100 Styles 16 - Shadowy Creatures - Shadowy Creature

Shadowy creature effect (Click the image to see it bigger)

This weeks theme is called "Shadowy Creatures", and will feature just that, or at least something vaguely related. (It's more likely that there will be a shadow related effect without a creature than a creature without a shadow though. So, a focus on shadow effects in other words.) To start off the week I've taken the theme quite literally and created a shadowy creature: a creature made of a shadow. Read on for info on the effect, and to download the style to play around with yourself.

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 5 - Black and White - Chess (Text effect with background)

Checkerboard text effect + background effect (Click the image to see it bigger - I really recommend you do this as it's hard to make out all the details in the tiny preview image above.)

To compensate for being a couple of days late I offer a bonus style for the background in this image, enjoy :) (Though admittedly part of it depends on an effect on the text layer, more on that in a moment.) Now it's not every day you need a checkerboard effect, but I'm going to try and put some useful tips into the description so it's worthwhile even if you're not needing this specific effect.

100 Styles 3 + 4 - Black and White - Photo effect with scalable snow

Photo Effect with scalable snow

Again it's two styles in one, the first one is an interesting way to use a layer style to turn a color photo into a black and white photo, the second is an easy, reusable, and last but not least scalable (as well as movable) snow effect.

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 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.

Day 53: Bread and blood

Created in Inkscape 0.45 using a Wacom Intuos 3

The title may sound terrible, but since it's easter it's very appropriate.

Day 39: Looking up 2

Created in Artrage 2.5 using a Wacom Intuos 3

See below for Swedish version of this text. Se nedan för svensk version av texten.

A variation on the theme I began yesterday, please read more about it in yesterdays post in case you haven't already, there you can also read about the little competition I'm having.

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En variation på temat jag började med igår, läs gärna mer om det i gårdagens inlägg om du inte redan har gjort det, där kan du också läsa om den lilla tävling som jag har för tillfället.

Day 38: Looking up

Created in Artrage 2.5 using a Wacom Intuos 3

See below for Swedish version of this text. Se nedan för svensk version av texten.

Now this might look like some strange alien device or something, but it's actually inspired by an ordinary piece of furniture found in my home. I will not say what it is though, since I thought I'd arrange a little competition:
The one who first can find out what object I'm inspired by will get a signed printout of an image he/she chooses from the images on this website (For clarity's sake I'll add that this is limited to the images featured, and not something like Blogspot's logo or similar, which I don't have any right to print, mind you ;) ).

Please email it to me or contact me directly in another way, but if you don't want to do that because of some reason or other it's also possible to add the answer in a comment. (And you don't have to worry about someone else seeing your answer there and emailing me before I see it or so, due to the large amount of spam comments on the web I check every comment before it's posted online.) You may guess as many times as you like, and if more than one person sends me the correct answer at more or less the same time everyone who's sent in the correct answer at that time will get a printout.

And I'll use this contest as a way to do different variations on this theme, i.e. until someone has guessed the correct answer and told me I'll keep doing an image which in one way or another is inspired by this one/the object I was inspired by when drawing this one. That might mean that it can get easier to guess later on, but also the opposite if my mind gets crazy.

-\/\/_SWEDISH_\/\/-
Nu kanske det här ser ut som något som en alien eller liknande skulle kunnat använda, men faktum är att denna bild är inspirerad av ett helt vanligt föremål som finns i mitt hem. Jag tänker dock inte säga vad, eftersom jag tänkte låta det bli en liten tävling:
Den som först gissar vilket föremål jag blivit inspirerad av kommer att vinna en signerad utskrift av en bild som han/hon väljer från den här hemsidan (Bara för att vara tydlig ska jag tillägga att det förstås gäller de bilder som jag gjort och som ju är huvudinnehållet på den här sidan, alltså inte typ Bloggers logo eller liknande).

Jag skulle föredra om du mejlar eller på annat sätt kontaktar mig direkt med ditt svar, men om du av någon anledning inte vill det är det också möjligt att svara i en kommentar till detta inlägg. (Och du behöver inte vara orolig över att någon annan skulle kunna se ditt svar och exempelvis mejla mig samma svar innan jag hunnit se din kommentar, eftersom det finns så mycket skräpkommentarer granskar jag alla kommentarer innan de läggs upp på sidan.) Man får gissa hur många gånger som helst, det är helt enkelt det första rätta svaret som vinner, ifall flera gissar rätt i princip samtidigt får de pris allihop.

Jag tänker också utnyttja den här tävlingen till att göra lite olika varianter på det här temat, jag kommer helt enkelt att, så länge inte någon gissat det rätta svaret och meddelat mig, fortsätta göra nya bilder som antingen är inspirerade av denna målning eller det föremål som inspirerade mig till att göra den här bilden. Det innebär förstås att det kan bli lättare att gissa vad det är senare, men kanske också svårare ifall min hjärna springer iväg ut på något sidospår och gör något galet.