Rss Bot

User experience is not magic. You don’t run a simple test that Becky the marketing intern read a blog about once and uncover quick-fix solutions to generate huge growth. UX strategy is a science: a science that has been around since long before the first computer blipped into existence and long before UX became a buzzword. All scientific theories begin as a hypothesis. The assumption of purpose. Why are these events happening? Then you test the hypothesis by collecting data to validate or invalidate the hypothesis. It then becomes a theory. 10 essential tools for freelance UX designersA theory is a validated explanation of why something is happening. A theory is not based on bias, nor is it based on what 
the loudest person in the room is saying. It’s based on factual data collected through a replicable method. Without that structure, it’s easy to run a test and fallback on confirmation bias, or data manipulation, to get the feedback you want. That’s not how this works. We don’t control the outcome. We find a means to communicate the complex nuance of user behaviour in a simple way. Sometimes the data proves us wrong and that’s OK. The goal isn’t to always be right; it’s to uncover the facts. Google User Explorer is a great first step in formulating ideas on what users want and how they expect to find it User data solutions like Google Analytics rely heavily on assumption. You can export records and use a service like IBM Watson to find correlating trends. However, don’t confuse data with fact. Predictive modelling or assumptions are the first step, but they don’t answer the golden question of why. Why a user is motivated to take an action is the central focus of UX. This is the inherent problem with user experience. Everyone thinks they have all the answers. UX then becomes guided by perception bias. Think of it this way. The sales team thinks they know what customers want to buy and the marketing team thinks they know how to convince customers they want it. Management has an approved budget based on what 
they assumed the teams would need a year ago and it likely didn’t include budget for UX research. Sound familiar? Each organisation, department or employee has their own perspective on what should be done based on their own experience with customers. The problem is they’re all right. The bigger problem is that they’re all wrong too. Organisations that fall into this perception trap often find themselves avoiding the conflict of a heated debate and try to serve everyone. The problem with trying to serve everyone is that you’re not serving anyone. The job of user experience is to remove that bias and help the group to understand a bigger picture: the needs and expectations of the customer. So how can we reframe the conversation and make it less about opinion? Let data do the talking. Collecting data The process of collecting data is misunderstood by the vast majority of people. It does not need to be devoid of emotion, nor does it need to focus strictly on usability. What it needs to have is a purpose. What kinds of data are you collecting and why? There are two core types of data to collect: Qualitative: Non-numerical, emotional feedback from participants – think first reactions or personal opinion-based feedback. What you liked and why, and descriptions instead of numbers. Qualitative = quality. Quantitative: This is numerical, scientific feedback – 'Perform this action and rate the ease of completing the action on a scale of one to 10'. This is the basis for systems like Net Promotor Score (NPS). Quantitative = quantity. Quantitative data If you’re tasked with creating a baseline for customer satisfaction on member sign-up or checkout in a shopping cart you’re going to need quantitative data. This lets you collect unbiased numbers that show a clear progression from where you began to where you ended months or years later. This is crucial in showing the importance of investing in UX within an organisation. Many organisations will see the initial improvement and not understand the value in retesting. Seeing an increase in signups, revenue or drop in support requests is fantastic but there are many variables that could influence results. Attribution is your friend. It’s also the friend of the departments that you will be working with to showcase explicitly that the testing performed and subsequent changes were validated. This goes back to the scientific validation we discussed earlier. Collect the data, make the change and validate that the change was accurate. If it wasn’t, create a hypothesis as to why it wasn’t and begin again. The trick is to always try to prove something wrong. Qualitative data If you’re redesigning a consumer facing website without a long-term UX plan it may be okay to focus on qualitative feedback: descriptions and emotions. This works well for design-centric UX like landing pages for marketing or blogs. This does not work well for long-term strategy as trends are fluid. What works today for a tested demographic may not work well next year, so be careful. Set up targeted questions to get feedback on crucial pages in your UX flow Qualitative feedback is harder to distil into strategy because what users say they want and what they actually want are two completely different things in most cases. It requires a lot of foresight into when to peel back the layers of feedback and dig deeper with follow-up questions or facilitation. Without the context of motivation, you become trapped in a feedback loop. This tends to lead down the perception trap again. If you’re stuck without direction you will try to find meaning in the data by applying bias. Once that happens, you focus on the wrong meaning and the data becomes useless. Finding the right meaning Let’s take a look at another example: Tenants in a New York office building would complain because, in their opinion, there was too much time in-between pressing the button and when the elevator would arrive, ding and open. Several tenants threatened to move out. They wanted a faster elevator to solve the problem. This is qualitative feedback and emotional responses. Management requested a feasibility study to determine cost and effectiveness, which means hard numbers and quantitative data. A different perspective from someone in the psychology field focused on the tenants’ core needs by digging deeper than their initial feedback. They 
ignored the numeric feedback of the financial study because it was not cost-effective to replace the elevator and rebuild the structure to accommodate the tenant’s suggestions. Once you understand the needs of your customers you can quickly map out the most intuitive path to their solution The psychologist determined that finding a way to occupy the tenants’ time would offset this frustration. They suggested installing mirrors in the landing area. The manager agreed due to the low cost and quick fix to see what would happen. Miraculously, the complaints stopped. Now you see mirrors installed in hotels and office lobbies throughout the world as a cost-effective way to appease the frustration of elevator users. Your data is only as valuable as the questions you ask and to whom you ask them. Asking the right questions Let’s assume you are in the process of redesigning a website for a client. You’ve been asked to perform a user test to help define the direction the design needs to take. Think broad stroke details: colours, fonts, layout, sizing and so on. You propose a qualitative test. Don’t compose a questionnaire for the survey without thinking about how a user may first respond. This is why you need to formulate your hypothesis first. It provides important direction. If you want to collect feedback on three website homepages you could run a set of questions and repeat them for each. The repetition is important for collecting similar feedback on each website. But what would those questions be exactly? If you test 10 participants and eight of them come back with completely different feedback it makes your job harder than it needs to be and falls back on bias to prioritise the data. Ask questions that are very pointed to get actionable feedback. Instead of asking 'What do you like about the homepage?' ask 'Without scrolling, do you know what this website is marketing?' Instead of asking 'What do you like about the menu navigation?' ask 'Looking at the menu, is it clear this website has information on careers?' You also have to factor in how you propose the questions. Is the question that you’ve asked leading them toward the goal itself? For example: Leading: 'Find the careers link in on the top of the page. Click on it to view information about the available careers.' Less leading: 'What link at the top of the page would you click on to view information about the available careers?' Ideal: 'How would you expect to locate information about the available careers on this website?' Instead of guiding the user towards a goal, you are moving the decision-making back onto the user themselves. From this, you will get a better understanding of how that user, and their specific demographic segment, will expect to navigate the website. If you asked one of the first two questions you lose out on all of that data. It’s not always about the question you ask, but how you ask it that defines the result. If you are unable to compose such defined questions, you are moving too quickly through the process. Take a step back and think about the pain points of the users in which you’re trying to communicate. Each decision you make should be working toward providing an effective solution for not only the business but their customers as well. Organisational UX maturity At Candorem we have a straightforward system for understanding the UX maturity of our clients. This enables us to quickly define the need for additional data collection, what type of data to collect and how quickly we can begin providing guidance. It’s also a great way of understanding the existing perception of the value of investing in UX. This can also break down into four core levels of data that they will have available for us to start assessments. Level 1 data: Google Analytics 
and heatmaps Level 2 data: Curated customer data (email, gender, location and purchase history by customer segment) Level 3 data: Customer survey data (likes, dislikes, ratings and interest levels), anonymous website recordings Level 4 data: User testing sessions, customer persona profiles and quantitative data Businesses will have some variation of what we’ve outlined above. If they don’t, get them set up with Level 1 and allow adequate time for collection of some low-level data. Mining this data is crucial in creating your own hypothesis. When an organisation unfamiliar with the nuance of UX defines the goals for a project without supporting data to guide them, it limits the potential outcome. Setting a goal is easy, but defining the right path takes time and experience. Increasing revenue is not a goal, it’s an idea. Set specific goals like increasing revenue ten per cent for a segment of customers aged 24-35 that are shopping for a specific category of product. This consists of specific requirements that can be tested to generate a hypothesis, validated to create a theory and initial baseline, and then retested to validate the plan for growth over time. User experience is about understanding the needs and expectations of your customer and collecting the necessary data to tell the story in an unbiased way. This article originally appeared in net issue 298; subscribe here. Related articles: 11 huge web design trends for 2018 Quiz: What CSS framework should you use? The 14 most exciting open source projects on the web View the full article

On 23 June 2016, the UK voted in favour of leaving the European Union and putting restrictions on the free movement of EU citizens into the country. While Parliament is currently collating its report from an inquiry on ‘The impact of Brexit on the creative industries, tourism and the digital single market inquiry’, some are already considering the effects that Brexit will have on the VFX and CG industries. The creative industries According to the Creative Industries Federation (CIF), the creative sector makes £87bn a year that would be at risk if we were to restrict immigration and movement, due to the industry’s heavy reliance on freelance staff, many of whom are from the EU. A survey of 250 firms conducted by the CIF found that three quarters of companies employed EU workers and two-thirds said they could not fill those jobs with British recruits. With the potential restriction of talent from EU countries, the visual effects and animation industry in the UK will undoubtedly be heavily affected. In 2014, the then-business secretary Vince Cable said: “The UK’s creative industries are amongst the strongest in the world, worth £71.4 billion per year to the UK economy and supporting more than 1.7m jobs. Visual effects and games in particular are a great British success story.” UK & Ireland is also currently the largest market for animation in the EU with average 30.5 million admissions between 2010 and 2014. Impact on employment In a recent interview with 3D Artist, Blue Zoo cofounder Tom Box said: “We noticed that out of everyone that applied for animation roles in our studio, less than 10 per cent were of a standard we’d consider ready for employment.” “I heard same from other studios too. This is tens of thousands of people which is crazy when there’s a skills shortage and studios are struggling to recruit. This will be amplified with Brexit closing off freedom of movement because an average 35% of studios’ staff are non-UK.” According to Creative Skillset, employment in the VFX industry is expected to reach 7,600 in 2022 with the gross value of production in the UK expected to rise from to £323m by 2022. Some of the shots in Star Wars: The Last Jedi were completed by UK studio Jellyfish Pictures The level of EU talent Phil Dobree, head of Jellyfish Pictures, said in an interview with The Guardian: “If the industry is among the world’s very best it is because it has easy access to the very best. More than 30% of people working in the UK sector, including at Jellyfish, are EU nationals. Brexit could wreck that.” Jellyfish Pictures recently completed work on Star Wars: The Last Jedi, as well as having previously worked on Black Mirror and Rogue One. “We have EU animators, modellers, riggers, lighters, compositors, CG supervisors,” Dobree said to The Guardian. “All the key skill areas. From Spain, Italy, France; from junior to very senior. These people are difficult to train and extremely sought after.” “Often, when you’re doing a short-term job – a commercial, a TV series – you need people for a month or two.” “Right now, we can fly them in pretty much the next day. So what happens after 2019?” Opportunities abroad On Sky News, Manuel Reyes Halaby, a computer graphics supervisor, said that the uncertainty over his immigration status has made him consider other options. “It makes me feel uncertain about what is going to happen, so you start checking out other possibilities.” “There are all the other places in the world you can work, and there’s a lot of work going on, so you always tend to have more cards up your sleeve.” While the UK is currently a global powerhouse for visual effects, if the talent from the rest of the continent cannot live and work in the country, then they will simply look for opportunities elsewhere and take the quality of work with them. As Dobree concludes in The Guardian, “Britain’s CG and VFX industry will simply move on.” Scott Ross will be speaking at Vertex about VFX after Brexit Hope for the future But at a select committee culture secretary Karen Bradley says, it’s not all doom and gloom: “I have met a number of people in the creative industries – I’m not going to say who they are as it wouldn’t be appropriate for me to say – who have told me that they’re not worried about the loss of freedom of movement because they believe the sector will thrive.” At Vertex 2018, Digital Domain cofounder and industry veteran Scott Ross will discuss British VFX after Brexit with 3D World Editor Rob Redman. Ross will offer up his insights into the way studios are managed, people/talent are recruited, trained, cared for, as well as the logistics of modern VFX houses. He will look at what is considered to be a threat: the workforce, which is historically a migratory one and how non-UK nationals might find that they are just as able to work for the big studios as they do now but also how a non-EU based trade deal could open up opportunities for other partnerships. Listen to his expert views at the Olympia, London on 13 March. Book your ticket now at vertexconf.com, where you can find out more about the other amazing speakers, workshops, recruitment fair, networking event, expo and more. Read more: 30 free 3D models Network with industry experts at Vertex The ethics of digital humans View the full article

