As we approach the weekend, it's another opportunity for folks to work on their entries for this month's Minifigure Design Battle brief - The Paranormal Gunslinger. An effect you may want to try in your presentation is to make the gunslinger or his adversaries appear to be more ghostlike (ghosts one of the many creatures that fall under the banner of 'paranormal activity').
I managed to find a nice tutorial from site JC Icons which walks you through a process for making hologram projections in GIMP - a free, open-source image editing software with functions similar to Photoshop. The functions are so similar, that I'm guessing the Photoshop experts could follow along as well. The final result gives you a blue, transparent 'hologram' effect like you would see with the AI in Halo or the projections in Star Wars. A color change and/or a wipe effect where the image phases in would produce a nice phantasm for your final entry into the contest.
Speaking of which, entries must be submitted to the UD Minifigure Design Battle Arena group on Flickr before 12:01 am EST February 16th, 2011 (in other words, at the end of that Tuesday). Entries submitted after this time will not be considered eligible. Remember to read the ‘Rules and Guidelines’ thread before submitting your entry.
This month’s winning prize is once again sponsored by FireStar Toys, where the victor will receive a gift card to FireStar worth £25 (approximately $40 USD*) which can be used on a wide variety of LEGO brand products, custom minifigures, or custom accessories from companies like BrickArms, BrickForge, Tiny Tactical, Si-Dan Toys, or Amazing Armory Ltd., just to name a few.
Questions about this contest or the rules should be submitted to Cygnet at uglyduck.bricklink@gmail.com . Good luck!
(Thanks to JC Icons for the great how to!)
(Thanks to JC Icons for the great how to!)
*Exact value in US Dollars is dependent on the currency exchange rates at that time.
