Xtrabold

http://www.xtrabold.net/home.html

Xtrabold is a portfolio website of Nelson Balaban Jr. His works are really great. I think you should check out this site. One more thing, I think the guy is unemployed (man, RL is no fun T_T)

Closure, closure, closure

Just feel like making something with closure so I created this. Well, not the best I can do. I think I'll some more times working on a better version of this. Uh... Not much to talk about it actually. Oh, the font is quite nice, the name is "creaminal".

A web layout

Anyone wonder why so many people posting web layouts this week (^^)? Anyway, this is mine. The colors is not very suitable for a jobsearch website, I admit but I think it's still good because it's still seem to be quite bright (thanks to the gradient wallpaper, I guess). Besides, the photo is definitely appropriate for the site's purpose(a keychain and a compass is a great idea)The slogan is nice(I guess?). Oh, and that's my photo, too (yay me ^^!!!).

帰り道

What I like about this photograph is the lines that separates the road's blocks. The road itself is also a line that balance out the the two part of the picture. I find it to be very interesting. The colors here is mainly green, a little pink and yellow, too it help to enhance the photo because without it, all we have left is a gray road which is quite boring. As you can see, in the picture, the road is still the main focus here. At the far end, we can see the sunlight which help to create a warm and familiar feeling. The small bush of follower to the right also add to this feeling, too. Without it, the picture will be so empty. It also create a balance between the left part and the right part. Well, that's it. Oh, forgot to cite, uh..., wait..., oh, yeah, I took it, it's mine. It's not that it is that much of a great picture, but you know, I rarely take any so each time I find some pictures that is interesting enough, I think it's great to share it out. It's really rare though )I'm so poor I don't even have a camera ^^). Oh well, daddy said that if I keep complaining about my financial condition like this, he'll buy me a Canon EOS, soon. Wait, when did he said that again? Oh, last night, in my dream T_T.

The secret sex life of plants (plants? *yawn*)

This is the layout I made. The image create a continuance for the eyes to follow the article while it also help to somehow help people to feel a little more comfortable since they will get the feeling that it have less text. The title with the word "secret" and "the" blend to each other trigger the curiosity from the readers.

Yes, I drawed it, but I just don't know what it is

Yup, no idea what it is. The idea I begin with is a dragon (Asian style). Then, I add a fish tail because I think it's kind of strange and therefore, it's great (don't you think?). The black part (on the body) is the part I like most. It's looks like tatoo (some dragon, eh?). I also added some thorns along the body so that the viewer don't lose track of the body (can I say that I used closure on this one?). The last thing is the wing. Well, I don't think much dragon have wings on its head, right? and it looks real cool, too but somehow it make the head looks like a horse head. Well, one conclusion, I don't know what it is but I'm sure proud of it. It's a very simple work that took less than 3 hours to make (mostly because of the trouble I got from using pen tool to draw the body).

Gabriel Rocha - a motion designer

Gabriel Rocha

During the beginning of this semester, I found a book on motions and title sequences at the library. I decided to do some more research on this. Upon many sites that I stumbled on, Gabriel Rocha's site is one that is, to me, seems to be very interesting. From his site, you can tell that the guy must be quite a famous motion designer. His works include some for famous brands like Nokia, Malboro, The Weather channel (do they love to talk about weather that much?) and ESPN. These motion look pretty cool, you can tell. Not only they look good they but also successfully deliver the impression of what the whole show is about ( the mood, the theme, the content...). That's really great.

Creativebits

Creativebits

Creativebits is not only a blog but also a great website. As stated in the title, it is a website dedicated to MAC users. Therefore, the website also has a collections of many nice tips, news as well as free programs for MAC OS. Don't worry, they won't bite you if you are using windows. What's more, the site is also a source for people to seek advices and critiques as the site has a nice community of amateur and professional designers. This is my favourite part since I feel that these comments are actually helpful compared to the other websites. There's a joblisting page, too. Pretty much useless for people in Vietnam, actually but it's a nice feature to add up to this great website.

One of my works

It's a small present for one of my friend who had gone... to America (did I got you there?). I made it for DIM2's Final Flash project (well actually it turns out to be useless, since our project was a video/flash project). You might find this style is quite identical to Sadako (that's Samara in the American version. "Of what?" you might ask, "of the super hit movie/novel "the ring"" I will answer, "where did you've been all these time?", I might continue). Actually, it's quite easy to make a ghost image. All I did was quite simple and doesn't require much Photoshop skill. Well, might as well telling you the steps that I took. First, change the color, if the picture not dark enough adjust it to make it darker depend on how your eye see it you might adjust. Then, do a little modification to the model. What I did was adjusting the color of the skin to make it brighter until I receive a white-ish skin like what you see, for the othe part especially the hair, will be made to be darker (even darker than the environment, the main purpose for me in doing this is to hide away parts of her face that haven't been covered by the hair). I also use glow but with black instead of bright yellow to create an evil aura around her. Next, I use one of my favourite affect to create the dirt on her shirt ( quite easy, new layer> gradient> cloud filter> overlay> done). Last thing I did was to use burn tool to make the photo a little more scarier (I don't think it's a wise move since the picture doesn't look any better, but then, I'm too lazy to fix it, sorry). Oh, one thing I haven't said, the "ghost" should be created in a different layer from the background, it's much easier that way. Last thing, the original image:

Should you find this post confusing and quite annoying to read, that's because I made it so (just kidding, this is the first time I try to do something like this so...). If I receive any request for a clearer version, I will gladly re-edit it (so please, please don't request it, I'm a very lazy guy, again, just kidding). One last thing, I want to express my thanks to Giang who is the model of this photo. Every best wishes to you.

Ghost city

www.ghostcity.com

During the preparation for my DIM2 presentation on "virtual urban", I stumbled on this site. There isn't any detail about it nor the artist that created it. Still, to me, the site is very interesting. It's a bit weird. The artist sure used a lot of text, pictures and many kinds of effects. It don't have that kind of sleek presentation but it create a very distinctive looks for itself. The first time visiting the site, you might feel a little confusing browsing around or you will even think that the pages was arranged randomly. Well, in fact, it's not. Each of the squares in the frontpage will lead you to a sets of pages related to a subject (you can tell by looking at the link). But well, at least that's what I think because, until now, I still don't have a clue about that site. But hey, that's the reason the site is great. The feeling of lostness when you are in this site is just the same as the feeling you have when travel into a city that's you completely unfamiliar with (it's just one of many objectives that the virtual urban project try to accomplish, the other objectives does not appear as clear as this one. May be that is the reason it was not as popular as that project). It triggered the curiosity of the visiters. In short, this isite is very interesting and you should pay a visit to it. Curiosity never kill a cat, you know (well sometime it does, for the other times, it's the the mouses that'd been killed but that's another story).