From pencil drawings to bold photography, this year's best album covers showcased a huge range of styles. It was a year where album covers sparked debate (three releases in the first half of the year prompted us to ask whether we had entered the era of bad graphic design), and it seems the way in which music artists package and present their work is more important than ever. Take a look at our pick of the best album cover designs from the past 12 months. 01. Björk – Utopia Utopia is a strange and inspiring work of art Björk returned with her ninth studio album this year, and as one of the most visually compelling artists around, her album cover artwork was of course breathtaking. The Icelandic songwriter teamed up with self-taught artist and musician Jesse Kanda, who has previously worked with the likes of FKA Twigs and Arca. 02. Girlpool – Powerplant Jaxon Damme produces another illustrative wonder for Girlpool Jaxon Damme has worked with LA duo Girlpool for the past few years, producing hand-drawn, interesting designs that depict different characters in a childlike, inquisitive manner. This latest design – for their second album Powerplant – saw the band steer away from bright and bold colours in favour of a more subdued, doodle-like illustration that reveals more depth the more you look at it. 03. Thundercat – Drunk The shot for the cover was taken in Flying Lotus' pool This 70s-style album cover for Thundercat's 'Drunk' certainly catches the eye. The vinyl edition also features individually designed sleeves for each side with artwork created by the musician's friend, Atlanta illustrator and comedian Zack Fox. The photograph for the main cover was taken in Flying Lotus' pool, with Thundercat telling the Independent that the shoot "felt totally natural". 04. Gingerlys – Gingerlys Notice the band name and title written in graffiti font Comic book artist and illustrator Eliza Walton created this brilliant album cover art for Brooklyn-based five-piece band Gingerlys. Depicting a city scene with bold shapes and striking characters, Walton's choice and use of colour is perhaps the biggest thing to take away from this work. The graffiti font used for the band name and album name is also a particularly nice touch. 05. Beck – Colors The Deluxe Vinyl edition cover features a central hexagon die cut with varied coloured shapes Speaking of his creation, album cover artist Jimmy Turrell said that Beck commissioned both him and Steve Stacey to create the entire visual representation of his latest album. Packed full of bold colour, Turrell says he and Stacey looked back to their youth for inspiration, considering what stimulated them visually as kids. The Deluxe Vinyl edition allows fans to remove and change pieces to create their own bespoke cover. 06. Julien Baker – Turn Out The Lights The freehand font style complements the painting style of this sleeve This painted cover for Julien Baker's second album is as beautiful as they come. Using a colour palette that's perfect for the emotional vulnerability present in Baker's songs, it's a design that seamlessly flows through to the vinyl sleeve design, with illustrative flowers delicately placed throughout. 07. Wolf Parade – Cry Cry Cry A simple but extremely successful design for Wolf Parade Marking the Canadian's band first album in seven years, Wolf Parade's Cry Cry Cry is a great example of how simple linework and straightforward graphic design can produce an album cover that is not only successful but striking. The grid-based layout is a classic style but one that works especially well here – particularly when it comes to the bold colour choice. 08. Half Waif – form/a Half Waif also featured in our 2016 best album cover round-up We featured Half Waif's 2016 release in our roundup of the best album covers 2016 and songwriter Nandi Rose Plunkett has once again produced a beautiful album cover for her 2017 EP form/a. The cover photograph was taken by band member Adan Carlo and hand-stitched by Chilean artist María Aparicio Puente, who is known for her avant-garde embroidery. 09. Little Simz – Stillness in Wonderland McKay Felt created this immersive illustration for Little Simz This in-depth album cover illustration for UK artist Little Simz is strikingly detailed, offering an emotive look into the inspirations of the album. The design shows Little Simz's head split open, revealing trees from the roots below her chin, and surrounded by a cityscape of her hometown of London. It was created by McKay Felt, who has previously worked with Thundercat and Flying Lotus. 10. Moses Sumney – Aromanticism A simple photograph speaks a thousand words in this album design Not featuring the name of the artist or album on the cover art is always a risky move but sometimes, the image speaks for itself. This statuesque, beautiful photograph of Sumney in a blank and bare room is perhaps a metaphor for the album's deeply moving content. The fact we are unable to see Sumney's head in the piece also makes it much more stimulating and intriguing. 11. Brother Ali – All The Beauty In This Whole Life This album cover art was a created by hip-hop head Daud Sutton Classical Islamic geometry was used throughout the packaging for rapper Brother Ali's latest release. Adorned with arabesque ornamentation it was created by Daud Sutton.The english lettering was done by Qasim Arif, and Rhymesayers – Ali's record label – in-house designer Alex Everson. 12. St. Vincent – Masseduction St. Vincent chose model Carlotta Kohl to feature on her album cover This bold album cover art set off the beginning of St Vincent's – aka Annie Clark's – visual representation for the whole Masseduction campaign. The model used in the photograph was Carlotta Kohl, who also features in another campaign photo with Clark. Placing Kohl off-centre, to the right-hand side of the cover is a brilliant choice. 13. Caddywhompus – Odd Hours Illustrator Max Seckel creates beauty in rare places Acrylic artist Max Seckel works primarily with subdued, pastel tones, and he uses his work to explore the beauty of the everyday. Weaving the outdoors with the indoors, his work juxtaposes material items against lush, natural settings. This piece for Caddywhompus is particularly striking. Placing the band name and album title in the sign is a great touch. 14. Lorde – Melodrama Artist Sam McKinniss and Lorde reportedly bonded over their love of Prince Brooklyn-based artist Sam McKinniss painted this intimate, blue-lit portrait of Lorde for her second album cover. Inspiration for the piece came from the album itself, which is all about 'nighttime attitudes' and the before-and-after of city parties. McKinniss worked from a photograph taken of Lorde in a friend's apartment in Brooklyn. 15. Jay Som – Everybody Works A mismatch of images makes this Jay Som cover stand out This screenprinted, primary coloured album cover art was used for Jay Som's debut album Everybody Works. Featuring layered imagery that combines an owl's face and soccer balls, the fresh, unique approach is what makes this design stand out. The overlapping imagery on top of an otherwise classic layout makes for a modern approach. 16. Feist – Pleasure Feist runs towards colour in this album cover art The front cover of Pleasure is adorned with bougainvillea, its vibrant colours contrasting against a darkened sky that pretty much perfectly sums up the album's shifting tone – of seeing the light despite the darkness shrouding your mind. Feist was living in Los Angeles last winter and drove past the bougainvillea building almost every night; it was two weeks before her eureka moment. 17. Alvvays – Antisocialites A National Geographic photo was used for this cover art Canadian band Alvvays used a National Geographic photo for the cover of its second album. The original photo was taken by B. Anthony Stewart, and enitled 'Campers await breeze to sail fiberglass dinghies, Camp Sebago Wohelo, Sebago Lake, Maine'. The updated version features bright colours and a high contrast. 18. Jane Weaver – Modern Kosmology The font used on Modern Kosmology is as inspiring as they come It's this album cover's use of typography that really makes it stand out. The mirrored writing and complimentary colours mean it maintains its impact no matter which angle you view it from, while the soft font chosen for the album's title at the bottom contrasts nicely with the rest of the design choices. It's a brave and bold design. 19. Hand Habits – Wildly Idle (Humble Before The Void) An album cover design that's both flat and deep Featuring Hand Habits – AKA Meg Duffy – sitting strong and nonchalant, in an abstracted room, this is an album cover design that's both flat and deep. Using bright colours for the walls of the room and then black and white, blurry imagery for Duffy and her belongings makes for an emotive reckoning and a design that stays with you long after you've looked at it. 20. Kendrick Lamar – DAMN Lamar's cover art was one of the most controversial designs of 2017 Love it or hate it, the release of Kendrick Lamar's album DAMN. was an album cover design that made waves in both the design and music communities. It sparked a huge range of 'DAMN.' memes that spread across Twitter and saw Lamar's design beginning to break down the wall between himself and the audience. Read more: Selena Gomez releases worst single cover ever The 20 best album covers from the 70s Artists redesign their top 10 albums of 2016 View the full article

