Advanced Photoshop issue 100

'Vintage' illustration by David Cousens

Way back in 2006, Advanced Photoshop magazine featured the first ever internationally published appearance of a then unheard-of (yet still very handsome) illustrator  David Cousens. (If you dig through the archives of this blog you can still see the original post where I was awarded 'Best in show' in issue #23 of AP's Peer Pressure section). 

The editor of Advanced Photoshop at the time, Emma Cake (now Emma Davenport founder of Big Bouquet photography) took a liking to my work and commissioned me to produce and my first ever illustration tutorial in the following issue, cementing a long working relationship with Advanced Photoshop that goes on through to this day. 

To celebrate its 100th issue, Advanced Photoshop has commissioned some of its favourite artists that the magazine has featured over the years and I was honoured to be asked to provide this Vintage inspired illustration.  Thanks to Emma Davenport, Julie Bassett and Adam Smith for all of the support over the years.

Advanced Photoshop issue 100 is available to buy in the UK now and you can also follow them on twitter.

Have fun,
David


You can Follow me!
Twitter - http://twitter.com/DavidCousens
Tumblr - http://CoolSurface.tumblr.com/
DeviantArt - http://coolsurface.deviantart.com/

Playr 3: The world's best new webcomic based on Parenting and Gaming brought to you by the award-winning David and Sarah Cousens! http://playr3.tumblr.com/ 

"Propaganda" - Digital PaintingTutorial for Digital Arts Magazine

In the November 2010 issue of Digital Arts  magazine (out now in the UK) you can find our digital painting tutorial inspired by early 20th Century Chinese Propaganda posters with a theme of "Inspiration". 

One detail we didn't have the space to explain in the magazine was what the Chinese text says, which is a loosely translated quote from Jack London: "You can’t wait for inspiration, you have to go after it with a club"

Have fun,

David

twitter.com/DavidCousens

Scarecrow's Joyride - Digital Painting tutorial for PSDFan

Excellent Photoshop site PSDFan has been relaunched this week, and we were asked to provide a brand new tutorial to help kick off the proceedings as part of their "7 tutorials in 7 days" theme.

You can see a sneak of the tutorial here and if you act quickly you can see the tutorial plus the full layered .PSD file and custom brushes (plus Premium membership to the website for a month) for just $1! 

The tutorial covers a whole variety of things from Photoshop techniques to design theory with my trademark silly asides and random trivia to make it that bit more entertaining.

Have fun,

David

Twitter.com/DavidCousens

Guess Who’s coming to Dinner? A PSD Tuts+ tutorial

We were pleased to hear the team at PSD Tuts+ really liked our last tutorial “The Monstrum Dichrous” and they asked us to make another one. We were asked to make the subject of our image an alien, but that was our only restriction, we we’re allowed to go any way we wanted with it. 

I wanted to avoid any of the standard cliché’s (a space station corridor, space marines/explorers about to be ambushed, you get the idea). So I started to browse the web for something random to inspire me; when looking to avoid cliché’s it helps to completely avoid the subject you’re thinking about. 

I always keep an eye on the photography of the excellent Marcus Ranum (http://mjranum-stock.deviantart.com/), as it turns out Marcus had recently posted a photo of a model dressed in camouflage sitting in an American diner and inspiration hit me! Why not draw a story about an alien that isn’t hell bent on destruction, abducting people or mutilating cattle, who instead is an incognito visitor that isn’t interested in humans at all, just our tasty pancakes! It’s obviously been a while since his last visit to Earth as he’s wearing old fashioned clothes to try to blend in.

You can see the tutorial over at PDSTuts+ now.
 

Have fun,
David
Twitter.com/DavidCousens

"The Monstrum Dichrous - a Photoshop CS5 tutorial for PSDTuts+" PLUS an interview for "Gamers Dig Art" and Get "Bitten" for Charity!

Prepare yourself for a big blog post.  For those of you with short attention spans, I've put the key points in bold writing for you.  I'm awesome, I know.

