Gnarls Barkley Inkblots
27-06-2006 | Last editted on 15-10-2008 129713 views
Everybody has seen the video Crazy, well now I will teach you how to achieve the vector-inkblot effect that was used in this video from Gnarls Barkley. A perfect style that is very unqiue! Try it now for yourself!
8 comments | Posted in Effects, Photomanipulations
Introduction
From the moment I saw the awesome video of Gnarls Barkley, Crazy, I just knew I had to make a tutorial about it. And judging by the hits, many people agree with me.
You can view the music-video here for verification and perhaps also inspiration.
Thresholding
Assuming that you're willing to modify your own head into the inkblot, or someone elses head, we're gonna need a photo. Perferably a photo that's twice the size of your final document.
That goes for all the images you will be using by the way.


Then just use your Eraser to remove everything you don't need like background-ornaments.

Next up is trying to find some photo's that will function as ink-shapes. I used a random abstract wallpaper I found in my wallpaper-directory, but you can use anything from people to environments to plants. As long as the shapes are somewhat organic and playfull. Again, use the same technique as we used on the photo in the beginning and place them in your document.
Make sure that apart from the head you make everything symetrical. That means that we will need to duplicate every shape and flip it. We do that using CTRL+J to duplicate the layer selected and CTRL+T to transform it. Once in transformation-mode, rightclick and choose "Flip Horizontally".


Merge all the layers, except the background, together using CTRL+E. Then press CTRL+J to duplicate the layer and go to Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur and choose a setting of about 2-3.
Go to Filter>Grain and set the intensity to 100, the contrast to 0 and the type to "horizontal".

Place this layer behind all the other layers, but above the background.

Apply the following Gradient-Overlay onto the top layer. For this example I've used a color-combination of Green, Blue and Red. But if you take a close look at the video, you can see more color-examples like Yellow-Purple or Green-Blue.


And that's your Gnarls Barkley inkblot for you :)
As I said, you can try and experiment with different colors as well, beside this combination. For the real diehards, it might be an awesome idea to make an animated version. I'm not gonna touch that with a ten-foot-pole, since that requires AWESOME animation-skills.
Post your version in the comments and all the cool ones, I will feature in this tutorial. Thanks for reading and have fun!
Comments
Babu
April 21th, 2009
This is awesome! I cant wait to try it out...
fish
January 15th, 2009
that was great!
Malnok
December 28th, 2008
Wah.nice one.
Alain
November 28th, 2008
Omg very nice, Respect!
krisna
October 30th, 2008
Wow it f#*%in awsome,
uhm.,. its just dat simple way to get dis gorgeous lookin?
wow.... ure hot....
Andrei
October 27th, 2008
Nice job, very nice finish.
Simon
September 29th, 2008
Realy nice ;)
Your the man :)
D'Juan
May 12th, 2009
NICE! This is pretty fantastic right here. :D
I've used this to make the logo for my site's podcast!