
To view a short film about Stewart and his art by filmmaker
David Clark, check out: http://www.current.tv/watch/3306928
9?list=newVidsByProducer&filterone=16377149&filtertwo=-
1&sid=33069289&fr=0
Stewart Michael Bruce prints exclusively with Nash Editions
in Manhattan Beach, CA. Recognized as the world's rst digital
printmaking studio, Nash Editions has established an international
reputation for high-quality ne art photographic digital output.
66
Asia and the US, and has been published in national and international
digital art magazines.
Icosahedron Gallery, New York April 1th 19th
The show will run from April 1-19th, The reception will be on April
10th from 8-10pm.
Tracy Park Gallery, March 8, 2008
Take a Look Group Exhibition featuring works by Stewart Michael
Bruce, Mark Indig, Eric Waterman, Alan Roderick-Jones and Victor
Spinelli
Tracy Park Gallery, February 9th 30th
Live*Nude*Girls Group Exhibition celebrating the female form.
Icosahedron Gallery, New York February 5th 29th
The Exhibition runs from February 5th-29th with the opening
reception on February 7th with live music from 7-8pm and a
cocktail reception from 8-10pm.
2008: Digital Arts, Published in February Issue of Digital Arts
Magazine UK.
A Photomontage Tutorials Workshop, (Stress City) showing the
reader how to create stunning photomontage with out using
lter in the new Photoshop CS3.
Adobe Photoshop CS 3
Is A Powerhouse Tool For Artistic Freedom
Whether you are just beginning or are a seasoned professional, it is
my goal to help you expand your Photoshop horizons and provide you
with new creative avenues by showing you fresh applications of basic
Photoshop tools. In this tutorial, we will discover how to create a stun-
ning montage of photographs, textures and text by utilizing only lay-
ers and without using any lters. More often than not, the crispness
and sharp lines of digital art can leave it looking at and mechanized.
To overcome this, we are going to add a ne-art feel to our photomon-
tage creation. To help create that ne-art look, we will be going back to
basics, so dust-off your paint brushes and get out your paints!
A Pre-project Tip: Always keep your ideas in a sketchbook and
have a good stock photo library. I nd that looking through the im-
ages I have in my photo library sometimes kicks-off a good idea or
two. Its also helpful to sketch-out your ideas rst and then go out to
shoot the photos that you will need for your project.
by Stewart Michael Bruce
www.stewartbruce.clara.net
blog:web.mag.com/photomontage1
.psd 04/2007
 reviewers choice

Games
consoles reviewers choice
Gaming has never been as exciting as it is now. Not only do consoles offer top
notch graphics and sounds, closer than ever to reality, but controls have also
been greatly improved to bring us closer to life game play and impressions. The
three games consoles that currently dominate the market, Microsofts Xbox 360,
Nintendos Wii and Sonys Playstation 3, all offer very different gaming experiences.
Depending on the sort of gamer you are, youll be more attracted to one of the three.
Here we take a look at each of the dominating consoles and help you pick out which
one suits your gaming experience most.

