We hand picked these so only the most beautiful are shown.

So here we present 50 eye catching nature inspired wallpapers which you can download. They all have a wide range of sizes so you’ll be able to get them ...]]> Desktop wallpapers aren’t they great, we love them, especially nature inspired ones. Nature and the environment has always been a favourite subject of mine. We thought it would be a nice boost after the Easter break and introduction to spring and summer.

We hand picked these so only the most beautiful are shown.

So here we present 50 eye catching nature inspired wallpapers which you can download. They all have a wide range of sizes so you’ll be able to get them on your extra large design screens, and are in high resolution.

Sizes : full screen 4:3, 1600×1200, 1400×1050, 1152×864 ,1024×768, 800×600, 640×480 – Credit and thanks to the respective designers

please retweet and remember to subscribe via RSS thnx

Chill

Flying High 2

By Nathan Gray

The Roadside Daydream

By Justin Maller

Mnd

Suburban Fantasy

By Jeff Huang

Krust

By Leigh Flurry

Zeroonethree A

By Matt Apostolescu

Dream

By Jordy Roelofs

Desktopography

By Niklas Lundberg

Fatamorgana

By Pawel Nolbert

Fatamorgana

By Pawel Nolbert

Dndln

By Carlos Herrera

Altitude

By Kevin J Minnis

Northu

By Vincent Hernandez

Rdp

By Ehren Kallman

Geometree

By Pete Harrison

Pack Systems

By Pawel Nolbert

Sn.E

By Dekker Slade

Warm Nature

By Jordy Roelofs

Krvt

Entry

By Christain Jehle

Brisa

By Oscar Maia

Breaking The Foundation

By Vincent Hernandez

Flwr

By Mathieu Elie

Bloom

By David Mascha

Down by the sea

By James Wignal

Flying High

By Nathan Grey

TAG

By Khairil osman

IMSS

By Khairil osman

Pond

NEN

By Marius Bauer

Duel

By Marius Bauer

NATR

A lovely tree

By Seb Creane

MM morgans

By David Mascha

Open source

By Jerico Santander

Uvivland

By Kharil Osman

Take Me Elsewhere

By Niklas Lundberg

Fluence

By Jordy Roelofs

Enchanted Forest

By Alexander Radsby

Icegrass

By Carlos

Treehugger

By Pete Harrison

Desktopography

By Theo Aartsma

Solar Rise

By Stratos Agianoglou

D3

By Ehren Kallman

Sunset Up

By Nick Van Meel

Freshwater

By Pawel Nolbert

Typography

By Gabor Tomasi

Forestform

By Dave Garwin

Absorb

By Gabor Tomasi

Alphina

By David Mascha

Ambiental

By Xtrabold

A New Prospect

By Christain Jehle

Bowbay

By Stefan Sicher

Classic

By Pete Harrison

Confused By Nature

By Timic

CVRD

By Phillipp Schilling

Tomorrow

By Juhani Jokinen

Conflctd

By Dropclique

Dsngr

By Marius Bauer

A Moment Of Peace

By Justin Maller

Growth

By Ikaruga and Eric Sin

Imagination

By Armen Mnatsakanjan

Woodland

By Zilla774

In Circles

By Nicolas Delaney

Its All Tears

By Flisky

Raiden

By Leigh Flurry

Razerdawn

By Carlos

Reptilia

By Kai Isselhorst

Stealthy Skies

By Bob Sakoui

Sunset Dreamer

By Mike Harrison

I recently made some fractal brushes for Little Box of Ideas . They had a good response so I thought I’d make some for you guys too .

These are all made at 2500 pixels and should work in photoshop CS and above. If you enjoyed use them please feel free to link to them but please don’t redistribute as your own.

It looks like we’ll be publishing a new brush set every week so if you have any requests ...]]>

I recently made some fractal brushes for Little Box of Ideas . They had a good response so I thought I’d make some for you guys too .

These are all made at 2500 pixels and should work in photoshop CS and above. If you enjoyed use them please feel free to link to them but please don’t redistribute as your own.

It looks like we’ll be publishing a new brush set every week so if you have any requests for brushes leave a comment saying what type your interested in or email us. Please retweet this and be sure to get out RSS feed.

download: 6 Free Stunning Fractal Brushes Which You Need (21.17MB) added: 10/03/2010 clicks: 971 description: 6 Free Stunning Fractal Brushes Which You Need all at 2500 px Photoshop CS and above

The blog started off as a ...]]>

Hello and welcome to Digital Art Empire, Gordon thanks for the interview. Why don’t you tell us about yourself, your blog and background in design?

