How to Cheat in Photoshop

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Posted on 13/11/13 9:36:48 PM

Frank
Eager Beaver
Posts: 1739

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Re: Challenge 479: Cave dwelling

Very interesting entries - I incorporated this weeks entry using one I had posted some time ago.

Posted on 14/11/13 00:30:06 AM

Emy
Composition Chef
Posts: 390

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Re: Challenge 479: Cave dwelling

Posted on 14/11/13 03:59:10 AM

vibeke
Kreative Kiwi
Posts: 2166

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Re: Challenge 479: Cave dwelling

Lost in Space

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Posted on 14/11/13 8:54:51 PM

michael sinclair
Off-Topic Opportunist
Posts: 1864

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Re: Challenge 479: Cave dwelling

No Time this week

Posted on 15/11/13 03:44:10 AM

joeysala
Perfect Palmist
Posts: 604

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Re: Challenge 479: Cave dwelling

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Posted on 15/11/13 08:26:57 AM

Steve Caplin
Administrator
Posts: 7023

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Re: Challenge 479: Cave dwelling

I'm always interested in people's ability to see faces in random textures. Is that really a smiling face in Mariner's entry? Even if not, it's an entertaining piece of work - symmetry really makes us see things in different ways.

A great Star Wars inspired scene from ahmedalij. What I really like about these montages is the consistency of the colour palette, which ties everything together so neatly. Most effective!

A splendid face from Vibeke, made all the more spooky by the neatly shaded eyes and the slightly offset teeth. And it's a wholly convincing way to depict an alien life form. George Lucas, take note.

A very fine image from Vahn, with the caves reassembled around a cratered landscape. I like the looming planet, the sense of distance given by the walking machines on the horizon, and the focus set by the close-up face in the foreground. A thoroughly well constructed montage, that's well deserving of a title for you. So, let's see... with no biographical info in your profile, I'm going to have to base it on this montage alone. So Blue Planeteer seems to fit the bill - at least for now.

A complex story told by James, with plenty of comings and goings from a variety of aliens and spacemen. Now the odd thing about animated GIFs is that they keep looping, so it's hard to tell where the beginning is. Does the man in the spacesuit keep missing all the action?

An excellent rendering of Mount Rushmore from brewell, with a fine set of faces carved into the rocks. I like the way the faces have been depicted with shading alone, which is more effective than I would have thought possible. But that's the problem with Mount Rushmore: precious little space for those pointy ears.

A beautiful scene from tooquilos, with glorious lighting and a reflecting pool that adds a lot of romance to the image. Tremendous fire-breathing dragons in the animated version, with some good movement on the unicorn, and a clever flapping wing effect. I'd really like to see you and James collaborating one of these days.

A colourful entry from iwa, with beautiful sky and textures, and some splendid animals located in and around the caves. There's a slight lack of focus, though: my eye wanders over the image without settling on any one part. With an image like this, it's important to have a central figure who provides the focal point for the story.

A very cute ET from Ben Mills, blending neatly into that recoloured background. But... don't place everything lined up in the middle of the scene, it ruins the composition! Far better to place ET on one side, and the moon on the other:

A lot of action from Linda Eckert, with rock climbing definitely the order of the day. Excellent integration of the foaming water into the scene, both in terms of overall shape and the subtle way the spray rises up over the rocks. Is there just too much going on here? I think we need a stronger focus to draw the eye.

Some distinctly nasty centipedal beasties from joeysala, winding in and out of the rocks like the giant sandworm in Dune. I'm particularly taken with the crashed spaceship in the foreground, which gives a tremendous sense of scale to the whole scene. Scary stuff, for sure. Great use of characters in the second entry, with multiple Golems populating the scene - and giving it a really strong sense of being someone's home.

A most interesting set of aliens from Deborah Morley, who seem to be constructed from car headlights and vacuum cleaner hoses. I like the eye effect, and the way they drape over the rocks - very neat. Did you build them yourself from scratch?

A beautiful scene from salfordnurse, with the buildings on the cliff top really setting the scale for this vast landscape - and those lit-up caves giving it a very homely appearance. Very balanced, very convincing. I like this one a lot.

I like the way Garfield72 has incorporated an alien directly into the rock: there's a real Jabba the Hutt feel to those expanded features, and the single arm raised with a pointing finger is a great addition. What a fine piece of work this is. The only thing I'd address is the colouring: there's a mismatch between the sky and the cave colour that makes the pairing look a little artificial.

A splendid sand monster from Frank, bursting through the rock wall in a flurry of flying debris. I like the aliens and the spaceship, but I'd look again at the composition. With everything along the same diagonal line, the image looks too artificially constructed; move one of the elements to make a stronger scene.

I like Emy's use of the Blobfish, dubbed the ugliest fish in the world, which certainly fits neatly into that environment. When you make the reflection, though, you need to put the reflected fish and the background into a single group, then reduce the opacity of the group as a whole. Otherwise, where the fish is transparent you can see the rocks through it - and that would never happen.

A nostalgic hark back to the 1960s from Vibeke, with the characters from Lost in Space assembled on a new planet. Good to see them all in there, but there are a few scale issues: Will Robinson seems huge, and both Zachary Smith and the robot seem to be floating. Great lighting, though!

Faces again... and a subtle blink from michael sinclair. I like the way the tide has been brought in over the rocks, and the new sky. But is there just too much green in the overall image?

Posted on 15/11/13 2:22:46 PM

ahmedalij
Atmosphysician
Posts: 262

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Re: Challenge 479: Cave dwelling

Thank you Steve for your nice reply .

Posted on 15/11/13 8:34:05 PM

vahn
Blue Planeteer
Posts: 55

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Re: Challenge 479: Cave dwelling

A planeteer huh ? , a space case ???

You must've known my school-teacher , she was always "encouraging" me to be an astronaut !
But when I finally asked her why would that be , she said "Well , all you do is take up space" !!!

Thank you Steve for the positive review (is that the right word?)