Microsoft Xbox 360

Microsofts second video game console, was released in November 2005
in the U.S. It offers a large library of video games and comes in three differ-
ent models: Arcade, Pro and Elite, offering from 20 to 120 Gb of hard drive
and varying from prices of $240 to$400. The Xbox has a sleek matte de-
sign and is fairly slim, weighing only 8.8-pound and with measurements
of 12.15 inches wide, 3.27 inches high, and 10.15 inches deep. It can be
set both horizontally or vertically, depending on which arrangement you
prefer. The console comes with one controller and includes two USB ports
to connect external devices such as MP3 players, cameras or external
drives.The Xbox offers a pleasant gaming experience with, as said before
many titles to choose from, with some of them, such as Halo 3, exclusive
to the Xbox 360. The Dashboard interface is easy to navigate through and
can be customized with all sorts of themes. You can also create your own
Game Card avatar however youll only be able to choose from a Microsoft
selection. If you dont have the Xbox Live Vision Camera you wont be able
to use your own snapshot. Thanks to plug and play, you connect your PC
to the Xbox and make use of all your software such as Windows Media
Player. The Xbox 360 does come with a DVD player, but it offers sub stan-
dard performances and doesnt offer playback capabilities for the next
generation Blu Ray DVDs. Newer models also come with an HDMI output
and 1080p support. All console manufacturers understand the impor-
tance of online gaming. With Xbox Live you can connect and play against
anybody online, however using the service will cost you $50 a year. You
can also connect to the Xbox Marketplace to buy games, TV shows and
movies. If you own an old Xbox youll be glad to know that the Xbox 360
has backwards compatibility with the whole Xbox games library.
The controller is tted with two analog sticks, a traditional cross
control and four buttons, yet it is a little bulky and a bit unnatural
to handle. If youre ready to spend a little more you can still choose
from one of the dozen accessories available such as a Messenger kit,
the Xbox Live Visiotns Camera or a wireless headset to improve your
Xbox 360 experience. The real major down point of the Xbox 360 is its
reliability. The most famous issue it has had is the so called red ring
of death which renders the console inoperable. The Xbox 360 is also
known to have a fairly noisy fan and DVD drive and an oversized power
supply, quite annoying if you dont have much space. Similarly we were
disappointed to note that it offers no WiFi support or ash media reader,
although it does have wireless capabilities for the controllers. In terms
of storage we really believe that the 256 Mb of the Arcade model or
even the 20 Gb of the Pro model are insufcient, which means only
the Elite model is really worth it. The Xbox 360 offers a large library of
video games, an easy to use interface and many add on accessories. It
also offers good online services, such as Xbox Live for pitting yourself
against other users or the Marketplace to buy games or movies. How-
ever the Xbox 360 suffers from reliability issues, a weak DVD player and
a slightly uncomfortable controller. A good choice if youre into more
traditional consoles and like the choice of games. More daring gamers
will probably turn to other consoles though.

68 .psd 04/2008
 games consoles

Playstation 3
Sonys Playstation 3 (PS3) is the swanky high end game console every-
one has been waiting for. Although its release was continuously delayed
and that it still fails to offer platform exclusive titles, the PS3 remains the
real deal in terms of graphics and performances. Whats more, sold at a
price of $400, it is more affordable than ever.The sleek dark design of
the console is a little bit bulkier than the other consoles and weighs 11
pounds for measurements of 12.8 inches wide by 3.8 inches high by
10.8 inches long. Just like the other consoles, you can orient it both ver-
tically and horizontally, depending on what space you have. The PS3 is
easy to set up and, one great plus, has no external power supply, which
denitely leaves room for other devices. To start with it includes two USB
ports to which you can connect external devices, although higher end
models offer up to four USB ports and a Flash card reader. Other ports
youll nd on the PS3 are a Gigabit Ethernet socket and Playstation AV
output for audio and video. The PS3 is a really quiet console, quite sur-
prising considering the power under the hood, including a 3.2 MHz Cell
Broadband Engine.The base PS3 model has a hard drive of 20 Gb, which
may not be enough if youre considering storing lots of games and mov-
ies. You can however go up to 80 Gb. The PS3 is declined in ve different
models in all.The PS3 offers high end graphics from the start with HDMI
output and 1080p support. You can play both CDs and DVDs and any
Blu-ray disk, which as of yet, the Xbox 360 does not offer. The PS3 is
truly a complete media center, and this is exemplied via its XrossMe-
diaBar graphical user interface. This gives you access to your prole, set-
tings, photos, videos, music, games and both the Network and Friends.
The Playstation Network offers free online play from the start and will
take you to Playstation Home, a virtual world where you can meet up
with other online PS3 users and challenge them to a game. The option
to view your photos on the PS3 is really easy to use, store your pictures
and offers a number of different slide show styles to view them by.One
big drawback of the PS3 is that it offers no backwards compatibility with
your old PS2 games. However, it has kept the excellent Sixaxis controller
and even improved its design, by increasing the size of the L2 and R2
buttons and adding a Home button in the middle of the controller. The
Sixaxis controller also now features motion sensitivity, which has been
introduced in a number of new PS3 titles and are reminiscent of the
movement and feel of the Wiis Remote, although probably not as natu-
ral. Playing with motion sensitivity can be a little difcult to get used to
but does offer more realistic impressions. That said, the PS3 is great
played with many friends, thats why the PS3 allows you to connect up
to seven controllers via Bluetooth.Boasting high end graphics and sur-
round sound, a CD/DVD player which handles Blu-ray disks, and a solid
online service via the Playstation Network, the Playstation 3 is truly a
high end games console, almost even more of a media center, where
you can enjoy all your videos, music, photos and even browse the web
straight from your TV. It may not have as many exclusive titles as the
Xbox 360, or the game play of the Wii, but the PS3 remains the console
to beat and the one to offer the most exciting performances.

