Well, last night guys, was one helluva party. I went to mtvU’s Woodie Awards for the first year and I’m not sure if I’m flattered or hurt. Hurt that I was never cool enough to be invited before and flattered that I finally made it. I only have one thing to say about last night:

LYKKE LI

Ok, that’s two words, but you get the drift. I had never heard of her before and I’m a changed woman. She came on stage and created a whole new genre for me—Bridget Bardot Gothic Chic. I’ve seen two other women rock it like she did on stage: Gwen Stefani and Karen Oh from Yeah Yeah Yeahs. I downloaded the album immediately and I’ve become obsessed with it, but I don’t think I would be enjoying her music as much if I hadn’t seen her live. This is an artist. She beats to her own drum and has mastered her image.

So, in honor of Aubrey’s amazing dancing, check out another booty shaker:

Xoxo
SuPak

Aubrey caught our eye with not only her portfolio but her dancing skills. Coming full circle, here is Aubrey as guest VJ.

Xoxo
SuPak

Hey All-

If you missed Doreen on-air, wanted to be sure you saw her here! A reminder, you can get your tech questions answered for Notebook Design Contest by emailing engineroom@mtv.com.

Congrats Doreen!

XOXO
SuPak

Well here we are at the premiere of the Season Finale. I’m in complete denial and I guess because we’ve all been such a tight knit group online, it’s easy to lose track of “TV time.” The last day of taping was an emotional one, I didn’t think it was going to top the nerves of the Tattoo challenge, but standing there, moments before the winners were announced, I could feel my heartbeat in my EYEBALLS…I swear. You’ll get goosebumps when the winners are announced because the reaction and tension is emotional.

I’ve been calling this the biggest little show ever. Here we are, just trying to create some space for artists and suddenly, four people get to walk away with $100,000.00 each. For many in that room, who come from modest backgrounds, that kind of money is life changing.

But I hope most of all, after all that’s said and done, this will be a place where many of you will start to see changes as well…in little connections or big opportunities, this project is yours and what you make of it is up to you.

The Engine Room community has been such a part of the story of Engine Room. We’ve had Audio consultants from around the world, we’ve had Guest VJ’s (there are more coming this week on the blog too), we’ve had Guest Bloggers, college bands from Bestmusiconcampus.com, featured portfolios, HP Laptop winners, including our final one Liz Allen from Utah, USA. Not to mention all the bloggers who have supported this show from the very beginning.

Don’t think this is the end. First off the Notebook Design Contest just kicked off, and I strongly encourage all you designers to submit for the chance to have your design manufactured on a new HP laptop.

This blog is not going away. And I have high hopes for an Engine Room season 2. I suspect that decision will be based in part by how this season was received - which has been great. So continue to show your Engine Room love and share the url and embed code with all your friends. I would LOVE to do the show again and get 16 of you reading this right now to be on.

XOXO
SuPak

Thanks to Denesia for rockin the blog this week. As we get ready for the big season finale on Monday, thought I’d share some interviews that the contestants did with the press department. Get to know them better, you can see them all here.

Tune in Monday and see who claims the Engine Room Season 1 bragging rights along with all the $$$$ and HP gear!

I am from Texas and we have a slogan here that goes “Don’t mess with Texas!” That slogan is suppose to tell people to stop littering the streets with trash and to keep our state looking good. I have to add another slogan to my collection and that is “Don’t mess with my shapes and vectors!” Photoshop shapes and vectors are looking much better nowadays. In the case of shapes, they are looking more intricate, and vectors are looking more realistic than ever. They’re definitely moving on up.

I know everybody knows what a shape is, but a few of you may not know where Photoshop shapes are in Photoshop. If you go way down the toolbox, you will see the rectangle tool with an arrow next to it. When you click on that and hover over it, a little menu bar pops out. The object that looks like a blob of goo is the custom shape tool and that’s what you’re going to use to make a shape. After you click on that, you’re going to look at the second menu bar at the top of the page and you’re going to see a palette just like the brush palette where you can choose whatever shape you want to use. When you’re adding new shapes to Photoshop, you have to remember to load them, because they won’t appear in the shape area by themselves. Once you have chosen a shape, you can then click, hold, and drag the shape across the page until it’s the size you want it to be. You can then fill it with a color, pattern, or turn it into a selection and do a different effect with it.

Shapes are a beautiful thing. If you draw horrible stars like I do, then a star shape can definitely safe the day and your sanity. So let’s take a stroll along Shape Lane. You may see some shapes that you can’t live without.

The shapes we just looked at probably all started out as a vector. For those of you that don’t know what a vector is, a vector is a shape or image that is created using points that connect to each other. This is done in various vector programs such as Illustrator. It can also be done in Photoshop, but Photoshop only puts out raster images that are made up of pixels. When anything is made of pixels, it’s going to have a jagged edge. Illustrator and other vector programs are the programs to use if you want your vector to have nice clean edges. I know you’re wondering what kind of vectors are out there. The sky is the limit when it comes to vectors. You can get anything from paint splats to a traffic signal. I have even seen some vectors of the U.S. presidential nominees, Obama and McCain. lol You’re probably wondering why am I talking about vectors since they’re Illustrator things, well you can import them into Photoshop. I imported a vector into one of my artworks in my portfolio and it turned out great. The good thing about a vector is that you can customize it much easier than a shape. You can add and subtract things, change colors in different sections, and etc. Let’s get out our vector inspector magnifying glasses and see what cool vectors we spot at the websites below.