Giving your portfolio a quick once-over to freshen it up is always a great idea, and as we start a new year, what better time is there to get on with it? We've made it dead easy for you, by having a look at the portfolios of some heavyweight designers to see what they do particularly well. So here are five quick – genuinely quick – tips to smarten up the way you present your work to the world. 01. Cut, kill, destroy Shelby Hipol's portfolio site only features his best work This is one of the tougher tips to follow, but it's possibly the most rewarding. If you've got your portfolio looking pretty lean as it is, further cutting is going to be hard, hard graft. Do it anyway. Cut, kill and destroy 10 per cent of whatever you think of as being finished. Portfolio 20 pages long? Get it down to 18. Got 40 projects on your website? Make it 36. You have to exercise caution here, as you don't want your body of work to appear too light. But, generally speaking, give your portfolio one last brutal edit and it'll really sing. Check out the portfolio site of Shelby Hipol, the NYC designer currently at McCann NY: there's no wasted word or image here. We're guessing Hipol could easily triple the content on his portfolio. But he mirrors its minimal design by only including his very best projects. 02. Tell a new story Herbert Matter's portfolio site opens with a bold intro image The simplest way to refresh your portfolio without adding any new work to it is this: rearrange what you've already got. Think of it like a film. Screenwriters talk about 'plot points' – the tent poles upon which they hang their story. You can tell a new story by simply moving around your plot points, which are your projects. This method works particularly well with physical portfolios, but the principles work just as well online. Should your career-defining work go first or last? Do you really want your favourite project lost in the middle? What's the very last thing you want the reader to see? Check out the portfolio site for the late Herbert Matter. It starts with a big, bold intro page. You enter and then land on a video about his visual language. It's the story of his life and his work. 03. Be an agent provocateur George Lois' website features a prominent carousel of quotes endorsing him It doesn't get much quicker than this: make a list of your most satisfied clients, your favourite commissions, the design teacher who gave you the best grades. Email them and ask for a recommendation, a quick quote explaining how creative you are, or how you brought the project in under budget, or how you never missed a lecture and smashed all of your exams. Go steady with it. You definitely don't want to overdo this. But the odd recommendation can make a big difference to a potential client or possible employer. Check out the portfolio site of the legendary designer George Lois: "the agent provocateur who triggered advertising's Creative Revolution," goes one quote on his front page. How could you resist looking through his stuff after reading that? 04. Make it easy to use Ryan Booth's site gives a concise rundown about him, key clients and awards on one page, with clear links to his key projects and contact details You could have a lean, well-organised portfolio, complete with plenty of great recommendations from clients. But one really obvious thing could be letting you down: is you portfolio easy to navigate? If your portfolio is online, don't sacrifice usability for overly convoluted or gimmicky design. If you have a print portfolio, think about page numbers, chapter headings, colour co-ordination, maybe even a ribbon bookmark, anything that helps the reader out. Hopefully, whoever's reading it will be looking at your work more than once, flicking from this project to that one and back again. Do them a favour. Make it easy to read, chronologically or otherwise. Have a look how Ryan Booth does it: about, clients, recognition – all on the homepage. Done. Simple. Really easy. You know who he is and what he's done and you don't need to click into loads of different pages. 05. Don't look like your dog just died Ed Fella's handwritten-style portfolio site puts his photo centre stage This one's open to debate. But, at time when more people are familiar with our Twitter name than they are with our face, a photo could make all the difference. A proper photo, that is. Not an illustration. Not a multilayered photo-manipulation thing. And definitely not some arty, clipped, black and white shot in which you look like your dog's just died. A portrait – head and shoulders. A photo can stop your portfolio looking cold and clinical, and help the reader get a feel for who you are. Sometimes it's nice to see the whites of a person's eyes. Look at the veteran designer Ed Fella. Click on his site and you get a real feeling for who he is and what he does. And his photo helps with that. Liked this? Then read these: 32 brilliant design portfolios to inspire you 8 great graphic design portfolio sites for 2018 20 tools to make you more creative in 2018 View the full article

Industry experts reveal what it takes to succeed in the games industry in ImagineFX 157 – on sale now! Computer games graphics and art styles have come a long way since Pong and Pac Man, and there are plenty of opportunities for artists to get involved and shape how digital worlds look. Take Raphael Lacoste for example, the art director behind the huge Assassin's Creed series. We talk to him to discover how he tweaks the world around him into an immersive space that players can spend hours exploring. Buy issue 157 of ImagineFX here Elsewhere in issue 157 we look inside Giorgio Baroni's sketchbook and discover why he likes to mix concepts from the past and the future, plus in his workshop, Elijah McNeal shows you how to create a futuristic weapon. On top of that there's reader's art in our FXPose, and reviews of all the latest tools and books. Bursting at the spine with creative inspiration, you won't want to miss ImagineFX issue 157! Check out what's in store with a look at the lead features, below. Never miss an issue: Subscribe to ImagineFX here Christmas offer: Save up to 47% on a subscription to ImagineFX Small is beautiful Discover what life is like in a small studio Small studios have got their work cut out for them. Not only do they have to compete with triple-A studios, but they also have to achieve amazing results with fewer people. It's not all hard work though, as we find out when we chat to artists from small games studios and discover their unique benefits. The Art of Assassin's Creed Origins Art director Raphael Lacoste reveals what it takes to make a virtual world Reality is all around us, so why try and recreate it? That's the thought process of Raphael Lacoste, the art director behind the phenomenally successful Assassin's Creed franchise. Discover how he uses reality to create new environments with our in-depth interview. Artist portfolio: Jesse van Dijk Explore the world of Destiny 2's art director With his work as a video game art director, Jesse van Dijk wants his work to be three things: relatable, memorable, and surprising. While it's rare for one image to nail all three, a voyage through his portfolio reveals how he successfully created a "mythic science-fiction world" for Destiny 2. Create your own character IP Create a playable avatar with this workshop Ever thought about creating your very own video game character? With this workshop from concept artist and illustrator Devon Candy-Lee you'll learn how she creates an avatar with a character and an identity all of its own. ImagineFX is the world's best-selling magazine for digital artists – packed with workshops and interviews with fantasy and sci-fi artists, plus must-have kit reviews. Special Christmas offer: Save up to 47% on a subscription to ImagineFX for you or a friend for Christmas. It's a limited offer, so move quickly... Related articles: How to press start on your game art career 6 great concept game art tips How neuroscience and UX impacts video game design View the full article

As with any component-based library, managing state in Vue can be tricky. While the application is small, it’s possible to keep things in sync by emitting events when values change. However, this can get brittle and prone to errors as the application grows, so it may be better to get a more centralised solution in from the start. If you’re familiar with Flux and Redux, Vuex works much the same. State is held in one centralised location and is linked to the main Vue application. Everything that happens within the application is reflected somewhere within that state. Components can select what information is relevant to them and be notified if it changes, much like if it was part of its internal state. A Vuex store is made up of four things – the state, getters, mutations and actions. Changing state The state is a single object that holds all the necessary data for the entire application. The way this object gets structured depends on the project, but would typically hold at least one value for each view. Getters work like computed properties do inside components. Their value is derived from the state and any parameters passed into it. They can be used to filter lists without having to duplicate that logic inside every component that uses that list. The state cannot be edited directly. Any updates must be performed through mutation methods supplied inside the store. These are usually simple actions that perform one change at a time. Each mutation method receives the state as an argument, which is then updated with the values needed to change. Mutations need to be synchronous in order for Vuex to understand what has changed. For asynchronous logic — like a server call — actions can be used instead. Actions can return Promises, which lets Vuex know that the result will change in the future as well as enabling developers to chain actions together. Getters work like computed properties do inside components. Their value is derived from the state and any parameters passed into it Working with commits To perform a mutation, they have to be committed to the store by calling commit() and passing the name of the mutation method required. Actions need to be dispatched in a similar way with dispatch(). It’s good practice to have actions commit mutations rather than commit them manually. That way, all updating logic is held together in the same place. Components can then dispatch the actions directly, so long as they are mapped using the mapActions() method supplied by Vuex. To avoid overcomplicating things, the store can also be broken up into individual modules that look after their own slice of the state. Each module can register its own state, getters, mutations and actions. State is combined between each module and grouped by their module name, in much the same way as combineReducers() works within Redux.pport. Speed up the first load to improve performance By default, the entire contents of the application end up inside one JavaScript file, which can result in a slow page load. A lot of that content is never used on the first screen the user visits. Instead it can be split off from the main bundle and loaded in as and when needed.Vue makes this process incredibly simple to set up, as vue-router has built-in support for lazy loading. const AsyncAbout = () => import(‘./About.vue’); const router = new VueRouter({ routes: [ { path: ‘/about, component: AsyncAbout } ] }) Vue supports using dynamic imports to define components. These return Promises, which resolve to the component itself. The router can then use that component to render the page like normal. These work alongside code splitting built in to webpack, which makes it possible to use features like magic comments to define how components should be split. Want to make your website faster? Developer Jason Lengstorf offers a workshop on modern front-end performance strategies and techniques Jason Lengstorf is a developer who is all about improving performance in his code and his work life. To find out more why not attend his workshop at Generate New York from 25-27 April 2018. Here he will be teaching strategies and techniques for improving perceived load times, as well as actual load times, using only front-end techniques including: The skeleton loading pattern Better loading for static assets Lazy loading Service Workers Better build processes and more! Want to join Jason? Then get your ticket now Related articles: 7 expert tips for nailing web performance How to improve the performance of ecommerce sites 3 top tools for testing web performance View the full article

Researchers warn of copycat type attacks as exploit code used in Mirai variant goes public. View the full article

Sometimes getting back to the basics is vital to staying on top of your game, as renewing your skills can reinvigorate your passion and you never know, you may just find an option or method you hadn't noticed or tried before. In 3D World's Essentials column each month, Vertex speaker Mike Griggs delves into the fundamental elements of 3D, which cross the boundaries of application, to reinforce your knowledge and open you up to essential tools that are the bedrock of being a 3D artist. The Knife tool It may go by many names: knife, slice or cut to name but a few, but effectively the implementation is the same – it cuts through polygons and edges to either split objects up or to create new boundaries within a mesh from which to create new geometry. A good slicing tool should enable an artist to cut either in a way that is sympathetic to the existing geometry or has the ability to slice through everything due to a creative decision. Some cutting tools offer the ability to create gaps when slicing; this can be really useful for all kinds of modelling tasks, especially when the software can cap the open cuts. This is because in most 3D applications meshes are seen as shells rather than being solid; there are some applications that can see meshes as solid, but you’ll find that they are usually limited to CAD and sculpting applications. Some applications offer the ability to create curved slices, which is useful for creating organic shapes, and if the application has the ability to place images in the viewport as a guide, using a curved knife tool is a great way to match reference. The other area where a cutting tool can be useful is in defining polygon flow on meshes that are going to be animated, as well as for making sure that n-gons are divided into quads or triangles for model export. 01. A simple Cut While it may seem easy to just use a slice or knife to cut across a plain mesh, be wary of creating geometry that can cause issues later in the modelling process. The classic example would be creating an n-gon (a polygon with more than four sides) which when subdivided creates a different shape than the one that was expected. The cut tools can be used to divide any problem n-gons into quad or triangular polygons. 02. Split objects While a knife or slice tool simply cuts through an existing geometry, there may be options in the software to suit your desired workflow. Some applications allow the object to not be directly split, which is useful if the model is being retopologised. Other options enable the choice of removing one of the cut elements, which is handy when creating new meshes as quickly as possible, without the need to delete unwanted elements. 03. Create gaps Some pieces of software come with the ability to create gaps when cutting a line. This can be a huge time-saver, especially when ‘caps’ are added to fill the ends of the cut, creating new geometry. As ever, you need to be mindful with any technique for adding geometry – make sure it is creating polygons that are flowing correctly for the final use. The knife or slice tool can be used to ‘retopologise’ any potential problem areas back into the desired flow. 04. Curved slices While most knife or slice tools can offer cuts based on points across a surface, one of the most creative tools available in some applications is a curved slice tool. This function is especially useful in sculpting applications where it is analogous to using a real cutter when working with clay. Learning how to manipulate the curve is key as every application has a different way of adding intermediate points in the curve. More from Mike Griggs at Vertex Mike Griggs will be holding a workshop at Vertex on 3D fundamentals. But why do we need to learn the fundamentals for 3D when surely the software has become so good that the basics are irrelevant? The truth is that as the tools for CGI have become more powerful it enables one artist to now have the potential skill set of a studio from 10 years ago. The real world has a lot to teach CG artists; for example learning how a camera works is directly transferable to setting up a shot in 3D, while life drawing is key to sculpting and character animation. A good CG artist should see a computer and its software as just another tool amongst many, which will let their talent shine and enable them to create more and better work. To book a ticket to Mike Grigg's workshop at Vertex 2018 head over to the Vertex site, where you will find information on all the day's activities, from keynote talks to the panel discussion and recruitment fair. You may be interested: 1. The ethics of digital humans 2. Scott Ross at Vertex 3. Why Vertex is a must for 3D artists View the full article