.psd 04/2008 69
 reviewers choice

Nintendo Wii
With the Wii, Nintendo aimed to revolutionize the gaming market, and with over 20 million consoles sold, seems to have made
a point. Iconic of the Wii is its revolutionary controller, the Wii Remote, which works thanks to motion sensors which indicate
the orientation of the controller to the console. The Wii Remote adapts to the game played and the movements required, which
means it can be used as a golf club, sword , shing rod or even adapt to your arms movements. The console itself is the small-
est one built by Nintendo and stands at 1.75 inches high by 6.25 inches wide by 8.5 inches deep. It can be oriented both
horizontally and vertically. The console is easy to connect to your TV and power supply and includes two USB ports to connect
external devices.The interface itself is divided by channels, with the Wii originally including a weather forecast, news, message
and photos channel. This last one will let you store and view thousands of photos, either by quickly browsing them or creating
a slideshow. The Mii channel also allows you to create your own avatar for online gaming. Having the process itself feels a little
counterintuitive, as you need to send and receive a friend code for every online gamer and game you wish to play. Undoubtedly
one of the biggest achievements of Nintendo is to have struck a deal with Opera to use its excellent open source browser for its
Internet Channel. Browsing the web with the Wii Remote is very intuitive, and the channel loads sites quickly, although the wire-
less settings will obviously limit performances for Flash heavy sites or playing back online video. Still its a major plus being able
to effortlessly browse the web from your console.This brings us to another excellent feature of the console, WiiConnect24. This
service handles all the wireless capabilities of the console and automatically receives and sends messages, even when the
Wii is in standby. For extra security the Wii has both built in WEP and WPA encryption, although these might be a little technical
to set up for some users.The Wii is compatible with all the old GameCube games and even controllers but even better, offers
thousands of classic titles via its online Virtual Console service. Youll be able to play games from the NES, SNES, N64, Neo Geo,
Sega Genesis or TurboGraphix 16, with prices ranging from $5 for older titles to $12 for newer ones. Games are purchased via
Wii points, which you collect and store in the 512 MB of memory of the Wii. The console also includes an SD slot for extra stor-
age. The Wii comes with the Wii Sports collection of ve mini games including baseball, tennis, golf, bowling, and boxing, perfect
to get to grips with the new console.The Wii is easily the less expensive of the three consoles, with a current price of $329, but
thats at the expense of a CD or DVD player and the lack of HD graphics or surround sound. The Wii Remote is truly revolutionary,
yet youll have to be aware that it does take some getting used to and uses up quite a lot of batteries.Despite the lack of high
end graphics and no DVD/CD playback capabilities, the Wii is a truly original gaming experience. Youll be able to forgive the lim-
ited graphical performances simply to enjoy the intuitive game play and great WiFi capabilities of the console.

by Cyril Roger

70 .psd 04/2008
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 review

SPACE TIME PLAY

Edited by Friedrich von Borries, Steffen P. Walz, Matthias Bttger
Computer and video games are leaving the PC and conquering
the arena of everyday life in the form of mobile applications
(such as GPS cell phones, etc.) the result is new types of cities
and architecture. How do these games alter our perception of
real and virtual space? What can the designers of physical and
digital worlds learn from one another? Space Time Play presents
the following themes: the superimposition of computer games on
real spaces and convergences of real and imaginary playspaces;
computer and video games as practical planning instruments.
With articles by Espen Aarseth, Ernest Adams, Richard A. Bartle,
Ian Bogost, Gerhard M. Buurman, Edward Castranova, Kees
Christiaanse, Drew Davidson, James Der Derian, Noah Falstein,
Stephen Graham, Ludger Hovestadt, Henry Jenkins, Heather Kel-
ley, James Korris, Julian Kcklich, Frank Lantz, Lev Manovich,
Jane McGonigal, William J. Mitchell, Kas Oosterhuis, Katie Salen,
Mark Wigley, and others.

