19 July 2022 @ 04:44 pm
Sunshine Challenge 2022 #5 (Bloodstone)  


Prompt 5: Bloodstone

Since bloodstone is coloured in patches of red and green, this post is going to be the first to actually focus on bicoloured graphics. However, I have to admit that—given the colour combination—I actually think of this as "the Christmas collection". In fact, it was actually in December 2012 that I first started trying to create red-and-green variants of brown128.jpg.

As you can see the first attempts weren't all that great:







Here are some examples of the sort of changes that I tried on the red(dish) one with the green markings. Clearly it needed to be brighter: the first example below, therefore, has had the saturation of the colour increased. However, it still has a rather yellow cast: the red is rusty in tone, and the green is olive-tinted. In the second example, a filter was used to reduce this, resulting in "purer" colours. The last one takes things in a different direction, lightening the graphic and increasing the contrast so that lines of yellow and chartreuse start to appear.









Here are examples of similar changes I tried on the other graphic, the dark green one with crimson highlights. The middle one actually has quite a good "leaf" effect, if the leaf is some sort of tropical thing with red veins. However, it's not exactly Christmassy. Now if I only wrote fic with a jungle setting....









I've refined these graphics quite a bit since then, as well as producing red-and-green variations from other lines of development. I suspect that, having seen the examples above, you may recognize the ancient history of some of the ones here:





















The joke is that the best of these have been made fairly recently; and, as I've written few Christmas fic in the past years (even for Yuletide), so far I haven't actually used any of them on my website.




Previous Days:
Prompts #1 and #2 (Amber and Topaz)
Prompt #2 (Rose Quartz)
Prompt #3 (Garnet)
Prompts #3 and #4 (Moonstone and Hematite)
Prompt #4 (Kyanite)
Prompt #5 (Peridot)


 
 
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Creature Of Hobbit[personal profile] tellshannon815 on July 19th, 2022 11:42 pm (UTC)
Yeah, I can see how you thought of Christmas, but works great for the Sunshine prompt too!
greerwatson[personal profile] greerwatson on July 20th, 2022 02:31 am (UTC)
When I saw that bloodstone was one of the prompts, I immediately saw the chance to pull the red & green ones out and make a post about them. It has been (still is!) an interesting challenge this year.
autobotscoutriella: sunshine cat[personal profile] autobotscoutriella on July 20th, 2022 12:53 am (UTC)
The greener ones almost remind me of peacock feathers, though I can see the tropical leaves, too! Very pretty.
greerwatson[personal profile] greerwatson on July 20th, 2022 02:32 am (UTC)
Stick around! I've got some fantastic combinations of colours still to come when we do "opal".
lightbird (she/her/hers)[personal profile] lightbird on July 20th, 2022 04:05 am (UTC)
The first two aren't terrible - the one on the right looks kind of purplish to me tho.

I really like the top row in the last batch. The shade of green in the middle one in particular is pretty and it has a little bit of a calmer feeling to me, if that makes any sense.
greerwatson[personal profile] greerwatson on July 26th, 2022 03:18 pm (UTC)
I strove hard to get that darker green without losing the red (in search of holly, you see). Thank you!
Bemused_Writer: Alanna[personal profile] bemused_writer on July 26th, 2022 04:30 am (UTC)
So lovely! My favorite might be the eight of the last set. (^^) It has a very classic, embroidered vibe to it.
greerwatson[personal profile] greerwatson on July 26th, 2022 03:20 pm (UTC)
They rather astonished me when I saw them emerging; so I worked hard to get them as clear and sharp as I could. Glad you liked them!