It's important that designers have a solid understanding of the rules of typography, but that doesn't mean there isn't room for some creativity. Just as with any area of design, certain typographic approaches become fashionable or fall out of favour. These can be due to technological advances, or one piece of design proving to be so effective it spawns lots of imitators and a trend develops. To create this roundup, we spoke to some of the top names in the business, and asked them for their thoughts on the biggest typography trends of 2017, as well as their predictions for what would be hot in 2018. Here's what they said... 01. Serif fonts Chobani's new look brings warmth to fonts "One typographic trend that I predict will be popular in 2018 is the use of warm, 1970s-evoking serif typefaces," says Jeremiah Shoaf, a freelance designer and founder of Typewolf. "I think this is a reaction against the cold, sterile neo-grotesques like Helvetica that seem to be dominating the design landscape." Shoaf comments on the recent Chobani rebrand as a prime example. "Its new bespoke typeface has a retro charm that brings to mind ITC Clearface and Bookman, two typefaces that will forever be associated with the good vibes of the 70s," he smiles. 02. 90s-inspired type Could we be seeing more retro fonts like 2017's Formula 1 rebrand? "2016 was all about geometric sans typefaces," says art director Rick Banks. "This carried on to some extent in 2017 (Moonpig, Sky Sports rebrand) but much less so. This year we have seen an increase in serifs (Southbank Centre, Chobani, and Medium rebrands). "I think next year we will see designers reacting more against geometric type . I think brands will want type with more character and standout value. It wouldn't surprise me if we see more 90s inspired typography – following on from the new F1 logo." 03. Custom type Text editors like Atom are popular with coders Dalton Maag founder and type designer Bruno Maag agrees with Banks. "Geometric sans typefaces continue to dominate the typographic landscape, but we can see a trend toward more condensed designs with a grid-like structure," he comments. "It also seems as if there is a resurgence of 70s inspired type, such as the new F1 identity." Maag also mentions a rise in the use of open source fonts in digital environments. This is thanks to a dramatic improvement in quality over the past few years, but also offers the benefits of (potentially considerable) cost savings, and means designers can avoid having to navigate the complexities of licensing for digital usage on a number of different devices. However, it does limit the role type can play as a brand tool. "We can see in-house design teams increasingly championing custom font solutions to close the gap between brand expression and controlling technical and logistic aspects of font usage," Maag continues. "A further trend in [custom] type is to involve scientific research on aspects of accessibility, and designers have to concern themselves with science." 04. Colour fonts Black is so last year "I think colour fonts (see FontMaker by FontSelf) will be a big hit in 2018. The user-friendly interface and the possibility to add colour as another dimension to typography represents a huge opportunity for designers and brands to add identity to their designs," says typographer Alex Trochut. "The fact that not only Illustrator but also Photoshop will support colour fonts opens up a door to create photographic typography, which represents a whole new canvas to play with. I'm very excited to see what are the good results coming out of this new technology." 05. No trends Anthony Burrill urges designers to forge their own route "I don’t think there are typographic trends any more; if there are I find it hard to identify them," says designer and print maker Anthony Burrill. "Depending on who you follow on social media, type foundries, designers, lettering artists, graffiti artist, there are numerous trends that simultaneously coexist. Scroll through your Instagram feed and you’ll see historic type examples rubbing shoulders with the latest type animation techniques." He acknowledges that this can be overwhelming, but offers some solutions to help you out. "Is possible to navigate your way through this visual avalanche. Seek out work that you connect with. By gaining more in-depth knowledge it’s possible to have a meaningful relationship with type design, rather than being dazzled with the latest technique. "Seek out work that informs your own work and inspires you, and use it as a launch pad for your own creativity. It's important to stay informed and have an opinion about work by other designers, but even more important to develop your individual response and approach to work." Related articles: 7 new typography tools for 2017 The 8 biggest typography mistakes designers make The rules of responsive web typography View the full article

You're reading Postcards: First Sneak-Peek, originally posted on Designmodo. If you've enjoyed this post, be sure to follow on Twitter, Facebook, Google+! Now that 2017 is almost over, we are ready to show you what we’ll release in 2018. It’ll start with the release of Postcards, a tool that will help you to create and generate beautiful emails/newsletters for your website. It’s designed for any kind of business. View the full article

Another year has ended and the tooling landscape has become simultaneously more exciting and complex. It seems that every month there’s a new post about the convoluted and intimidating nature of the JavaScript tooling ecosystem. There are countless new libraries, frameworks, plugins, build-related tools, and so much more, released every month, each claiming to help you improve your productivity or solve a specific development problem. To start the year off right, we’ve done the legwork for you, weeding through 12 months worth of new releases and updates to bring you five of the newest, most practical and exciting options for JavaScript coders, designers and full-stack developers. 01. KUTE.js http://thednp.github.io/kute.js JavaScript animation engine with performance as its primary feature. This one grabs your attention immediately due to the gorgeous and super-smooth animation on the home page. The API looks elegant and well worth trying out. 02. Timeline.js https://ilkeryilmaz.github.io/timelinejs A jQuery plugin with a twist on the carousel component, for the specific use case of creating a carousel timeline (ie a slider that progresses based on chronological points) with lots of visual and functional customisation options. Tools like Timeline.js can revolutionise the way you develop with JavaScript in 2018 03. SweetAlert2 https://limonte.github.io/sweetalert2 Fork of the original SweetAlert, this is a replacement for native JavaScript popups like 'alert()' and 'confirm()'. The modals are attractive, responsive, customisable, and accessible. 04. Muuri https://haltu.github.io/muuri JavaScript API for responsive, sortable, filterable, and drag-and-drop Masonry/Packery-style grid layouts. The demos are really nice and there are lots of options available to customise the grid for different layout types. 05. Infinite Scroll https://infinite-scroll.com Unlike most of the rest of this list, this is an old tool but it’s been rewritten for version 3. New version includes URL changes while scrolling, no jQuery dependency, and lots of optional settings via a clean API. Want to learn more about JavaScript? Full-stack JavaScript developer Wes Bos will be going through what's new in JavaScript at our own web design event, Generate New York, on 25-27 April 2018. You can view the full lineup in all its glory, and book your tickets now, at generateconf.com. We can't wait to see you there! Join at to find out what's new in the world of JavaScript Related articles: 21 top examples of JavaScript 12 common JavaScript problems answered 20 JavaScript tips to blow your mind View the full article

Mozilla has patched one critical vulnerability in its Thunderbird email client along with two bugs rated high. View the full article

Houston, Texas, was a city obsessed with three things: sports, money and guns. Greg Ruth tried to fit in. As a boy, he'd go to football games. He liked to critique the "outfits" and would ask fellow attendees which team they thought had the coolest team badge, or the neatest helmet design. They answered him with blank stares. 50 tips that will make you a better illustratorWatching other people play games was "epically dull", so his mind would wander. He thought about nuclear war, laser blasters and falling in love with women from outer space. Back at home, a shag carpet became a furry space beast on which GI Joe figures acted out sprawling melodramas. He read Raymond Chandler, Ray Bradbury, the Dune series by Frank Herbert and pulp novels, and he liked big band music. Superego-Egoid - "I count this as a symbolist image of myself, rather than a self-portrait. I think this was only my second graphite piece" He watched B-movies and Star Trek reruns, and Abbott and Costello marathons. He spent much of his childhood withdrawing into an imagined world – a skill that he'd use in adulthood to build a career as an artist. "I hid from Texas," he says. "I didn't belong in the nest into which I was hatched. So art became the other world into which I could flee to safety, until I was able to actually flee." A freaky Conan Conan - "Another cornerstone for me, this time with the estimable Kurt Busiek. Until Indeh, I learned more doing this series than any other as to what comics could and should do well" Ruth fled to Brooklyn and attended the Pratt Institute, an art and design school, where he tried architecture and fine art, before finally establishing himself as a comic book artist. He now lives in Massachusetts, and recently created a comic with Ethan Hawke, but previous to this, a music video with Prince and a picture book with Barack Obama. Ruth works on film art and book covers, and wrote his own New York Times bestselling graphic novel. He also created a new, weekly, self-initiated illustration, which became The 52 Weeks Project. Agatha's Mirror - "One of my favourite pieces. It was for a short story entitled Dragonkin. It got left because it skewed a bit too young for the story inside. It’s tough when you have to reject a good piece despite its merits" Ruth's busy. Working across so many different disciplines can pose problems. He once drew two comics simultaneously for Dark Horse, both 22 pages, the final issue of Freaks of the Heartland and the first issue of Conan: Born on the Battlefield. The workload alone was tough, but tougher still was the clash of genres. With Freaks, Ruth knew the story inside out – what he describes as a classic small-town gothic-horror story. He'd established a colour palette, a narrative rhythm. Conan, on the other hand, was a pulpy adventure book, garish and raucous in every way. For the first issue of Conan, he tried a Freaks-style approach. It didn't work: "Sometimes when you're making breakfast and dinner at the same time, you end up with pot-roast omelettes and fresh jam on your asparagus. It ain't so great. Nowadays, I have a better grasp of my own limitations." Freaks of the Heartland - "This was my first collaborative full-length graphic novel with Steve Niles. It was a sparse script that let me rush in and fill every corner, and a defining book for my time in comics" Ruth didn't find his groove until well into the second issue of Conan. So now, when working on a big job, he focuses on it entirely until the project begins "cruising on its own". He may take a book cover or some editorial work – particularly if one project complements the other in some way – but mostly he tries "not to cross the streams". He also likes to create a soundtrack for big graphic novels. This way, he can listen to music to help him get into the mood, tone and themes of the narrative. It's helpful if he does have to take a break to work on something else. "When I pop the soundtrack on, coming into work, I get right into the world of it." Some gigs, however, are just too good to turn down… Prince the cheerleader "Why would any human-shaped person say no to Prince?" Ruth says. He helped create a video for the legendary musician in 2004 – one of his favourite ever jobs. He created the dark, moody world in which Prince and his band perform. When the money men got twitchy about some of the video's themes, Prince stepped in and funded the project with his own money. "Prince pretty much left us to go nuts on that," Ruth says, "and was our biggest cheerleader and defender." Not every client is like Prince. He made another music video for American singer-songwriter Rob Thomas, which was "much more of a corporate affair". His work in films – where some actors have the power to veto the posters he creates – can be equally restrictive. "The movie industry," Ruth says, "likes to repeat what's proven to work, even if it's simply chasing diminishing returns or risking derivativeness." Indeh Battle Skull Cave - "One of the first big sort of adventure-epic attempts with graphite. Ethan Hawke and I wanted to tell a different story than the usual us-against-them battles that dominate stories of white settlers invading tribal lands. But violence aplenty happened." Greg recently accepted a job to design the poster for Ethan Hawke's 2018 film Blaze. "Ethan let me go crazy as I can," he says. They have a good working relationship. His current project is Meadowlark, his second graphic novel with the actor-director. While on a book tour for the first, Indeh, the pair tossed around ideas for scenes, images and characters, which grew into what's set to be an "epic crime melodrama". Indeh worked the other way round. Ethan initially pictured it as a film, so the final story came from a 300-page script. "More an act of pruning than growing," Ruth says. "I kind of love the differences between the assignments. There's something really invigorating about tackling new ways of thinking and seeing, and it all dovetails nicely into my overall work ethic of always seeking to tackle projects that scare the shit out of me." Daredevil for Mondo - "This one was a total lark. I just woke up one day and had this exact image in my head, drew it, posted it and it went wild, surprisingly. Mondo got in touch about doing a print and had this cool idea about using red paper." Ruth wakes up at 5am and works until around 6pm, breaking in between to take his kids to school and bring them home again. There's the odd all-nighter here and there. But sticking to this routine helps Ruth with his huge workload. "Inspiration or The Muse," he says, "comes more often if it knows where to find you." Darkly things Indeh - "My favourite graphic novel and the hardest thing I’ve ever done, with a new creative partner I never expected to have. This book opened my eyes and changed my life." Being so prolific has a practical purpose, too. Ruth aims to be recession-proof. If picture books are going through a slump, he has film work. If the movie work dries up then there are book covers. Having different sources of income also means that he's able to work on the graphic novels he really wants to work on. Ruth is currently developing a picture book, a script, more book covers, more movie posters, another graphic novel of his own, another 52 Weeks series… he's as busy as ever! But Ruth doesn't like to overthink what it is that he's trying to achieve. Instead, he tries to remember who he's making art for in the first place. "I honestly try to avoid over-analysing my work. I think this comes from being at Pratt and having that Clement Greenbergian, modernist bullshit crammed down my throat. "The audience is, in many ways, everything. Not so much to serve their assumed desires, rather to try and force me into an outside perspective, so that whatever I'm doing lands and reads. You have to be both the fan and the creator." This article was originally published in issue 153 of ImagineFX, the world's best-selling magazine for digital artists – packed with workshops and interviews with fantasy and sci-fi artists, plus must-have kit reviews. Buy issue 153 here or subscribe to ImagineFX here. Related articles: How to be an award-winning illustrator 10 hottest illustrators of 2017 How to break into children's illustration View the full article

