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Some blog upkeeping for Darksider Confessions

Today I decided that I will be moving the topic of writing and all that entails to a new blog. It’s still with wordpress but I will be separating my writing posts from everything else I do here. Darkside Creative will still be home to all my other creative endeavours such as graphic design, Adobe, and of course, everything relating to Star Wars.

I just feel that this blog really has grown into something more than I expected and in doing so, it has moved slowly away from my first passion which is writing. I haven’t been able to do much with my writing here because I wanted this space to house my Star Wars experiences and everything I do with art. I just don’t think writing has a place here any more.

So if you wish to follow my writing blog, you can do so here – www.thebrokenquill.com.

That’s all I really have to say about that. I’ll understand if you unfollow me.

I have a whole heap of Star Wars edits and graphics to post which I’ll do bit by bit starting tomorrow.

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Kylo Ren The Force Awakens/The Last Jedi Edits

I created some of these edits and GIFs a while ago but I decided to do something different with them.

Here’s one with text on a path:

KYLORENEDIT11POSTERHALFFACELETTHEPASTDIE.png

Here’s a GIF with a the image above as an overlay:

KYLORENEDIT11PIMAGEGIF.gif

And the newest version of this image still as motion art

KYLORENTFAEDIT01 (1064px, 25fps).gif

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Adobe Create Tutorial – Neon Effect in Photoshop

I’ve created neon effects before but that was just for outlining other images to add something to it and make it “pop” a little. This simple tutorial (it really is the easiest one I’ve done) uses a similar technique but uses a little masking as well to make the overall effect look more realistic on the image.

Here’s the before stock image:

rendition;size=2357;.jpg

This is my finished edit:

NEONHANDEFFECTMINEADOBE.png

The adobe tutorials are also really good for beginners because they usually provide the stock photos for you for free as long as you’re only using them for this tutorial. But isn’t it amazing how a simple masking effect using blend modes in Photoshop can create something quite cool. I’ve always wanted to learn this technique ever since I first saw it used in a graphic design poster on Pinterest.  And now I know how it’s done!

Website: https://create.adobe.com/2019/7/12/how_to_create_a_neon.html

Time: 5 minutes

Level: Beginner

Comment: I can’t really say anything bad about the Adobe tutorials other than they do move really fast through the techniques so if you’re just starting out, be ready to pause a lot as you go. But these tutorials are made with beginners in mind and they do advance in level as well so you know that you’re not biting off more than you can chew. The added bonus is there is a video clip to watch if you learn better that way or you can follow along step by step with the written instructions.

Rating: 10/10

 

 

 

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Mobile phone animation – Kylo Ren and Darth Maul GIFs

I’ve been learning how to make animation on my phone and there are some really good apps out there for people who like to create stuff on the go! I played around a bit with Pixaloop, and I found it was good for making quick animations. There are other apps you can use as well which utilise templates where you add your image and text and the app does the animation for you. I am sure there are dozens of apps that do this but I wanted to see how easy it would be to do.

Here are a few of my “mini” projects created on my phone:

And a Darth Maul one I made with art by @linkthejedi on Instagram

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“I’m here to rescue you!” – Luke Skywalker Animation

I really like this Luke Skywalker quote from Star Wars Episode IV A New Hope and got a cool idea from an article I read in an old Star Wars Insider magazine. I used that original concept and came up with the following edit and animation. I realised after masking the image of Luke Skywalker into my GIF that for some reason, copying from a PDF may have distorted the image so I had to mask it again and “touch up” the image some more before I could use it. Then I created the first GIF and didn’t like the colour because I had used a transparent background layer originally. So I then had to create a new layer with a white background and then created the final animation that I was happy with. I also made an edit because, why not?

Here’s the animation

IMHERETORESCUEYOUGIF

And the edit

IAMHERETORESCUEYOUEDIT01.png

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Darth Maul Edit and Animation

I’ve done a lot of animation using Darth Maul because he’s just so underrated to me as a Star Wars villain. And there is a lot of really good star wars literature out there in the way of comics and books that extend his story far beyond the films. Even animated tv series such as Star Wars The Clone Wars do him a lot more justice than I felt he received in The Phantom Menace. Did you know that the voice used in the Phantom Menace isn’t Ray Park’s, the actor that played him? They had to use a voice over artist because Ray Parks’ voice was too highly pitched to use for Darth Maul Nice little factoid for you!

So I am on a little bit of a Darth Maul trip right now hence all the edits. But this one, I am especially proud of because I played around with Photoshop filters and blending to come up with this and I really like the finished edit:

DARTHMAULEDIT04.png

And a GIF where I was just fooling around with different animations:

FIREDARTHMAUL.gif

 

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Age of Republic – Darth Maul 1 Animation

I made another edit because as you know, I love to create animated edits of art I like in the Star Wars universe and it’s kinda been my thing. But I am not happy with this edit at all. I dunno what it is, I regret posting it now. My problem is I look at something, it can be a painting, a digital image, a poem or just about anything like that and I’ll envision how it would sound or look. Then I try to replicate what I see and sometimes, it doesn’t always come out the way I’d like.

The artist is the amazing Paolo Rivera whom I don’t have enough praise for:

DARTHMAULLUKEROSSNOLANWOODARDEDIT (1200px, 15fps).gif

To compensate for this, I went on this really crazy Darth Maul bender and ended up with another two animations, and an image edit which I think came out exactly as I wanted it to. I’ll post it tomorrow along with the other animations I made.

Also, I think I might start writing a little bit more about work again since they blocked my website. 😂It seems there is something unsavoury about the URL darksiderconfessions which I find hilarious!