#so it's really loaded imagery. unfortunately as an artist it means that i have to draw feet. lol

[jichanxo]

blood inheritance

[bluewinnerangel]

could you please explain if louis's skull tattoo and the band of cards tattoo are related to larry/harry?? sorry if you've already talked about this

Hi! The harry/larry link with these tattoos you can find in the 1973 movie Papillon, which is all explained in these links (really I LOVE this lil rabbit hole, please do get lost in it). In short: in this story Henri and Louis try to escape prison. And in the 1973 movie Henri has these tats, which look familiar:

And you know, Louis' tats are a lil different, instead of a sythe there's a big ol red dot for one which brings me to the book cover (to my understanding it's the first edition (in french) to the left and the international book cover to the right):

Yeap very unfortunate all that. And all the other lil unfortunate coincidences to come, such as (again all in that link above) Harry naming pictures of Steve McQueen on the set of Papillon with the butterfly out and all that as his favorite photographs of all time, or coded-clothing-fashion-king Louis doing a photoshoot in the same shirt as Rami Malek, who plays Louis in the 2017 remake, wore to the Papillon premiere, not to mention that the tattoo artist has simply said Harry's butterfly tat is inspired by Papillon, or there not being any Papillon parallels in either of them MVs whatsoever nah nope.

Going on a lil ramble about tattoo meanings so here's a cut:

But about their tattoos and these themes in general... A lot of their tattoos seem prison tattoo inspired, which in itself already circles back to Papillon, but yeah then I think it's worth kinda taking a sneakpeak into the meaning of prison imagery, with skulls meaning mortality (generally it's just death but lemme be a bit less dark lol) Not saying that's then what it means to him, I mean the link with papillon alone is pretty convincing to me, and really what in the everlastingfuckery skulls mean to Louis I couldn't tell you other than it's definitely something. Here's a lil collection, but that's from 2016 and he hasn't stopped. Like he really really loves skull imagery. Maybe it's just that, he loves skull imagery, and that's that, but we're talking about Louis here so HMM. Also I'm really honestly just lost with that whole skull thing, I know this can prompt and ask so just saying I got nothing sorry)

But for the cards, talked about it here and here but I'll just copy the relevant bit: Playing cards = gambling. And I think gambling themed tats, also including the 17 black tat and dice and all that, plus that tattoo of harry that looks like a playing card with a skull really we keep going in circles can be symbolism for not just liking to play games, to gamble, but taking life as a gamble, "beating the odds", "taking chances", "high risk high reward", and even given a chance (they can be somebody), you know? Basically all circling back to wanting to make it big, to be one of the few that reaches the top, that the steps taken to achieve that feel like gambling, just hoping the odds are in their favor. I mean what were the chances really that they made it as big as they did?

I really view a lot of shit they do, as loads of musicians do, as some result of their struggles with fame / being (stuck) in the industry / their public images etc yet still wanting to make music and continue despite all of the bullshit (or having no choice in the matter with contracts and all). So while I view that Papillon link as not exactly concidental I do think their interest in these kinda tats goes beyond just going "larry amirite".

Related: here's that link again

[slutsofren]

Danger Days Chapter 5: Skylines and Turnstiles

summary:  arriving at the University of Eastern Colorado, things start pointing to an unwanted direction

warnings: little allusions to anxiety and awkardness, everybody is finally getting along (kinda), mild sexual tension,  reader is fucking horny

word count: 3,116

read on ao3 here / danger days masterlist

You had been zoning out for about the last hour, only starting to pay attention as you saw the familiar red brick walls of the university. Joel had been droning on and on and on about football and the rules of the game, teaching it to Ellie and she lapped it all up excitedly. If there was one thing you had grown to love about the girl, it was her passion for knowledge, especially of the old world.

As they talked, you recalled your adventures the past month, thanking the stars it was a rather smooth journey to get here. The three of you only encountered one group of hunters that weren’t much trouble and they were rather well stocked on supplies and food, keeping you all fed for a few days longer.

The two horses were doing well too, the long trek didn’t seem to bother them as much as you originally worried. Made the journey much smoother and shorter than you accounted for. When you all left Jackson, it was only October, now it was maybe halfway through November. You were making pretty good time on your schedule. 

“I don’t see a glass building,” Ellie told you, pulling you out of your thoughts.

“We’ll need to get to the center courtyard of the campus. You’ll see it from there, it’ll look like a mirror made of glass.” You raised a hand and pointed through some buildings, vaguely gesturing the way.

You led them into an area of the campus that led to the science center. But Joel stopped you and dismounted, giving Ellie the reins, “Stay, Callus.” After a couple feet of walking away Joel asked her, “What kind of a name is Callus, anyways?”

He goes around, searching the area for either troubles or supplies, grumbling about the name Ellie gave the horse.

“Not my fault you forgot to ask Tommy his name,” Ellie jokes and jerks her thumb at you, “Or that she didn’t know it either.”

“Hey, don’t bring me into this, kiddo. I’m just buddies with my dear Whiskey here,” you pat the neck of the black horse. He gave a little huff beneath your fingers and shook his head, enjoying the attention. “Besides, Cherry is the only one able to tell the difference between all of them.”

Joel gives you a faint smile as he reaches for the bit on Callus, guiding him through a gate into the middle of the campus that you waited by.