If you've ever been on a boat or ship at sea, you might recall the smell of the sea air, the salty spray on your lips and the physical effort required to compensate for the rolling and pitching motion. For this workshop, I decided to recreate these sensations in the studio using a combination of sketches and photo references, but mostly drawing upon my own vivid memories of what it feels like to be at sea. 5 things you need for oil paintingFor me, capturing feeling and energy is more important than 'photographic' visual accuracy. I'm interested in recreating the emotions that the original experience unleashed. I never sit down to paint, this enables me to use my whole upper body to inject more energy. I also step back frequently to get a more objective view. So for this exercise, I hope you will also enjoy getting a bit more physical. 01. Break the ice Start off with a thin wash of colour Quickly cover the canvas with a thinned wash of colour. This will also create a sense of unity to the finished piece. I've used a warm yellow ochre to help prevent the later layers of blues and greens from looking too cold. Work fast and loose! 02. Lightly sketch in the composition Use brisk, diagonal sweeps to sketch in the composition Decide early on where your focal points will be and aim to place them with a strong diagonal arrangement. Using a large brush, quickly sweep some blue/grey colour into the sky area. Diagonal sweeps are dynamic to the eye, which is exactly what you want when representing movement. 03. Blend in sky colours Stipple some white into the sky tones and blend the edges Using the same large brush, pick up some white and stipple it into the blue/grey while it's still wet, blending the edges softly. This white will also blend nicely with the ochre background colour to give a range of natural cloud colours. 04. Sweep in the waves Use a palette knife to sweep in the shapes of the waves Pick up a roll of the dark sky colour on the edge of a palette knife and, using the knife on its side, sweep in the rough shapes of the waves. Stand back from your canvas and use your whole arm to do this with an energetic rocking motion. 05. Rock your body Build up wavelets with an overlapping zigzag rocking motion Switch to a small brush and continue using an overlapping zigzag rocking motion to build up the pattern of small 'wavelets' that make up the bigger wave shapes. As you work down the canvas, change to larger brushes so that the brush marks indicate that the waves are closer to the viewer. 06. Have patience Bring in some thinned turquoise then leave your painting to dry Begin introducing some thinned turquoise to your zigzag pattern, remembering that colours appear less intense towards the horizon. Don't use too much paint at this stage or it will obliterate the ochre that is peeping through and make the water look too solid. Now leave your piece to dry. This keeps the structure intact and prevents the colours becoming muddy. 07. Let it flow Try tilting your canvas so that the paint runs and bleeds together When the underpainting is completely dry, you can be more creative with the next layer. Add colour thinned with painting medium to make it more transparent. I often tilt the canvas so that the paint runs and bleeds together, creating fluid effects that are appropriate when painting the sea. It can be messy, but it's fun! Don't be tempted to move your piece until it's dry, or your 'runs' will change direction. 08. Sculpt the wave crests Add the crests of the waves with a palette knife loaded with thick white I use a palette knife loaded with thick white to sculpt the crests of the waves. I gently touch the knife onto the canvas at the highest point and then quickly sweep it down the face of the waves in just one pass so that the effect stays clean and fresh. 09. Make an atmospheric horizon With a dry brush and some upward strokes you can create a misty horizon Take a clean dry brush and softly 'stroke' the horizon, blending some of the sea colour upwards into the sky to create distance and a nice misty effect where sea and sky blur into one. 10. Define with contrast Make your painting more dynamic by adding in some darker areas Adding back in darker areas helps lift and define the whole image again, making it more dynamic and interesting. The more different tones there are in the waves, the more movement they will seem to have. 11. Create an action point Sweep some of the white from the main wave upward to create a point of action The very top of the main wave is the focal point of this painting, so this is where I want to imply the most energy and create a point of action – the moment that the wave is starting to break. Sweeping some of the white upwards and slightly backwards implies it's being carried on the wind. 12. Add foamy details Add some foam patterns, following the structure of the underpainting Using a rigger brush loaded with a highlight colour (a pale sea green), I lay in the foam patterns, following the structure of the underpainting. The holes in the pattern are more open on the vertical of each wave and then flatten out back to the zigzag shape on the horizontal. 13. Make bubbles Practise this tricky technique before trying it for real Use a fan brush loaded with some of the foam pattern colour mixed to the consistency of single cream. Hold the brush a couple of inches from the canvas and draw a palette knife across the top of the bristles to make a spattering of air bubbles. This can take a bit of practice so try it on a sacrificial canvas or board first and don't overdo it. 14. Sea spray Use the same spattering trick to add some sea spray Using the same technique, spatter the crest of the wave. This time I've used pure white as it's the focal point. It also appears brighter here, being backlit against the sky. Mix the paint slightly thinner here to create finer, misty speckles. Again, practise before you add to your piece! 15. Add the final transparent glaze Give your painting extra depth with a transparent turquoise glaze Let the painting dry fully before you do this last stage. Mix up a glaze of transparent turquoise using plenty of painting medium. Be aware you will need hardly any paint to tint the glaze – it's better to add more pigment gradually if you need it. Applying this glaze over the dry sea areas will create a translucent effect. This creates optical depth in your piece by deepening the dark areas and enriching and unifying the lighter foam colours. This article was originally published in issue 12 of Paint & Draw, the magazine offering tips and inspiration for artists everywhere. Buy it here. Related articles: How to create a realistic oil painting of nature Improve your brushstrokes in oils How to paint realistic waves View the full article

A more efficient workflow is the obvious benefit of improving your speed sculpting technique, but that’s not the only advantage; it can also boost your creativity, helping you to produce even more interesting and vibrant work. Of course, the key to perfecting your technique is usually practice; for example, if you want to sculpt anatomy quickly and confidently, the best way to achieve this is to do lots of sketching exercises to help you master human and animal anatomy. You can also learn from expert artists, such as The Mill New York’s modelling supervisor, Adam Dewhirst to really help you with your workflow. At his debut workshop at Vertex, our event to bring the CG community together, Adam explains how to create a digidouble in less than a 24 hours, using a range of techniques from photogrammetry and mesh wrapping to The Mill’s custom human rig. His workshop is on 13 March at Olympia London, so don’t miss it. In the meantime you can learn about 6 top tips to boost your speed now! 3D artist Liudmila Kirdiashkina has revealed some of her tricks for powering up her modelling speed, so check them out below! Violet Firefly by Liudmila Kirdiashkina 01. Assign hotkeys to the frequently used commands It makes sense to create keyboard shortcuts not only to the most frequently used tools, but to such actions as changing display/shading modes, switching between different selection methods and opening various editors. You can modify default hotkeys and assign combinations that are more convenient for you. Though it takes only a couple of seconds to open a menu and find the command you need, these micro pauses distract your attention from the modelling process itself. For speedy modelling you have to stay focused all the time. 02. Utilise custom scripts and plugins Various scripts and plugins not only expand the range of your modelling options and tools, they save a good deal of time as well. For easy access custom scripts can be placed on a shelf, bar or drop-down menu, depending on the program. You can go further and assign keyboard shortcuts to the scripts you often use. It’s also worth installing some plugins for smooth integration between your modelling, texturing and rendering software. These plugins will give you advanced export/import options, preserve more data about your model or scene and allow direct jumping between different applications. 03. The preparation stage – gathering references It’s advantageous to have a clear idea of your future model before you start making it. Collecting relevant and good-quality references can be a challenge on its own. I prefer going to Pinterest when searching for inspiration and interesting ideas, and I always find images and links to something very suitable yet unexpected. It’s better to pay attention to real-life photos rather than images done by other artists. Installing a reference-image viewer (such as PureRef) may also facilitate your workflow, as it is great at putting together numerous files. 04. Step-by-step modelling – look from different perspectives Start modelling with simple primitive objects. Avoid jumping into too many details at the very beginning. It’s better to refine geometry gradually, keeping all parts at the approximately same level of details. Think about the overall visual style of the model and try to keep it consistent while adding particular details. Occasionally change the scene lighting or shading modes and try out various materials, as this can give you a better feel for the model and helps to reveal weak spots or flaws in the geometry. 05. IMM brushes and model sets Model sets can be utilised in any program, and in ZBrush it is possible to save them as Insert Multi Mesh brushes, which is super convenient. Various model packs are great for making quick 3D concepts and blocking out rough shapes. It is also a fast method to experiment and add interesting details to your 3D sketch, especially if you don’t have any 2D drafts and you are about to model something on the fly. I find it timesaving to create a quick 3D sketch in ZBrush as a guideline and then export it to another 3D modelling application for clean topology creation. 06. Efficient time management Don’t forget about some general yet effective rules of time management, especially if you do freelance work and have multiple deadlines. To begin with, list everything that needs to be done and define the priority of your objectives, then set realistic time limits to each task and allocate time for several breaks. Even if you are short of time, it’s necessary to occasionally step back and assess what you have done so far. Once all your goals are set, concentrate fully on one particular task, try to avoid distractions and keep in mind your time constraints. Adam Dewhirst will be presenting his workshop at Vertex, our debut event for the CG community. Book your tickets now at vertexconf.com, where you can find out more about the other amazing speakers, workshops, recruitment fair, networking event, expo and more. Read more: Which CG discipline is right for you? How to digitally sculpt in ZBrushCore Why Vertex is a must for CG artists View the full article

