Contest One: MentalMirage Group Logo
Its up to you to design the new Logo Image for the MentalMirage Flickr Group! It should capture the feel of the group, and somehow incorporate the name or part of it. It does not have to be a picture, it can just be text, or the other way around. The colors are up to you!
However no obscene or overly sexual content is allowed.
It must be made for, and fit, the 48px × 48px size of the logo.
Stock photo’s and material by others is allowed, AS LONG AS YOU HAVE THE EXPLICIT RIGHTS TO USE THESE!

Contest Two:
You must design two images: an image for commenting on a picture seen in the MentalMirage Flickr Group, and a picture for inviting a picture seen in this group.
As with the first contest, this should incorporate the group identity, and should symbolize or say that the image was viewed in this group/invited to this group.
Gif animations is not allowed. As above, no obscene or overly sexual content is allowed.
Stock photo’s and material by others is allowed, AS LONG AS YOU HAVE THE EXPLICIT RIGHTS TO USE THESE!
380 (width) x 80 (height) pixels is the set size for this.

Prize:
The prize for winning either of the contests is getting featured on this very blog in an interview! This nterview will focus on you, you job, your art, links to your website and work and of course feature several of your works.
Such interviews usually get around 2000-4000 views on the blog.
It IS possible for the same person to win both contests. If this is done, the prize will go to that person, and the second prize to a runner-up in either of the categories.

Judging:
Who wins will be entirely up to me and my choosing.

ENTERING THE CONTEST:
To enter, simply make your picture(s), upload them to the MentalMirage Flickr Group, and POST THEM IN THIS THREAD! Please remember to mention which contest the image is meant for.

I hope to see many awesome designs added here, from the immense mass of very talented and creative people who are in this group!

- Philip Zeplin

The MentalMirage Flickr Pool has now grown to be over 1300 wild and interesting photo’s, and a massive 500+ members!
If your still not a member, go join!
To celebrate this milestone, I have selected (what I feel is) the best 50 pictures in the group! This has been a difficult process, with several hundred pictures in consideration! To illustrate just how difficult the selection process has been, first it was Best 10, then Best 15, then Best 25, then Best 30, until I admitted to myself, I had to at least have a Best 50 to show just a fraction of the photo’s I thought were awesome. But a choice had to be made, and the following pictures is what I feel best illustrates creativity, individualism, new thinking, and general awesomeness!
If you like posts like this, you might also be interested in checking out the tutorials here, new interviews, and other inspiration posts!

Pretty awesome, don’t you think? Again, if you’re not a member of the MentalMirage Flickr Group, go sign up now!
And join us as we head towards the next milestone! 1000 members!

I was a bit bored, and decided to do some photo retouching. Its been a while since I had the chance to do something like that anyway. What you see is the result.
The original photo can be found here:
flickr.com/photos/belleville/2894404510/in/set-7215760754…

Nonetheless, I do quite like these. So keep on reading to watch them!

REEL from Juan Carlos Díaz on Vimeo.

Reel from myaka on Vimeo.

REEL from Minsoo Kang on Vimeo.

I heart 2D Reel from mlandry on Vimeo.

reel from camil tulcan on Vimeo.

reel from Pedro Machado on Vimeo.

Reel from Lachlan Dean on Vimeo.

GRAPHIC REEL from Aaron Bauer on Vimeo.

Graphics Reel from Fuzzball on Vimeo.

Reel Motion Graphics 2008 from João Paulo Araújo on Vimeo.

Be sure to check out the other tutorials here at MentalMirage, our new interview with Vitaly Alexius, inspiration posts, and much more!

Step 1:
This is our startup image (originally found here). It’s important to find a figurine with a certain amount of detail in it, or the effect will just not be as good (or alternatively, you have to put in a lot more effort to make anything out of it).
Duplicate your layer and erase the grey background. Then hide the original layer (Note: I didn’t do this, but I’m asking you to, to save you later troubles with masking out hair).

Step 2:
Take/make a small brush filled with only a few pixel spread around (you can download my custom brush for this here, it’s very simple). Use the Smudge tool to pull the beard in the directions it’s flowing. It’s is important to start within the bear and pull outwards. Also don’t have your Smudge brush set on to hard a setting or it won’t have the desired effect.

Step 3:
Zoom into to the eyes, make a selection around them (I simply used the Polygon Lasso tool), and copy them to a new layer. Go into “Edit -> Free Transform” and make the eyes roughly twice the size, but be sure they are still positioned over the original eyes (might take a bit of tweaking). Then with a mix of Levels (for contrast, CTR+L) and Color Balance (CTR+B) make them have a very strong yellowish/reddish color. Go into “Filter -> Blur -> Gaussian Blur” and give them a small amount of blur, so the edges completely disappear. Set this layer to “Overlay” and copy it, making the second layer also to “Overlay”.

Step 4:
Go and get a metal texture somewhere on the net, there’s tons of free ones. Then make sure it’s very contrasted with Levels. Position this metal texture over all the metal’ish areas on the picture, and then put the layer to “Overlay” with 45% opacity.

Step 5:
Use a soft black brush, and gently start painting in shadows. This is purely up to your own creativity to make it right, so it might take a few tries on your first go with it. The thing your trying to do isn’t make NEW shadows, but more to make the current ones better. So to start off, just gently make the areas that already have shadows, have stronger shadows, creating depth.

Step 6:
Then do the exact same with a white brush, painting over the highlighted areas.

Step 7:
Select All (CTR+A) and go into “Edit -> Copy Merged” (CTR+SHIFT+C) and make a new layer. Go into Color Balance (CTR+B) and give the layer a slightly green tint, and then put it on 75% opacity. Copy that layer, put it on Overlay with 22% opacity.

Step 8:
Make a new layer filled with white, then go into “Filters -> Render -> Lightning Effects” and try to get the effect below. Then set this layer to “Multiply”.

Step 9:
Select All (CTR+A) and go into “Edit -> Copy Merged” (CTR+SHIFT+C) and make a new layer. Then softly erase everything that isn’t the beard/hair. Then go into “Filter -> Blur -> Gaussian Blur” and give it a small amount of blur. Then set the layer to “Overlay”.

Step 10:
Then go and find a nice picture of a forest. If it’s not green enough, go into Color Balance and bring forth the green and yellow colors. Go put the layer behind your original, making it pop up behind him. Then go into “Filter -> Blur -> Gaussian Blur” and give it a small amount of blur. Then duplicate the layer, and set the second layer to “Overlay”

Step 11:
Make a soft black transition at the bottom. You can either do this with a BIG soft brush, or with the Gradient Tool. Whatever is easiest for you.

Step 12:
Add whatever text you like! Personally I found that the font “Polla” had a forest/druid’ish feel to it.

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial! If you did, please post a comment, or even better, post your result! Either here in the comments section, or over at the MentalMirage Flickr group!
Be sure to check back often for more tutorials, interviews, inspiration posts and more!

Support a starving artist and buy some prints!

1. Greetings and salutations! Thank you for taking the time to answer a few questions! First off, could you tell us a bit about yourself? Where are you from, your profession, and so?

I was born in the year 1984, in the industrial city of Novokuznetsk, located on the Tom River in south central Siberian Russia. For the first four years of my life, I lived amidst coal mining and aluminum/steel production factories; in a city of European architecture covered with columns and arches, surrounded by Russian Taiga. Since I was four years old, I have been drawing tiny starships and celestial life fascinated me. At four, I moved to the city of Novosibirsk, the capital of Siberia, with my parents. There, in a remote, forest covered, ’science community’ district of Akademgorodok, at 11 years of age, I studied traditional drawing, watercolor/gauche/oil painting, anatomy, model building, design, art history and illustration at a great high-arts institution for two years, expecting a move to Moscow to further my studies.

On April 11/1998 fate has given me an unexpected twist and by means of aerial transportation I was thrown about 5555 miles across the Atlantic Ocean to Toronto, Canada, where I am currently residing, in my own lovely apartment east of Chinatown. After completing my OAC’s at R. H. King Academy, I went on to the Ontario College of Art and Design, where I finished 2 years of “Environmental Design” and 2 years of “Illustration” program. Currently I’m in my Illustration Thesis year.
Since 2000, I’ve been tutoring on the subject of drawing and painting. In 2002, I’ve learned that magical program called Photoshop and have been using it ever since, to develop an innovative, digital-art style , which I gave a name - “Dreaminism”.

Currently I’m working as a photographer and an illustrator, doing various: CD/book/comic covers, posters, concept art and etc.

2. Tools of the trade. Could you reveal what programs you use, setups and so forth, when creating your digital paintings?

Wacom Intuos 6×8 tablet for digital painting, Canon 300D for photographic textures and references.

3. Many of your images feature religious symbols, such as angels and demons. Are you religious, and if yes, how do you incorporate that into your images? If not, is there a particular reason for this fascination?

Not really religious- but religion is all around us, affecting our everyday lives in unimaginably good and terrible ways. Religion is a tool- an extremely powerful one, like a nuclear bomb. I merely display the apocalyptic outcome of both, if put into wrong hands.

4. Could you tell us a bit about the workflow involved in creating these pictures?

Painting is roughly sketched out.
Reference shots are taken with camera in the studio.
Textures are sorted out from 200GB image archive.
Painting is started- and takes about 60+ hours.

5. From where do you draw your inspiration from?

From my trips around the world documented through photography and currently from my love Daria.

6. What do you think the future holds for digital painters such as yourself?

Certain doom, once all computers fail due to an enormous burst of gamma radiation from the sun… or once all computers advance beyond need for painting with tablet and all painting will be done with thoughts.

7. Name 3 artists that you love, and why.

Aivazovsky for his romantic seascapes.
Craig Mullins for his delicious and unique digital brushwork.
Sparth for his digital painting atmosphere.

8. Thank you very much for taking your time to answering our questions. Before we finish off, do you have any last advice to someone who would like to start delving into the world of digital painting?

Give up right now, before the sun destroys us all.

But seriously….
To the young artists: want to become a well paid freelancer? Don’t just sit there. Pick up your brush and get cracking.

It takes the following to get there:
1)Talent
2)Dedication
3)Imagination

If you have some drawing talent, and wish to become a successful artist, then dedicate all your free time to drawing, sketching, learning about art, and advertising your work by showing it in online and offline galleries. If you put a thousand hours of hard work into anything- it’s automatically bound to be a success, just because of the dedication. Never forget about the power of imagination, practice imagining things, write intricate stories with your art, and constantly create unique worlds. Often a piece of art with a unique, better idea/concept is the winner.

Views expressed by the artist does not nescesarily represent the views of MentalMirage.com

Support a starving (no, not really) artist and buy some prints!

I might end up doing a little tutorial on it, as the techniques required arent that hard.
To get an idea where it started, take a look at this:

You can check out the original model and pictures over at DC Here.

With that said, I’m sorry I havent updated a lot lately. Been having exams at my school (aced my Design Theory exam, so I might eventually bother writing that up in english and sharing), calming down after returning to Denmark, keeping in touch with my japanese girlfriend, and so on. I promise things will start going up in the near future!

Support a starving (no, not really) artist and buy some prints!

Simply click the pictures for a jump straight to their work!

Diane Özdamar

Hong, Kuang 匡宏

Nina Ikävalko

Wakkawa

Natasha Roeoseli

Stanley Lau

Gonzalo Ordóñez Arias

Wen-M

Katherine Dinger

nibbledpencil.com

Linda

Khang Le

Andrew Hou

Michael Oswald

Vyrhelle

Chris Newman

Mike Nesbitt

Linda Bergkvist

Kyoung Hwan Kim

Gnef

Support a starving (no, not really) artist and buy some prints!