"SPACE TIME PLAY" IS A JOURNEY THROUGH THE PAST, PRESENT

AND POTENTIAL SPACES OF COMPUTER AND VIDEO GAMES.

Author: Friedrich von Borries

Steffen P. Walz, Matthias Bt
Publisher: Birkhuser Basel
1 edition (October 23, 2007)
Paperback: 495 pages
Price: $29.16

Machinima
The book is a suitable first book on Machinima for those
who've never dealt with the subject. It gives a good overview
of the main topics in the field. And it shows the overlap with
traditional film making in several ways. Most clearly in the
necessity for good storyboarding.
But of course, the book also blends in the computer
animation aspects. Where now these differ from traditional
film animation by having the characters exist in a full three
dimensional world.
It might be said that this is also true of mainstream digi-
tal animations like those from Pixar or SKG Dreamworks (eg.
Shrek). But the book shows that the distinguishing aspect of
machinima is its low budget. You and a few capable friends
can easily ramp up the computing resources and software
for a modest project.

Author: Dave Morris,

Matt Kelland, Dave Lloyd
Publisher: ILEX PRESS
Paperback: 160 pages
Price: 17.95

72 .psd 04/2008

Drawing
and tracing the way you would do it
T he idea for Ananya Curves was born when I worked in the pre-
press department of a printing company here in California. It
was my way of dealing with the frustration of tracing machine
parts with the Pen Tool. If you ever tried to use the Pen Tool in Pho-
toshop, Illustrator, or any of the myriad programs that draw Bezier
curves, you know that they can be quite difcult to control and use.
Its like trying to make a curve out of a stiff wire. Thats because in
order to adjust the curve you pull on lines outside the curve called
tangents. Its really hard to predict how pulling the tangent lines will
affect the shape of the curve.
My secret weapon
But there is another part to this story. I have a wife, Brigit Ananya,
who has a PhD in mathematics. So I asked her if she could develop a
curve drawing tool with all the control points right on the curve. Well,
ve years and two patents later she gave me Ananya Curves.
How does Ananya Curves Work?
The secret is the Peak Point. This is the point on the curve that offers
maximum control. So, on your rst segment you click for the Start
Point and drag for the Start Direction. Then you click for the End Point
and drag for the End Direction, and the curve is drawn. You then see
the Peak Point, which you can adjust if you wish. For all additional
curve segments you can just click for the End Point, drag for the End
Direction, and if necessary, adjust the Peak Point.
The Peak Point is the point at the furthest distance from the
start and end point. It is much easier to adjust the Peak Point than it
is to pull on tangent lines. It is like making a curve out of a string.
After drawing any curve segment, you can adjust it further by
changing any of the control points or by adjusting the directions. You
dont even have change tools to do this.
Saving and returning to Photoshop
You can save your drawings as an Ananya Curve (.ac) le to bring
them back to Ananya Curves later. You can also save them as a
Postscript (.ps) le, which you can open in Adobe Illustrator, Paint
Shop Pro or Corel Draw, etc.
Tangent Line
Tangent
Line
Figure 1. With Bezier Curves you pull the Tangent Lines to adjust
the shape of the curve. Here a Tangent is running off the page
.psd 04/2008
review
Peak Point
End Point
Start Point
You can change the directions of the curve
Figure 2. With Ananya Curves all the control points are right on
the curve
Straight Line
Circular Arc
Circular Arc
Ananya Curve
Figure 3. You can use a different curve type for each segment
of your curve
At the end, when your drawing is done, you can close Ananya
Curves and your drawing is automatically converted into the Bezier
curves used in Photoshop. This allows you to do the many things
that you can do with curves in Photoshop including stroking them,
lling them, morphing them, making selections with them etc.
The advantages of using Ananya Curves
Ananya Curves are easier to learn, because all control points are
directly on the curve. You shape the curve by touching the curve,
not by dragging lines that are outside the curve.
Ananya Curves are faster to use. We found that they allow experts
to make drawings and tracings two to three times faster. For begin-
ners the advantage is even greater.
Ananya Curves virtually eliminate rework, because of the control
that they provide. When necessary, even rework is faster.
For these reasons we feel that, Ananya Curves will become the
standard for the industry.
Try Ananya Curves
If all of this whets your curiosity, and you want to learn more, go to
www.ananya.com. There you can see movies with the inventor show-
ing you how to use Ananya Curves. You can also download a thirty day
full featured trial and you can even buy Ananya curves. Also, if you have
comments or questions feel free to ask me at michael@ananya.com.
by Michael Gluckman
73
 review

