Page 1 of 2 12 LastLast
Results 1 to 20 of 24

Thread: My first T-Shirt Design - Spaceman

  1. #1
    Banned Flowman's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jun 2011
    Posts
    1,665
    Thanks Thanks Given 
    43
    Thanks Thanks Received 
    181
    Thanked in
    99 Posts

    Default My first T-Shirt Design - Spaceman

    Hey guys,

    So as some of you know, I am currently designing a T-Shirt for my friend's clothing line he's working on launching. He's focusing on the EDM music scene and will be taking songs from big name producers and designing shirts to go along with them. He asked me to try to whip something up, and as I'm going to the Benny Benassi & Friends tour in NYC on June 9, I decided to design a shirt based on one of my favorite producers, Hardwell.

    One of Hardwell's biggest hits this past year has been the song "Spaceman." The tune previously had no lyrics, but only as recently as a few days ago, Hardwell released the official vocal edit of the track, now called "Call me a Spaceman." He played it a few times during his radio show "Hardwell on Air" but the song is now available for purchase. I don't really like to work with outer space style images, but I couldn't turn this opportunity down. Once the design is finished, I plan to send the design to Hardwell himself to see what he has to say about it, have the shirt made, and wear it at the show. Would be pretty cool to see my design at other shows over the next year as well.

    So I decided I'd use this thread to update everyone on my progress. I will post a new picture/series of pictures after each big change to the image. As the show is June 9 I don't have much time and I would really like to be done by Monday...but who knows.

    So I decided right away to just find some kind of render I could use for a spaceman. As this is a shirt, I wanted to go with something a little cartoony or cell shaded. Nothing too sharp in color with soft edges. A simple google search of "Spaceman" brought me to this perfect image:

    Name:  spacesuit.jpg
Views: 45823
Size:  63.7 KB

    The actual image Hardwell uses for the tracks label is a spaceman similar to this one standing ontop of Earth holding a flag with the music label he belongs to on it. I decided I would also include Earth. The earth I picked it used right now for placement more so than a final design, so that image is not important yet and you can see it in the end of this post when I post my final progress thus far.

    Who's in the helmet?

    The hardest part of this first step was deciding what to do with the helmet of the spaceman. I could have gone so many ways with it. At first I didn't want to put anyone's face in there, and have it be mirrored. However, finding an image of a mirrored ball was very hard to do because...well, they're mirrors. The people taking the picture are reflected back to the camera. The amount of work to fix this didn't seem worth it...so goodbye mirror ball.

    Name:  mirrorball15small.jpg
Views: 6755
Size:  32.3 KB

    However, the search for a mirror ball brought up this multicolored discoball. Not only does this remind me of one of the Daft Punk helmets,but would also add a really cool effect to the helmet to make it seem like the entire thing is actually a computer. The colored mirrorball was added to the layer list.



    Next I decided I'd find a few pictures of Hardwell's face to throw in the helmet to see if I could work with an actual face inside of a cartoon like body. I was originally drawn to this picture because I liked that it was already shaded on one side, meaning I could get away with lighting effects on just one side.

    Name:  djhardwell.jpg
Views: 8453
Size:  31.5 KB

    However, after about 2 hours of fussing with some lighting effects and other faces, I decided against the half face and went with another picture. This was the easiest one I found. I was going with a desaturated look at first, but I instead ended up adding a LOT more color to his face.

    Name:  hardwell.jpg
Views: 11380
Size:  111.3 KB

    Putting things in order

    Now that I have the main parts of the START of my project, it's time to put together what I have. After cutting out the Spaceman from the white background, I duplicated the layer about 6 times and put a layer mask on one over the helmet only and hid the other 5. I did a sloppy job on the cutting for the most part because all the aesthetic edits and tuning come at the end. For the most part it's pretty clean, just a little too sharp on some parts. With the layer mask in place, I could put Hardwell's face behind the helmet and have it show through. After cutting out his head and neck, I began to fit him right in the middle just below the top of the helmet. The head is supposed to be big compared to the rest of the body, so the size of his neck compared to the rest of the body will just have to do.
    I then took another one of the layered spacemen, and erased everything but the helmet. I wanted to use the already existed lens lighting from the stock photo because I hate making them myself, so I just edged it up a bit, layered it on top, and dropped the Opacity down to 75%. This made Hardwells face barely visible, something I'd take care of later.

