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June 2010 Logo Contest Winner
Let’s all give Carolyn a big CONGRATS for guessing last month’s logo correctly – Wells Fargo!
As summer head’s into full force, make sure you take time out to guess whose logo this is:
(Please do not guess in the comments area)
Running and running and running…
Here is a video of Joe and Lana chasing each other on the beach at Fort Funston. Joe doesn’t go very far into the water, and Lana just keeps chasing after him, wherever he goes. They play so well together!
May Logo Contest Winner
And the winner is… Afi! Come on down to “The Logo is Right”, Afi, and collect your prize for getting last month’s logo right – Barnes & Noble.
Now we move on to the new June 2010 logo, what could it be Bob? Who will get it right… and be the lucky randomly chosen one?
(Please do not guess in the comments area)
365 Days – the book!
I finally finished the task of turning my 365 days of self portraits into a photo book. After looking at several book publishing sites that print on demand, I ended up going with Blurb. You have to download their software, but it was worth it. The app allowed me to connect to my Flickr account and the photos on my computer. The templates were easy to work with too. I could easily create my own and edit individual templates. And in the end they don’t charge a buttload for a finished book full of color photos. If you’re trying to make your own book, I would recommend trying out Blurb.
Oh yeah, and take a look at the book I made! It was fun to go through each day from a whole year. I only got sick twice, went on two wine vacations and two trips to different countries (Italy and Japan). What a fun and exciting year that was!
Logo Contest and New Design
Yeah, so I completely failed to do the logo contest *at all* in April. However, I have added a logo for May. And managed to redesign and reorganize the entire site. Take a look, poke around, let me know what you think!
365 Finale
I actually made it through three hundred and sixty-five days worth of self portraits. There were so many times when I wanted to give up. In the beginning around 80-100 days and again in the early 300′s. But at that point I had gone too far to give up.
The hardest part was when I already got into bed and then remembered, “shit, my self portrait for today!” Then drag myself out of bed and take a half-assed, not-so-creative self portrait.
There were some really good ones in the mix too though. Here are some of my favorites from the project.
The 365th picture (below) involved having a bunch of friends over to take a picture of me from their very own unique angle at the same time. I then gathered all of the pictures and composed a (somewhat) Picasso-like montage of a last self portrait. I’m pretty happy with the way it turned out.
It was hard to make the mental switch to stop worrying about taking a picture every day. I kind of miss it. There were still some cool ideas on my list that I didn’t get to, so I’ll probably still do them… some day.
(Take a look at the picture on Flickr to see who took what)
Extremely Late Logo – Again
My apologies for the late March logo. Last month Chrystal Warman took home the prize by guessing Wendy’s. And now for the late March logo, get your guesses in before its too late!
January Logo Winner
Cindy Driver! You have won last month’s logo contest by correctly guessing… Disney!!! And what’s in store for us this month? A shiny new logo, well, its not really shiny. Its actually kind of flat. Anyway, the guessing is on!
How I Made My Avatar
Here is a brief overview of all the layers involved in manipulating myself into an Avatar in Photoshop.
The original photo.
Removing my eyebrows. First I tried to use the Clone Stamp Tool, but I wasn’t happy with the results.
Then I just used a brush at 30% opacity, sampling my skin tone and gradually giving my brow shape while hiding the eyebrow. I also flattened out the bridge of my nose.
I darkened my lips. The layer is set to “Multiply”.
I enlarged my eyes. First, I cut out the eyes, then reduced the rest of my face (so that I wouldn’t lose quality in the eyes).
Then I made my eyes a light, brighter green. The layer is set to “Vivid Light”.
I gave the image more contrast with a “Levels” adjustment layer.
With a soft, thick brush I added highlights to my eyes to brighten them.
Now for the exciting part, blue! I changed my skin color by adding a solid block of blue, with the layer set to “Hard Light”.
With a similar technique, I darkened my hair to black with a tint of blue. This layer is also wet to “Hard Light”. Oh yeah, the nose shadow is added here too.
And now for the second most fun part, my animal stripes! I drew them with the Lasso Tool, filled them in with a darker blue, blurred the edges and set the layer to “Overlay”.
No Avatar is complete without some big eyelashes. Here I made them much bigger.
Time for some ears (the only thing I borrowed from a real Avatar).
Some fanciful, glowing white dots.
Finally the background, which I chose for mood and lack of light source to match my head. The only thing I did was blur it some. And this completes my Avatar.