After being in such close proximity to each other, the two of you began warming up to the other. Of course, you still chucked snide comments at him, often calling him an old bastard when he’d piss you off or do something snide. He would reply in kind, calling you a brat and threatening you to behave.

Needless to say, that awakened a little fantasy you totally didn’t need of the man, eliciting some rather vivid dreams when you slept. Hinting that maybe you were unfortunately in need of a good orgasm to get it all out of your system once and for all. Being out in the middle of fuck-all nowhere made that kind of difficult.The mental imagery alone kept you up most nights on your watch while you kept an eye out as the two rested. Regardless, Joel had been a gentleman towards you, apparently all that southern charm was genuine but he was still a broody asshole most days, never once hinting he saw you in such a way despite how often you’d catch him staring.

Ellie on the other hand, took to you rather quickly. She would ask you question after question about California, FEDRA, what to expect with the Fireflies at the lab, what you were like before the outbreak. She was intrigued about life pre-cordyceps virus, it was as if it was a fantasy to her.

Well, you admit, you supposed it was. She was born after the virus took hold, she never got to experience the things you and Joel did in the world before.To go to a zoo, a concert, gossip with friends about who likes who in school. The only thing she knew was to keep fighting, surviving, and running. Despite how cheerful and passionate she could be about her comic books or absorbing as much knowledge as she could, you were saddened that she never got the chance to be normal.

As much as you tried to keep some things private during her lengthy questionings, you knew her curiosity was blinding. She meant no harm, likely going to you for these questions seeing as Joel was completely shut off from his past, not that you blame him. You couldn’t imagine what he experienced from what Tommy had told you before.

Ellie looked around on the horse, “So, these places… people would live here and just study? Even though they were all grown up?”

“Yeah, study, party, and find themselves. Figure out what they wanted to do with their lives,” Joel replied. He let go of the leather strap and motioned for you and Ellie to stay where you were as he walked towards what looked to be like a loading dock and began searching.

She repeated Joel’s last sentence about finding themselves, possibly turning over the idea in her mind, after a few moments of silence of both of you watching Joel she turned to you, “Did you ever go to college?”

You shook your head, silently telling her no. “I was too young when shit hit the fan, but I would explore these buildings and take the books that were salvageable. Read them when I had the time. Tried to educate myself however I could.”

“What would you have studied if you went?”

“I don’t know,” you think. Suddenly you remembered some of your favorite books that you had stolen from these very buildings. “I really liked reading the history books that I found here. Maybe I would have done something with that. Or maybe,” you ponder, “maybe I wouldn’t have liked history if not for the whole world fucking ending.”

Ellie considers this for a moment. Then, from the corner of your eye, you watch Joel disappear behind a corner and you turn towards her, “What about you?”

Ellie scrunches her face in thought. “Art. Or maybe music. I like being creative.”

You smiled at the idea, “Ellie Williams: Comedian, Artist, Rock Star.”

Ellie smiles widely and the moment is cut short by Joel announcing somewhere above you. “There was a look-out here,” his voice calls down.

Both of you look up and see Joel leaning over a concrete railing on the second floor. “That’s a good sign,” Ellie says to him, then she looks at you and asks quietly, “Right?”

“I don’t know,” you answer honestly. You furrow your brows and begin to bite on your bottom lip, unsure of what to make of things. It’s unlike them to leave a look-out abandoned. Now that you’re thinking about it, you’re pretty damn positive you’d have come across somebody by now.

You try to get your facial expressions back in check, not wanting to worry Ellie or even Joel by making them feel like something is vastly wrong with how this looks. Before, when you were with the militia group, there were armed guards practically on every roof of this campus. They were always checking in with each other, making sure none of the infected or even hunters penetrated the walls. It wasn’t always secure or even practical, more lives were lost that way but it helped protect the lab.

You’re pulled away from your anxious thoughts as you spot Joel. He takes one last look around then comes down from the loading dock and gets back on the horse he’s sharing with Ellie and looks to you, gesturing his hand out in front of him. “Lead the way.”

You give Whiskey a little kick and he takes off, jumping over a concrete barricade then leading them up some stairs and under some ornate arches and pulling the reins to the left. With a motion of your hand you point to the science building in the distance, “There it is. The one with glass walls.”

Ellie looks over his shoulder and huffs a surprise, “It really does look like a glass mirror.”

Unfortunately there was a locked gate between the group and your destination. “Question is, how are we gonna get through here,” Joel thinks out loud.

After looking around it seems the only way forward is through the crumbling buildings. Joel dismounts from Callus once again and led you both through a broken wall on the left that led to the inside of the old library.

“How many people you think are there? Fireflies, I mean,” Ellie wondered.

“Reckon it takes quite a crew to run that operation,” Joel looks at you.

You nodded at both of them idly, “Yeah, when I was here we had at least a few dozen, maybe more. I kind of kept to myself.” 

“You think there’ll be other people my age,” she asked, not letting her eyes look up towards you.

“I do.”

The three of you approached another locked gate inside the building, essentially cutting off both the library and the rest of the hall you were in from each other. Joel pulled on the handle and it creaked open, Callus and Whiskey both shuffled and whined, making you and Ellie shift on them.

“Woah, woah, woah, what is it boys,” Joel tried to calm down the horses.

