Envelope Ideas

I have created an envelope using Photoshop to demostrate how my stamp might look had it been published. I created this for fun showing my artistic side in Photoshop.

Evaluation of my work

I am very pleased with my final 3 stamp designs. A the start of the assignment I was a bit taken back by the software as I had never used 3d Studio Max and I did worry wheter or not I would be able to create 1 stamp! I also worried that as I had started the course later than everyone else I would be extremely behind compared to others.

My initial 3 designs are completely different from the final 3 I have produced. This is definately due to my lack of experience and I think I set my sights too high for what I wanted to achieve. Now I am more familiar with the software I feel I could build the three animals but this would take me quite a bit of time as my final 3 stamps took me a while to build. I am pleased with the leaf theme that I chose and I think the flower, ladybird and butterfly work well with them as a background. As a whole I am pleased with my progress and feel that I have learnt a lot from this assignment and I look foward to futhering my 3D design skills in the next project.

Stamp 3: Butterfly

Stamp 2: Ladybird

Stamp 1: Flower

My Final 3 Stamps

To finish my stamps I used a template to create the outline. I opened the template in Photoshop and opened my finished design. I dragged the template over and holding down the Ctrl and t, and then shift, I was able to drag my image out to fit the template. I then pressed enter and the image was clear and did not appear distorted. Next I used the template of the Queens head, I imported that and rotated it round the other way and changed the colour to white. I finally inserted some text '1st' to highlight a 1st Class stamp. The template stamps came with a background image but I decided to remove this as I thought it clashed with the image as I wanted the main focus to be on the actual stamp.

Progress Update

I have completed my final three designs. The final stage of making them look more realistic is applying them to a stamp background. I will either use a template or create one myself.

Butterfly

To begin designing my butterfly I chose an image online that I wanted to use as the wing I would then use the mapping technique like I did to create my flower. I saved the image and then opened it in Photoshop. I created a new layer that I made white and then I cropped the image so I only had one wing to work with. I then used the lasso tool to cut around the wing until I was happy with what I had and then I cut it out. I opened Studio Max and using the material editor tool I imported the image. I made a plane and then dragged the butterflies wing onto it. To ensure I had two of the same wings I used the symmetry modifyer and then used the edit poly modifier to shape the wings so they werent just flat thus making them look more realistic. After I created a body using box and changed the shape unitl I was happy with how it looked. I used the edit poly tool again and dragged out the top half so it appeared round and this would act as the butterflies head.


The image shows the wings that I created using the symmetry modifyer.

As you can see the butterfly now has its body and finally I placed the it onto a leaf to continue my theme.

Stamp Idea 3: Butterfly

I have decided that for my final stamp design I will create a butterfly. I have decided to use a butterfly because it continues with my theme of being on a leaf. I have looked through various images to help myself come up with some ideas that I can use.

Ladybird

For the final stage of my ladybird I had to apply the spots to its back. In Photoshop I created a red background with black spots and a black line going down the center, this was to create a line of symmetery as we know that ladybirds have an even number of spots on each side. In studio max I then opened it in the materials editor and applied the colour to its shell. This has transformed it from looking like a bug to a ladybird which I am really pleased about. The last thing I wanted to do was carry on my theme of animals on a leaf so like the flower I added a leaf background which the ladybird sits on. I played around with its layout until I was happy with it.

My ladybird is almost complete all I need to do is create a stripe down the back of the shell and find a position on the leaf I am happy with.