COLORBURNED - Professional Design Resources

Vector Freebies: Paint Brushes Set 2

2008-08-18T20:47:44Z

Today, I am releasing yet another set of high quality Illustrator Paint brushes. There aren't many brushes included in this set but what this set lacks in quantity, it makes up for in quality. Set 2 contains 7 high quality Illustrator paint brushes in varying widths. What I like about this set is how fat some of the brush strokes are. A lot of brushes I've seen are a little too scrawny to be used in large point sizes. The larger you make the stroke, the more the stroke distorts. Since these are a little fatter than normal you'll be able to make them a little fatter than you can with some other brushes. Don't get too crazy with them and use a 30 pt stroke. These brushes aren't that big. You will, however have a little more room to work with. ]]> Download
Download Paint Brushes Set 2 | 1.6 MB

More Brushes
You can download more Illustrator brushes here.

Colorburned Shop
Support this website by purchasing textures from the Colorburned Shop. The Colorburned Shop hosts over 300 high resolution, high quality textures for a very reasonable price. For a limited time you can purchase all 300 textures for 50% off their original price. That means you'll receive all 300 images for just over $35 USD.

Freebies
You can also visit http://www.colorburned.com/freebies for free textures and vector objects.

Promote Your Work
Feel free to post your designs in the Colorburned Flickr Showcase.

New Identity for Colorburned.com

2008-08-14T19:44:46Z

I have to say, that in my time as a designer I've had a lot of difficult clients to work with but the worst client I've ever had is myself. You might be surprised, but one of the hardest parts about being a designer and owning your own business is creating a logo. Just think of it this way, if you had all the money in the world, you'd want everything right? It's the same with being a designer. I want everything and I'm constantly finding new inspiration and thinking "maybe I could do that with my logo?"

Needless to say, my business has had quite a few logos in its short time but I think I have finally got one that I'd like to stick with. You may have seen a version of this logo being splashed around on the website lately but I was finally able to put the finishing touches on it last night. I designed this logo in low resolution, which kind of stinks because at some point I'll have to go back and design it again for high resolution for business cards, etc. Fortunately for me, I don't use very many business cards right now and it's not a priority.

Transferred Feed to Feedburner

2008-08-13T20:35:00Z

I just transferred my feed over to Feedburner. Hopefully, now I can get a good idea of how many people subscribe to my blog. The new feed URL is http://feeds.feedburner.com/colorburned/ I wish I had done this months ago.

Free Textures: Sand & Beach Outtakes

2008-08-13T19:57:33Z

When I take my camera out to grab some shots of textures I usually come home with literally hundreds of images. The really amazing ones, I release in the Colorburned Shop. The good ones get released as freebies and the others get held over just in case. The other day I was looking through some of my old sand images and I realized that some of them, while not technically textures, were good enough to be released as freebies on my site. When I go through my images I try to distinguish between what's a texture and what's a photo. In my mind a texture is any kind of image that you can skin a 3D model with. A photo is just about everything else.

Included in this set are 21 high resolution textures of the sand and ocean from a trip I recently took to the beach. ]]>
Download
Download Sand & Beach Outtakes | 31.1 MB (21 images)

More Textures
Support this website by purchasing textures from the Colorburned Shop. The Colorburned Shop hosts over 300 high resolution, high quality textures for a very reasonable price. For a limited time you can purchase all 300 textures for 50% off their original price. That means you'll receive all 300 images for just over $35 USD.

More Freebies
You can also visit http://www.colorburned.com/freebies for more free textures and vector objects.

Promote Your Work
Feel free to post your designs in the Colorburned Flickr Showcase.

Congratulations Tiago Franco - Abduzeedo Give Away Winner, Colorburned Flickr Showcase & Twitter

2008-08-13T02:36:07Z

A big congratulations to Tiago Franco (AKA Alarka) for winning over 300 high resolution textures from the Colorburned Shop! I'm sure you'll make some awesome designs with them and don't forget, when you do, submit them to the Colorburned Flickr Showcase! I'd love to see them!

Also, thanks to Fabio and Paulo over at Abduzeedo.com for helping me promote the Colorburned Shop on their website. I was blown away at how much traffic his site pushed my way. His site is a true graphic design monster!

In an unrelated note, I just signed up on Twitter. Become one of my followers!

Vector Freebies: Paint Brushes Set 1

2008-08-11T19:43:24Z

Today, I am releasing Set 1 of the Illustrator brushes that I first began posting last week. Set 1 includes 18 high quality Illustrator brushes in Adobe Illustrator CS format. Enjoy!

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Also, remember to support this website by visiting the Colorburned Shop. The Colorburned Shop has hundreds of high resolution textures that you can use in your work.

Download

Download Paint Brushes Set 1 | 919 KB

More Illustrator Brushes
You can download more Illustrator brushes here.

Updated Resume

2008-08-10T16:55:29Z

I just uploaded a new version of my resume. I toned my old resume down a bit to make it cleaner and a little more printer friendly, I also added some new branding. Take a look at it if you like and remember I am looking for a job and am willing to relocate. If you're interested in hiring me, please contact me!