Your attention got pulled away when you heard a shriek and Ellie said, “Sounds like runners.”

Joel looked back behind him then forward at you, “Stay together. I’ll go check it out.”

“Joel, no wait,” you try to argue as you dismount but he closes the gate behind him.

“Stay with her,” he tells you. “I don’t want the horses or her runnin’ off again.”

You give him a hard look that he mirrors, neither one of you wants to budge but the look in his brown eyes make you waver, finally caving into his demand. “Stay alive, you stubborn old bastard.”

His lips twitch, hints of a tense smile wishing to creep on his face. He puts his hands up on a calm gesture as he removes his backpack, removing the shotgun from it and pocketing a couple extra rounds as he stands back up. “I’ll be right back,” he says your name softly, his voice deep and rich, “I promise.”

As he walks away, you inhale a deep breath and your heart is beating. You’ve come to hate it when this happens, not that it did much. Whenever the three of you found yourselves in a tight situation with the infected, you each carried on with taking them down. You hated this, hated that he felt the need to do this on his own.

It fuckin’ sucked waiting.

Just as you were working yourself up more, you heard five consecutive shotgun blasts. Then silence. Ellie must have noticed your worry because she announced loud enough for Joel to hear, “Hey, I was thinking… I would’ve wanted to be an astronaut.”

“That a fact,” his voice rang out in the distance, echoing off the library walls.

“Yeah, can you imagine being up there all by yourself? Would’ve been cool. I’m just sayin’.”

You opened up the gate, leading Whiskey inside the library, still simmering with whatever the hell you were feeling. Ellie trotted her horse past you to another gate, this one opening with a panel and leading back outside to the courtyard on the right.

Faintly you could hear presumably Joel starting up a generator three times and then panel next to the gate lit up. You pressed the button, opening it up then went back to Whiskey, jumping up into his saddle.

Joel came back down the steps and grabbed the reins to Callus and his eyes fell on you, “Told you I’d be right back.”

“What about you? What’d you want to be,” Ellie asked him.

Joel looked away, focusing on something in the distance as you all walked out the opened gate. He scratched at his beard and admitted, “Oh… well, when I was a kid I used to want to be a… a singer.”

You raised your eyebrows and gave a small laugh, Ellie did too. “Shut up,” she said jokingly.

“I’m serious.”

“Sing something”

“Ah, no.”

“Come on, I won’t laugh,” she begged.

“I don’t think so.”

You watched as they both bickered over this, Ellie even tried to pull you into the conversation, saying your name, “Come on, tell him we won’t laugh!”

“Maybe he can treat us after a successful creation of the cure,” you compromise. Joel turns to you and ponders.

“We’ll see.”

The three of you make your way down the steps, then turning to the left, continuing your trek to the science center. Ellie gets Joel's attention, “She said she wasn’t sure what she would have done.”

“Is that so?”

You shift your weight on Whiskey, “Yeah. I mean, I like history now but back then? I didn’t really have a plan after graduating high school. I didn’t really click with anything, y’know?”

He absorbs that information and ponders. “Yeah, I get it.”

The silence took over and whatever anxiety you had was lessening yet amplifying the closer you got to the building, still wary of the fact you hadn’t seen any sign of the Fireflies aside from the abandoned look-out. Joel got back up on Callus as you approached the center of the school and together with Whiskey, jumped over another barricade.

The view in front of you was a much larger campus courtyard, with a giant fountain in the center decorated with a statue in the middle of it. Ellie was the first to notice a small group of bright orange monkeys and cooed at them as they chattered and swung around the clearing.

“That was kinda awesome,” she said as they swung away into a nearby building.

You smiled at her reaction and asked, “First time seeing a monkey?”

She nodded and repeated, “First time seeing a monkey!”

Atop the two horses, you all keep looking around searching for a sign of life but finding nothing. Leading you all down another outside corridor. Joel offers, “Maybe these guys like to keep a low profile.”

Ellie, now sounding less energetic, half-heartedly agrees.You bank right, vaguely remembering where to go when she points to a wall to the left. “Hey, look. Fireflies.” When you turned to look, you noticed the old wall tag.

“Yeah, it was to help point the way to the building we were in, in case new recruits got lost or something like that,” you tell her.

You pull into another corridor that is also blocked with a gate. To the right of the wall is a painted sign, saying ‘disconnect generator when not on duty’ in bold white letters.

Together, each of you gets off Whiskey and Callus and attempts to lift the gate to find it won’t work. The damned thing wouldn’t budge. Joel grumbles, “Probably have to find the generator.” He walks to a barricaded doorway to the right and peers around it then kneels. “It’s gotta be through here.”

“Joel, you are not going by yourself again,” you tell him.

He looks over his shoulder at you and cocks an eyebrow at you. The two of you, once again, locked in this damned game. He sizes you up with an intense stare and he already knows he’s won. You groan loudly, “If you die in there, just remember I told you so, old man.”

“Watch Ellie, you damned brat.”

He turns and crawls under the barricade, giving you a bit of a nice show of his ass before entirely disappearing. You roll your eyes to yourself as you turn back around, standing near Ellie and the two horses.

“So,” she starts.

“So?”

“What’s going on between you and Joel?”

It was so unbelievably hard to keep your face in check, to keep your internal screaming from etching your facial expression. “I don’t know what you’re talking about Ellie.”