    It was now time to add some reflective color/nebulas in to the lens. I decided that I was going to keep it simple and stay away from doing realistic reflected images in the lens because a small error with that can be very noticeable to someone, or even everyone other than yourself. Space is Space. I can be whatever I want it to be. So I threw on a couple randomly colored Radial Gradients over Hardwell's face and helmets. These gradients would soon be turned in to nebulas. Using THIS image, I would create a very basic overlay of stars and lights. The radial gradients were set to linear dodge to easier add color to the image without blocking what's behind it completely.

    Name:  77081.jpg
Views: 9117
Size:  753.6 KB

    Putting this over the other layers, I cut around everything I didn't want on the image and left just the helmet. I set the layer to overlay, and then created a second layer of overlay, only with 25% opacity, and I then combined the 2 layers into 1. I now decided to address the issue of Hardwell's face being hard to see. I duplicated one of the face layers, moved it to the top, and changed the blending mode to overlay at 100% opacity.

    Hardwell's face was looking a little soft and white and the other colors were a little too bright as well. I added 2 different adjustment layers that I use all the time to adjust this. I threw on a Purple to Orange gradient map on Soft Light at 100% opacity and clipped it to hardwells face. I then put another Purple to Orange gradient over the entire image. This is only temporary and will more than likely be masked to exclude the vast majority of the background. I then wanted to lower the saturation of the colors to make the image look a little stressed, so I made a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer and lowered the Saturation to -25. This provided a subtle change for some parts, but really brought down some of the obnoxious colors over the helmet.

    I then quickly created a noise layer behind the entire picture to make some quick stars for presentation value for today's picture. They will most likely not be the final stars in the background. To make stars like this, you need to create a noise layer at 10% noise set to Gaussian distribution and Monochromatic checked on. You then need to erase some of the noise because it is very "noisy." To do this, you need to change the white, grey, and black levels of the picture under layer adjustments. Change around the settings and see what you like. This will make the white stars that remain seem brighter and gets rid of a lot of the others.

    After creating the noise, I made a quick Gradient Overlay of black to white set to radial. I put the gradient behind the spaceman and turned down the opacity. This creates a grey looking circle and an all black background. To add a quick base layer of primary colors, I needed to render a light effect. I picked the RBG (red blue green) 3 light effect because it's honestly the cheap and easy way to create any of the primary colors without much effort. With that said and done, I was left with a very boring looking circle of red light behind the spaceman and hints of blue and green. Anyone who is familiar with photoshop or space effects knows that rendering clouds is a very easy way to achieve that fluffy, nebula-like look. So I rendered some clouds. Fun stuff. The clouds needed some color and some direction because they were quite random. I don't like using lens flares because they make the image a bit grainy, so I decided to just get away with an easier step for now and try some other editing techniques at later stages off development. I went to the clouds blending options and set them to overlay. I then went to Gradient Overlay and picked 4 colors that I wanted to use. Instead of creating my own gradient, I picked the rainbow spectrum that was premade and erased some of the colors, and replaced the others with my own. I like this spectrum because it has the white, grey, and black limiters on the outsides of the colors. The next part was annoying and I still don't know how I feel about the outcome so far...and that was deciding where the background colors will be behind the spaceman. In the end, I landed on an Angled Gradient Overlay set to 70 degrees, 50% opacity, and 100% scale. Although the outcome is NOT what I wanted, it was good enough for now to show you guys the direction the image is going. Please note that I am very aware that the colors of the mask do not match up with the colors behind the spaceman. This is because the colors in the mask are a reflection, and the colors behind are supposed to just be for added effect and depth once they're finished.