The new issue of 3D World is out now and it's full of inspirational insights into the latest visual effects and animation projects, as well as the best tutorials and reviews to help you improve your art and make the most of your tools. Here's some of the great content you can expect to see in the new issue, on sale now. Buy 3D World issue 230 here Feature: ILM on The last Jedi We sit down to talk with the guys at ILM to discover some of the secrets behind the making of the latest instalment of the Star Wars franchise. Find out how they approached creating light sabres and furry alien creatures. Feature: Massive Saddles Up Massive, which sprang from the Lord of the Rings trilogy, is a huge help when trying to generate believable hordes of Orcs and Goblins, but also human groups and now, even mounted cavalry. Read about the company, the software and get a kickstart in creating your own crowd sims. Training: Create an Alien Pirate In this tutorial, Darrell Abney of ILM takes you through the process of creating this exceptional alien pirate character, which is also our cover star this issue. Training: Make a game vehicle in Cinema 4D In this tutorial you will learn how to model and render a game concept vehicle using Cinema 4D, including some excellent tips on creating meshes, setting up materials and lighting the scene. Training: Q and A Our regular Artist Q&A section is here, and this issue we have answered your questions on many topics, including a common one on how to use ZBrush to generate custom vector displacement maps. 3D World is the world's best-selling magazine for CG artists – packed with expert tutorials, inspiration and reviews. Buy issue 230 here or subscribe to 3D World here. View the full article

Often, it's the simplest effects that look the most striking, and neon text is one such project. It's also much easier to create a neon effect that looks realistic than you might think. While this entire tutorial only uses one background image, your brain tricks itself into seeing this as a real, functioning neon sign – that's the power of Photoshop CC's layer styles. Get Adobe Creative CloudThe fact that this entire project is build from scratch – from the font to the colours of the glow, to the eventual animation – means that there's a lot of scope for creativity. You can choose exactly what you want every part of this effect to look like. Neon is really popular right now online. Showing off saturated tones against a dark, muted background is a great way to present a landing page, a logo design or a header, and it's easy to animate your work and save it as a GIF with a low file size. Let's dive into how to create it. 01. Start creating the font Use Photoshop's Pen tool to draw your first letter Create a new document 550x550px in Photoshop, and bring up the grid by hitting cmd/ctrl+'. Create a new layer and with the Pen tool, sketch out your first letter. Leave gaps in the character, as this is going to be a neon-style typeface. Once you're happy, hit Stroke within the Paths tab to draw in the letter. 02. Work through the alphabet Don't forget about the special characters Create as many characters as you want, with the Pen on a new layer each time. If you want to, add in some special characters, such as currency symbols, punctuation and accented letters. Follow the same basic style that you started with, so your font is cohesive. 03. Move into FontCreator There's a free trial of FontCreator available if you need it If you have High-Logic FontCreator, this is the part where you can turn your characters into a font. If you don't, a free trial is available. By pasting each character into FontCreator, we can create a useable typeface for Photoshop. Work your way through FontCreator by double-clicking each character and pasting in your Pen-drawn work. Make sure that each letter is on the same baseline. 04. Kern your text Always double-check your kerning Kerning is the space between each of the letters (for more information, take a look at our typographic glossary), and the Auto-kerning option within FontCreator is what naturally spaces out your letters so that the font looks neat. Try this option and make sure each letter looks good together. Once it's complete, export your font and install it into your computer. This will automatically add it to Photoshop CC. 05. Set up a Photoshop document Use our suggested palette or create your own Create a new document in Photoshop. On a new layer, create a colour palette by using a big brush. We went with #501d26, #af273d, #f74663, #ffdae1, #35e985 and #b2dcc4. Then find a suitable background image and drag it into Photoshop. Create a new layer, fill it the deep red colour, and duplicate. Set one layer to Multiply, and one to Colour. Create a Brightness/Contrast layer and set to -75 in Brightness. Duplicate this and mask the centre for a vignette. 06. Input the text Type in some text and rasterise it Grab the Type tool and select your font (if you didn't create a font earlier, just place in each letter individually). Spell out your text, before ctrl+right-clicking the layer and selecting Rasterize Type. 07. Create a glow Give your text a bit more depth with a lovely bevel ctrl+right-click the layer, and go to Blending Options > Outer Glow. There, input an opacity of 50%, a spread of 5% and a size of 63px. Now, you can see your neon text beginning to look a lot more realistic. Choose a bright colour. Click on Bevel and Emboss, still in the Layer Styles option. Choose Depth: 250%, size: 5px, Soften: 2px. Use the Highlight and Shadow modes to add a little more depth to the text, and play with these options until you find the right mix. 08. Play around with shadows Don't mess up your Outer Glow with your drop shadow For the Inner Shadow, choose the same bright colour you picked for the Outer Glow. All you'll need to edit here is the size, depending on how big the text is. Alter this and leave all other values at 0. As the neon text is going to be sitting off the wall slightly, we're going to need a subtle drop shadow, but not too much as we don't want to compromise the Outer Glow. Use a low opacity, and give this one some more Distance and Size. 09. Light it up Make sure that the string follows through all of the characters Go to the text layer, Ctrl/right-click and choose Copy Layer Styles. Click on the animal layer, Ctrl/right-click and choose Paste Layer Styles. Double-click on the FX icon and turn the pink colours to green for a little contrast to the text. Grab the pen tool and create a string through the neon text and the animals that you've created. Make sure that it follows through all of the characters, and then stroke with #808080, with a 2px brush selected with 1% spacing. 10. Add a drop-shadow Give the string a bevel and a bit of drop shadow Go to the Blending Options for the string you've just made. Head to Bevel to give it a subtle shape, and give it a subtle drop shadow, too. The variables here depend on the size and shape of the string you've created, so just experiment to see what works. 11. Create an 'off' version Now make a non-glowing copy so you can create a flickering effect Let's create a layer of text that isn't glowing, so we can animate a flicker on some of the letters. Duplicate the text layer, then hide the Outer Glow style. Set the Inner Shadow to #808080, then alter the Lightness of this layer to -50, using Hue/Saturation (cmd/ctrl+U). On the glowing text layer, grab the Marquee tool and select a few letters you want to switch off briefly in the animation. Make duplications of this layer, with these letters masked out until you have sufficient layers to create an animation. 12. Animate your design Export as an animated gif and you're good to go Go to the top-right of Photoshop and select Motion as a Workspace option. The animation timeline will appear at the bottom; here, you can define which layers are shown or hidden at for however long you want them to be. Create new frames along the bottom with various letters either glowing or not glowing, depending on whether the layer is visible or not. Set the time of each layer's animation using the little arrow on each frame, too. Save as a GIF using Save For Web. This article was originally published in issue 267 of Web Designer, the creative web design magazine – offering expert tutorials, cutting-edge trends and free resources. Subscribe to Web Designer here. Related articles: 5 top tips for young animators How to debug web animations 3D text tutorial for graphic designers View the full article

We want to make Creative Bloq even better for you in 2018. We want to bring you the news, how dos, inspiration, insight and advice that you need to become better designers and artists. But we need your help. Participate in the Creative Bloq reader survey Your opinions are extremely important to us. The more we know about you, what you want from Creative Bloq and how you feel about what we do, the better we can provide you with inspiring, relevant content that aids you in your day-to-day projects. So, we’ve put together a quick survey to find out a little more about you and what you do. We want to know what sort of content and software you’re most interested in, and which areas we should focus on in 2018. Importantly: we won’t share your information with third parties. We know you’re busy, too, so it’s largely multiple choice. It won’t take more than a few minutes to fill out. Choose your free gift To say thank you, we’re offering you the choice of one of four free digital gifts: All six Computer Arts Design Handbooks (worth £54) These are: The Design Student Handbook, The Freelance Handbook, The Self-Promo Handbook, The Portfolio Handbook, The Design Studio Handbook, The Design Career Handbook The Javascript Handbook (worth £10.99) The 3D Art & Design Annual Vol. 3 (worth £10.99, see the print edition) The ImagineFX Annual (worth £6.99, see the print edition) You’ll be emailed a code to redeem the digital version of your choice after completing the reader survey. Fill out our short reader survey To fill out the survey, all you have to do is hit the survey link here or above. And a huge thank you from everyone at team Creative Bloq. Your insight is invaluable – and we can’t wait to make the site better for you in 2018. View the full article

Freelance 3D artist and Vertex panelist Maya Jermy shows you how to master VDM. She will be appearing at Vertex as part of the panel on digital humans. Vector Displacement Mesh (VDM) is a 3D sculpt used as brush building blocks that enables undercutting when drawing on a model’s surface. But what exactly does it mean? The simplest way to understand it is to start with alphas. Alpha textures are greyscale images that we often use for sculpting fine-detailed patterns like wrinkles and skin pores. Without them we would have to painstakingly draw the details on by hand, one by one. Alphas are awesome and quite efficient to use in combination with bushes, but they are basically flat images with black values, and they do not support undercuts and overhangs, which limits what can be done with them. However, Alpha 3D stores the information of all XYZ axes and does not have any vertical elevation restrictions. By definition, it is 3D as it uses VDM in its system. All you need to worry about is the polygon density to enable proper projection of the Vector Displacement Mesh onto your model. As I see it, Alpha 3D is an alpha with 3D information, or, a 3D sculpt plastered onto a plane and used as an alpha on steroids. 1. Sculpt the swirl To start off, we first need to get a canvas, so head to Lightbox> Project>MISC and select the Brush 3D template. With a clay brush selected, build a little hill in the middle of the canvas, more or less to the size of the swirl. Now, with the radial symmetry on and DamStandard brush selected, start sculpting the grooves and peaks of the swirl shape. 2. Fix distorted edges Make sure to stay away from the edges of the plane. If you accidentally mess up the edges, you have to fix them before saving the VDM: mask the edges, invert mask, go to Tool>Deformation>Relax Plane Grid or Morph to Grid, depending on the level of damage caused to your plane. This should reshape the edges and add more geometry. 3. Save out the VDM To save out your sculpt as a VDM, you need to select a brush that can save all the information contained in your model. With Chisel3D selected, open the Brush palette, select Create and click on Create MultiAlpha Brush. This automatically creates a new Chisel brush out of your model. Your current Alpha texture now contains a VDM of the sculpt with a 3D mark in top-left corner. 4. Save out the brush In order to now save out the brush and create an icon for it, open a 3D sphere and turn it into a polymesh. Divide it a few times and drag out your VDM. Position the sphere to capture the icon, go to the Brush palette, hold down the Alt key and click on SelectIcon. With the icon generated, you can finally save it out with Brush>Save As. Rename your brand-new brush and it is done! Learn more from Maya Jermy at Vertex Maya Jermy is a regular contributor to 3D World and has years of industry experience, working across various fields. She will be at Vertex 2018, taking part in our panel discussion, along with other industry veterans including Chris Nichols and Brett Inerson, where the future of digital humans is the topic. Make sure you get your chance to be there for the discussion, as well the workshops, recruitment fair and all the other activities we have throughout the day. Visit the Vertex site to book your tickets, from the free expo ticket, to the access all areas passes. We look forward to seeing you there! Related articles 1. Why Vertex is a must for CG artists 2. The ethics of digital humans 3. Scott Ross at Vertex View the full article