“You both look like you want to fucking kill the other in their sleep.”

“That’s because I do.” Amongst other things.

You cross your arms in front of you, mindlessly showing your defensiveness on the topic and definitely not trying to tell the obviously fourteen-year-old who has never had the sex talk about how your body is screaming with alarms to get dicked down by the first person you see. Mentally scolding yourself for your predicament. How dare he.

“That’s just Joel,” she says. “He’s always like that.”

“He needs to learn how to work as a team or else we’re all going to end up dead, or worse.”

Gunshots cut the conversation short, the two of you ducking close to the ground, both pulling out weapons. It was difficult to tell where the shots came from because the two of you were still in a tunnel but you whisper-shouted, “Joel!”

Nothing but eerie silence responded to your call, settling in your bones. It took everything you had in you to not bolt and look for the man but both you and Ellie looking around for any sign of him. “Son of a bitch, this is exactly what I was talking about,” you groan frustrated.

Seconds ticked by that dragged into forever-long minutes. You weren’t a nervous person on missions, always trying to stay hyper-focused but truthfully, you don’t know how you’d handle the return journey with just Ellie.

Before you could work the nerve to go search through the maze of dorms, Ellie notices him before you, “Joel! Are you okay? What happened in there?”

“More infected, I’m fine,” he shouts, exiting a door from the far left, as he runs over to where you and Ellie were standing still, waiting for him.

“Here - come open the gate!”

As Joel pulls the generator to the wall to plug it in, Ellie tells him, “Holy shit you’re lucky you came out of there alive. She almost ran in after you.”

Suddenly you felt like you couldn’t breath under your coat as you gave Joel a sheepish look. “I didn’t want to have to explain to Tommy that I got his brother killed, alright? Don’t let it get to your big head, cowboy.”

Joel raised a brow at you then grunted, resuming to kickstart the generator to power the gate. It came alive kind of loudly but you resigned, only to mount your horse again choosing to ignore whatever Joel or Ellie could be thinking.

[moro-nokimi]

intelligence and death note

(this was brought on by luna’s post, the og meta god herself)

so what exactly are you trying to say by writing... [gestures vaguely] this, you’re probably asking yourself. 

well, i say, i think we need to discuss more types of intelligence so you can have a more well rounded viewing of death note and also to keep that in mind for yourself. (i’m well practised with this cheesy motivational shit, i was a tutor)

so, let’s get started

there’s this theory that came around in the 80s discussing nine or so types of intelligence: spatial, nature, logic, intrapersonal, interpersonal, linguistic, bodily-kinesthetic, musical, and existentialist. there are also two different types of intelligence discussing how you generally learn. in this one, it’s fluid (learning through experiences), and crystallized (learning through formal education).

so... how does this relate to death note and “what we’re going to keep in mind for ourselves” - and what does that even mean? you may be asking.

to tackle the second question, it’s moreso meant to be a “this is how i learn, i’m not a dumbass just because i’m not logic smart” kinda thing.

as for the first question: buckle up fucker.

death note exhibits two things: sexism and the idea of there only being one specific kind of intelligence. the sexism is obvious.

but first, we’re going to break down what each of the nine types of intelligence are.

spatial intelligence comes into stuff like spatial awareness. it means you visualize the world in 3D and have a talent with artistic skills, image manipulation, spatial reasoning, and mental imagery. you’re probably better at geometry than algebra if you’re intelligent like this.

natural intelligence relates to how sensitive you are to nature. i think this one’s pretty self explanatory.

logic smart is the one that’s primarily exhibited in death note. you’re probably good at math or science (humanities is a hit or miss), enjoy finding evidence to prove a hypothesis, and so on. it’s the type that’s pretty much catered to in schools.

intrapersonal intelligence is your intelligence with yourself. you’re self aware and otherwise know what you want.

interpersonal intelligence is one that’s exhibited by misa and matsuda (though the latter to a lesser degree than misa), and it means you’re good with people. you’re highly emotionally intelligent and know what to say to the right people.

linguistic intelligence is when you can use words effectively to get what you need/want. it’s often expressed in books, articles, or essays. interpersonal and linguistic intelligence would pretty often go hand in hand as well.

bodily-kinesthetic intelligence is kinda like hand-eye coordination, but it’s mind-body coordination, which means you’re probably physically gifted.

musical intelligence is self explanatory. if you want an example, my friend charlia managed to recreate songs like alumina note-for-note perfect.

existentialist intelligence means you can tackle questions like why we exist and what happens after death; and denotes a great capacity to answer questions like... that.

