Final Exam

The very first, preliminary part of the pattern before being messed with to become a scatter pattern. The background is black to see the pattern, otherwise you wouldn't be able to because it is white. 

The background pattern, which I made snow. This was made by using the one small circle and turning it into a scatter brush, randomizing everything. After that I randomly changed the circles to have different opacity, and blurs.

This is my final product of my Christmas Card for the Final Exam. The live trace for the wreath was a little time consuming, to remove the background but it turned out well. I like the snowy theme I went with, making most things shades of blue as the ideal Christmas scenery is. The tree took a large amount of time as well, and became frustrating with how jagged and awkward it looked sometimes, but I fixed it as best I could. In this project I used scatter brushes a lot, art brushes, gradients, effects such as roughen and Gaussian blur, Extrude and Bevel for 3D, live trace, type on a path, and typography. I made the holly berries and small bulbs by hand. The presents and larger ornaments were things I made in earlier tutorials. I used this tutorial for the Christmas tree shape:
http://ndesign-studio.com/tutorials/christmas-tree
This final was a little stressful with the time restriction because I usually spend large amounts of time making sure it looks just right, but I feel I did exceptionally well under the time given.

Presents

This was probably the hardest and most time-consuming tutorial I've ever had to follow in this class. Many times certain things were left out in the tutorial so I would have to fill in the holes with what I thought would work best. It also took many times to get the boxes themselves right because one wrong move when making it 3D, including putting wrapping paper on wrong, and I would have to start over. I ended up starting completely over about 4 times. Also, some things in the tutorial were a little sloppy in which I decided to not follow exactly and embezzle my own touch on these holiday presents. Even though it was a rush to finish on the last day, I am proud of how it turned out with all the extra time I spent working on it. I even brought it to my house a few days to work on. Regardless of the difficulty, I liked to make it because of the fact that I had to do most of it on my own.

Yummy Strawberry

A strawberry created by following a tutorial. The hardest part would have to be the chocolate and shading, which all had to be drawn with the pencil tool. Not having a steady, or artistic, hand to create the shapes was a hindrance to making this strawberry. I had to make many sketches and outlines before having one that would work well enough. I do like how the light reflections were used to give it more of a 3D look to it. The leaves were also something new, using a leaf brush I made was fun and required a few tries as well.

Holiday Bulb

The holiday bulb as followed by the tutorial. The hardest part was getting the 3D bulb to look right, and the background pattern with gradient. Other than that it was fairly straight-forward and fun to make.

This is the same thing with my own text added at the bottom because I thought it would fit well.

Dirty Water

Dirty water made from a tutorial. This was a lot of fun to make, especially with how glossy and "clean" it turned out! The hardest part was all the intersecting and pathfinder tools to create the shadow and lighting effects, but they were easier once I got the hang of it. I liked using all the gradients in this tutorial because it made the drop look like it was collecting and refracting light, and I'm really happy with how it looks! Hoping for more fun tutorials like this!

This is the close up of the face as asked for by Mrs. Klein. This is to show the detail around the eyes and mouth.