Welcome To the Obsession Studios Academy!

[Kagit]

Name: Kagit is just fine . Though I did have RPG friends that came up with creative variations...
Age: 16
Occupation: Sudent, what else? XD
Other Occ Related: Uh... nothing really...
Hobbies: This kinda stuff mainly. I <3 Photoshop =P. However, I am also in band, and during the summer and fall seasons I am on the field it seems 24/7 for marching band. XD
Program: Adobe Photoshop 6.0 (oldie, I know, but it's working fine for me)
Experience: I started about a year ago, and am currently working on Beyond Escape, all animal studio, and my own studio, Psycho Graphics.
Peeves: Inactivity... I was at Atlantis Academy before here, but 1. my application took forever to be accepted, 2. my teacher was gone for the break, then ended up ending her teaching to all her students, then 3. my post on the 'abandoned' board was never touched. I got a bit frustrated... But thats all. (if someone posts their reasons for being inactive, I'm fine. XD)

I will get on the assignment as soon as I can. I will probably start tomorrow. I like it by the way. I've never done this on this large of a scale before, though I'm sure its a handy thing to know how to do XD

[Magicdragon]

I did Marching band when I was in highschool. If they had it at my college I'd prolly sign up in a heart beat! But alas they don't. I was in Colorguard ^_-

[Kagit]

Oooo, nice! I thought about doing Colorgaurd for a while, but that was while I was between instruments. I ended up playing the Tenor Sax (which is just about the heaviest instrument, minus the tuba, and equaled to the baritone.) Right now I'm not sure if I want to continue it in college... I'm not sure about much when it comes to college...

[Kagit]

Sorry for the double post, but I actually ended up finishing the assignment XD The images are kinda big, so I'm just gunna leave them as links. Also, I believe I like my cutting job in this one, however, the hooves gave me a hard time for some odd reason, and so did the nose/face of the horse. 0_o

~ http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f54/Kagi...Assignment1.png

Let's see.. I used the eraser tool to cut out the two horse bodies.
~ http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f54/Kagit/AA/Brushes.png
Those are the brushes I use, when working with the eraser tool. The eraser tool is set to 'Paintbrush'
After I cut them all out, and placed them on the same canvas, I moved them around until they looked like the two bodies matched up. I ended up making the legs shorter width wise.
After that, I started finalizing which part of which horse I wanted to keep. I erased all the rest.
Finally, I started messing around with the colors. I pretty much only tried to make the highlight colors more visible on the top half. (For color alterations, I only used the 'Variations' part of the program)
For the bottom half, I selected the layer's transparency (fancy way of saying I highlighted all the pixels of the legs), and started to fill them in with the body color, using the clone tool.
I took the original legs, desaturated them, and placed them over the colored ones, set to luminosity. Now all I had to remember was to work with the bottom layer to change colors, and the top layer to change brightness/contrast. I changed these to make the highlights seem less... bright.
The horse's body is the top layer. I took the eraser tool, set to a fuzzy airbrush effect, and went over the lower solid line of the body, to make it blend in with the legs.
I used the burn/dodge tool to make the shadows and highlights carry on over the line in which the two horses were blurred.

~ http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f54/Kagi...signment1-2.png

I took the smudge tool, at 45 px, on a feathery setting, at 50% opacity, and ran it over the horse's body, and mane, and tail. For the horse's face, I changed the brush size to 35 px, but nothing else.
For the mane and tail smudging, I actually was trying a new method for me. I took a splash looking tool, with the smudge opacity at like... 60% my guess? and went over the tail multiple times. I then took the second smallest brush on the top row, at 75%, and ran over a couple more times, and finally ran over the smallest brush, at 85%. For the main, I just used the splash looking tool, but the smaller version of that.
If I had to critique this... I would say I went a bit heavy on the smudging, and that the tail looks odd.... 0 = )

~ http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f54/Kagi...signment1-3.png

Yup, I felt like making it an image XD
I made this background previously, and found that it fit well here.
I placed the horse, flipped it horizontally, and duplicated it multiple times, setting one to 'Soft Light' another to 'Screen', and changing the bottom layer's colors to make the horse more red. Finally, I added a shadow, and a texture, and the text, which wasn't that hard XD

*Phew* That's my Assignment 1!

[Magicdragon]

Alrighty then, but I wanted to see more steps, so..