Researchers have identified a vulnerability in a Huawei home router model that is being exploited by an adversary to spread a variant of the Mirai malware called Okiku, also known as Satori. View the full article

I spent my early, bohemian years in fashion design amidst the best pencils, watercolours, markers and pens. I kind of miss those days, but once I made the choice to move to the Wacom Cintiq 13HD, there was no going back. My education started in an art institute, we’re talking ‘90s when all the internet was geek stuff, so my training was analogue. Also, after having obtained my fashion design degree in the early 2000s, I got my first job in the fashion industry without knowing anything about computer arts. Imagine a primitive woman looking at fire, that was me all those years looking at you Photoshop wizards. The truth is that anybody can handle a major change if they have the will to do so. In early 2016, I began shifting my career from fashion design to visual storytelling for advertising and editorial purposes, becoming a digital artist at the same time. Once I learned Photoshop basics such as layers, swatches and brushes, transitioning to digital was just a case of applying the number one rule for illustrators: just draw, draw, draw. 01. Do your research Cafforio’s digital working space. Research on current fashion and colour trends is vital before starting a piece Without an idea, preferably a good one, no digital nor analogue brush will help. My process is inextricably linked to research. This research usually generates a moodboard in the form of filling my working space with pictures from runways and Post-it notes, then the creation of one or more characters that I try to give a soul to, even before creating their physical features. I always try to tell an entire story in the single frame I have at my disposal, leaving the rest to the imagination of the viewer. Once I have my research and idea sorted, I get started on the more technical aspects of digital illustration. 02. Set up for online and print use Choose your specs wisely Unless otherwise specified by the client, I usually start my projects by creating an A1 canvas at 300dpi, which means 7016 x 9933 pixels. In terms of colour management, sRGB colour profile is a good starting point for all purposes: your work will be web/monitor ready and giclée/lithography adaptable. That’s because an illustration may have several lives that cannot be foreseen, as in the case of my award-winning piece Alice in Wonderland. Born for Instagram, it was subsequently lithographed on a number of magazines and on an art catalogue, fine art printed for a signed edition, reproduced on lenticular panels, and so on. 03. Build up a strong composition After the research stage, Cafforio digitally sketches directly on her Cintiq The first thing to do is avoid ‘white sheet panic’. How? I fill the background layer with colour, usually one picked out from the fashion palette of the season I’m working on. That coloured background will better bring out the black and white of my character’s complexion. After that, I select my favourite tools – the pressure and tilt sensitive tools of Wacom’s pens and Kyle T. Webster’s Photoshop brushes are simply incredible working together – then start to pencil sketch what I’ve got in mind, cutting and adjusting it to best fit the shooting angle. One of the first huge advantages of digital sketching directly on your Cintiq with the help of layers is repositioning at will. When I’m happy with the composition, I can give the client a first visualisation of what is going to be later highly refined. In minutes. And this also leaves me a lot of room to manoeuvre in case of disagreement, without having to start from scratch. 04. Use layers effectively Cafforio repositions layers to find the best fit throughout her workflow You might think an illustration seems like a big job, but actually it’s just hundreds of small jobs. Each of my illustrations can contain several hundred layers, depending on its complexity. The only limit is the hardware used. In my experience, working at high-resolution, a basic Apple Mac Mini can easily manage a couple of hundred layers without slowing down. My illustrations have a group of layers for each element of the illustration. The face, hair, arms, hands, eyes, neck, mouth, dress, accessories, and so on, are all folders containing a bunch of layers for the foundation, chiaroscuro (light and shade), and details. Working like this will allow you to go in to your image surgically on demand. This is important because small modifications are always around the corner and a happy client is a regular client. 05. Use 50 shades of everything Pantone colours form the basis of Cafforio’s colour spectrum, but she fine-tunes the colours at the end of the piece to add her own narrative Experience in fashion makes you realise how important understanding, and possibly forecasting, colour trends is. You might want to learn about how colour fidelity matters for a commercial artist, and will ideally become good at visualising products that customers will want. It’s really fun to mix analogue watercolours and other pigments, and this can be a good way to learn about colour. On the other hand, Pantone palettes, regularly published in .ASE format, are universally recognised as standard colour reproduction systems. In terms of rules about using colour, remember that nothing is set in stone. We live in the real world, not in a giant colour control cabinet that is ISO 3664 compliant. We are doing visual storytelling here, not designing a logo, and we’re not talking to machines after all. Learn the way, then find your own way. I start with Pantone colours as a foundation, then add chiaroscuro and details, generally with Kyle T. Webster’s watercolours. But in the final stages of the project, some global colour fine-tuning to add my vision of the narrative is required. 06. Resist shortcuts Cafforio tries to resist ‘Photoshop ominipetence’, preferring to make changes by deleting and redrawing layers Now that I’m done, I’ll probably want to make some small changes. For example, I don’t like the mouth because it’s looking a little crooked. But I don’t use the Liquify Filter, I hide the mouth Layers and draw it again. If I need to add shine to some jewels, I don’t even think of using Actions. I draw sparkles. There is nothing wrong with trying some Photoshop shortcuts, especially when dealing with tight deadlines, but it is essential to resist the temptation of Photoshop omnipotence. Here’s the thing: getting lazy and cutting corners won’t help you become the next Sergio Toppi. And this world already has enough Photoshop gurus. Just remember the first rule for illustrators: draw, draw, draw. This article originally appeared in issue 272 of Computer Arts, the global design magazine – helping you solve daily design challenges with insights, advice and inspiration. Buy issue 272 here or subscribe here. Related articles: The 9 best alternatives to Photoshop 100 amazing Adobe Illustrator tutorials The best drawing tablet: our pick of the best graphics tablets in 2017 View the full article

Breathtaking views, stunning skylines and beautiful cityscapes make great photographs, but can be rather daunting from the artist's point of view. The amount of details can be overwhelming and it is difficult to know how to draw and paint it all. Instead of capturing all of the detail, try to view the scene in an abstract way, as a series of shapes and colours, or patches of light and shadows. Squinting is one of the best things you can do to break down a busy scene. In this step by step oil painting tutorial, I'll show you how to simplify a complex cityscape and work layer on layer to build the painting. I painted this in plein air, but there's nothing stopping you from applying the same method when working from a photograph. When working outside, one of the greatest challenges is capturing the changing light. When I was painting, the clouds kept moving, so I had to choose which area I wanted to be in the sun, and then wait for the right moment to carry on. Finally, just remember to have fun and don't worry too much if you have forgotten a house here, a tree there or even an entire street! What matters is that you capture the essence of the place in a personal and convincing way. 01. Add ground colour The ochre ground colour matches the colour of the buildings As usual, I cover my blank board with a ground colour so I won't have to fill every gap at the end. This also helps achieve colour harmony in the piece. Make sure you pick a colour that is present in the scenery so it can be used in the final painting. The ochre here can be seen in the stone of the buildings. 02. Create a basic drawing Sketch out a very rough layout of the city The clue is in the word 'basic'. A cityscape is so complex that it would take hours to draw every single house and street. Instead, remember to approach the scenery in an abstract way and only lay down a few marks that will help you locate these elements. Here, I've drawn the placement of the green areas as simple blocks that will help show the limits between buildings and trees. 03. Block in the greens Use big bold strokes to roughly block in the greens Roughly fill in the outlines with various shades of greens. Have fun with big bold brushstrokes and don't worry about making it look neat or accurate. Just make sure you use more than one green to depict the variety of the vegetation and give a sense of distance too. The elements in the distance should be cooler, or bluer. The negative spaces left represent the sky and the buildings. 04. Paint the dark tones Paint in the dark areas of buildings and suggest some key elements I'm one of many artists who prefers working dark to light in oils. This is why I've decided to paint the dark areas of the buildings first. Look at the colour of the shadows in the cityscape and use this to cover most of the canvas with spontaneous brushstrokes. Loosely suggest some key elements (like a church or a street) with some stronger marks. 05. Add the middle tones Use a middle tone to depict large elements as solid blocks Load your brush with a middle tone present in the cityscape and start 'sculpting' your painting with directional brushstrokes. The aim is to depict large elements as solid blocks (such as a street or a row of houses). Remember to squint a lot to simplify the scene and detect what stands out. Don't worry if the painting doesn't look great at this stage, it will come to life in the next step. 06. Create highlights Use a small brush and your lightest tone to create highlights All the groundwork has paid off, this is now the fun part of the painting. Use a smaller detail brush and load it with the lightest colour seen on the buildings. Apply the paint where you can see the brightest highlights of the cityscape, where the sun hits the buildings. Try using and mixing various light colours (such as light yellow, pink and white) to bring interest and variety to the scene. 07. Block in the sky Try treating the sky as blocks of different colours It is now time to capture the sky and its moving clouds. My biggest tip is to avoid too much blending. Instead of filling the whole space with blue and then adding some clouds, I recommend treating the sky as blocks of different colours (white, pink, blue and grey) and applying the paint in each block without feeling the need to merge. This will convey a sense of structure and energy. 08. Brighten up greens Add more definition to the green blocks in your painting The previous steps have helped capture the essence of the scene. What the painting needs now is more details, structure and contrast. The green blocks painted at the start have been partly absorbed by the board surface and now look a bit dull. They need more definition. Look at the view, squint, spot the darkest green areas in the scenery and reproduce them on your painting. 09. Add light green Try to avoid blending the paint when adding highlights You can now do the same with the highlights of the greens. Add touches of light green where the sun hits the trees and the grass. Remember to use different greens depending on what you are painting – the colour of a patch of grass is usually more saturated than a group of trees. Avoid blending the paint too much and try to keep your brushstrokes fresh and spontaneous. 10. Work on shadows Sharp, directional marks will clearly define items in the shadows The aim of this step is to bring more contrast to the buildings and street, and redefine the drawing of the scenery. Use a small brush and make sharp, directional marks to clearly define items in the shadows, such as house facades and sections of streets. Don't forget to keep looking and squinting at the scenery to spot the darkest areas that need emphasising. 11. Take a step back Stand back and take a look at what needs a final touch It's time to stand back from the easel and assess the painting. All the elements in the scene have now been addressed and there is a satisfactory sense of composition, light and shadows. The painting could benefit from applying final touches, such as sharpening the spires on the churches, and adding finer details – the suggestion of chimneys and windows, for example. 12. Add final touches Let the paint dry a little before working on the finer details Adding finer details can sometimes be easier when the paint has dried a little, so I went back to the studio and applied those final touches later in the day with a steadier hand and fresher eyes. Only a few brushstrokes were needed to finish the painting. I like to keep my style loose and fresh, but there's nothing stopping you from adding more details if you prefer a more refined result. This article was originally published in issue 12 of Paint & Draw, the magazine offering tips and inspiration for artists everywhere. Buy issue 12 here. Related articles: Add vibrancy to your oil paintings with these top tips How to draw a landscape with pastels Improve your brushstrokes in oils View the full article

