Topic awaiting preservation: wrought iron / blizzard effect?

Does anyone know how to make the wrought iron design/effect on Blizzards page???

Yep - draw it.

Get to know your Pen Tool real well, and find good examples of such iron work to emulate/build on (you don't want to be accused of stealing Blizzard's wokr afterall....).

thats insanity if someone did that by hand with a pen tool

Pen tool good.
Personally, I would paint the base shape. But Pen still good.

Either way, lots of grunt work.
I guess if you want it bad enough, though.

As for the lighting, I would probably go with a few creative gradients, then zoom in and touch up by hand. Why? Because Lighting Effects and I don't get along so well.

Probably Illustrator for the shape and Photoshop for the texture. That's not insane, that's Blizzard. They have good people.

Not insanity - that's art/design. That's what's involved - lot's of hand work. If it could all be done with filters and actions, we wouldn't need artists and designers.

If I were doing this, I would sketch it out by hand first. I would use that sketch as a template, and most likely use the pen tool or use illstrator as arnitald suggested.

The color/lighting would be a very simple matter to paint by hand - gradients would be more hassle then it'd be worth, IMO.

Also if you look at it *real* close, much of the pattern is duplicated / mirrored a few times. so really, you would not have to do *all* of that work.

1, lay out design
2, use pen or brush to make the basics of the design
3, duplicate / mirror and then fill in any extra
4, add some depth with a few shades of gray.

peace-oh-cake.

Yep.

It's easy to make a handful of modular parts and piece them together into whatever pattern you like.



(Edited by DL-44 on 08-23-2004 00:03)

For the base shape I'd skip the pen tool for this one if it only needed to be that size and or for screen display only. I'd just go straight from my scanned paper & pencil sketch to the brush tool in PS. Mainly because I'm still kinda slow with the pen tool. Although if I did use the pen tool, I'd just use the PS pen tool as the mirroring, duplicating and guides snapping in PS would make it quicker than the slightly more traditional pen tool mechanics in Illustrator.

As for the metal finish, I'd use layer effects for the gradients, simply because it provieds more control throughout. I'd then maybe have some duplicates of the base layer to control the ammount of noise in the exture. Another one with some shaprned lighting effects, disolved a little with some more noise + the occasional brush stroke here and there where I wanted extra highlights.

But it'd still take a while. Most quality work does, and blizzard are well known for the quality artwork and imagery they produce for their game titles.

As much as i absolutely agree with the opinions, views, and advice given here... i must also state the 'unspoken' truth here too... and that is... that some, not all, of this type of artwork is also created with the help of some easy-to-obtain vector lineart. Which is simply effected with a basic 1px bevel for a subtle 3D look. Then grunged up in the typical manner using fractal cloud patterns set to Multiply or Darken.

Hey?! It's a tough job, by SOMEone had to say it!

I don't mind being the heavy.

If you got a tablet, draw it. If not I suggest you draw on paper then just scan. You can do the rest in photoshop. This is of course if you know how to draw. If not try googling some midevil shapes for photoshop. Place how you want later. Making the iron effect won't be that hard...

I shut my eyes in order to see | Online Portfolio | Journal | Community | Paintings

I don't know if I would be able to draw something like that... even with the pen tool. Those shapes are quite complicated. I wouldn't know where to start.

Go to places like http://www.collettidesign.com/ and studying the designs. It's not all that hard to come up with something - just start simple. It's really just a bunch of swirling lines that overlap to form some appealing design.

"Nothin' like a pro-stabbin' from a pro." -Weadah

hmm try plan B. Take a bunch pictures of Fretwork, try googling for some then using the pen tool (PS or Illustrator, I'd go for illustrator if you got it) and trace the fretwork. Then bring them all together and make just be creative make something new. It's like synax just said

quote:

---

... just a bunch of swirling lines that overlap to form some appealing design.

---

simple

I shut my eyes in order to see | Online Portfolio | Journal | Community | Paintings

Just break it down to simple shapes then repeat them. The nice thing about intricate wrought iron work is that there is no wrong pattern. The blizzard piece looks like it was made with a single corner piece for the top and bottom and a side pice repeated several times.

If the pen tool is beyond you, use a hard brush and paint it. Use the grid to keep everything even. The "3-d ness" of gate itself looks like a mixture of pixel work and the lighting effect filter.

Now quit talking about what you can't do and give it a try. You'll probably surprise yourself.


Life's too short to put up with bad art.

(Edited by Moth on 08-24-2004 07:21)

i found this on my webspace, it's from a previous thread here on the Asylum so it may be useful to show how the pen tool is used in this type of work..



edit: try again using the UBB code



(Edited by Morph on 08-24-2004 15:46)

The Pen tool is your friend. Invest the time to master it. If you learn the key shortcuts to switch pen editing tools it can be used very quickly and efficiently. This was completely done with the pen tool.





(Edited by Quarath on 09-08-2004 07:25)

Nice work, Quarath. Now make them look like wrought iron. (just kidding)

The pen tool is definitely your friend here, Timber. Given the skills you've shown constructing the interface you posted a link to in the "parchment paper" thread, you should be able to come up with a wrought iron gate shape. You can also use theGuest's suggestions to come up with something truely original.


Life's too short to put up with bad art.