    So there you have it, that is what I accomplished today on my shirt design. To the untrained eye this might look good or even finished...but it's not. This is not even a rough draft yet. This is me throwing things together on a page and seeing what works and what doesn't. I probably have about 50 layers of hidden material not even in the picture that I'm not sure if I'll use or go back to. I have about 6 different Hardwell faces lol

    I really do appreciate it if you read this far. I know this is extremely long and half of it probably jumps around and makes no sense. I apologize for not having pictures along each step for those who are curious to see what everything looks like in the process. Truth be told I am writing this up long after I stopped working for the day. Going back and hiding layers just to take screenshots could lead to me accidentally adding or erasing something to the applied image that I don't want...so for this step, you get the final image of today. Everything is still saved as layers at this point, this is simply an Applied image creating a PNG file of all the active layers and saving it as a copy. Let me know what you think! Have any ideas you think would look cool? Let me know!

    Hopefully I'll have another update for everyone tomorrow!

    Day 1 Current Progress
    Last edited by Flowman; 05-26-2012 at 09:20 AM. Reason: grammar

  2. The Following 5 Users Say Thank You to Flowman For This Useful Post:


  3. #2
    Senior Member ArtStar's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2011
    Location
    Sanctuary
    Posts
    2,096
    Thanks Thanks Given 
    176
    Thanks Thanks Received 
    277
    Thanked in
    181 Posts

    Default

    Wow lol that process is nuts it was like a story. Lololl I am pretty impressed, but I expected nothing less.
    A true Star Legend...
    |SL: Eng-Artstar, Op-Demoneyes, Comm-Skullflower|




  4. #3
    Guardian of Alterra RedRyder's Avatar
    Join Date
    May 2010
    Location
    In a room I've built myself
    Posts
    6,737
    Thanks Thanks Given 
    542
    Thanks Thanks Received 
    887
    Thanked in
    471 Posts

    Default

    Photoshop ain't no joke! This guy's on point. His process is exactly the way my professors taught me! What's your background? In terms of school and etc.? There's no way that you've obtained this knowledge on surfing the web alone

  5. #4
    Senior Member Mrsberry's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2012
    Location
    Florida
    Posts
    559
    Thanks Thanks Given 
    141
    Thanks Thanks Received 
    120
    Thanked in
    76 Posts

    Default

    Amazing work!
    You are so talented.
    Good luck with the Tshirts.

    Idk if this would be possible but had an image in my head when looking at this.
    The over sized space man standing on earth blocking a huge meteor with his hand keeping it from hitting the earth.
    The meteor could look like a big flameing disco ball. Lol me and my imagination
    Last edited by Mrsberry; 05-26-2012 at 02:19 AM.

  6. #5
    Banned Flowman's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jun 2011
    Posts
    1,665
    Thanks Thanks Given 
    43
    Thanks Thanks Received 
    181
    Thanked in
    99 Posts

    Default

    Thanks girls and Red for reading that essay I appreciate the compliments and your time!

    Quote Originally Posted by ArtStar View Post
    Wow lol that process is nuts it was like a story. Lololl I am pretty impressed, but I expected nothing less.
    Yeah I got a little carried away with the presentation Went back just now and reread it...only a few grammar errors in there, which is surprising.

    Quote Originally Posted by RedRyder View Post
    Photoshop ain't no joke! This guy's on point. His process is exactly the way my professors taught me! What's your background? In terms of school and etc.? There's no way that you've obtained this knowledge on surfing the web alone
    Most of what I've learned, I taught myself. The way I do some things that I briefly summarized are much harder than the ways people with years of photoshop experience can do. I went on Adobe's website and watched every video that they have on techniques, then I just searched for tutorials or pictures of things I was interested in. Most of what I do is trial and error to see what works and what doesn't. Not the best way to do things cause I'll sometimes lose a layer or forget one is turned on and have little errors in places . I'm very disorganized, I really need to be better about naming my layers.

    However I did go back to school for a semester for Web Design and Computer Graphics at UConn. Got a minor degree in that field and we did all of our work on photoshop, so my professor helped me out with things I wasn't sure of

    Quote Originally Posted by Mrsberry View Post
    Amazing work!
    You are so talented.
    Good luck with the Tshirts.

