Thanks, man. I actually was supposed to design a line of t-shirts for a company, but they went bankrupt about three weeks after contacting me about it. Bummer.
i really admire your portrait work dude
lookin forward to more!!
can you tell me how to make those cool texture backgrounds?? please?? PLEASE???
Thanks, Woof. I was just looking through your thread as well, and there’s some awesome stuff in it.
Sure thing. First, you need textures. If you have a digital camera, they’re easy to collect. Just go around and take pictures of textures (wood, concrete, different types of paper, skies, etc. – I usually look for things that are decaying). I have a collection of a few hundred textures now, so I can mostly just pull from the library I’ve built.
Now. If you truly just want them as a background, plop the texture in as the bottom layer. But if you want the texture to interact with the subject as well, place it as the top layer, then play with the blending modes. A common place to start is with “multiply”, but you can just scroll through the different modes (if you have CS2, this is a pull down tab on the top of the layers window) and see what happens. I use the “pin light” setting a lot, especially when working with photos. Anywho, once you have a setting you like, it usually just takes messing with the fill and opacity of the texture, or erasing the parts that aren’t meshing well. Just screw around with it and you’ll get the hang of it.
i’ll try that…i’m just nervous of it looking like a drawing imposed over a photograph. you’re look graphic, not photographic…i’ll see what i can do.
Just play around with the blending modes and you can usually find a way for things to blend. It’s not real tough.
Wow! Awesome artwork dude. I love your style, very different.
Cheers 
Beautiful!.. Simply beautiful!!!..
I’ve always wondered how the HELL do you (and some others too) make those textured patterns in his suit?!.. Are those photo manipulations or do you make those from scratch in Photoshop???..
Thanks, guys! Glad you like 'em.
In that picture, the texture is from a photograph of a scratched metal plate, placed in a layer above the suit and set to “pin light” for the blend mode, and then I added some of the spots with a brush and used the burn and dodge tools to add a little depth. So I guess it’s a bit of both.
i love you.
Aren’t I adorable?
so after you take the pictures of cool textures (been going around with my camera like crazy)
you save em on the comp, then when you use em do you usually put them to greyscale? or tweak with the color in adjustments? like does color matter? sorry to keep picking your brain, i just really love the effects you get.
wow bro excellent work
+rep for you my friend
Thanks, mate!
All of the above work. Sometimes it’s better in greyscale, but a lot of times leaving the texture in color is pretty interesting. And yeah, you can play with color balance if you don’t quite like what it’s giving you. And remember, a soft eraser when layering textures is your best friend. Any areas that look too busy, just set your eraser to 30% or so, likely with a soft edge, and just work away the spots of texture you don’t like as much. None of this directly effects your picture, so if you screw it up, you can always just start over with that, or a different, texture.
And lastly, you are often going to need to drop the “fill” or “opacity” rate of the texture layer for it not to overpower your picture. Just play with that aspect of it (both the fill and opacity options are found at the top of the layer window). Oh, and messing with the brightness/contrast of the texture layer can help a lot as well.
So in short, just experiment with the blending modes and standard photo manipulation stuff (brightness, contrast, saturation, color, etc) until something catches your eye. There’s no right or wrong way to do this. And it’s fun, once you get the hang of it. I’ll be out running errands or something, and see a really nice piece of metal, or a roting wall, or a piece of wood with really nice patterns in it, or a tree with crazy bark, and I’ll have to run back and snap a bunch of pictures of it.
Oh, and try scanning pictures of dirty paper. Paper is always a useful texture.
Is this the right idea?
I’ll delete this if you don’t want other artwork in here. i just wanted to get your opinion.
Whoa. Totally forgot about this thread. Ha.
But yes, Rabid, that’s the general idea. You’re texture is a bit low-res, so you should try to get it in a larger format so it won’t stretch too much. But yeah. You can do tons of stuff with that kind of layering. Just start scanning away, or shooting photos when you can.
And for another new one, I recently did a design for a party night a local club is holding. I wanted to build them something like a pop-up book. Which is probably a little odd since it’s basically for a bar, but hey, if they say they want something a bit different …
i like your super-cool abstract art bear.
i saved ever one u posted
thanks and keep up the good work 
Thanks, Ultimate. If you’re saving them, then that’s quite a compliment.
<3
Ay caramba!.. That’s just gorgeous…
Thanks, Seba. I appreciate it.