Well that concludes our search through some of the coolest vector websites, and it also concludes my time here as guest blogger. I had fun telling you all about my favorite Photoshop goody websites. I hope they’ll become your favorites too. May the next guest blogger have tons of fun and may they make us oooh and ahhh with his or her blogging talents. If any of you ever need some kind of brush or vector that you can’t find, then you know who to call or should I say IM or email. lol Thank you again SuChin, Brian, MTV Engine Room, and the MTV Engine Room bloggers for being so nice to me these past few days and for giving me this cool opportunity! Now back to the ole great one, SuChin Pak!

The Photoshop addict is outta here! Peace!

- Denesia

I am over here giving my arial font a new style. It’s going to have a nice chrome effect. It’s going to have more bling than a Bentley. lol Are you wondering what style I am talking about? I am talking about a Photoshop layer style. It can be found in Photoshop’s style palette which is next to the swatches. A style can give a font, image, or a shape a totally different look. Styles that are made for text are called text styles. They can range from looking like glass to having objects floating inside the style. If you want your text to have a big impact, then a text style is the way to go. Styles that are made for photos are called photo styles. They can add various effects to a photo or image. They can add a sun-burned effect, a sepia tone, a blue tone, and etc. to photos and images. I used the sun-burned effect on one of my artworks in my portfolio. It turned out great. There are also styles that can be used on all of the above. Those kinds of styles are good to use on shapes. You can take a regular Photoshop shape, such as a star and turn it from a usual yellow star to a shiny gold one.

Styles are a Photoshop fashion accessory that you can’t pass up. I want everybody to put their sunglasses on, because the styles I am about to list are so bright that you gotta wear shades. lol

Now that we’re through looking at the styles, let’s take off our shades for a minute and talk about gradients. Gradients are like little rainbows of colors. One color fades into another color and so on. They can be put on top of an image, used as a background, or used to fill a shape or selection. If your design ever needs a nice pop of color, then a gradient will do the trick. I used a gradient on my artwork called “Dreams Run Through It III.” I wanted to experiment with the colors of the artwork. I didn’t feel like coloring different parts of it separately so I used a gradient and adjusted the opacity and the final result was magic. The gradients that come with Photoshop are great, but you’ve got to see some of the gradients at the websites I am getting ready to tell you about. I want everybody to put their good tennis shoes on, because we’re getting ready to go somewhere over the rainbow. Whoever finds the pot of gold is going to have to split it with everybody. lol

That was quite a rainbow of gradients huh. I hope you can put these styles and gradients to good use, and as always if you know of any groovy styles and gradients, then let us know about it. If you had a great day today, then let us know about that too. lol Tomorrow, I am going to talk about Photoshop shapes and vectors. They aren’t just squares, circles, and triangles anymore. I must go now. I have another font waiting to be chromed out and another rainbow to explore. Stay beautiful, stay happy, and stay creative!

The Photoshop addict is outta here! Peace!

- Denesia

Now you have your design ready and you have used the cool Photoshop actions and brushes from my previous posts, but there’s something lacking. You notice your design’s background is blah and your design looks flat as a pancake. Well help is on the way. A texture and a pattern can put the pep back into your design’s step. I think I hear a faint voice asking what is a texture, what is a pattern, what is the meaning of life? That last question is a hard one, so I’ll stick to answering the first two.

A texture in this case is an image with a dominant theme, such as a forest of trees, clouds, or a cluster of stones. It can also be an image that showcases a surface, such as stucco, burlap, concrete, or silk. Basically, anything can be a texture now. The peeling wood siding on your house could be a texture. Next time you see it, you better take a picture of it, because that is one of the best texture shots nowadays. Textures are best used as a background or blended into the foreground of the design. One thing I know for sure is that textures can add just the right amount of drama to a design. In the digital art world, drama is always a good thing.

Now onto patterns, a pattern in Photoshop terminology is a design or image that can be seamlessly tiled together. Some of the patterns look repetitive while others look like one continuous image. Some patterns look like smaller versions of regular images and others look like abstract designs. Patterns can be used the same way as textures, but patterns are apart of Photoshop and they can be added to it too and accessed in a variety of ways in the program. You can fill a selection with a pattern and you can add a pattern to a layer by using blending options and the pattern overlay option. I say find a pattern you like and go crazy with it!

Huh, you don’t know of any good places to find textures and patterns? Well, let me help you with that. Let’s go on a little shopping trip. We’re going to Photoshop Fashion World. If you look on the left aisle, you’ll see some tantalizing textures and if you look to the right, you’ll see some preppy patterns. Let’s check out the textures first. Here’s some textures that I think are so in for the Fall season:

Now lets go to the right aisle and see what groovy patterns we can find:

Whew! That was one heck of a shopping trip! lol I hope you all found some cool goodies you can use in your designs. If any of you want to take us on another shopping trip to show us some other textures or patterns that are in this season too, then let us know about it. My parents just walked in, they want to know why I went on another extravagant shopping trip. I think I better get going while the going is good. lol Remember, tomorrow I am going to talk about Photoshop styles and gradients. They’re so hot that they’ll make you strike a pose. Leave my textures alone Mom! Stay beautiful and stay away from the shopping police!

The Photoshop addict is outta here! Peace!

- Denesia