1) I wanted to see them both cut out and not body smudged!!
2) Then I wanted them to be smudged, both of them
3) Then I wanted to see the top and bottom place together, but not smudged into one horse just yet!
4) Then, and this is the coloring stage, jus so I could see the difference b/w the horses till this step, and then smudge color w/e and fin!

Buut it's been a long time since I've read what I have written so I prolly left a chunck of that out, in which case if you have any of those steps please post them otherwise my bad seriously! And I'll go revise it if indeed I left those details out ;D

You dun hafta redo it if you don't have those steps, we will jus continue. Buut I'll hold off on the critique jus in case you do that way nothing gets left out.

[Kagit]

Oh... The first image I gave you isn't smudged at all. I just used the eraser tool, and recolored the two bodies.
Here are all the other images I think you wanted...:

http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f54/Kagi...orseLegscut.png (Black horse cut out)
http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f54/Kagi...eLegssmudge.png (Black horse smudged)

http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f54/Kagi...HorseTopcut.png (Brown horse cut out {I realize I didn't cut out the front leg, and the tail. I hadn't planned on using them in the final picture...})
http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f54/Kagi...seTopsmudge.png (Brown horse smudged)

http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f54/Kagi...t1untouched.png (Placed together, color unchanged. I think they are in the wrong order though... I had the brown horse on top for the final image.)

I hope that is everything. If it's not, tell me. I usually am very picky about saving all my steps. I duplicate the layers, and only work with one set, while the originals sit in a layer set.

[Magicdragon]

lol I do that, double my layers ;D I recommend everyone do it you know? Well alrighty then I'ma review these and give you your critique ^^

--

I'ma judge over all first, just cause there's alot to be said and not so much to be said via individual parts.

And since this is your first critique from me a few warnings, I tend to get a bit winded and I also tend to be more negative in my critique then positive. As in I point out alot and say very little great job wise, but I'm trying to work on that. Lighten up a little.

Overview: Good job! But you didn't have to make the horse brown..then again I found it was easier to lighten the black horse. How funny right? I have a MAJOR pet peeve about the background color, but for once it's okay, maybe a little lighter next time around, mmkay? Some things that are awesome is your cutting, some things to work on is your smudging. your mane and tail elements are awesome and the smuding on them, although the style is different from mine and I don't favor it, it'd good it looks good and nothing you really need to worry about. But the body smuding looks over done. So instead of the hair assignment which is next, you'll focus on bodies instead ;D unless you wanna do hair? And you're right the feet and nose were giving you a hard time. The borwn horse face is actually kinda weird, but you jus gotta work with it as for the feet practice!! I might jus make you cut out feet lol xD that'd be funny...yay cough.

Cutting: Black horse - The over all is okay, the parts I see issues with is the rump, below the knee, the hair, and the head. Rump giggles. I hate the rimp, more so the top part, but you're area is the actual butt. the butt is extremely choppy. I dunno the horse could jus be like that, but if I were you I'd have rounded it a bit, so it doesn't look like the legs are coming out at odd angles. And you said you had problems on the feet and head, so I suppose you know and all that jazz, but one thing I noticed about the smudged and the cut version is the fetlock is choppy, round that off too! Only keep it choppy if you plan on giving the horse some fur down there. Brown Horse - Sexy butt =P Again with the face, but since the legs have run off not much else to say.

Smudging Bodies: Black Horse - smuding is good, but for a horse that was already pretty clear, I think you over did it just a tad. When putting two horses together you wanna make them somewhat equal and since the brown horse is super pixely you wanna conform to that horse, but it doesn't take a alot to clean that one up. Your horse looks like he is running really fat, which he isn't. The mane and tail are awesome, but over exaggerated. Unless it's just a windy day one part of the horse shouldn't be running while the other half is just trotting. Round your hooves and the fetlocks, still not a fan of the butt, but it looks better smudged I dunno why. Brown Horse - More so over smudged then the black horse, same basic idea even though this horse needed more work it's kinda an oxymoron, but you need it to conform to the black horse lol. Confusing right? Bascially slow down do a light smudge of both horses and piece them together (without merging) and see what needs changing, but don't do them as seperate horses. Again the mane is very excited while the horse itself is jus sorta browing along... The forehead looks awkard and you got a bit carried away around the hip. And for some reason the stomach of the horse, the smudging looks off, like it doesn't follow the horse? Over all it's a good job, it's just those nit picky stuff that is wearing you down.

