Blogger layout (1st draft)

Layout screenshot (click HERE for the full layout)

I want to try making a new layout for this blogger and this is the 1st draft of the layout. I called it 1st draft because I encountered trouble with the texture and maybe I will have to change it if I want to make it a working layout.

The current header, I saw it in many CSS layout recently (the way they use a gradient-color banner on top and change to another color for main background. Usually there is Tabs for navigation there, but I don't need tabs for blogger so just forget about it) and I definitely want to try. The texture and puzzles is from shapes that Photoshop has. I really like the texture and want to keep it, but I had trouble slicing the image because it's so hard to make the texture of background fit the texture of header when I center it, especially with monitor larger than 1024) For the rest of the details, there is nothing special, i just created some blog-like header and footer.

I've checked the code of Blogger layout and everything should be ok (except the footer, I'm not quite sure if I can do that). I'll try to finish coding this Monday. I hope it will be alright, I really want to have a personal look on Blogger.

Color blending experiment

Illusion

I did a tutorial about vivid color creation in Computer Arts magazine this morning. The result of the tutorial was quite nice to look at, so I decided to make another experiment using the same method.
The image above is what I ended up with, completely made from lots of random thought. The butterflies was created from a photo in sxc.hu (with some retouch and re-draw) and the texture of background is from the tutorial. There no thing much in technique, only try to blend gradient and random color with different blending mode.

About how did I created this photo, it's all blending mode. The new things I learned in the tutorial is mixing gradient (draw foreground --> transparent gradient, set them to hard light, most of the butterflies are set to soft light). The texture and hightlight spot is screen. The tutorial is mostly about creating color, setting for butterflies (their opacity, direction, size) is my work.

What was it that I was thinking about when creating this image? Well, I was affected by the tutorial (the theme of the final image was Dream, but a dream in which you're aware that you're dreaming. That sounds pretty nice ^^) So in my picture, I think there is some dreamy factors in it (color fading, plenty butterflies blend into each other...) But I was thinking about Illusion too. The spot light in the center and the butterflies seem to be drawn into it, but they are fading as they're getting nearer to the light. It's like when we're in darkness, we'll be drawn in by thing we "believe" to be light but it's just an illusion and when we chase after it, we lost ourself and disappear.... (oh, I'm being a romantic one here ^^". But it's probably because I was feeling helpless trying to make a vector art piece and it seem I can never complete it... feel kind of bored and sad... Anyway, I did the tutorial to get a better mood that time)

Links & Credit:
Larger image
Butterfly by cangsyl
Tutorial by Jort Braam