Vector Freebies: Paint Brushes Set 4

2008-08-08T15:53:10Z

I was working on a project not too long ago where I needed to replicate the look of a signature for a logo that I was working on. I spent a lot of time going through my collection of Illustrator brushes trying to find one that I liked but none of the brushes I had really excited me. So instead of using a brush I was only mildly satisfied with I decided to make my own. I ended up creating quite a few sets of brushes and I was pleased with how they all turned out; so pleased in fact that I decided to release them all to my readers for free. ]]> As you may have noticed, the headline for this post says that I am releasing Set 4. Where are sets 1 - 3 you ask? Well, I haven't released them yet. I'm releasing them out of order because I like Set 4 the best.

Paint Brushes Set 4 contains 41 high quality Illustrator brushes as an Illustrator CS file.

Download

Download Paint Brushes Set 4 | 772 KB

All Textures 50% Off

2008-08-07T13:58:56Z

To thank every one who is participating in the Abduzeedo Giveaway, for a limited time I'm offering all the textures in my online shop for 50% off their original price but only if you buy all 6 sets. That means you'll get over 300 textures for $35.20 USD. That's an incredible deal, so purchase all 6 sets now and receive 50% off the original price and do it before time runs out. All you have to do is enter the following discount code during checkout: SHOPIFYSKAGPZE6. Thanks again everyone and good luck in the giveaway!

Abduzeedo Giveaway

2008-08-06T22:47:59Z

To view the 300 + textures available in the Abduzeedo giveaway visit http://colorburned.myshopify.com.

My Design Featured in Major Motion Picture

2008-08-06T18:06:50Z

It's not every day that you get word that your work is featured in a major motion picture. About a week ago I was told that a logo I designed about three years ago was featured in the new movie "Swing Vote".

]]> In the fall of 2005, I was asked to update the logo for the Young Republican National Federation, the oldest Republican youth organization in the country. At the time, I was fairly active in politics and I was excited to have the opportunity to work on something as big as that.

It's been a few years since then, and my political participation has since waned, but about a week ago I was informed that the logo I designed was featured in the movie "Swing Vote". I haven't seen the movie yet but from what I understand, in one scene the logo and banner I designed takes up the entire shot. I am looking into trying to grab a screen shot but I don't know how much luck I will have. I'll probably have to wait until it comes out on DVD.

Anyhow, it's pretty darned cool to have your designs featured in a major motion picture. I'm really excited about it! If you see the film and notice the Young Republican logo, let me know.

Free Textures: Bark

2008-08-04T22:59:25Z

I've been meaning to add some more free textures to the site for quite some time. Lately, I've been a little busy with other projects and just haven't had much time to put a set of textures together. Today, I am releasing 8 high resolution images of bark. ]]>

You may not sell these images to others;
You may not distribute these images;
If you would like, show me the end result of your work by posting them in the Colorburned Flickr Group.

Also, please help support this website by purchasing items from our online shop. The Colorburned Shop contains over 300 high resolution, high quality textures available for instant download.

Download
Download Bark | 23.4 MB (8 images)

Experiment in Photo-Realism With Illustrator

2008-07-31T10:26:01Z

Let's preface this post by saying that this is not a photo. This is a vector graphic created entirely with Adobe Illustrator.

Most people don't think of Illustrator as a tool for creating photo-realistic images. For most, that's Photoshop's job. While that may be mostly true, a lot of people don't realize that Illustrator comes with some powerful tools for creating photo-realistic images. This graphic was an experiment with one of those tools.

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In the beginning, I was a little weary of how this design would turn out but after seeing some finished segments I was pleased with how the technique looked; especially with how the skin, beard and reflection in the sunglasses turned out.

What I learned was that this is a useful technique for working with organic elements like people, animals, etc. As you can see, there are some jagged edges around the sunglasses. To me, this means that this technique would not be useful for creating images with smooth lines such as sunglasses, buildings or autos. You can counter that by adding more grid lines. This will create more detail but will also add to the time you will spend working with your artwork.

In my next piece, I plan to experiment with the mesh tool a bit more. After spending some time with it, I found that it wasn't as intimidating as it looks.

Textures: Waterfalls Part 2

2008-07-22T02:08:15Z

Today, I am releasing Part 2 of the Waterfalls texture set. Waterfalls Part 2 includes 19 free high resolution images of waterfalls. I apologize for the delay in the release of this set but with the launch of the Colorburned Shop last week I had to adjust my posting schedule a bit.]]> These images would make a great background for any graphic that you may be working on where you need a thin layer of water flowing over stone.

These images are free but here are the rules:

You may not sell these textures to others;
You may not distribute these textures;
If you would like show me the end result of your work if by posting them in the Colorburned Flickr Group.

Also, please help support this website by purchasing items from our online shop. The Colorburned Shop contains over 300 high resolution, high quality textures available for instant download.

Download
Download Waterfalls Part 2 | 43.6 MB (19 images)

Colorburned Shop Review

2008-07-19T04:13:55Z

Andrew over at MyInkBlog.com was nice enough to post a review of the new items in the Colorburned Shop. If you haven't been to his website yet, check it out. He has a great collection of graphic design tutorials and resources. It's definitely worth a bookmark.