New Graphics on Flickr/Explaination of Deadliest Catch Graphic

Lately I've been spending a lot of time reading and watching tutorials for Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator, trying to stay on top of my game. It's so easy to get comfortable with a certain technique or style. This is my way of staying fresh with my designs. I've found a great site with some cool tutorials and even some screencasts of those tutorials. The tips and tricks you learn are far more valuable than the art that is created. It's a cool way for other artists to share their designs and why they chose certain methods over others during their creative process. Also for me, it's a great way to see what others are doing and keeping up with the times. I'm only two years out of college and already so many things have changed.

With all this said I've decided to post some of the River Hills Graphics on Flickr. If you look on the sidebar to the right you'll see the lastest six designs. If you click on one of those it should take you to the site where you can see all of them and even leave critics and comments. If you happen to be a friend on Facebook, I've also started a photo album there.

Below is the graphic for our upcoming Sermon Series on Marriage. Chip wanted to use the theme of Deadliest Catch (the TV Show). So I did my best to imulate a stormy sea scene. The final product was a composite of around seven different pictures (seen below the actual graphic). It took a lot of cloning, color adjustments, masking effects, and photo filters to get everything to take shape and blend together. Here are a few different tutorials that I refered to before and during this process, tut 1, tut 2, tut 3, and tut 4. When all is said and done, I would estimate that it took me somewhere around 10 hours, from beginnig to end, to complete this graphic. One reason it took me a little longer than normal was the fact that I was teaching myself and learning new techniques as I created this piece.