Experiment 138: Eye

(Click the image to view it larger)

Seems like I have to give up any regular postings in the styles project, at least for now, have started working and don't have enough time to do it on a regular basis, at least not with all the other things I want to do :P I'll try to post an image every now and then though and if/when I have more time I might continue with the regular postings. For now I've created this Good Friday inspired piece as a general experiment, it's created using only gradients and warps (and resizing layers, and made easier thanks to smart objects, but apart from that :) ).

100 Styles 14 - Lovely Lines - Wavy Lines

Wavy Lines effect (Click the image to see it bigger)

Something not too different from yesterday, using a Patter Overlay to create a text effect. There are a bunch of different things, and another use of the Hard Mix Blend Mode. Read on for the details and how to download the style.

100 Styles 13 - Lovely Lines - Stripes

Stripes effect (Click the image to see it bigger)

I'm stretching the concept a tiny bit here with stripes rather than lines, but if you want to be strict there is a line per se in the stroke around the letters. Read on for info on how the effect was created as well as some tips for how the background was created. As well as to be able to download the style of course.

100 Styles 11 - Lovely Lines - Basic Lines

Basic line effect (Click the image to see it bigger)

This weeks theme is lines, and it's important to notice that it's "lines" and not "strokes", as strokes isn't the only way to create line, and as evidenced by today's post, not always the best way to achieve the effect you're looking for. With that said, let's not waste any more time on words, read on to get info on today's effect and to be able to download the style file.

100 Styles 1 + 2 - Black and White - Text Effect with background

Text effect with background

As you may guess from the title this is the first of what will (hopefully) be a 100 posts where I experiment and showcase different effects you can create with Photoshop Layer Styles. I want to do this both to challenge myself and to provide something for others to be inspired by and learn from. The former will be achieved by me trying something new in each "stylistic experiment", and the latter will at least be helped by me posting screenshots of the settings used - as well as providing the style files for anyone interested to download and check out and experiment with.

My plan is to do one each week day until I'm finished, which means that unless something unexpected happens you can expect five per week (each week on a different theme) the coming 20 weeks. I'm going to start off by somewhat breaking that order and post two styles today (as it's technically the second day of the week even though I still haven't gone to bed the first), but in general that's how things will be.

Experiment 133: Bird of Paradise

Created using Photoshop CS4 Extended and Apophysis 2.02

Been a while since my last real experiment, but here's another. Hope you enjoy. At least I enjoyed creating it, and that's the main thing :)

Experiment 131: Pig or The Ghost of Motivations Past

Created in Artrage 2.5 using a Wacom Intuos 3

Decided it was time to play around in Artrage again, it was a while since the last time I did that. And after some playing around this creature started to appear.

While on the topic of Artrage I've got to say that I'm really looking forward to the next version that's just been announced, sounds really interesting.

Special Experiment: Coloring a flower...

This is a bit special, though it might not look too special compared to some of the images on here... The thing is that I've not come up the idea for this image myself, it's based on a drawing by a friend of mine, Amish, who drew this: http://img194.imageshack.us/i/drawingforrhods.jpg/ and since I found it kinda intruiging I asked him if I could try and color it. And the above image is the result.

Experiment 126: Dancing petals

Created in Photoshop CS4 Extended

Another "happy accident", or perhaps not all that accidental, a lot of fun experimenting before I got to this though. (If anyone is interested I can provide a bit more detailed description ;-) )

Experiment 122: Desert sun

Created in Artrage 2.5 using a Wacom Intuos 3

Playing around a bit in Artrage. Inspired by a tutorial on the Artrage forums.

Experiment 121: Flow or control

Created using Photoshop CS4 Extended and Artrage 2.5 using a Wacom Intuos 3

Played around a bit in Photoshop with a pretty basic round paint brush and a bit more intricate smudge brush. Then over to Artrage for some pencil fun :-) Seems like this weeks trend.

Something different again

I have something that I'm working on, but as I'm not finished I'd thought I'd post something else while I work on that. Some years ago I designed the look of the dragon-and-food and my mother (or rather her sewing machine) did the work :-) (The Swedish words on top means "Erik's kitchen")

Experiment 116: A Brilliant Future

Created in Illustrator CS4 and Photoshop CS4 Extended using a Wacom Intuos 3

Began experimenting with Illustrator's warp tool and after a while and some time in Photoshop this is the result. And though my mistakes show up in the large view (seen by clicking on the above image) I recommend that you take a look at it as the preview doesn't really show some of the nicer details.

Experiment 115: Red flower, icy leaves

Created in Adobe Illustrator CS4 using a Wacom Intuos 3

I gotta say I enjoy the mesh tool in Illustrator, and combining it with the transform effect like I do here one can get some really nice results. Expect to see more like this ;-)

Experiment 111: Inner light

Created in Artrage 2.5.20 using a Wacom Intuos 3

Just playing around a little, I liked it enough to keep it though and thought I'd "show it to the world" here. There's something about these kind of caves with light in the end of the tunnel :-) I'll not be surprised if I'll make more on that theme.

Experiment 109: Planet

Created in Photoshop CS3 using a Wacom Intuos 3

Not a part in the series =) Playing around a bit with some "space effects". Got some inspiration from these tutorials: http://abduzeedo.com/leopards-aurora-borealis-wallpaper-gimp,
http://photoshop-tutorials.deviantart.com/art/Nebula-Tutorial-T-89263843 and also http://psdtuts.com/drawing/fiery-photoshop-space-explosion-tutorial/

Experiment 104: French cheese

Created in Photoshop CS3 Extended using a Wacom Intuos 3

Playing a bit with Photoshops brushes to get a more organic look to it, and playing a bit with prejudices too :-) (Namely that French people would have moustaches and like cheese =) )

Experiment 103: Abstracted fire

Created in Inkscape 0.46 using a Wacom Intuos 3

Some simple shapes duplicated and edited in size, color and rotation to create this image.

Experiment 102: Fire bean

Created in Photoshop CS3 Extended using a Wacom Intuos

Experimenting a bit with custom brushes and opacity/flow.

Experiment 96: Treasures abound

Created in Photoshop using a Wacom Intuos 3

A somewhat abstract painting...


In other news I've realized that I cannot complete an image each day, and also that few are very good as desktops, I've decided to rename this to Feneur's Experiments instead of Feneur's Desktop-a-day as it was earlier called. Expect to see some more wild experiments in the future.