Hi my name is Gordon Reid I front Middle Boop which is a moniker I use for design and illustrate and also the name I have given for the blog I run which reviews the best music and showcases the talents of amazing designers and artists from all over the world.

The blog started off as a way to promote my own work and talk about the bands I was into but after gaining international recognition it has become a really popular blog for music and design where I now have a team of six writers and designers who work really hard in creating stunning reviews and interviews with amazing bands and designers/illustrators. We now get over 300 hits a day and are pretty overloaded with the amount of music and artwork sent to us which is fantastic really.

I remember the day I knew design was the route I wanted to go down, I was at my friends house who was doing a design degree whilst I was still at school, I saw the sort of work he was producing and just thought ‘this is what I want to do.’ I studied Graphic Image Making at Solent uni (a course which no longer exists) it incorporated animation, illustration, graphic design, 3-d, music production and web.

It was great to learn so many aspects of the industry and meant I could really experiment with lots of different techniques and processes and explore avenues I would not have considered if I was just doing a design course, I did a lot of animation at uni and was commended for one of my shorts at the BFI Cobra Beer awards. I haven’t created an animation for ages, it’s certainly something I would like to continue experimenting with.

The main thing I really learned from my time at uni was a  DIY ethic, after a fair few disagreements with lecturers about my work I knew I had to push myself as much as possible to make sure my work got seen and appreciated.

Your latest Digital Arts Cover is an eye catching retro piece – what was thinking behind this and what’s your process from concept to print?

Well I had a fantastic brief to work with which allowed me a lot of space for creative freedom, as Digital Arts have just had a re design I knew this had to look really special I was asked to create a piece that really blended the 60’s styling’s with modern approaches and techniques, I was given the main image of the computer and two images of the woman to work with and from there built up an illustration deriving from bright geometric shapes, adding lots of texture and using a number of techniques to add depth to it.

I wanted to really experiment with an abstract colour palette that made sure the mag would stand out over the others on the racks but also drew in reference from 60’s and Swiss style graphics. I kept developing the design further and whenever I got to a point where I was happy with it, I took a breather away from the screen and made sure that when I came back to it I had even more ideas to develop it further. The turnaround was really fast and before I knew it the mag was on the shelves along with my recent Computer Arts tutorial. January was a good month.

How have you found it creating an online presence?  Is this where many of your clients come from or do you do focus on offline promotion?

It’s always tough creating a presence on or offline, it takes a lot of hard work and dedication to make sure that your work stands out from the rest. Getting your work on the many different portfolio sites such as Behance and Final Crit is only really the start as you compete with so many other design hopefuls and although it takes time and money to set these things up having a website is truly vital, I really started to notice the difference in interest pretty much from the day my site went online, having something that’s easy to use where people can just go and reference your work is a crucial tool in gaining a fanbase and getting noticed.

My clients range from online and offline promotion, a lot of  clients when I first started out came from the connections I had made on the blog, record companies and bands etc, I gained a lot of recognition over the summer with a range of digital prints I created for bands and people started to recognize my work on the gig circuit which was great but I guess the bigger commissions have been coming from people seeing my work online.

What are your tools of the trade and which software do you use? I’ve seen some people learn a new program each month, would you say knowing a single application is more helpful?

My tools of the trade would certainly be my Canon 4400F scanner and Powershot Sx200 camera, on top of that I mainly use Photoshop and Illustrator but have been known to sneak a little Cinema 4-d into my work as well as using In Design to layout pages for the Middle Boop zine and various other projects.

At uni we had a pretty intensive run through a wide variety of different programs and that has certainly been more of a help than a hindrance as it allows you a lot more creative freedom with the packages although there are always packages you just don’t get on with. I think it’s really a matter of exploring lots of different options, finding the ones that work best for you and then concentrate on really getting to know those particular packages, finding out shortcuts and all the little ins and outs that can speed up a job.

Where do you look for inspiration? What are a favourite handful of blogs you regularly visit?

