David Bowie Digital Work

   

 David Bowie Digital Works ~

The next step for our David Bowie works was to then experiment with photoshop and digitally play around with any black and white pieces we had. Unfortunately I lost my original works from the photoshop sessions and had to re-do pieces at home. These pieces were done on the programme Paint.NET, which is very much like photoshop. I first started with my Thin White Duke piece, as it is the simpler black and white piece I had made so should be the easiest to start experimenting with in paint.NET.

The first thing I did was remove the black areas with the Magic Wand tool, then made another layer to fill with another colour. I just used a purple colour as a test purely because it's my favourite colour. Afterwards, I thought of doing a much brighter colour to contrast with the black and dull purple shade.

After trying out a few different colours, I thought it would be interesting to use bright and bold colours to have a completely different outcome to the painted original piece. To almost change the mood setting completely, from gloomy and dark to fun and bright. 

 

When I was playing around with colours and the magic wand tool, When I hid one of the layers, I thought the image it produced was quite interesting. Posting as a funky example I accidentally came across. 

When I was tring out colours and making sure I had the outline just as I wanted, I then decided to try some Andy Warhol styled pieces. First example as a simple light to dark banner, I kept the pink colour as it's a colour I never usally use so it'd be interesting to see how I feel about using it, but also to see if it would change to over all mood/feel to the piece. The pink does feel alot more fun and free. I also chose to make a versions with and without a boarder.

The next examples were to change the colours to basic primary colours (and green to fit a 4 piece), For a more typical Andy Warhol style pop-piece.

Again, One with and without a boarder. I was really really happy with these outcomes! Hopefully I will feel more confident to do something like this in future pieces!

This piece was a test of the yellow
colour, I felt this one was too dull
and wouldn't fit with the overall look
of the finished square.

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The next piece I chose to experiment with was a 2 minute pencil sketch I did as part of the Bowie projects. I was really happy with the original piece as for only such a quick sketch, I liked the rough lines and think I managed to capture a simple yet (hopefully) noticeable Bowie reference.

For this piece the same step was taken as with the first. Using Paint.NET, I used the magic wand tool to remove the white background and written text, so that I was left with nothing but the outlines.

When doing things like this, I like the chance the background colour, just so I know if there is any white spots I may have missed or if there is a area that may need drawing on top of to make the outline stronger and easier to work with. 

First step was changing the brightness for for a thicker outline, then I added circles of yellow, orange and red that I would then edit for a psychedelic background. I wanted to have this piece over all more detailed that the last, But not overly, using bold colours and different shades of each.

I used Paint.NET's Fragment Blur plug in to make the background much more striking, but also to make it less simple looking. The clear circles over one another just didn't look right and felt way to unprofessional. The blur effect dulled the shapes together to get the right kind of effect I wanted.

Making a new layer, that I titled "BOWIE SKIN", I then started to mix the colour wheel until I had a fair peach-y skin tone. I also made a much lighter shade and a much darker shade so that I could add shadowing and extra details (as seen above). The eyes and the shirt had their own layers so that I could work much easier and quicker with each area. The eyes layer was underneath the skin tone, but was then merged together when I was happy that the eyes where finished.

When I was looking though the layers, I thought just the skin tones against the background alone looked really funky without the outlines. I screencapped what it looked like as I thought it had a simple but effect look, plus it was interesting to look at and wonder if I could do more with something like this.

Last to do was add the hair colour, which I tried to add fairly messy, as it fit in more with the over all look of this piece. Every now and then I would chance the brightness/darkness of the yellow and add a few more streaks to the hair to add highlights/shadows/details for a slightly more realistic hair look. The shirt also had the same kind of treatment for realism and a more 3D look.

   

When I was finished with the image, I didn't like it without a boarder, mostly due to the fact the hair had not been fully drawn. Adding a boarder and cropping the image down was an interesting try too, as it focused more on the face. However now the more I look at the outcome of this one, I do quite like the messy look and unfinished endings to the hair and clothing. Although I could try come back to this one and try new things.

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