    Idk if this would be possible but had an image in my head when looking at this.
    The over sized space man standing on earth blocking a huge meteor with his hand keeping it from hitting the earth.
    The meteor could look like a big flameing disco ball. Lol me and my imagination
    Wow THAT would be an interesting shirt lol. Unfortunately I'm not the best at drawing freehand, so editing his hand out at another angle and have it be anatomically correct would be really hard for me. A flaming disco ball is a pretty awesome idea though I still need to decide what's in the background. I need to either decide on realism and stick with real space and nebulas, or go strictly for design and colors and start throwing in some fluorescent colors and splatters/brush stroke brushes.



    Just saw that when I uploaded the image directly to the site it made it a jpeg. Changed out for a png from another image uploader...should add some quality back...and also make the parts I haven't completed yet seem more obvious lol...double edged sword.
    Last edited by Flowman; 05-26-2012 at 09:18 AM.

  7. The Following User Says Thank You to Flowman For This Useful Post:


  8. #6
    Senior Member ArtStar's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2011
    Location
    Sanctuary
    Posts
    2,096
    Thanks Thanks Given 
    176
    Thanks Thanks Received 
    277
    Thanked in
    181 Posts

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Flowman View Post
    Thanks girls and Red for reading that essay I appreciate the compliments and your time!
    Yeah I got a little carried away with the presentation Went back just now and reread it...only a few grammar errors in there, which is surprising.
    Well it was a nice read you put some serious thought into it and that's awesome. I've known quite a few people who have designed some shirts, but I'm not so sure they put this much thought into it. Lol they made pretty basic hipster stuff. Lolol and yeah only a few, but you could tell what you meant.
    A true Star Legend...
    |SL: Eng-Artstar, Op-Demoneyes, Comm-Skullflower|




  9. #7
    Moderator - Inactive rinzler's Avatar
    Join Date
    Feb 2012
    Posts
    604
    Thanks Thanks Given 
    47
    Thanks Thanks Received 
    122
    Thanked in
    70 Posts

    Default

    Wow! Beyond awesome!

  10. #8
    Banned Flowman's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jun 2011
    Posts
    1,665
    Thanks Thanks Given 
    43
    Thanks Thanks Received 
    181
    Thanked in
    99 Posts

    Default

    IMAGES REMOVED FROM MY IMAGESHACK ACCOUNT BECAUSE THEY WEREN'T WATERMARKED AND I DON'T WANT ANYONE STEALING THEM


    Just thought I'd show you guys something quick before I start working more on Day 2.
    This is basically the original Image from the first day with only 2 edits done to it. I added a fractal design over the beginning nebulas and overlayed it, then masked the image. On the mask, I took a nebula brush set to black and erased some of the less nebula like lines and shapes but left some for the randomness effect. The reason for this is because using a normal circle eraser would leave weird edges and uneven circular marks...it's hard to explain but the nebula brushes are made to have lighter and darker areas...which works great as an eraser.

    When I had this step done, I applied every layer to one image. I then opened a new program for plug-ins I gave called "Topaz Labs." Topaz labs gives you multiple filter options that have TONS of preset filter effect categories, and then even more to choose from within. It's an awesome program, well worth the money if you like editing. It can save you lots of time, and the filters are often perfect by themselves, but you can tweak every single option down to the last pixel if you wanted to.

    For this step, I used the Topaz Detail 2 Filter. After looking at a few possibilities, I settled on "Bold Detail" because this is just a temporary edit and this one does the least amount of actual damage to the colors of the image while showing some big changes. The other ones are definitely useable later on...but I don't use Topaz Labs until the very end because unlike layering adjustment layers in Photoshop, layering Topaz Layers without tons of masking will look waaaaaay over edited and fake. As you can see below, what Bold Detail does is basically the same as levels and curves for adjustment layers. It bolds the black contrast and makes the whites brighter and sharper. It made the spacesuit a little too sharp for my liking, so I just masked that out. The only real edits are seen in the face/helmet and the sky. This is just to show you guys that putting in images in order and throwing on color is only half of the creating process. There's tons of time that goes in to editing the final image, and this can sometimes completely alter the image. I'll put the 2 pictures side by side so you can see the differences. This is just an example remember, I'd have to wrk on Hardwell's face because right now it doesn't look like it's behind glass, rather just placed on top. This is an issue I'll probably have down till the last edit. Check below the big picture for a side by side comparison.