I am inspired by tons of different things, people that really push boundaries Paul Rand, Lester Beall, movements as Bauhaus and Dada. Not to mention today’s geniuses such as Siggi Eggertsson, these guys all create amazing work. I regularly check sites like Yay Everyday! And Dirty Mouse for great inspiration I also find that once you are involved with a particular project chilling out and taking time away from the screen to let things all wash over you is a great way for new ideas to hit you when you least expect it.

The newest image for Computer Arts has a fairly retro look to it too can you go into the process for this design after the initial concept ?

This was another great brief as I was allowed to do whatever I wanted as long as the type was clear. I think due to the retro aspects of my work people are starting to notice a trend developing and a lot of clients have requested a certain ‘retro’ theme which was picked up by Computer Arts, for this image I found the image of the oil refinery and thought that would be the perfect image to act as a focal point for the piece, from there I built the illustration up using found layers and then using some tricks of the trade created vector shapes and colour. I used a very different colour palette and used the brighter colours a lot more sparingly, I wanted to experiment with the background texture a lot and added very subtle use of colour which you can just about make out I wanted to create an illustration with a lot of detail which would draw the viewer in.

Gordon you have had a fair amount of exposure in magazines to say the least. This must be greatly encouraging.  Would you say you have been headhunted? What kind of plan have you had, if any, to get this kind of attention?

Yeah it’s been great I mean really fantastic, ever since I knew what design was I’ve been reading these magazines never actually thinking I would be in them so to come from that to walking into Smith’s and seeing my name on covers and read all these nice things people have been saying is the best feeling, it’s great to get so much recognition for my work and has certainly opened doors.

I wouldn’t say I’ve been headhunted by anyone but there certainly seems to be a lot of attention on retro design at the moment, something a lot of people are tipping to be big this year so people have been coming to me a lot but there’s never really been a plan to get this sort of exposure, maybe it’s been right place right time or something like that, I just always make sure I push myself and my work, especially in self initiated projects where you have creative freedom and make sure that the right people know about what I’m doing I also want to make sure that my work stays ahead of the game and I don’t just get stuck in one trend.

Pretty Much Amazing is one of my favourites. Compared with Deerhunter it seems effortless and almost easy.  Are there any specific techniques you use when designing that you would suggest to designers in the same field as you?

Pretty Much Amazing

Deerhunter

Thanks. Well I am a big fan of the blend technique in Illustrator, it has amazing potential and you can do so much with it. For Pretty Much Amazing I used that technique a fair bit in various ways, usually I use it a lot more subtly but for this piece I wanted the bright orange lines to stand out. I also used a lot of shading techniques and filters to bring out the characters and some lighting techniques to add depth, the brief was to have dark ‘erotic’ tinged imagery hence the particular use of stock imagery which isn’t usual for my style of work. To add a more dingy effect I added a noise to the stock images which when used in the right hands can also be effective.

Gordon it’s great to see new fresh designs especially with such an original style. Finally thanks for this interview with Digital Art Empire do you have any advice for our readers?

Thank you very much, one piece of advice I would give, especially in these tough times would be to allocate time to self initiated work, it may not give you any instant gratification but you never know who will see the piece, with the economy the way it is and so many designers vying for attention thinking outside of the box is more important now than ever before, you have to have that DIY attitude towards your work and career because no one else is going to do it for you, this is one thing I learned very early on. If you want it you have to work for it and also believe in yourself and your ideas, I know too many designers and illustrators who far too self conscious about their own work, having a good idea is only one part of it, it’s having the confidence to make sure that people know it’s a good idea is when you will start to get noticed.

Introduction:

To start off 2010 I wanted to create a slightly grungy, retro futuristic sci-fi poster. I basically wanted an image that could represent the feeling 2010 seems like the future to some of us. If you know what I mean, good, I’m sure this poster will be plenty of fun.

To create an image like this I like to look through some stock and brainstorm. A really excellent place to help with this is a site called Compfight. It’s ...]]>

Introduction:

To start off 2010 I wanted to create a slightly grungy, retro futuristic sci-fi poster. I basically wanted an image that could represent the feeling 2010 seems like the future to some of us. If you know what I mean, good, I’m sure this poster will be plenty of fun.

To create an image like this I like to look through some stock and brainstorm. A really excellent place to help with this is a site called Compfight. It’s a search engine for flickr photos that allows you to search for creative commons images.