TL;DR: there are many types of intelligence and many are self explanatory but you may fancy a read to understand all this

---

with that out of the way (and fluid and crystallized intelligence explained), i’d like to pontificate.

death note doesn’t really take all these different intelligences into account when it comes to the story. all the logic smart people like near, l, light, and so on are the ones who are presented as the big smart dudes. people like matsuda or misa who don’t exhibit that to such a degree as them (and there’s not exactly a female genius in the story with l or light. mom, ohba’s being sexist again) get sidelined by the narrative or by other characters. 

but misa exhibits linguistic and interpersonal intelligence, and matsuda exhibits bodily and interpersonal intelligence, especially when he almost gets killed by the yotsuba group - note the handstand. as a former gymnast, i know his form sucks, but for a guy who likely wasn’t, i’m surprised he pulled it off and managed not to fucking die. he’s also a really good shot, which takes quite a bit of spatial awareness too.

but you don’t exhibit just one kind of intelligence. when it comes to working with mello, lidner definitely treats him like a kid, but she knows he’s volatile and that holding a gun to him isn’t exactly the best idea. she also works as a liaison between mello and near, which overall comes into her being interpersonally intelligent as well.

gevanni exhibits loads of spatial intelligence too. making the notebook in a night, esp having to copy it by hand requires loads of attention to detail as well as a detailed understanding of how everything in that notebook fits together. that’s not even talking about his hobby of making ships in bottles. shit requires tiny and likely very fragile parts to a whole and LOTS of concentration. 

unfortunately, other types like musical, intrapersonal, natural, and existentialist intelligences don’t get exhibited by any other characters (unless you’re counting ryuk in the last one).

[pauldeckerus]

Guest Blog: Educator & Photoshop Magician Bret Malley

LIFE IS A COMPOSITE

Hello everyone! For this guest blog post (thank you Scott and Brad for the wonderful invite to contribute!), folks are probably hoping to eek out some super slick tips and tricks about compositing, both for shooting and editing alike (and I’ll definitely deliver on those—I promise!).

But I also wanted to get a bit more philosophical about the nature of compositing and its greater possibilities and implications in my own life’s grand composite—and perhaps yours as well.

For those that could care less about the musings and meandering background of a super Photoshop wizard/nerd and just want the goods, feel free to jump down to the header “Five Tips for Shooting and Editing Composite Images” (you’re welcome :-)!

For everyone else feeling either a bit more curious, pensive, or similarly introspective, please read on!

Put Daddy Down, Please

Like creating any new image, I like to start at the beginning with sketches of the process and figure out some kind of endgame. So here we go with a medley of biography, discovery, and realization—but first, an overview!

Filtering and searching way way back, some of my earliest memories are of making art with computers—and after teaching Photoshop for over a decade at the university and college level (yes, big time-leap there!), and writing two books on compositing in Photoshop, I realize the lens through which I perceive the world and life in general has been forever altered. It’s helped me shape my own creative direction. As my (nearly) six year old son now describes his dreams to me in terms of Photoshop tools and features (and accurately I might add!), I see that my focus has even spilled (just a bit) onto my family as well (sorry, family!).

I also realize that I’ve always been a compositor in life—or at least a collector, editor, and creator in some form for nearly my entire 33 years of being. I also believe that we all are compositors to some extent, whether or not we realize it; after all, life is essentially one mega composite we piece together one experience, moment, scar, and laugh at a time… I know, deeeep, right?

But seriously, there is a lot to be said about having a creative career concept, a goal, and using the pieces you have at hand (some garbage and some pure gold)—and seeking out or creating the ones for the concept we’re after. Yes, this is one big “compositing is a box-of-chocolates” life metaphor/story (please excuse the metaphor merge here). So for those interested in going a bit deeper into these layers, here’s a bit of my own composited story… And no, it does not start with a floating feather picked up by Tom Hanks—but that was a pretty damn good composited intro for its time!

A Little Personal History Panel Scrolling way back again into my own childhood, I was doomed to be an artist from the onset. Starting with lining beans up into a perfectly (obsessively) straight line on some craft paper, my mother had me pegged at only a year or so of age. I believe her gardening journal for that day read something prophetic such as, “he’s definitely doomed to be an artist.” Okay, she probably did not use the word “doomed” but the realization was definitely meta tagged in there.

And while my mom was hobbit level earthy, my dad was equally Tron level nerdy as he ran his own “cutting-edge” computer business in the 80s. Dual custody between the two was like going back and forth from PC to Mac every week—blast you Ctrl vs Cmd!

However, when living with my dad on his week with me, I had access to gadgets such as those early scanners (the kind you had to hand roll over your images with) and the very first digital art applications. I discovered that when bored enough, there was definitely quite a bit you could do with nothing more than a pencil tool and paint bucket.

I was constantly inspired with the fantasy garden dreamland of my mom’s place and was jacked into the Grid at my dad’s. This all happened with a backdrop of living near Yosemite as my non-virtual backyard. This combination made for some interesting early digital art to say the least! Hidden metaphor tip in this—pick out an interesting background if you can.

Fantasy Landscape featuring some good old archived Yosemite imagery. Mac OS is not the only one that gets inspiration from this place!

Learn From Failure And Success Unfortunately though, my first memory of inspirational and creative failure hit deep (definitely a destructive edit). Apparently the local county fair art competition judges did not understand digital art of any kind (there was definitely no category for it in the early 90s). I suppose I can dismiss my “honorable mention” non-award award, in that I was perhaps a bit too ahead of my time as the crayon drawn house with a crappy looking rainbow took first place that year. Solid play on that kid’s part though—and it’s a good thing I’m still not bitter about it… because that would be one strange snapshot of childhood to travel around with waiting to use as a background to motivation.

Speaking of which, these are all literal (mental) pictures in my life I that have inserted into a number of life compositions and choices. Some imagery we just have with us, and it shapes what we can do with it, who we are, and where we’re going with the pieces. My mental archive to this day is my most cherished inspirational material. Sometimes for texture, narrative, concept, or adding some atmosphere—or revenge! Check out my composite from ten or so years ago (notice the house with a rainbow? Take that, first place-winner kid from childhood!).