Speed painting is exactly what you'd imagine – creating art against the clock. Artists give themselves a limited time to finish a piece of work, from a few minutes to a couple of hours. It is a great way for beginners to learn how to paint and for more experienced artists to hone their painting techniques. It's also a load of fun. Unlike sketching, however, speed paintings are considered complete after the time is up – if you alter your work afterwards, it is no longer a speed painting. To help you become a speed painting master, artists who contributed to 3dtotal Publishing's Master the Art of Speed Painting have shared 10 top speed painting tips from the book. On your marks, get set, go! 01. Use custom shapes Some examples of Alex Olmedo's custom shapes Alex Olmedo says: "Custom shapes are super useful tools for artists and are often forgotten by a large majority. They are simple, fast, and fun to make, and are great time savers when designing and speed painting. On those days when you feel uninspired to make art, you can make these instead. "Simply scribble abstract shapes using a hard brush, then play with them; try copying, repeating, overlapping, and transforming the shapes and using them in your art." 02. Fill a blank canvas Don't think, just get some brushstrokes down Katy Grierson says "Use a big Brush tool to lay down some strokes of varying colour, tone, texture, and opacity. Try not to paint anything specific, just fill the canvas with colour and texture. You can switch brushes but try to keep the size quite large – this is good for speed and preventing the urge to paint something specific. "This initial letting go can be the hardest thing to master but the effects are worth it in the end. By starting this way there is less pressure to fill a blank white canvas, which can be a hindrance to creativity." 03. Warm up with brushes Try working with only a limited number of brushes to help you save time and not become distracted by different brush typesDonglu Yu says: "Before I start working on a speed-painting session I like to warm up with some custom brushes. Depending on the theme, try to limit your selection of brushes for the speed-painting process. Working with a limited range of brushes can force you to work more efficiently by thinking about shapes and design rather than brushstrokes. This may take a while to get used to but it will speed up your whole process." 04. Use the Gradient tool Use the Gradient tool to add a base colour Massimo Porcella says: "Once you have set the tonal values of your image you need to add a base colour. The Gradient tool is perfect here because you can choose the colour for every part of the sketch, starting from the ground, at the base of the buildings, moving to the skyline shade, and finally picking up a colour to define the shade between land and sky. For an even colour palette, use the Eraser tool to blend all the colours together." 05. Build your own photo library James Paick created monumental fantasy ruins in one hour using photo textures he found in his personal photo library James Paick says: "I can't stress enough the importance of having a good photo reference library. You can find plenty on the internet but nothing beats going out there and taking your own. You can get the right exposure, scenery, and contrast to work with your current piece, or just interesting landmarks or cloud formations which might spark a new idea and build the imagination. "Don't limit yourself to the natural world; there are so many fascinating and elaborate architectural elements on buildings and other human-made things." 06. Allow boredom to spark creativity Jesper Friis added and mixed the acrylic paint on his old scanner; the speed painting itself took two hours to completeJesper Friis says: "In a fit of boredom one day I decided I would drag out my old scanner I had sitting around and started painting on the glass with some watercolour. I closed the lid to see what would come out. Since then I have been making weird textures this way from time to time. "It might seem a little silly at first, but even a day spent experimenting with some of these methods for making textures can give you something in your library that you will keep coming back to, something that's uniquely yours and really can't be recreated." 07. Add complexity Explore with textures and custom brushesStephanie Cost says: "To add complexity to your painting you should make full use of textures and custom brushes – there are hundreds of free ones on the internet. Find yourself a nice variety such as a rounded lizard skin-esque one, a smooth chalk-like one, or maybe a chunky, rough gravel brush. They are great for breaking up the internal shapes of your composition. You can try using a soft flat brush with Hue Jitter on each stroke; this is good for harder edges and unexpected colours." Check out the 60 best free Photoshop brushes, the 30 best Procreate brushes and how to create your own custom brushes in Clip Studio Paint. 08. Select the right photos Choosing photos that blend well together is keyOlmedo says: "When making photobashing images it is very important to choose the right photos. Often if you try to include a photo with a totally different lighting source compared to others involved in the image you'll end up spending too much time trying to fix the problem and even dismissing the photo." 09. Experiment Compose your image by adding a background gradient, duplicating and transforming your shape assets Ian Jun Wei Chiew says: "The Transform, Clipping, and Smudge tools are essential to my workflow as I prefer to create a collage and find shapes, rather than painting right from the get go. I find this method to be more fun and experimental, which can lead to ideas and compositions you would never think of developing. "There are endless possibilities with Photoshop; you can find a new use for any existing tool. At the end of the day, what makes a good image is your own personal knowledge of the foundations such as composition, values, colour, and lighting." 10. Don't over-tell Stay with the most essential storytelling elements so you can have an iconic and impressive composition – this painting took Donglu Yu two hours Yu says: "My students often like to tell a very complex story with one image. My feedback is always that you should pick the top two or three things you want to tell through the image, and tell them really well. "When a story is too complex, you need to divide your canvas space into smaller portions to distribute it all to the different storytelling elements, making it difficult to come up with an iconic composition." These tips come from the book Master the Art of Speed Painting from 3dtotal Publishing, aimed at aspiring digital painters and concept artists. Related articles: Best iPad art apps for painting and sketching How to draw and paint - 100 pro tips and tutorials The best drawing tablet: our pick of the best graphics tablets in 2017 View the full article

A great logo, now more than ever, must cut through an awful lot of noise. The art lies in working out exactly how you do that. There's a lot of overlap in the logo design trends we've picked out here. Some logos – the best of them – used two or three trends. In 2017, a year of lots of noise and confusion, the very best logo designs offered a quiet, understated authority, something both familiar and new. "Evolution, not a revolution," is how one designer said it. That's not to say there was no room for the bold or the creative. The best logos of 2017 also took chances and dared to be different. 01. Simplicity and clarity Moonpig's new look is far more minimal Simplicity has been king for a while. Last year, we saw it in Pentagram's redesign of the Mastercard logo, in which the agency focused on "simplicity and clarity." At the beginning of the year, we saw it in Interbrand's bold redesign of the Juventus badge, "fearlessly embracing its potential as an identity brand." And we saw it towards the end of this year, with Moonpig, led by the brand's in-house creative director James Turner. Greetings card company Moonpig dropped the the .com from its name, and the cartoon pig that went with it, in favour of something a bit subtler. You could argue simplicity's offshoots include minimalism, black and white logos, and those with framed texts, which we've also seen a lot of. In noisy, confusing times, the trend towards making things neater and simpler looks set to continue. 02. Uppercasification The new Calvin Klein logo uses sleek all-caps typography This trend is perhaps based on principles opposite to simplicity. In noisy, confusing times, you could argue that it's necessary to be noisier than everybody else. At least, that's how logos created in all uppercase can appear. But done well – usually when paired with a simple design and a smart typeface – it gives a logo a certain authority. Done really well there's a quiet, understated authority to uppercase logos, with the typography feeling natural rather than forced and shouty. As a trend it's a bit of broad stroke, but an unavoidable one nonetheless, seen in new logos by brands such as Calvin Klein, Giraffe, Ebury and too many others to mention. 03. Modern retro The new F1 logo feels like a modern spin on a 1980s look Formula 1 recently unveiled its first new logo in 23 years. The design, led by Wieden + Kennedy London, aimed for a "modern-retro feel." It's dynamic, and a bit masculine, like the sport, but it also has a real 80s feel. You can see the idea of modern-retro logo design in new logos for brands such as SYFY, Fanta, and Nintendo. Again, you could argue that this trend is a sign of the times. With so much change going on around the world, brands want to tether themselves to the familiar, even when making a change of their own. 04. Evolution of established logos The new YouTube logo wasn't vastly different to the old one "It’s an evolution, not a revolution," said Christopher Bettig, head of YouTube’s art department, after the brand changed its logo earlier this year. The new YouTube logo incorporated the already iconic play button and moved the emphasis off the "Tube." Aside from that, subtlety is key here. Evolution not revolution was seen elsewhere this year in logo rethinks by similar brands. Pinterest's new look is a good example. But Dropbox had it both ways, with the evolution of its logo and a controversial revolution of everything else. 05. Flat design Audi's rings were flattened in its new logo When we looked at the best logos for startups in 2017, one trend stood out: among these innovative new companies, flatness ruled where logos were concerned – check out the designs for Mush, Monzo, and Uniplaces, for example. Perhaps the best use of flatness this year came in the redesign of Audi's logo. The car manufacturer has always been switched-on when it comes to branding and advertising, and this update is no exception. Not only is it flat, but it's simple, modern-retro, and an evolution, not a revolution. Vorsprung durch technik indeed! Related articles: 10 tools to make illustration easier in 2018 10 huge graphic design trends to know for 2018 The 20 biggest logos of 2017 View the full article

What is it? YouTube is great, Patreon is making training inroads and DVD courses certainly have their place but there are times when you don't need step-by-step instruction to duplicate a project. You might need very specific guidance on a stumbling block that you've hit, even as a working pro. This is where 3D World's Q & A section comes in very handy. You can submit a question and we then find the member of our expert panel most suited to answering you. Well, imagine that on another level, with instant mentoring, help and advice from some of the best artists in their fields, and that is what you will find at Vertex 2018. Who will be there? We have a growing list of industry veterans and experts on hand at Vertex to answer your specific questions, from our very own Q&A writers Ant Ward and Maya Jermy, through to the likes of Peter Seager of DNeg, Joel Best of Framestore and Valentina Rosselli of MPC. They each bring vast pools of knowledge to the table and will happily help you work through your issue. This is a massive opportunity for you to cross bridges, take the next step in building your own skills and to tap into the mindsets of some incredible talent. This is unique to Vertex and not to be missed. More on Vertex Vertex 2018 is the event bringing together all areas of the VFX/3D community, for a day of presentations, workshops, recruitment and more. Some of the biggest names in the industry are coming to talk and share their skills and knowledge, from Chris Nichols and Brett Ineson, to Scott Ross. Tickets are available at the Vertex site, so head over to sign up for the latest news direct to your inbox and to buy tickets. The tickets themselves range from discounted student options, to free expo tickets and the access all areas passes. Related articles Scott Ross to talk at Vertex Network with industry experts at Vertex The ethics of digital humans View the full article