Once I have a few images in Photoshop Ill come back to the project 2 or three times with new ideas and get them down. If I’m stuck for ideas looking through the art magazines and websites which usually gets the creative juices flowing again.

As usual the PSD file is available for download free at the end.

Time to complete 2 hrs .

Note:

Create the doc according to the dimensions of your screen if you want to use this as desktop wallpaper.

Resources used   :Sea by  visualpanic /Moon by luc.viatour/ Infinity font

Thank you to the artists who provided the materials ,please remember to follow these artists rules and credit them where appropriate.

Step 1

Create a document at 800 x 950 at 72 DPI Then bring in this image of the sea , press C do get the crop tool and select only the sea portion ignoring the people.

Step 2

Select the gradient tool, choose the radial gradient (second from the top) Draw a radial gradient using this red colour ff0000 halfway down the left hand side. Then change the blend mode to multiply and reduce the opacity to 79%.

Step 3

With the background setup we can bring in this image of the moon resize and position the moon like this image, and then reduce the layer’s opacity to 76%.

Step 4

Choose this purple colour 271642 for the foreground colour and black for the background colour. Then in a new layer go to filter render clouds. Drop the layers opacity to 73 %. Usually to create stars we can use the noise filter but this time well we’ll use a different technique. Create a new layer above the clouds and fill it with white, change its blend mode to dissolve and reduce its opacity to 1 to 2 %. Finally do a gaussian blur at around 0.7 and voila very quick stars.

Step 5

White rectangle: Now well create the white rectangle shapes that make up the background. Create a rectangle like in the following image and fill it with white, then reduce the opacity to 10 %.

Step 6

Now well add a layer mask by clicking the circle in a square at the bottom of the layers palette. With the gradient on linear and set to black to white click and drag a gradient. Make sure you are on the layer mask and hold shift to get a good fade.

Step 7

Now duplicate this layer with CTRL + J and rotate it with Ctrl + T to free transform. You should end up with something like this.

Step 8

Keep duplicating the layer and rotating it until you have this kind of effect.

Step 9

Your layers palette should look like this:

Step 10

Now using shift select all the rectangles in the layers palette and merge them Ctrl + E. (To work non – destructively you can duplicate the layers ). Then add a layer mask and using a black to white gradient on the layer mask fade the bottom part of the rectangles.

This is what you should end up with :

Step 11

Now find a quote you like or a group of words you think will work well in this graphic. Go to Wordle paste in your favourite quote and select go. This is a brilliant little website that puts the words you enter into a new layout font and colour. After hitting randomise play around with the font layout and colour. Once you are happy with the image if on windows: hold down Alt and then the print screen (Prt Sc) button, hit Ctrl + V to paste into Photoshop. On a Mac press command and shift then press 3 to capture to your desktop.

Step 12

Once the image you like is in Photoshop crop any extra bits away then resize and position the text like in the following image. I set the image to screen which gets rid of the dark area. Depending on the colour of your background and text you may need to choose overlay or multiply, just have a scroll through the blend modes until your happy.

Step 13

Download these brilliant cloud brushes .After loading them create a new layer then brush some clouds in like the following image.

Step 14

Duplicate the cloud layer add a colour overly layer style with colour set to 83b2e7. Then lower the opacity to 83%.

Step 15

Download the infinity font from here and once installed type out the words ‘TWENTY TEN’. Now position this at the top use the align buttons to get it in the middle.

Step 16

Rasterize the type and add a gradient overlay layer style, with default settings from black to white.

Step 17

Download these Kinetic brushes and brush with white behind the Twenty ten letters ( so in a layer below them ) . When done we’ll add a gradient overlay from7fe0f8 to cef8ff. Finally lower the opacity to 39 %.

Step 18

Finally create a layer below the cloud brushes and Wordle letters but above the white rectangle shapes. Then fill it with white and go to filter, render lighting effects and choose ‘RGB lights’, leave all the other settings as default. 

Then use a Gaussian blur at 31.7 image.

For the final steps change the blend mode to soft light and reduce the opacity to 60 %

Conclusion

That’s a wrap for now having gone through the tutorial you will now know how to use layer masks a neat little way of putting words together with different layouts and how to create a rounded retro futuristic poster . Hopefully you had fun and learnt something new.

Free PSD

The PSD file is available for download free from here.

Mediafire Download (6.49 mb Zip File)