Blending into One: Awesome, you didn't quite match the color, the bottom half is a bit dark, but otherwise very nice job on the coloring. Now remember all that over blending I mentioned? This is were it really starts hurting you. The parts don't match. What happened to that beautiful tail? I would have left it, it looks like you revisited the tail nu *thwaps* (jk) What I'm really looking is did you improve anything on this final step? Well the forehead still looks funny, the hooves look more square then they did in previous pictures not sure how that happened? The butt looks smexy ;D but you over smudged and created that fuzzy line. Happens to the best of us! Just go back over the area with the clone tool to harden it up once more. Some other area look like they changed or maybe I jus didn't notice them, but either way I'm not gonna say anything more on that. Um since the bottom half is darker then I first thought, maybe you could have darkened the top half a pinch. There is a spot on the back that looks super bright. It's a good attempt, no doubt this assignment will be revisited at a later date..in fact if you stay with me you can count on it ;D

Personalized: One thing about smudging is that if you smudge the horse you hafta blur the bg, how much is really up to you, but I wouldn't over do it, either blur or blur more or a .5 or 1 on guassian blur I think? .5 prolly should do it. That sun is really bright and you have the horse's shadow (yay!), but what about the natrual bridge they are walking on? It's not dark enough underneath to support that bright sun. To correct that I wouldn't have used such a bright sky photo, it's an easier fix then adding a shadow to the bridge I think, but it's whatever you think is easier. I like the main text you used, very pretty. And you got a border ha ha good job ;D Border jus make everything look better right? Well I think so.

Lastly you did alot of steps. Wow! I was exhausted after reading them. Wanna know what steps I did? I cut the horses, smudged the bodies, colored the black horse and then smudged them together. That's it! Course you alos exaplined word for word which is super nice, but I think you tried too hard lol. Specially on the coloring aspect. Before I say anything more take a screen shot of your program for me that way I'm not giving you mixed info, although I can't promise anything lol ;D

Questions? I had a few hiding in those gigantic paragraphs above that need to be answered so I know which direction you wanna take the next assigment ^^

[Kagit]

I agree. It makes it SO easy to just go back and either do it again, and compare, or to just start over from a certain point.

~~

Overview: I know I didn't have to make it brown. But for some reason I just felt that it was easier somehow... 0_o. And yes, I think I am better at cutting then I am at smudging. Cutting is just getting rid of all the extra tiny squares that you don't need. Smudging takes a trained eye. As for the tail and mane smudging, that was me just messing around. I actually haven't done it that way before. The black horse in my application is the general feel of my mane/tail smudging. And, yes, again, I don't like cutting out hooves. I don't know why either! >.>

Cutting: EVIL BUTT! Tee hee. It actually does look like that, but I exaggerated it a bit too much, making it look like poo. And I don't usually care much about the hair cutting. I just go over it again with a smudge tool, so you can't tell anyway... That's my opinion though. I don't see what you are talking about with the 'below the knee, and on the face' parts though. As for the forelocks, I actually intended on smudging them! *smacks forehead* DOH! I don't know how I forgot that. Tsh.

Smudging: Bleh, icky smudging... I usually like my smudging too. I just went crazy for some reason on this 0_o On the brown horse, like I said, the head was giving me troubles I went back with the history tool a couple times, and redid it, but it always looked weird. And I think the stomach looks weird, because that is purely the black horse.

Blending Into One: >< It is darker on the bottom. Over saturated from what it looks like to me. Dur... I don't think I needed to darken the top half so much as desaturate the bottom half a bit more. Oh, and they probably did change. Heh, after you said you wanted more steps, I went back, and finished up the individual horse cut and smudge. Originally I only had the bottom half of the black horse cut out, and the tail unsmudged. I went back to that, finished the cut, and smudged the tail. So I didn't revisit the tail, I just did it twice... 0_o And I don't mind doing this assignment again. But perhaps.. later.. and with different horsies...?

Personalized: Bleh, I know.. The horse made the bg look awkward to me too, but I was kinda zombied when I did it. XD I made the bg for someone who wanted a 'really hot picture' (literally, not slang-like =P), which made the sun very nice. I suppose I should have darkened the shadows.. Oopsie XD And yes, Borders and Shadows really are just the icing on the cake (hmmm I want cake!)