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We were happy to be asked by the people running PSDTuts+ to write a tutorial that specifically covered Photoshop CS5's Mixer brush to create a fantasy painting.  

Here we have "The Monstrum Dichrous" (loosely translated from Latin as "the Omen of 2 distinct colours") which is a bit of a spiritual successor to "Lovebirds".  It seems we have a running theme of 2 spirits (one red and one blue) that take form of various animals that are mysteriously always present at times of destruction.  The question is why are they always there?  Are they merely observers or are they somehow responsible for the chaos around them...

To see how we made this image, go and see the tutorial on PSDTuts+ now!

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When you're done with that you should go and visit Gamers Dig Art where I was interviewed by the excellent Ramel Hill. The interview is loads of fun and covers all manner of things including "How I'm going to survive to upcoming Zombie Apocalypse!".  Read the Gamers Dig Art interview here

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Now for something much more selfless, good friend of Cool Surface Tigz Rice (who we're making a book with btw) has an excellent new book out called "Bitten" which you can win by simply donating just £1 to Cancer Research UK.  Here's more from Tigzy's site:

"Following the success of 'Wonderland' in 2009, this August sees the release of 'Bitten', a new picture book for adults from London based illustrator and photographer Tigz Rice. Adapted from the well-known classic 'Snow White', the book follows the story of a mistress so desperate to keep her beauty she will do anything to save them, including harming her own family. But is she really the one to blame?
The book features an all star cast including cabaret star Joe Black, model and The New York Conservatory for Dramatic Arts' student Emily Marshall, Burlesque performer Lily Belle as well as alternative models Kristina Frenchum and Sally Parkinson. 
Printed by Ripe Digital, the book retails at £18 - however to say a massive thank you to Cancer Research Orpington for helping provide costumes for the book, Tigz will be holding a charity raffle to win a copy of Bitten, with the proceeds being donated to Cancer Research UK. 
How to enter? Simply follow the link in the bar above to donate £1 to Cancer Research UK. You can enter as many times as you like to improve your chances of winning. One lucky donator will be named on August 14th 2010."

Right I'm off to donate now,
Have fun,
David
http://twitter.com/DavidCousens

Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge - an art tutorial for PSDFan

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When we were asked to write another tutorial for PSDFan we wanted to have another go at a video game character after the success of our previous Legend of Zelda inspired tutorial "Broken Link".  As some of you will know, Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge Special Edition is out at the end of this week so I made an illustration to celebrate the game because I'm reaaaally looking forward to it (and I'm hoping somebody will take pity on me and send me one of thise lovely Guybrush Threepwood voodoo dolls they were giving away at E3).

To see the full tutorial head to PSDFan now.

Have fun,

David
http://twitter.com/DavidCousens

"Why won't they stop staring at me?!"

If you've just tried to reach the official Cool Surface website and have been redirected here, there's a good reason. The Cool Surface website is currently under construction and will be revealed soon. To make up for any confusion caused, here's a picture of a cute puppy and kitten. Feeling better now? Good.


And what's more, the latest issue of Photoshop Creative (issue 57) features a tutorial which will take you through how we created this image.
Enjoy!

"Broken Link" slideshow

For those of you who didn't see our Broken Link tutorial over at PSDfan (shame on you...), here is a nifty little slideshow for you so you can see how the image was taken from sketch to finished artwork. Enjoy!

"Broken Link" - A Photoshop tutorial based on the Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask

If you head over to PSDFAN right now you'll be able to see our brand new Photoshop tutorial: "Broken Link" where we take you through the steps of how to make the image in this post based on the Nintendo game "The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask".

You may already know that we're big fans of The Legend of Zelda series (I even made a Zelda themed birthday card for Sarah a while back) so when PSDFAN asked us to make a character based tutorial for them, the idea of redesigning Deku Link and pushing his mutated tree form even further jumped straight into my head.

Plus it's not just the tutorial files you can see there, you can also download some free custom brushes too!

Have fun,
David