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The twice-weekly newsletter with all the latest creative news, reviews, and features

Follow step-by-step as the world’s best illustrators reveal the secrets of their best work – so you can produce yours.

DIGITAL ARTS FEBRUARY 2012 - ON SALE NOW!

The February issue of Digital Arts is now out, and this month leading illustrators discuss how they produce their most beautiful pieces.

From colour and composition to ideas and inspiration, and from digital techniques to hand-made projects, you'll find a wealth of tips and tricks that will help you add that little sparkle that turn a good artwork into a truly amazing one.

Personal, experimental projects provide an excellent way to work unconstrained by client demands. In our in-depth guide, graphic and interactive designers, illustrators and animators reveal the quirky and unusual things they get up to keep their creativity refreshed – from type-based exhibitions to tweeting bakeries.

In our Masterclass tutorials this month, you'll discover how to beautifully colour inked artwork, swap a head from one photo to another seamlessly, bring 3D particles to animated title sequences, make photomontages look like silkscreen prints, and blend geometry and photography. We also look at how you can find new clients, reveal creative trends for 2012, showcase the latest hot artists and designers, and more!

Neil Bennett, editor

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FEATURES

SECRETS OF BEAUTIFUL ILLUSTRATIONS
Top artists and designers tell Lisa Hassell and Neil Bennett how they find inspiration for their best work

TOP DESIGNERS’ PERSONAL PROJECTS
Laura Snoad finds out why it makes commercial and creative sense to set aside time for personal work

TUTORIALS

BRING COLOUR TO INKED ARTWORK
You’ve created a terrific illustration in black ink – so how to make it beautifully colourful? Tim McDonagh reveals ways in Photoshop

HEAD GAMES
Tigz Rice creates the perfect model shot by blending the head from one photo with the body from another

TITLE MAGIC
When you need to create stunning title sequences in After Effects, try resorting to some trickery with particles, as Chris More explains

SILKSCREEN MONTAGES
Lee Woodgate mixes textures and desaturated images to creates a photomontage with a hint of old-school silkscreening

GOTHIC COLLAGE
A blend of geometry and motifs from the hotel at london’s St Pancras station is a surreal success for Simon Cook

PLUS

2012 CREATIVE TRENDS
Discover the styles, approaches, moods and technology that’ll be big this year

HOW TO...
Find new clients

CREATIVE FREEDOM: JEREMY KOOL
How crowdfunding is supporting an interactive iPad storybook app

REVIEWS
OnOne Perfect Photo Suite 6
Photoshop plug-in round-up
Cryo Nano
Nikon Coolpix P7100

FREE!

Expert techniques for motion typography
This month’s Download Zone includes a video tutorial on kinetic type, presented by motion graphics expert and Digital Arts contributor Angie Taylor.

In this excerpt from her course titled Kinetic Typography Techniques with After Effects, Angie looks at how to use animators. She also explains how free animation presets can be a fantastic timesaver, and how to go about building your own preset library. Angie then covers After Effects’ Brainstorm feature, an incredibly handy way to try out and explore multiple variations of the effects in your project.

(These are provided to purchasers of the magazine only through our Download Zone, so are available to both readers of both the print and digital edition).

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