Rainbow’s End, a fantasy composite of over 200 layers created from my own photography archive back in 2008.

Each Composite Has Its Strengths, Difficulties and Elements of Contrast Scroll down/forward a bit to an awesome artsy Waldorf school education and my dad tragically passing away when I was nine years old (yeah, that one sucked). Regardless of what the life experience is, both joy and drama can definitely add dimension to the composite—and this too had a hand in heavily shaping the direction of my ongoing layering and the direction I have since taken the composition.

From then on, it was entirely up to my mom to see my interests in digital arts continued and supported—and for that she essentially made sure we had a computer loaded with art programs (thank you, mom!) including an early version of Adobe Photoshop (version 2), and the rest was up to me.

An interesting counterpoint complication to this form of creativity was the influences of my school. A large part of the Waldorf School philosophy was/is to heavily discourage computer and screen-time use for children (even back then) of any kind, so I was always a bit of a closeted digital art nerd.

This snapshot of minor intrigue and juxtaposition came in handy though, at least creatively—I was a well supported digital rebel. And contrast is always a nice touch for just about any final image. So is community and family support for that matter.

To Create Is To Play By the time I was released into the public high school along with my friends, we all had computers (finally!), and we were soon killing each other on networked computer games of extreme violence and gore. But even then, I was somehow the ultimate class creative nerd, even in gaming—and would use my super art/design magic to create beautifully elaborate and intricate game levels to then brutally trap and murder my friends within (what are besties for after all?).

This was another technical direction to the development of my creativity—and my friends definitely paid the price with their avatar lives. I learned that like legos, building your vision is incredibly fun and rewarding. Imagination could be made tangible—and even playable. This is how I think of digital creative tools to this day. Only with less gore.

Experiment And Push Your Creativity To The Edge Throughout high school though, I never took an actual art class until darkroom photography (which blew my mind and forever changed my life—more on this soon) my final term of senior year. Even without any traditional art classes for four years of high school, I was misguidedly voted on by my peers as “Most Artistic” student of our class (which I bet confused the hell out of those art teachers I never met).

However, it was the photography class that truly had the most impact as I found a catalyst for my creative medium. Even back then, I began compositing, Jerry Uelsmann style, in the darkroom, combining everything I shot.

At 18 years old I took a trip to Europe with some close friends, and started scanning and compositing the resulting images in Photoshop before I really knew what compositing was. Experimenting a bit and pushing yourself creatively is an important goal for any big project.

As mentioned, taking that photography course opened my eyes to the pure magic of a new kind of image creation. It also most definitely made me wonder why I took band as an elective for all those years instead of photography (what was I thinking?!)… But then again I may never have met my wife as she was first chair clarinetist, so there is that.

In any case, I went on to UC Santa Cruz for a degree in Film and Digital Media, then immediately on to graduate school at Syracuse University for an MFA degree in Computer Art. This is where I took my self-taught Photoshop skills to another level and started winning awards and various features—and my first master class tutorial in Advanced Photoshop magazine.

That, unfortunately, gave me the first inkling that I could indeed write a book on the subject. This was also a great lesson that just because you could do something, does not mean you should—but that’s another story entirely! (Sorry for writing the book, family! And the second one too).

Advanced Photoshop Magazine Master Class tutorial on Fantasy Landscapes.

Refine Your Concept/Goals and Find Your Drive During graduate school I also directed and edited an award winning feature length documentary on Greenwashing (Greenwashers 2011). Oh, and I also used my minor in electronic music to co-score the feature film as well. For some reason this still gets screened internationally at various festivals and educational institutions (as the concept is still fairly relevant across the world).

This epic filmmaking experience is where the concept of compositing comes back into more relevance. Each of these mediums (for myself at least) are nearly indistinguishable from a creative standpoint. For documentary filmmaking, it is about collecting, gathering, imagining, pre-visualizing, then shaping, arranging, layering, building, and whittling to the core of the concept and balance of the story and composition. It’s a different dimension of the same processes as compositing in Photoshop. Same with music composition as well—you build, piece by piece, layer by layer, getting each element in the appropriate location, at the right level of intensity and emotion—everything needs to resonate and blend seamlessly, intentionally. In this layer of my life (well, more like a smart object, really), it awakened the realization of power behind the combination of intent and craft. Results were the results (obviously?).

Enjoy your Inspiration Moving to the Pacific NW, my wife and I soon had a son, Kellen (okay, my wife obviously did all of the real work on that part of creation some six years ago), and my world became both smaller and much much larger all at once. The only creative outlet and interest I really had was in raising my little super-dude, so this became a literal compositing theme in my Photoshop work.

We all use the tools and resources we have at hand, so I unabashedly drew my family into my creative obsessions. Out went any need for gaming, and in came a new level of digital play that was more addicting than any high score or Facebook like (though I have to say, those were nice as well). This realization paralleled my earlier theme of finding out that creating is play in itself as back when I created my own video game levels. Though in this creative play, the gore was definitely replaced with the stinky kind waiting to attack me hiding in some little guy’s diaper—and I definitely paid the price this time around.

