The Creative Process

The Contest

The Original Sketch

It's done! I'm finished with my entry in the calendar contest. It's been submitted and everything! And as promised, I'm going to walk you through my personal design process. Let's get started!

Step One



We start with the basic shape of our subjects. The enderman is a tall, slender fellow, while the snow golem is short and bulky. For our purposes, a triangle will be the best shape for the job.

Step Two

Double-click the shape to correct the angles. We now have an outline that'll serve as the basis of our foreground.

Step Three

You know, snowfellow looks a little too nervous. Select and triple click the eyes and pull the anger gradient all the way up. Press the select key to apply the changes.

Step Four

Much better! 

Step Five

Now it's time to add the color. Right click, select "add color," and pick "fancy" from the drop-down menu.

Step Six

Make sure your content awareness fill is turned to "Medium Well" in the settings, otherwise it loses that cartoony look. Now it's time to work on the background.

Step Seven

We'll be doing the background much like the foreground. Once again, draw out the basic shape...

Step Eight

...and double-click to correct angles.

Step Nine

Right click the background and color fancy again. As you can see, this is an integral part of the design process.

Step Ten

Since there are a lot of shapes to fill with a large pallet of color, this process will take a little longer to render than the first time. Be patient, the end result is worth it.

Step Eleven

So we've got a snow golem trying to hit a wily enderman. We need to show that he's been trying and failing for a while. Bring down the top bar, select "effects," and highlight the "snow filter" option. Strike the select key three times to begin the "Lots of Snowballs that Missed their Target" filter.

Step Twelve

 And here's the finished product! Ctrl+S to save, ⌘+P to print, and Ѫ+4 to frame.

So now we just wait until February 8th to see if this gets selected for the finals. If it does, it'll go to public voting. I'll be sure to post the links to all that when they become available.

The deadline's still a while off and multiple entries are permitted, so I might do another one if I get any new ideas. This one came together really well, and with any luck, it'll go far.

I've got a really good feeling about this.