    Last edited by Flowman; 05-29-2012 at 11:25 PM.

  11. #9
    Luminary Poster Mothwing's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2011
    Location
    CTF Probably
    Posts
    5,080
    Thanks Thanks Given 
    613
    Thanks Thanks Received 
    553
    Thanked in
    382 Posts

    Default

    Wow. I admire you. I love art, especially digital art, but am not very good at it. Keep up the good work.


  12. #10
    Senior Member Zaonabiuibil's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2012
    Location
    Wherever the wind blows.
    Posts
    3,744
    Thanks Thanks Given 
    408
    Thanks Thanks Received 
    597
    Thanked in
    386 Posts

    Default

    I'd buy one of those...
    Before you judge a man, walk a mile in his shoes; after that, who cares?! He's a mile away and you've got his shoes! -Billy Connolly

  13. The Following User Says Thank You to Zaonabiuibil For This Useful Post:


  14. #11
    Banned Flowman's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jun 2011
    Posts
    1,665
    Thanks Thanks Given 
    43
    Thanks Thanks Received 
    181
    Thanked in
    99 Posts

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Mothwing View Post
    Wow. I admire you. I love art, especially digital art, but am not very good at it. Keep up the good work.
    Thanks man, I wish I had the money and the talent to get even better, or if I was in to photography and drawing.


    Quote Originally Posted by Zaonabiuibil View Post
    I'd buy one of those...
    Just wait till it's finished. It doesn't even have the font yet! Are you a Hardwell fan or do you just like the shirt so far?

  15. #12
    Senior Member Zaonabiuibil's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2012
    Location
    Wherever the wind blows.
    Posts
    3,744
    Thanks Thanks Given 
    408
    Thanks Thanks Received 
    597
    Thanked in
    386 Posts

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Flowman View Post
    Just wait till it's finished. It doesn't even have the font yet! Are you a Hardwell fan or do you just like the shirt so far?
    The craftsmanship is amazing, the shirt itself is brilliant.
    Before you judge a man, walk a mile in his shoes; after that, who cares?! He's a mile away and you've got his shoes! -Billy Connolly

  16. The Following User Says Thank You to Zaonabiuibil For This Useful Post:


  17. #13
    Luminary Poster Phoenixking's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Location
    Classified information
    Posts
    5,278
    Thanks Thanks Given 
    386
    Thanks Thanks Received 
    165
    Thanked in
    148 Posts

    Default

    I am... Speechless.
    i wish I had your skills.... And a teacher no one ever taught me lol. I learned by myself.
    When there is too much

    Don't forget

  18. #14
    Banned Flowman's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jun 2011
    Posts
    1,665
    Thanks Thanks Given 
    43
    Thanks Thanks Received 
    181
    Thanked in
    99 Posts

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Phoenixking View Post
    I am... Speechless.
    i wish I had your skills.... And a teacher no one ever taught me lol. I learned by myself.
    Taught myself everything I know other than a few techniques and some things with masking. I'm looking in to some advanced classes so I can pursue a masters degree in some form of computer graphics.

  19. #15
    Senior Member Cahaun's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2011
    Location
    The Orthopedic Capital of the World!
    Posts
    4,995
    Thanks Thanks Given 
    235
    Thanks Thanks Received 
    419
    Thanked in
    303 Posts

    Default

    Epic

    Visit the SL Lore thread for more knowledge on the history behind SL! (Click me!)
    Visit the official Infinite Union Website to join the tribe, hang out, or chat in the forums!

  20. #16
    Banned Flowman's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jun 2011
    Posts
    1,665
    Thanks Thanks Given 
    43
    Thanks Thanks Received 
    181
    Thanked in
    99 Posts

    Default

    Days 2 and 3

    Day 2 was basically the other picture sets I posted. I took a break from photoshop for most of the weekend because my neck and hands were starting to cramp up and get sore from being stationary for so long. Sounds nerdier than it really is, trust me. Instead of posting a long elaborate story about each step I did, I will just now show you the flattened image at the final step for the day with exactly what is new.

