[GIFT] New year's eve "Foxes" poster

Hi, i was amazed with this lovely art by Hiroshige Uttagawa:


http://i40.tinypic.com/35ce6mc.jpg
"Fox Fires on New Year's Eve at the Garment Nettle Tree at Oji" (!! one of the trees still exist !!)


(its from a series of woodblock prints called "One hundred views of Edo")



So i made a gigantic sized poster (A1 paper format) on photoshop, i already printed and sticked on my room wall just over my bed :)
http://i43.tinypic.com/aw555l.jpg
(the poster sized one is on a different definition, its just to show the hue/contrast/brightness/"some cleaning" changes..)


I used (on the A1 sized image) cutout filters, separated some parts to other layers (some parts have different/disproportional hue/contrast/brightness), and a lot of other stuff, i had the idea of making the blue of the sky and another features to look like a crayon/wax paint and other parts like watercolor XD

http://i42.tinypic.com/vfi79w.jpg
("oh, i think its THIS way XD", fox couple discussion detail - as on the A1 sized image)

http://i40.tinypic.com/2d6jn1h.jpg
(fox fire (kistune-bi) procession detail - as on the A1 sized image)


I loved this and now i always stare this fine art all the sleepy way :)


IMAGE LINK - YES ITS BIG XD

(i haven't drawn it myself, i just 'restored' it a bit and played around on photoshop XD)

CREDITS: Hiroshige Utagawa




Note: In resume, fox spirits/yokai, in Japanese culture, are much like Loki in the Norse mithology, regarding the 'trickster' personality, but, unlike Loki, most of the time foxes would help good people, and endanger nasty people, and the fox tricks and schemes usually have strong symbolic ways of linking the 'trick' to the 'sin' it was suppose to 'avenge' (the guilty one will know that a specific misfortune was caused by one of his bad actions)..

This particular drawing (Ukyo-e , or an 'image of the floating world') depicts the fox spirits gathering on these two trees (those trees actually have names, but i do not know them, and one of those two trees on the image is suppose to be alive up to this day :thumbup:) on the new years eve (it was believed that foxes gather at new years eves to receive goddess Inari instructions for the coming year.)



Well its this already... i hope you guys like :) , looks good on ink or laser but i prefer laser printing (better color aspect i suppose, but the ink print is also good (the one in my room is an ink-jet print (cheaper XD, but the colors may become dull after some months D=)).


@edit: Oh and happy new year :)

What exactly did you do to change it? You just played around with filters?

First i managed the brightness/contrast and hue/saturation. I wanted to give some more 'life' to those colors of the original image :)

Second i separated just the foxes in the front (for this i used a strong contrast, since the foxes are very 'white' XD), those foxes were 3 different layers, then, i gave them a blur and used filters and a little different blending effects on each (mostly 'inner glow' and 'stroke'). I remember having to 'smudge' some little parts too.. (i remember having applied some filters on this part too.. 'cutout' filter have some different parameters on different parts of the image), i separated the boxes with Japanese writings to other layer, since some filters applied would mess up the writing , relative brightness was (manually) applied (meaning i darkened (a little) some other parts and brightened (a little) the surroundings of those 'front' foxes, manually XD) to the surroundings of the 'front' foxes.

(but first of all i enlarged the original image many many times, on this the final 'cutout' filter applied was also an tool to prevent the 'pixelation' on the printed image, it would look very 'sucky' if it were just simply enlarged to A1 size..)

Then i gave those 'far' foxfires a brighter glow, pixel by pixel (before the filters). Then i flattened the image, and then i played more with filters, i don't remember the exact sequence of filters tough (some were applied with very subtle parameters) :)



But resuming i tried to make a (much) bigger (the original without any edition would not look satisfactory even on A4 D=) and brighter version of the original, and with lively colors =D (remembering that i started with that first image on this thread.. just filters would not suffice)


I'm happy if you think i did not change much of the image, its what i intended to do :) (but now you can print it on A1 format)

I wouldnt want to. It just looks like you have taken an image and moved the saturation to the right a little too far.

I guess well done for making the image bigger with out pixelation....

Sorry, but me no likey :/

Looks too messy

Mm its messy indeed , but its kind of an symbolic way XD .. After printed i didn't look very very close (just once or twice to check the print quality)..


Ukiyo-e (the type of art on the original image) can be translated as "views from the floating world", this kind of painting often exaggerate some aspects, sometimes the painter would depict winter and summer flowering trees with flowers at the same time, sometimes the painter would paint a landscape "from a view of a bird", giving this kind of art (like many others) an poetic bias i think..

Because of the lack of any kind of pain or violence in this kind of paintings, religious people of the time would like them very much, and because of some exaggerated aspects of landscapes and plants, often associated some of those paintings with Amida Buddha's heaven, or similar things.. in fact, it was a Buddhist monk who ordered this particular ukyio-e series ("100 views of Edo").


This artist (Hiroshige Utagawa), like many other artists of his period had an vast influence on western arts, the most known example would be Van Gogh, borrowing the colors and some painting techniques, but giving it his own 'flavor'. I though of bringing even more of the "messy" (impressionist-ish) style when i was editing the image (thats why i chose the 'cutout' as the last filter for all layers), but it would compromise the 'far foxes' and their fires..


Ah XD, maybe i tried to pull a Van Gogh on this one hehe, note from the examples below (from wikimedia) the borrowing of the style (and the paintings by Van Gogh were also way larger).


http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...Van_Gogh_2.JPG

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...Van_Gogh_1.JPG

(left ones are Hiroshige's , right ones are Van Gogh's)

Ah van gogh you crazy ear cutting artist xD
I have to say though, I still prefer the left ones. I can see where van gogh has got the influences for his other works, using the dashes techniques.

Am not a graphic pro, they look good to me but I don't like it :ott1:

I didn't read everything very long O.o