Snowpocalypse Pinky
So this image is a very specific request from a good friend of mine, Angel. She’s been paying attention to the blog for a while, and she noticed when I had a call for requests. She sent a couple of tutorials, and a very specific set of instructions, which I tried to do faithfully:
Here’s my pic. My mission, if you choose to accept ;-): Make a vector illustration in a watercolor style. Leave color pallet the same as original picture. Then create bling text underneath the portrait that says “Pink”. Choose any style you like for the background. I will post two tutorials that show what I have in mind. Thanks!
Bling text: http://www.vectordiary.com/illustrator/bling-bling-text-effect-tutorial/
Vector watercolor washes: https://design.tutsplus.com/tutorials/how-to-create-a-classic-vector-painting-with-watercolor-washes-and-line-art–vector-1481
One thing I especially love is that both of these tutorials were specifically written for Adobe Illustrator, which might lead the casual observer that they can’t be performed in another tool, but the ideas and skills were easily translatable for Inkscape, cause it’s just so damn rockin’.
So, as the tutorials explain, I created a pattern out of pink triangles and on a black background, I applied it to text, then duplicated/outset, and duplicated/blurred the text for an outline and a glow. I applied a multi step gradient to the outline.
Then, i took Angel’s image into the GIMP where I pushed the contrast and brightness for the cleanest trace. I tried once or twice with my trackpad to do a trace by hand, but without my tablet handy, it wasn’t doing her justice. I decided to go halfsies with the second tutorial and just do a linear bitmap trace. I then applied the watercolor technique by using the calligraphy tool set to low opacity and various shades that matched the photo palette as Angel requested. I varied the size of the brush, though again, the tablet would have done wonders here.
Finally, I added the word snowpocalypse to commemorate the background of the original image which was a mound of snow from the snowstorm of February 2010 which laid down about 2 feet over a couple of days in these parts.
I wanted to take this opportunity to thank all of you who have submitted materials and ideas for the sketches, and especially Angel who I’ve co-generated a lot of design ideas with over the years. She rocks the ink like an Apocalyse Pink.
Related articles by Zemanta
The Beginner’s Guide to Inkscape- The Book of Inkscape (oreilly.com)
- Using SVG for Flexible, Scalable, and Fun Backgrounds, Part II (alistapart.com)
- 50 Photoshop Brush Collections – 1000s of Brushes (speckyboy.com)
This content is published under the Attribution 3.0 Unported license.
Too good. Too damn good.
Funny, Tim, the whole time I was doing the wash based watercolor technique, I was thinking about how analogous it was to painting in the ways we’ve talked about it. It really allows you to build up the image in incremental translucent strokes, and despite it being editable, you can treat it as a permanent mark. Cool technique and thanks again to Angel for the share.