Amplified Arcana In this Issue: How to create your own grunge art. Photoshop Tutorials
Reviews of: Amplified Arcana Nesso and Nesso AA’s new album Purity of Darkness
Table of contents
Introduction Music reviews: Nesso AA Amplified Arcana Nesso Tutorial: Grungin’ it up Artwork by our readers
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Did you know?
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Good art requires perfect planning. Great art requires perfect timing
see more on page 6
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see more on page 11
Did you Know? This Magazine is all about music and art.
Introduction It’s always exciting, the start of a new magazine. And to make sure you start things off with a blast you have to make sure you don’t drown in an oversaturated market. This magazine is facing the sheer impossible task to differentiate itself from billions of other magazines and still uphold the standard of quality our readers expect of our magazines. And I think we succeeded. What we have here is one of the most uniquely shaped magazines dedicated to art and music, the inspiration and breath of life. We hope you enjoy reading it as much as we enjoyed writing it for you. Bram Frijns - Editor
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Music
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Nesso AA
Purity of Darkness
Nesso AA is a new alias for the man that brought us DJ Myztik, Nesso, Amplified Arcana, Neo and Dr. Puinzooi. Nesso AA, like Nesso’s tracks are videogame-inspired, but flavored by the unique thumping beats that Amplified Arcana has brought us in the past. What we end up with here is a very interesting cocktail of styles
And to top it off, we got a review copy of his debut album Purity of Darkness. This album has been playing non-stop here at the AAbunker. With a wide variety of music and crisp electronic sounds this one brings some classic tunes to life. Some of our favorites are Eclectic Voodoo, a tribute to monkey Island and Interstellar, a reimagining of the classic metroid soundtrack.
all dedicated to electronic music.
Amplified Arcana - Alternate Atlas Amplified Arcana does away with conventions. No patterns, no set rhythm or meter. Just pure Electrifying techno and trance beats. Surprisingly enough, sticking to one section of the musical universe doesn’t grow boring as Amplified Arcana manages to infuse every trick with new and interesting ways to keep you coming back for more. We recommend listening to this entire album with highlights like The Codex and Rise of Nircha. Nesso - The First Goodbye An oldie but a goodie. When this album hit the market back in 2009 it was quickly picked up and appreciated by a group of hardcore fans. It really picked up speed when the word was spread around various forums of the quality and the interesting build up. This album employs a slow to fast buildup, where the first songs have you relaxing away in your chair while the later songs have you jumping around to their haunting beats. This album brings fan-favorites to the table from the classic NES and the Final Fantasy series. Our personal favorite is a reimaginging of Final Fantasy VII’s Bombing run, called Alpha to the Omega. This one really shines due to the creative use of a live chorus, which can also be heard in the titular track, the first goodbye.
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Tutorial: Grungin’ it up
Tutorial: How to construct your own grunge art.
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In this tutorial you will learn how to make the above picture, how to create and edit
brushes and how to give all your photography that modern grungy feeling.
This tutorial assumes you already know how to work with layers, blending styles, opacity and gradients.
2. CUtting for freedom
3. The background
Find a suitable source picture. Use a high definition picture of your own or find one on sourcesites like stock-exchange (http://sxc.hu)
Cut the model out of the picture by using any of various selection method. The Pen tool was used in this example with feather radius set to 1
Use the fill tool and fill the background. Use the noise-filter and use colored grain to make the background ‘dirty’
4. Unleash your inner vandal
5. Fractal it up
Splatter the background. You can either create brushes by drawing a paintsplatter then making a selection. Go to Edit > Create Brush to use this paintsplat as a brush. Alternatively you can use sources.
Experiment with creating brushes by making light or fractal brushes to add variety to your work. Play around until you’re satisfied.
Tutorial: Grungin’ it up
1. The Source
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Tutorial: Grungin’ it up 8
6. The circle Create a circle by filling a circular selection, now create a shape on a new layer and turn this into a brush. Load the brush and adjust the scattering in the ‘brushes’ window. For this picture a scattering of 200% is used. Now mask the circle and set the brush to black, then make the background re-appear.
7. Giving our angel wings Create a couple of random brushes and adjust the scattering, Shape and color dynamics. Draw the rough shape of the wings with a normal brush and create a mask layer. Use the randomness of the newly created brushes to carve out a rough set of wings, to give it the dirty grunge look. As always, feel free to experiment with the new techniques
Tutorial: Grungin’ it up
This Tutorial was provided by Bram Frijns, Sources from sxc.hu
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Archni is Drawn by YamatoChan and colored and edited by Bram Frijns Did you know? Knowing what you want to make is half the battle. Plan ahead!
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Nircha is Drawn by YamatoChan and colored and edited by Bram Frijns
This one was sent to us by Bram Frijns.
Reader’s submissions This is where we’ll showcase artwork made by our readers every issue. On the next page you’ll find an artspread by Bram Frijns.
Reader’s submissions This is where we’ll showcase artwork made by our readers every issue.
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