Make The Plan, Pursue The Goal With most of my own imagery archived deep, ready to pull out when needed, the most recent elements I had to plan, pursue, and persistently capture at just the right angle, lighting, and timing. From national and international client work, teaching at universities and colleges full-time, in addition to teaching online with Craftsy, CreativeLive, and now with KelbyOne (yay!), these pieces don’t always just fall into place on their own, but take quite a bit of shooting and reshooting to get done right.

I wrote the first edition to Adobe Master Class; Advanced Compositing in Adobe Photoshop before I turned 30, then when that one sold out everywhere, I wrote the second edition (aka tortuous-rewrite/expansion) which just came out this last December. Super proud of this one, though I’m still not sure anything is worth that much slogging at three chapters a week (one new, two edits). Okay, done complaining about my feather.

Conclusion In general, and in case it was somehow missed, this entire story is a bit of a composite in itself, right? It more or less has just the pieces that I feel fit with the concept, creatively, professionally, and personally. Quite a lot has obviously been masked out in this story, but I think that’s the point of compositing in general. Concept to finish, usage of vignettes, paying attention to eye-flow, hierarchy, it all matters in how we move forward and finalize the idea behind it all. We all have choices as to what we bring to our subject and narrative—and how we can better blend the elements we’re perhaps stuck with and the ones we still need to go out and gather.

With proper planning, imagination, numerous fails, attempts and more attempts—and loads of creative drive and obsession, we all composite to some extent. Hopefully we like the results and have a load of fun along the way. For myself, I’m doing my best to think big and make the most of each element I have. My final concept? Have a magical adventure and make it a blast! Okay… that sounded a little bit like I want to take a trip to Disneyland, but I think (hope) you get the point.

And now, as promised, here are some actual relevant tips on shooting and compositing in Photoshop—enjoy!

Five Tips for Shooting and Editing Composite Images

For shooting in-frame composites (ones where all the material is in the same framing), lock down your camera and settings, and use either an intervalometer—or better yet, the wifi or bluetooth wireless tethering capabilities of your camera and phone/tablet app if it has it. Not only can you see and control the live image on your phone or tablet screen, but you can easily see exactly how to better position every single element and push your concept and pre-visualization to the next level.

Again, for in-frame compositing, select each piece you want to bring into the composite using the rectangular marquee tool (M) and give loads of room around each element you drag to select—then copy (Cmd+C/Ctrl+C) and use paste in place (Cmd+Shift+V/Ctrl+Shift+V) in your master composite file. This will paste the selected content exactly where it was copied from, leaving out the guesswork and the wasted time spent having to tediously move the element to properly match up with the background content. Mask as needed—you may not even need to use Select and Mask, and rather, just paint with a soft brush around the subject and edges of the copies (if there is nothing overlapping behind it).

Sometimes a single layer can be slightly too light, too dark, too warm, cool, etc. than the others (even those shot during the same shoot!)—use clipped adjustments when this happens. This tip is an obvious one for some, but if you are not yet using clipped adjustments, you are definitely missing out on the amazing potential to isolate adjustments from layer to layer without globally adjusting your composite from the top down. To clip an adjustment layer to affect a single layer, place the new adjustment (or any layer with an altered blending mode that you want to only affect the one below it) directly above the one you want to clip to; next, hold down Alt/Opt while you click directly between the two layers. Just before you click, you should see the mouse pointer change to a clipped icon indicating the hotspot for this killer feature. Adjustment layers also come pre-equipped with this capability in the form of a button at the bottom of the properties panel for the adjustment layer.

When shooting composites such as adding a subject to a completely different background (such as those shot in studio being transported to outside or a different location in general), don’t just match lighting direction and quality (this should be a given, hopefully ;-), but match both original background shot focal length (check the essential metadata in Bridge or Lightroom to see your settings) as well as frame position and distance of the subject to the camera. This will not only make your compositing SO much easier in post, but it will definitely make it look more believable as our eyes pick up on even small things that are off—even if we can’t exactly put our finger on it.

One trick I use to better color continuity in all composite scenarios is to desaturate all the various elements, then bring in your own color cast effects or filters—then increase the vibrance as a global adjustment (not saturation). For warmer tones, try something like a new solid fill layer that is a yellow-orange. Change its blending mode to Overlay and decrease the layer’s saturation to under 15%. This always adds some nice warmth to a composite without muddying the highlights like the Photo filter often does. Another thing to play around with is the Color Lookup adjustment layer as this adjustment has some quite interesting presets that you can toggle through much like phone photography app filters. You can always use the adjustment layer’s opacity slider to bring in however much you want or don’t want for the desired effect.

And with that, I will leave you all to ponder the meaning of your own composites, whether in the grand picture of life—or more literally within Photoshop. Either way, rock on!

You can see more of Bret’s work at BretMalley.com, check out his classes on KelbyOne, and keep up with him on Facebook and LinkedIn!

The post Guest Blog: Educator & Photoshop Magician Bret Malley appeared first on Scott Kelby's Photoshop Insider.

from Photography News https://scottkelby.com/guest-blog-educator-photoshop-magician-bret-malley/

[joel-furniss-blog]

Glitch Art

Digital Manipulation is easy. That’s why I like it. You can pour hours into a painting or a drawings and have it come out mediocre, but with digital manipulation it only takes minutes to make a mediocre piece, and minutes more to bump it up to a good one. And if one is using Photoshop, it takes little skill to create a piece since all the necessary tools are laid out for you from the start, it’s as simple as diving right in.