Sothink
SWF Easy 5.1
S othink's SWF Easy 5.1 (which used to be known as Sothink
Glanda) is a quick Flash authoring tool designed for people
who want to create simple Flash multimedia without delv-
ing into the entirety of Flash. It's good if you want to do some-
thing simple, quickly, but for something really interactive, such
as a game, or doing more complex designs, you'll want to buckle
down and learn Flash. Which isn't to say that it's not a useful
tool, just one for novice users.
Traditionally, Flash has been used to make interactive ele-
ments for the web that could otherwise not be achieved with CSS
and HTML. SWF Easy offers simplistic Flash authoring without
having to actually learn Flash. This is great for basic stuff, but
you couldn't make something heavily interactive, such as games
with SWF Easy, even a simple tower defense or escape-the-room
game. You can, however, drop buttons with mouseover anima-
tions and sounds, a slideshow of family portraits, and looping
music into your website easily with the program. There's a
limited number of things you can do, and you can do them eas-
ily, but after a certain point you'll be better off using full Flash
authoring software.
The interface is relatively simple, as is typical of Sothink
programs. It's more akin to a wizard than an indepth program,
without many options, but that fits the target audience. You can
drag and drop files directly into the program, import them manu-
ally, or hyperlink elements from the web. The Quick Start tool
lets you rapidly create banners, navigation buttons, and albums
without much tweaking or confusion. There's a tutorial included
in the help menu, and while you can complete it easily, it doesn't
do a good job of explaining exactly what it is you're doing. In the
first step of the tutorial, it tells you to set the properties of the
file you'll be working on to background color #5AAFF4, frame
rate 24, width 480, and height 218. If you know graphics, you
can interpret that easily. The program, however, is designed for
people who don't know graphics, and, as such, should explain in
the tutorial what it is you're affecting with those settings. As it
is, there's simply no point in doing it; you would learn more from
trial and error on your own.
SWF Easy comes with a variety of built-in effect, graphical,
and sound assets, though there are very few sounds built in, spice up a Powerpoint Presentation with an animation, or make
and unfortunately they're fairly poor quality. It is, however, easy a quick interactivity mockup for a website, this would be a great
to import sounds (.mp3 and .wav) and other assets from your tool. It's a viable alternative for adding simple effects to websites,
own library of multimedia, or pull them from existing Flash files, though most of the same effects could also be achieved by learn-
which SWF Easy will decomplie and place into folders automati- ing and applying HTML and CSS.
cally. It should be noted at this point that almost all Flash files Essentially, SWF Easy 5.1 is meant to be used by people who
are encrypted to prevent copyright infringement, so you should want a little bit of Flash sparkle for their websites, portfolios, or
find freeware unencrypted Flash files to draw resources from if presentations, but not much more than that. For anything truly
you can't make your own. There is a free download on Sothink's in-depth or interactive, you should look elsewhere. Novice users
site to add more resources, but it's mostly basic clipart. will be at ease and enjoy it, however.
Overall, SWF Easy is best used sparingly; the ease in which Sothink SWF Easy 5.1 is available for Windows 89/Me/NT4.0/
you can add transitions to images (ripple, bounce, skew) or at- 2000/Xp/2003/Vista for MSRP $49.95.
tach sounds provides a strong temptation to overuse them. But a
little goes a long way, as some of the sample files and websites by Adrian McCanna
on Sothink's website show. If you're aiming to make an E-Card,

74 .psd 04/2008