Tutorial numero uno. Dripping effect!

Yo people. My friend, Josh asked me to make a tutorial on how to do a melting sort of effect on words. So here it is, enjoy :D

This was done on Adobe photoshop CS, if you can transfer it or not, I'm not sure.

You should have the basic knowladge of the program you use, such as opening and saving documents, text, ect.

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Open your document, put text on in the font you want. I'm using century gothic (I prefer to be able to play with the spacing and such, so I keep the character box open, which you can find by pressing Ctrl+T while the text tool is selected.)

2. Put any final text effects, color changes and stylistic crap you want on it. Make sure to leave enough space at the bottom for the dripping effect. Then rasterize the layer. (Right click the layer, select "Rasterize layer".

3. Select the "Smudge" tool and set strength to 70%. Go into the top right hand corner and select the brush window, select scattering, make sure it's as close as possible (1%) set the hardness to about 50%. Make the brush size slightly smaller than the strokes of the letters.

4. Make a triangle shape with the point going down. Remember on real dripping things the drips go straight down at the same angle, because of gravitational pull.

5. Repeat on the other letters. I prefer to make letters like the G have longer streaks because it's a bigger letter and more ink would fall, while the tips of the H would have less ink.



6. Because it's supposed to look a little raggity I put a 0.8 Gaussian blue (Filter, blur, Gaussian blur)

7. Create a new layer, take a black circle brush create a teardrop shape at the end of your lines and then go over the whole tear drop with the blur brush, set at 50%.

8. Repeat on all the lines, then set the opacity to this layer at 80%

9. choose a smaller brush, use the blur tool, set a 50% strength and add a few smaller drips. These only have to be lines, not triangles, since they're small. Also outline all of your text using the same tool to make it look a little more melty.

10. Make a new layer, select the brush tool, small fuzzy brush and the color white. Decide where your light source it and create the highlights. Remember to do it on the drips as well.

Should look about like this-

11. Put a Gaussian blur of 1.8 over the highlight layer, merge the 3 layers you have into 1. DO NOT MERGE WITH THE BACKGROUND LAYER. Take your smudge brush and outline your letters again.

Done!!

Here's my finished project-

Because of how this was done, you could also add a background image, such as this-

Just drop the image you want in between the top layer and background later, and make it how you want it. I like the fact that my highlights mtch up perfectly with the highlight in the rexture (done accidentaly) just do what you want.

I hope everyone found this useful, and enjoyed! Now, I know I'm not the best photoshopper out there (doy!) and that there are probably a million and 1 ways to do this better, this i just how I do it.

:D

Lemme know what you think in the comments, and if you want to see more things like this in the future!

-Nanu

Hey! This is a good idea! Let's inject possibly harmful liquid into the layers of my skin! Yay!

Well the frenzy of blog posting has gone down in my friend-commuity. I don't know if this makes me sad that not as many of the awesome writers I know are posting or happy that I have time to write my own. A little of both I guess.

So I should probably give a point to this blog...hmm. Okay, Let's talk about tattoos. There's a multitude of reasons, number one being that it's what I thought of first.


No one really knows what made people start doing this, we don't even know when. However we're pretty certin that it's been around since before people started recording history. Otzi the Iceman, the most well preserved natural mummy ever found even has tattoos. 57 of them to be exact. No, it wasn't a dragon or a heart that said "Mom" on it, they were dots and lines found on the backs of his knees and ankles. (Perhaps it was fashionable?)
Tattoos can be of litterally anything. As long as you have the tatoo gun, pigmant and artist (depending on what and where your getting you might not even need that) and you can do pretty much whatever you want! How people react to it...is another thing entierly.

Many people believe that tattoos are evil, or something God will punish you for. (Personally, I think that's incorrect, see Isaiah 46:16) Some think that it's something only criminals wear, be it a gang tatoo or a identification marker, such as those in Nazi concentration camps during the Holocaust wore. Along withe the the above mentioned, many find it difficult to get a job with tattoos that show, and many have to remove them with skin grafts, plastic surgery, lazer surgery or dermabrasion before they're able to move up in there job.

So, after readin this far I bet your just about to hope out of your seat and get (what you think says) "Strength" in an Asian dialect (when in reality it means "Chicken") on your forhead, but before you do, there's some physical risk involved.

The process of getting a tattoo can be pretty long and painful, after all your inserting little drops of pigment that's breaking the skin at about 80 to 150 times a second. On top of that, because your opening your skin it's possible to get an infection, just like any open wound. Sometimes people have allergic reactions to the ink once the tattoo is complete, resulting in hives or itching. Sounds great!

No, don't worry. I know that whenever anyone looks into tattooing (as I have myself) the first thing you see is all of the health warnings and how your going to never get a job, and if you have a tattoos you'lll end up as a 50 year old hooker with herpes or something, which isn't true.

As with any big life altering choice (going to collage, buying a house, getting married) getting a tattoo is something that should be considered carefully. Most people arn't going to want a permanent mark on there body to remind them of a failed ralationship. So when chooseing a design, go for something that really means something to you personally. Now what qualifies as important to you might be stupid to someone else. However just because your tattoo isn't a large portrait of you dead granfathers face on your forarm doesn't mean it's not important. If you feel your reasons to get that butterfly on your ankle are strong enough and your will to live with it, go for it.


Okay. Lots of facts, a few opinions. I'm great at puking information on my readers! To sumerize- Like everything in life, there's at least a little risk. If your willing to deal with the pain, and take care of it, keepong in mind that this mark will be with you forever and ever, what's holding you back? I guess it's pretty obvious were I stand on the "Should I get a tattoo?" debaucle.

-Nanu



(Info compiled here can be found on American acadamy of Dermatoligy, The Encyclopedia Britannica, eMedicine, The Mayo Clinic,

WARNING.
So this seems really lames. Not blogging, but this paticular blog. It just does.
Especially after seeing my friend blogs. They're awesome.
I'd recommend reading them instead of this.
Whatever, your choice.
Now I'll begin.

Hi.
I've re-written this a lot. This blog I mean.
It shouldn't be this hard, after all I did have a xanga and I would write on that almost everyday.
That was about 3 years ago.
Well maybe I should say some things about me.
I'm young. Only 16.
I never finish anything, I have problems paying attenchion.
Sometimes people think I agree with them when I don't. Probably because I try to hear they're argument.
My imagination is huge and sometimes takes over my brain.
I like to write. Books, not songs(I'm sort of musicly incapable). I generally refer to my characters like they're real.
I really don't like writing like this, list format.
Also I hate writing essay's.
In future, I'll probably write about some pretty random things. Sometimes from my life, others just stuff I learned randomly.
When I first mentioned getting a blog my friend Caitlin (http://caitlinhobbs.blogspot.com/) told me I should write a blog about drugs. I'll probably do that someday.


..
..

If we were speaking, this is where the awkward silence would be.

hmm. Stopping point.

Until next time :)