Mindless? Perhaps. But I see the mindless as blissful. When I’m handling acrylics I suddenly become hyper aware of my surroundings for the fear that’ll splatter paint where it is best not splattered. Especially my jeans. Many times I have seen splotches of drying acrylic on my black denim and felt a dampened mood for the rest of the day because of it. Paired with other problems such as replenishing paint, cleaning brushes, and keeping my hands clean, I feel as if painting is one of the most disconnected methods of creating for me. While others might feel differently, I think there is a very prominent disconnection between me and my work in that particular field, but no such problem presents itself when working on a computer. Of course there’s the physical disconnect of working with the digital format, the barrier of the screen versus the physicality of the brushstrokes, but I’ve never been that wild with the brush anyway, and personally I feel more invested when I work with a computer. Swinging wildly with the brush might capture a raw physicality, but I think such erratic movements can break away from a trance or streak, having to start the process over again. But with a computer it’s possible to sit motionless for hours on end, building work with little to no distractions if the conditions are right. With Photoshop as a tool as well, it’s possible to build an entire portfolio out of a single image, simply by saving each step of the editing process. Everything is recordable and no changes are permanent, it’s possible to go one with an image then revert back to a previous step and create an entirely new creative avenue.

The ability to create art using the digital medium is a relatively new idea, forming at the dawn of our contemporary age in the 1970’s and becoming a heavily tapped medium in our lifetimes as an inescapable wave of technology is surrounding us. Technology as both a medium and a theme has been used as the basis for many works from David Hockney’s iPad paintings to Rachel Maclean’s multimedia explorations of the changing technological based world. And in such technologically turbulent times, when the digital is in our pockets and ever evolving, it still remains one of the most untapped and unregistered artistic movements in recent memory, mostly due to the adopted monikers and solely internet-based portfolios of many artists. With digital artwork in a digital age so much is representable and rapid that intellectual resources are incredibly vast, from the pop culture orientated alternate reality art, to epically scaled sci-fi or fantasy pieces, to more nostalgic based interpretations of retro games consoles and computers.

And this is one of the ideas behind my point of study, Glitch Art. Technological faults like glitches and software bugs now are rarely seen what with the increase in improvement on our electronic devices, but most adults today recall examples of their Nintendo 64’s or PlayStation crapping out on them, leaving them with repeated levels of vibrantly coloured pixels on an infinitely paused screen, or a character’s sprite replaced with a mangled mesh of colours or garbled texts. While unwanted a quickly reset by various tricks, there was something interesting about these small skips in the game’s code, a break from the regular to show the man behind the curtain, some even spawning entire characters and separate canons such as Pokémon Red and Blue’s MissingNo. But the idea of the glitch isn’t the only intriguing thing about them, the visuals also play a heavy part in the founded interest. Something about the broken yet still somewhat whole visual of a glitched-out screen is innately visual intriguing, the disjointed visage and analog blocks or waves breaking the screen definitely interested me when I was younger, a sort of uncapturable frame of a mistake unrepeatable by most means and easily reset in a few seconds.

Their difficult to explain, how they come about and even when they do appear, assort of indescribable corruption in code producing something sublime and even frightening, deconstructed and bent data that can twist human forms to become near unrecognisable pulps of colour and shape, broken to their barest forms on the screen. This sort of bent form is a change from the normally sought graphics we want, yet they themselves are interesting for their loaded aesthetics and offers the commentary of technological control and the usurp of such, instead of technology controlling us, we control technology.

While I thoroughly enjoy this form of digital manipulation and would like to replicate some aspects of it, it’s difficult to contextualise it into my project. I could rationalise it as my original view of Salford being warped, link it to the bad things I’ve read about Salford on the internet, or talk about how living hear is sort of like a glitch in my life. Or I could say that I’ve done enough far-fetched rationalising in my past sets and just enjoy making some mindless imagery.

One of my main interests in glitches and glitch art is the repetition of chosen sections, in which code is repeated over and over, sometimes with changes to their scale, placement, and colour to create a disjointed or continuous effect. I enjoy the use of repetition in my work to really push a point or idea, or just to seem heavy, and using Photoshop’s many selection tools and layers, the repetition is simple. I’ve also been playing with the oversaturated and inverted colours of these glitches, using sharpening tools and filters to create pixelated sections and disjointed blocks of neutral or vibrant colours. My subjects were taken from previous scans and photographs taken throughout my project with the present goal of changing them and altering them into completely different pieces while still keeping some level or relatability to the originals, sort of reusing the small recycling motif of my sculptures and paintings.

Overall, even if they had little driving force behind them in the way of rational relation to my original working ideas, I feel like the work I have produced is very good, although I could have defiantly produced a wider portfolio but unfortunately due to approaching deadlines, I must balance my focuses in their direction rather than this one. I feel like I will definitely continue with these glitch inspired visuals in future projects, or at least digital manipulation via Photoshop but hopefully with a renewed sense of reason in doing so.

Sources used:

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glitch_art

- https://www.reddit.com/r/glitch_art/

- http://www.theperipherymag.com/on-the-arts-glitch-it-good/

- https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2013/oct/25/rise-of-glitch-art