Heh, too many steps? >.> Oh well, it came out pretty good. "The end justifies the means" haha... I hate history XD Anywho, here be the screenshot of my beautiful Photoshop XD (The background is Safari.. that's my site.. didn't occur to me that it would show up in the screenshot... wow... 0_o

~ http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f54/Kagi.../Photoshop6.jpg

I think I actually caught all of your questions and answered them ^up there. (No, I don't actually type this fast, I was replying as you added to you comments 0=) )

[Magicdragon]

I was like damn, you reply fast ;D No my main question was did you want to do a mane and tail smudge or full body smudge? Which bascially you are using different cutting tools, but you hafta smudge each one thus practice lol ;D

Ew you have a mac >< I use a PC *loves on pc* they have Macs at school though and I hate them. I keep clicking off the window I'm on and going back to the main screen. It's really annoying lol

Too many steps as in I dun think I used saturation at all and you had a lot of different % not sure what that was all about. Okay guilty I didn't read it all. Next time list the steps, don't paragraph them cause chances are I won't read it. Guilty *hides in a corner* ;D

Hm there was a really good coloring tutorial I saw somewhere, but programs more like yours, but I think it got deleted. Cause in my program I have a drop down called Enhanced by Images on the um bar thingy at the top (with file and edit and stuff) you also have way more tools then me D= merf. Well I'll survive you'll jus hafta learn how to do things without all those pretty tools xD and you can always take more lessons with someone else ^^

[Kagit]

Oh, tsh. XD
I think main body smudginess is something I need to work on... ya... XD

*shelters Mac* she didn't mean it!
I can use either, but I love my Mac. I can get around so much easier, and it just seems more convenient to me... (O' course, I grew up around them XD)

Alright, I'll list steps next time. I was debating whether or not to do that. I suppose I guessed wrong =P

Are these some of the menus you are thinking of?

~ http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f54/Kagi...hotoshop6-1.jpg

(Do you have Photosho, or Elements? I have had both. XD)

Well, learning to work without all the perdy tools means that I can play around with those later! (I know how to use most of them anywho) It's no problem. Right now I don't think I can handle another academy. So I'll be sticking with you for a while XD
*clings*

[Magicdragon]

Yush. I use elements.

Assignment Two

Part One: Full body smudging
1) Cut out the horse, save, upload, and show me!
2) Smudge the horse your way. Save, upload, and show me.
3) Smudge 2, smudge it my way ;D Use a size 5-9 brush on the body at 10% might take a while, be patient. On the face use a size 3 brush at 10%, if that looks too blurry compared to the rest of the body drop it to 5%. Mane and tail use a size 5 brush at 10% and drag the hair from the middle, then go back with a size 3 brush at 20% and drag from the base. Finally go over all of it with a size 1-2 at 50% and pretty much jus scribble to add back those accent hairs. Only use steps with size 3 brush and 1-2 on the legs if the horse is overly feathery down there.

You may use any means to cut the horse, but do list me the steps.
Here is your horse. Happy smudging heehee.
Horsey!
*http://i37.photobucket.com/albums/e56/Danawi/obessionsmudgefigure.jpg

Part Two: Coloring.
1) Don't smudge the horse! Pick two complentary colors and color the horse, with the black part being 1 color and the white the other color. Show me!
2 Smudge the horse, your way and color, you can pick the same colors or different ones. Show me.
3 Smudge the horse my way and color, etc etc. Show me.

Do not cut the horse out, just leave it on the bg and you do not need to color the background, in fact I would prefer if you left it like it is.

Here is your horse. Have fun! Please make the colors true opposites, that means don't make one light and one dark, make them bright and happy ;D And you can use any coloring method you want. Horsey!
*http://i37.photobucket.com/albums/e56/Danawi/obessioncolorfigureRE.jpg


Lastly don't forget to list the steps, you don't need to relist mine ^^ and don't resize the images beyond what they already are!

[Kagit]

Oh wow.. Zebra attack! XD Ok, I'll get to this soon.
I have finals this week, so I may not get to it all that soon... unfortunately...

For the second part, do you want me to smudge BEFORE I colorize him? Or can I colorize him first?

[Magicdragon]

Either way. It's up to you. And okay. Do check in though or I'll think you've forgotten about me ._.

[Kagit]

Forget about you? Psh. I won't XD

(which reminds me... do you have an AIM screen name? I think that was part of some kind of application somewhere, asking if you wanted to share it with your student or not... 0_o. Ya, I have one, but i'd prefer to give it to you over PM, if you find a need for it )

[Magicdragon]

Meh I do have aim and you can jus message me or w/e, dun matter. My screen name is Majikdragon16