May ’06 Installment: Nuclear Guardian

The exclusion zone around the Chernobyl nuclear power station is teeming with life. As humans were evacuated from the area 20 years ago, animals moved in. Existing populations multiplied and species not seen for decades, such as the lynx and eagle owl, began to return.

“Nuclear Guardian” is inspired by a heart-breaking story of how animal life has started to return to the area that was once irradiated by the Chernobyl nuclear meltdown.

The sound ambience is courtesy of laurent and work submitted to the Freesound Project.

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August ’05 Installment: C-Beams

What’s more inspiring than deep space images of nebulae and space fog?

How about a single quote from Blade Runner?

I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die.

Yep, that’s all it takes.

About “C-Beams”

I too want to see C-beams glitter in the dark. Unfortunately, it’s not likely this will happen any time soon, so all I could do was imagine what that looked like. So that’s what I did this month.

Painting home-made nebulae has been on my to-do list for quite a while. I even had some early mockups that weren’t worth using. Since I am in a bit of a hurry this month (I’m leaving for Sweden in 45 minutes, although that’ll be 3 days ago when you read this), I picked up this mockup and did some things to it.

Those things involved using that Photoshop filter no-one uses (Render > Clouds) on a selection in a channel. The end result actually somewhat resembles space fog. Add to that a scattebrush that paints stars, and you have this months installment.

I want to write more about this, but time is of the essence. Enjoy, and leave me a comment or two and I’ll get back to you when I get home.

P.S. The images are fairly high-res. To zoom, Right-click the images and select “Zoom In”.

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No | July – Gasoline Rainbow

[...] In summer, gasoline rainbow in the gutter, [...]

- From “Impossible to Tell”, by Robert Pinsky

Sometimes, it doesn’t take more than a single spoken line to inspire me. In this case, it was a line from a poem: “gasoline rainbow in the gutter”.

About “Gasoline Rainbow”

Having been caught up with work, I wanted to not only do something simple for this months installment, but something close to my roots. I remember some of my first creative juices flowing around beautiful music by Björk, and accompanying graphics for the Homogenic album by MeCompany.

That’s when I stumbled upon the “gasoline rainbow” from Robert Pinsky’s jokingly aching and roughly urban poem “Impossible to Tell”. Immediately, I thought back to bicycle rides in the Copenhagen evening, small puddles of water splashing, the lights of huge advertisements reflecting in the water. Not to mention the gasoline leaks under the cars, sparkling with the eerie but beautiful colours that are quintessentially urban.

It was a relief to paint these reflections. I’ve been without internet at home for 2 weeks, so there were no distractions. In those situations, it happens from time to time that I get that very special feeling that initially made me want to be a graphic designer. With hard times at work, such a feeling is very reaffirming.

During the while, it also became clear to me that 5 has been a magic number. Painting 5 pictures every month forces me to 1) come up with a concept, 2) paint that concept in the first picture, 3) stretch and try that concept in the 4 remaining pictures. Having done this for 4 years, it’s almost routine. The first picture is the most difficult, and picture 4 or 5 is where I start mastering the concept. As such, it’s more often than not that the last picture of the bunch is the best one. I’m undecided in this case, but I did feel I had a greater understanding of the material I was trying to work with—that is, an understanding that’s hard to communicate with words. Those are the times when I’m reminded why I started doing this, and why I kept going.

Hi-Res

Since my “Recut” last month, I’ve chosen to paint the pictures in high resolution. That means european A4 (unless I have a good reason for another format), in 300 dpi. That comes up to more than 3000 pixels in width, which is obviously unfit for the monitor. But it does seem a waste not to allow you all to see the detail, so I built some functions that allow you to switch between a quarter-scale version, and the fullscale version. Quite simply, you view the installment, and click the picture. Update: It didn’t work well for Mac, so instead I just enabled default Flash zooming. Right-click and “zoom in”.

I would have wanted to make a magnifying icon, but being lazy got the better of me. Maybe next month. Add to that, some improvements to the way the size-switcher works—for instance I’d like to build that fantastic Mickey Mouse-hand that’s available in any graphic application worth using (press space!).

Have a great Summer!

I’ll be taking some vacation in the near future, much needed I might add. Here’s my wish that we’ll all have a great summer, and that we’ll enjoy those special urban evenings where the gasoline rainbow is pretty to look at.

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April ’05 Installment: Pointless

Totally pointless, but kinda cool looking 3d images with light streaks coming out of the wazoo, that make little or no sense.

About “Pointless”

I’ve always been impressed with the Photoshop skills of graphic designers Jens Karlsson & James Widegren. I’m referring to their skillfully cut together composite images containing 3d shapes and light streaks. I’ve found these images intriguing, impressive: how were they put together? As for the actual content of these types of images, I never gave them much thought. In fact, I always found them to be utterly pointless.

Perfect for Noscope.

So for April, I decided to explore how this was done, using what Photoshop knowledge I have accumulated over my 4 years of doing Noscope. The recipe was this:

  1. Extrapolate flat 3d shapes in a 3d app
  2. Add a light additive material
  3. Render as best possible
  4. Add colours and gradients in Photoshop
  5. Grab a lumakey such as a picture of smoke, and use that as a channel in Photoshop
  6. Use that channel as selection, and scale the smoke to fit as though it was light

Ultimately, I only made 1 picture. The big secret (except for using lumakeys, which I’ll probably go in to at another time), is to spend A LOT of time just painting and nudging. This was time I didn’t have this month. So I made one picture, and tinted it in 5 colours.

Yeah, so sue me. Atleast you can now pick your favourite and do some colour psychology:

  • If you pick #1, you’re the serious type.
  • Number 2 is for energetic people who might like money and/or just sunlight
  • Number 3 gets picked by people who like to relax and/or need to
  • 4 is kinda like 2, but less
  • If you pick #5, you’re the passionate type

Yep, I learned that in school.

Now that April is launched, I’m going to celebrate. Noscope works again (including photography) and best of all, spring is here!

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No | March – Arboretum

A landscaped space where trees, shrubs, and herbaceous plants are cultivated for scientific study, educational purposes, and to foster appreciation of plants. – Source

About Arboretum

An arboretum is, as the definition clearly states, an exhibition for study and appreciation trees. As a tree hugger, it is only fitting that I do my part in this teaching. Thus, a virtual gallery of gnarled and strange trees, possibly not of this world.

“Arboretum” holds many references to my previous installment, “Surrealisme“, both in the composition and the mood. One of my mantras is: don’t reinvent yourself every day. Refining a past concept is not necessarily a no-no and in all honesty it wasn’t until I was done with 3 of the pictures I remembered having done something similar recently.

For the essense of this Arboretum is a universe I’ve been developing for quite some time. Mostly in my mind, a little bit in past archives without your knowing it and a little bit on blocks of paper. I plan to make something of this one day, suffice to say: more on that at another point.

Technically, the illustrations are composites of a 3D tree placed on a cloud/sky background. Texture and colours were added with the usual techniques. A celestial body (of sorts) was added to each image to give an off-worldly feel. Trust me, this is not some place in Sweden. And even though you can spot both our moon and Saturn, it’s supposed to look like “somewhere else”.

This month I will release a layered PSD (well, technically it’s a TIFF, but you won’t notice), that’s full-size and to everyone (not only newsletter subscribers). Which one do you want?

Music

The music track is a track I’ve used countless times before because I love it. It’s as always composed by Kate. Download tracks, and read more about her music in the installments section.

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