    If anyone is truly interested in what I did to get a certain result or how something was made, feel free to ask and I'll go in to as much detail as I can remember.

    So here is where I am at right now.



    • Added a giant space fractal design behind the clouds and RBG lights

    • Added multiple new layers of space nebulas and clouds for texture and volume, some colored and some white

    • Applied Gaussian Blur to the spacesuit and to Earth. Then faded the blur and applied hard light to give it a cartoonified look

    • Took another globe layer, did the same blur technique as above, only on a larger scale. Gave the globe a color overlay of blue to give off the effect of solar glow

    • Took the original globe layer and added inner and outer glow of a very dull, flat blue with linear dodge to give the earth another layer of solar glow

    • Burnt off all light effects on the spacesuit, giving is a very neutral color throughout

    • Cleaned up the edging around the spacesuit, getting rid of all miss color spots and overlaps

    • Added the spacesuit's shadow by applying highlight, shadow, and mid-tone burn's onto the earth and the boots

    • Added multiple layers of small nebulas around the places the color's meet and mix, set to Saturation at 100%

    • Added a solar flare to the helmet to give a brighter effect and a light source. I usually hate solar flares...but we're in space...it happens

    • Added another layer of stars to the background, this time using a picture of the sky and erasing out parts where the concentration of stars was too much or too bright. Also added in some larger stars

    • Added a picture of a shooting star with very similar colors to the background, set to linear dodge

    • Shrunk Hardwell's head and cleaned up some of the stars that were too bright on his face

    • Added watermarks to avoid people stealing my image



    So there it is. That's how far I am right now. Here is what I have left to do:

    • Erase some of the nebulas to make it seem more spontaneous/not as uniform

    • Add lighting to the spacesuit

    • Clean up all edges

    • Add more volume to the background

    • Add the text and text effects

    • Final Topaz Labs filter work


    After that, I will be done. Design needs to be in printing by June 2. Hope you like how it's coming out!

  21. #17
    Senior Member ArtStar's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2011
    Location
    Sanctuary
    Posts
    2,096
    Thanks Thanks Given 
    176
    Thanks Thanks Received 
    277
    Thanked in
    181 Posts

    Default

    I love how it's coming Flow you're doing a great job
    A true Star Legend...
    |SL: Eng-Artstar, Op-Demoneyes, Comm-Skullflower|




  22. #18
    Banned Flowman's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jun 2011
    Posts
    1,665
    Thanks Thanks Given 
    43
    Thanks Thanks Received 
    181
    Thanked in
    99 Posts

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by ArtStar View Post
    I love how it's coming Flow you're doing a great job

  23. #19
    Senior Member Zaonabiuibil's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2012
    Location
    Wherever the wind blows.
    Posts
    3,744
    Thanks Thanks Given 
    408
    Thanks Thanks Received 
    597
    Thanked in
    386 Posts

    Default

    *Gigantic jawdrop*
    Before you judge a man, walk a mile in his shoes; after that, who cares?! He's a mile away and you've got his shoes! -Billy Connolly

  24. The Following User Says Thank You to Zaonabiuibil For This Useful Post:


  25. #20
    Luminary Poster Mothwing's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2011
    Location
    CTF Probably
    Posts
    5,080
    Thanks Thanks Given 
    613
    Thanks Thanks Received 
    553
    Thanked in
    382 Posts

    Default

    Makes me want to go buy photoshop, oh wait, it costs my left foot.


Similar Threads

  1. T-shirt design, need thoughts/comments! :)
    By DanielRH in forum PL General Discussion
    Replies: 8
    Last Post: 08-30-2011, 11:27 AM
  2. Replies: 212
    Last Post: 08-29-2011, 07:07 AM
  3. Pocket legends T-shirt design Competition
    By Violentsaint in forum PL General Discussion
    Replies: 53
    Last Post: 08-22-2011, 04:07 PM
  4. Help for t-shirt design contest
    By TechniShock in forum PL General Discussion
    Replies: 3
    Last Post: 08-18-2011, 02:54 PM

Bookmarks

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •