Lowyat.NET: Latest topics by demonhunter360

A Journey Through Time VIII

demonhunter360 — Tue, 04 Nov 2014 17:20:00 +0800

Starhill Gallery is playing host once more to Asia’s premier watch and jewellery showcase
– A Journey Through Time. Endorsed by the Ministry of Tourism and Culture, Malaysia, the annual event has firmly establishing itself in becoming well-known worldwide for bringing together the most prominent names in the global watch and jewellery industries.

Celebrating its eighth edition, A Journey Through Time VIII will be held from 21 – 28 November 2014 and is destined to be a powerful prelude to Baselworld with rare private collections, first-in-market editions and exquisite pieces from over 125 luxury brands, 5 of which are debuting in Malaysia, being featured during the eight day extravaganza.

In conjunction with the A Journey Through Time 8 showcase, daily programmes that will enrich your experience of sheer indulgence are also lined up. These include insightful talks, special workshops and presentations by prominent experts as well as specialists in timepieces and jewellery.

Featured speakers include:

Eric Ong
Eric Ong founded Bonfield Pte Ltd in 1985 as an independent watch restorer and appraiser in Singapore. With 30 years of experience in horology, Eric Ong started his career under the tutelage of esteemed German watch master Horst Frederic Wege in the early 1980s, which led to his extensive training with ETA and other renowned watch houses at their technical training centres located in Vallée de Joux, Switzerland.

Driven by a lifelong passion in horology and also trained in fine jewellery craftsmanship, Eric is a tireless advocate of fine workmanship in watch restoration. With his vast technical expertise, Eric has earned a well-respected reputation in the horology industry in Singapore and internationally. In 2005, American International Assurance (AIA), in recognition of his skills, appointed him as their official watch appraiser.

Over three decades, Eric has received industry accolades from publications such as Timecraft, The Peak, Tic Talk, Timewrekz and The Straits Times, and television coverage on Channel News Asia, Channel 5 and Channel 8. Together with his team of disciples, Bonfield offers a range of services from restoration to authentication and appraisal of timepieces for an international client base of watch collectors.

Edward Kong
A renowned pioneer in the field of pearl cultivation, Edward Kong has always been an ardent cultivator of the Golden South Sea Pearl since 1994 when he was working at his father’s pearl farm near the diving paradise of Sipadan, Sabah.
Edward Kong's pearls come in three major colours - white, champage and gold and its secondary hues. Being a pearl lover who is persistent in upholding his brand’s quality, Edward Kong’s successful pearl cultivation stems from combining Japanese, Australian as well as homegrown Malaysian methods. His pearls have since been exported to Japanese and Australian dealers who marketed them to international jewellery houses and sold under exclusive brands.

Thierry Gasquez
Thierry Gasquez is the president, editor and founder of the eminent horological French website www.passion-horlogere.com. He has picked the minds of many of the world's leading horological exerts and professionals in the timepiece industry. His enthusiasm for watches and his extensive knowledge of the different types and the intricate details that are put into crafting them is second to none, all of which combines to allow him to be able to ask all the right questions when it comes to exquisite timepieces.

Dr Bernard Cheong
Known as the only Asian who has presided over both the Grand Prix d'Horlogerie and Fondation de la Haute Horlogerie, Dr Bernard Cheong began collecting watches at the tender age of 15. He first came under the public spotlight in 1998, when he acquired the most expensive watch made by a then-unknown watchmaker, Vianney Halter which was priced at USD $98,000. Dr Bernard Cheong has gained a lot of influence and fame in the watch community through sharing his insights and unique perspectives online. Identified as a renaissance watch collector, he is highly sought after by watch collectors, connoisseurs, celebrities, law enforcement and banks to acquire and identify art pieces from the timepiece industry.

Viktor Moiseikin
Viktor Moiseikin launched his eponymous fine jewellery brand in 1993 inspired by Russian jewellery traditions, a passion for colourful natural stones and a great desire to express his own original ideas. By that time he had accumulated deep understanding and knowledge in the History of the Russian Luxury Art.

A descendant of skillful builders, designers and painters among his ancestors, Viktor Moiseikin managed to combine his artistic talent with brilliant education in International Management, Engineering, Physics and Economics.

Admission is free & open to the public for the talks and workshops.

Please click here for A Journey Through Time Event Schedule. http://bit.ly/1phsepU

For further information on A Journey Through Time 8, please contact Starhill Concierge at +603 - 2782 3800 or concierge@starhillgallery.com, or email Ms Micky Wang at mickywang@ytlland.com

http://ajourneythroughtime.com.my/

Settings for Saving As PDF In Photoshop

demonhunter360 — Wed, 16 May 2012 18:54:56 +0800

Hi, when I do a digital painting in photoshop in CMYK mode, I want to save it as PDF when I'm done.

What are the best settings to choose if I want to print the image at a print shop?

I chose

Setting: High Quality Print
Standard : Not specified
Other settings left as default.

And saved.

Should I have specified the Standard?

Thanks.

Regards,
demonhunter

Illustrator CS5 Question

demonhunter360 — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 00:54:38 +0800

I have 2 Questions actually.

QUESTION 1

I hope someone can help explain to me why the following happens:

1.I drew some pictures of fruits and berries with illustrator.
2.Added raster effects to them -Gausian blur.
3.Object - Expand Appearance
4.Scaled drawing of strawberries etc into smaller size.
5.Copied and pasted into main canvas.
6.Everything looks fine on screen. The blur effects scaled perfectly, with no loss or distortions.
7.Went to printer to print.
8.Came out with very fine white lines on my fruits and berries.

Note: In this screen shot, the strawberry has many many smaller rectangular bounding boxes and so does the peanuts etc. On screen when not selected, it does not appear. After printing, some of the rectangular boxes lines appeared as fine white lines on the print.

I recognized the white lines on the print as the bounding box lines on the drawings. After applied the Expand Appearance, those rectangle bounding boxes could be seen. But once deselected, it disappeared, until you select the object again.

I chose expand appearance because I was told this will maintain the proportion of the blur effects.

Why did the white lines appear? Although not all of them on the print, only some.
Did I take a wrong step above? I used Illustrator CS5, and downsaved it to CS2. The printer is using lower version of Illustrator. I think CS3 or lower.
Thank you.

QUESTION 2

When I want to place a picture or image, I was told I should follow these steps:

1. Draw image in Illustrator or have a high resolution photo ready.
2. Put it in Photoshop.
3. Save as PNG with transparent background, choose "interlaced" option in save dialogue box.
4. Place new PNG file in Illustrator. This saves file size.

I noticed that when I place my Illustrator drawn vector text logo (no effects applied) this way, the sides of the text are jagged. Or if it's a photo image that I cut out with the pen tool, the person appears with jagged outlines. Meaning they didn't scale properly without losing quality.

So I tried to do it again in Photoshop, this time I chose save for web device, and I get more options in the PNG save dialog box. I chose save PNG-24, and bicubic smoother.

I placed it again in Illustrator, seems to resolve the jaggy/lost quality issue.

But I'm not sure if this is the correct way to do things. Am I doing it right?
Thank you.

Before 64Bit Windows7, How Did G.Designers Cope?

demonhunter360 — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 09:22:13 +0800

Hi, I have a question I had been wondering for some time.

Not too long ago, Windows 7 64-Bit was released. But prior to that, I think in 2008 and before that, most people got was the most Windows XP Service Pack 3.

Windows XP was a 32-bit architecture Operating System. The maximum RAM you can put on it was 4GB.

I am wondering, how did our senior graphic designers cope with that during the 'old' days. Does this mean, unless they had a powerful Mac computer with lots of RAM, they couldn't do graphic design work?

I'm not sure. I'm assuming very very detailed and complexed 2D photoshop fantasy illustration painting(example: http://community.imaginefx.com/fxpose/scar...ure341394.aspx) needs a lot a lot of ram because it is a pixel based programme and is very RAM hungry.

I used to think that some professional artists who do speed painting through photoshop had an insane amount of RAM on their PCs. But I noticed through the youtube video that his photoshop still has the old photoshop 'feather' icon on the toolbar. So it must be an old version of Photoshop. Old versions were limited in amount of RAM. But he painted so fast. I know the video is time-elapsed and faster, but it is so called 'speed-painting', must have been pretty fast I suppose.

How was it like before Windows7? Before Photoshop cs5 64-bit that allows unlimited RAM?

Demonhunter360 Comic Art

demonhunter360 — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 16:35:03 +0800

Hi , I am demonhunter360. I want to share my artwork with you. Please have a look see. Thank you thank you. ^^

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I'm gonna try to wrap this up in the next few days. Instead of holding a dinosaur, maybe I'll just put in a box of pizza. ^^ LOL. Or maybe Barney the dinosaur as stand in. I've been spending a week on this, and mum is asking me to finish up the painting of fruits instead so we can print it out and put on the kitchen wall. This PowerGirl has changed from how it started out. I made adjustments to the anatomy and even the hair. At first, this was supposed to be something simple and fairly quick to make, but as I got to painting the hair, it got more and more interesting and I just kept adding details. I think it looks pretty good. As for the face, I flipped it horizontally and made adjustments to make the face more symmetrical. Ah well, still got the legs (lower half of the body)

I'm probably taking more time than I should because I may not be painting the right way. Right now, there's lots of zooming in zooming out, and going into the tight spots and small areas to touch up and clean up. I'm gonna try a simpler coloring style next. Just 2 to 3 tones and using colored line widths to bring out texture and shape. Again I will combine Illustrator and Photoshop, but I suspect I'll use more Illustrator next.

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Hulk.

Directly painted into computer with tablet.

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This is the second part of Black Cat painting. Worked all day on it. I gotta stop and pull away from the monitor, this is crazy. Haha. ^^ My shoulders are aching because my workflow/ workplace setup is just a lousy foldable table...the height isn't suitable. Anyways, I think I have improved in terms of speed. It used to take me 1 to 2 weeks to get this far, but now I can bang this(this far in progress) up in 2 days. Definitely an improvement in efficiency. I've got better understanding of the tools in photoshop and more advanced knowledge through the tutorial magazines from ImagineFX, and Digital Artist magazines. The buildings were built from scratch using shapes in Adobe Photoshop. More to go, I thought I could finish this thing by today but I can't. Good pin-up art can't be rushed. I need to take time to make sure all the tiny details are done correctly. I guess it's the artist's diseases...obsession with perfection...anyways, I gotta start revising for test next week. Time to put Black Cat aside....for now.

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"You like me because I'm CRAZY!" Finally, after about a week's time,working on it bit by bit. It finally paid off. I contemplated whether I should add a simple background but dreaded the thought of more work. Haha. Anyhow, I might add a simple background later, but for the moment, this is as good as it gets. I went in and cleaned out and tidied up all the parts. Mix of both Illustrator and Photoshop. Illustrator was mostly for the colored lines. Illustrator is best for making all the curvy lines and outlines in my opinion. But I will try the traditional inking way next time instead. As for the mallet, it was mostly colored lines through photoshop. Some final shadows were done using just seperate layers set at multiply and sprayed on.

For the Harley Quinn close up, it was added with a noise filter and a multiply layer spray off light yellow. To give that textured slightly vintage effect. I love how the face turned out. She's gorgeous to me! This is one beautiful crazy girl! Too bad she is obsessed with that Joker guy. About the face coloring process, it was all gradual. I was thinking this was gonna be a challenge. Usually, a face without white face paint, a normal face has different skin tones, I can paint and bring out the features easily. But Harley's make up face was a different thing altogether. I did not plan to add purplish mascara. At first, I was aiming for just shades of grey, just pasty white look. But as I went along, I thought why not experiment with different tones and hues of purple, blue, and grey. Mix it up. I think this mix brings out her features more.

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X-Force in progress.

Originally, this was to be painted traditionally. But I had a change of thought. Digital is more versatile, I can do a lot of adjustments and redo and redo until I get the effect I want. Traditional media like water color or poster color, I get only 1 shot. If I mess up, that's it. I can't paint over it. I can't resize the anatomy, I can't change the perspective, just one shot and I can't mess up.

Anyhow, this is in progress, the grey tones were added to see how the effect comes along and I will do the full color after this.

I started with Wolverine, after that, followed by Psylocke, then, Archangel at the background with his wings spread out. Doing a team pin-up is more challenging than a single character pin up, because composition comes into play. How each character's pose interact with each other. With a character like Archangel, he is better placed at the3 background because of his massive wings. Put him in front, you block out all the others. Wolverine is placed in the middle, because he is the team leader. After that, I worked in Deadpool and Fantamax. I think I like Fantamax's pose the best. Still got the details to work in onto the costumes. For Psylocke, I wanted to give her that Asian ninja look. So, a short knive in front, and her sash is exaggerated a bit to have that Japanese Kunoichi flowing sash look.

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Someone online asked me to draw Baroness from G.I.Joe. I watched the live action movie which starred Sienna Miller as the Baroness. I still like the cartoon Baroness better. In the movie, she didn't have the European accent. I liked that in the cartoon. I referenced an old G.I.Joe Baroness action figure blister card art, and added slight changes myself. I had to change the dorky big round glasses. That might have worked in the 80s, it's out of style now. The MP5 and hand gun were referenced from 1/6 scale plastic toy guns. I'm not done with this yet, I spent a whole day on it. My hand was cramped. I'm not fast enough, need more practice. The face underwent some changes, particularly the lips. I wanted her to have that little bit of a sadistic smile. Eventually, I want to add Cobra commander in the background and the Cobra flags.

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I personally hand-drew these t-shirts myself.

Black t-shirt pigment water based markers on white cotton Northern Rock t-shirts.

Each is drawn in free hand, as I can't trace the artwork on the shirt, can't see through the shirt. Haha.

Hugh Jackman Wolverine, men's size L.

Batman, men's size M.

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