Carlos Jiménez Varela

Surreal photo composite by @cejimenez made with @photoshop and @adobestock . See more digital art by Carlos and hire him for freelance projects on Behance — link in bio. ⁠ .⁠ .⁠ .⁠ #behance #artistspotlight #photocomposite #photoshop #digitalart #surreal ⁠

Watch as Costa Rican photo compositor @cejimenez blends traditional #Photoshop techniques with #AdobeFirefly to create a stunning and surreal piece.

Shoes in unlikley places by @cejimenez . See more photo composites by Carlos in our bio link⁠ .⁠ .⁠ .⁠ #behance #artistspotlight #digitalart #photocomposite #composite #airjordan⁠

3️⃣⏺️2️⃣6️⃣ ✅: @cejimenez #therotation #nikeairmaxday #TeamAMFam #rotationCHI

Happy Air Max Day guys!

New Balance 992 “Calm Be The Crater” by @salehebembury is dropping TODAY at 9AM PST via

As promised, this is another entry for my series THE IMPOSTeR. In today’s exercise I made a poster inspired by the style of Cristian Mera ( @fluffycrust ) and these are my takeaways from the process. 1) This style is very simple and accessible meaning it is not really challenging from a technical standpoint but it is not meant to be. Good art is not the one that is difficult to create but the one that looks good and says something to you. Cristian’s work speaks loudly while being understated at the same time and that’s a good thing. 2) This style requires 3 elements to work: image treatment (which seems to be the classic “threshold + noise” combo), a limited color palette to go on top of everything and organic typography work. These 3 elements make this style very focused yet super versatile allowing Cristian to adapt it to whatever subject matter he wants. 3) Hand drawn typography is a hallmark for Cristian’s work. Personally I’m not good at it so I ended up using a font with similar characteristics to his style but I can definitely see the value he adds by doing something custom for every piece. It makes it unique. For my next experiment I want to try some of that pixel stretching style. Maybe something like the work of @vill.vilis ? Let’s see!

Once again here is another piece for my series THE IMPOSTeR where I create a poster inspired by the work of an artist I admire. This time I tried to do something in the style of Bryan Wan ( @brynwkp ) and these are my takeaways from the process: 1) The whole cyber sigilism / neo tribal style is really cool but it is in fact very detail oriented. You have to take your time otherwise it can look either unfinished or overdone. Achieving that balance requires some patience. 2) Doing this in 3D like Bryan does can help speeding things up in terms of lighting and textures but you will still encounter the same composition challenges described in takeaway number 1. 3) Even though I had a lot of fun doing this and I like what I came up with; I don’t think I will attempt this style again unless it is for a good reason. I don’t really see myself in this kind of work. This is better suited for people like Bryan who has the right skills and sensibilities to work within the parameters of this style and thrive in it. That is not me. This is one of those styles that I enjoy more as a fan. The next piece for the series is already done! I attempted to do something in the style of Cristian Mera ( @fluffycrust ). This was a recommendation made by @fries_vansevenant and he was absolutely right, Cristian really does cool and inspiring work. I’ll post that one tomorrow and I will try to squeeze one more to post before the end of the year. #madewithphotoshop #posterdesign #adobecreativecloud #cybersigilism #neotribal

Here is another addition to my series THE IMPOSTeR, where I create a poster based on the style of an artist I admire in order to challenge myself by stepping out of my comfort zone. This time I’m trying to make something that resembles @troybrowne amazing body of work. These are my takeaways from the process: 1) Just like @magdiellop style, the subject will make or break Troy’s style. The subject needs to have the right attitude and/or pose for the end result to be dynamic and striking with all the alterations of proportions. 2) Bright color is mostly coming from the background and additional elements that complement the subject. Troy doesn’t really manipulates the subject’s original colors much other that saturation and minor adjustments to skin colors. This is key and intentional (I think) to keep the design grounded in reality without going into cartoon or illustration territory. It works beautifully I must say; very simple yet effective technique. 3) This time playing with exaggerated proportions was not as intimidating for me as it was when I tried to do what @fries_vansevenant does. Or as it would be if I tried @lahija_dl_sapo ‘s style for example. I don’t think my brain is ready for that yet. But I will consider attempting it sometime in the future. For my next exercise I will try to make a poster in a style that I have never tried but looks amazing and super hard to do well. The best artist to represent that style is none other than @brynwkp . Wish me luck, I’ll need it!

This is another piece for THE IMPOSTeR, my series where I try to design posters emulating artists I admire in order to learn from them. I present to you my attempt to create a poster in the style of @fries_vansevenant featuring a cult classic movie character: Derek Zoolander.  This was hard, not gonna lie. It took a level of abstraction that I am not used to applying to my work. Allow me to elaborate on this in my takeaways from the design process: 1) This style requires a deep understanding of proportions in order to alter them or exaggerate them in a way that is visually appealing without looking unintentional or like a mistake.  2) My execution resembles more of Fries’s early work which is defined by more complex shapes and weird angles rather than the variation seen in his current work where his compositions have more chunky geometrical blocks. A more neo-cubist approach. This was the hard part for me. I’m very used to traditional proportions. Even though I play around a lot with scale, I am not used to deconstructing subjects and re-constructing them with distorted proportions. The task seems to go against the way my brain is wired for some reason. This is probably why in my version of Derek Zoolander the proportions are still kind of “normal”. This is my brain refusing to accept a new interpretation of something it knows very well. I need to work on that. I need more ways to explore this level of abstraction. Fries is exceptional at this. I am not.  3) I should have filled the frame more. One particular hallmark of Fries work is that his compositions often fill the entire frame with one character - which is awesome!- I was trying to emulate the pose from the movie poster so it is instantly recognizable however I couldn’t find a way to fill the frame in a way that Fries probably would have. There is a lot of empty space in my execution. It would be cool to see Fries’s version of Derek Zoolander, just for me to compare and see how he achieves what I wasn’t able to. I need to do more of these kind of styles for me to get better at abstraction and playing with proportions. So, I guess this only means one thing… @troybrowne you are next! 🫵🏻😎🔥

I was trying out a new technique I learned on @texturelabs Youtube channel. In this tutorial Brady teaches a way to achieve a collage art effect using vintage magazine textures. I decided to try it and use colorful fabric textures with floral patterns and to incorporate some extra masking and blending modes to create a few portraits of famous and influential people that are no longer with us. The result is quite cool - I think - However, I couldn’t help but notice that these look like something I have seen before… It took me a little while, but then it hit me; these look like @bisabutler quilted art pieces. The main difference is that I just did these digitally with @photoshop while Bisa does this FOR REAL using real fabric and thread! I did a bunch of these portraits in a few hours while Bisa probably spends weeks constructing just one piece. This is my main takeaway from this exercise: As a study for working with patterns and color in order to improve my craft this was very helpful and valuable. But it pales in comparison to the effort and attention to detail that someone like Bisa delivers through her art. Her pieces feel more organic for obvious reasons. Mine look nice but ultimately synthetic and almost disposable which is the nature of a lot of digital art produced nowadays. This was interesting. Not enough to adopt this style since it feels evidently foreign to me but it motivates me to keep experimenting with different methods and sharing my thoughts on the process! ✌🏻😎

Let’s continue with another addition to my series called THE IMPOSTer. This is my attempt to design a poster in the style of @temi.coker . Overall I think the result was successful with some caveats. Here are my takeaways from the process: Temi’s style is very straightforward. It is a celebration of his african roots and a showcase of joy and empowerment for black people. It is quite beautiful. Temi doesn’t hide behind complicated Photoshop tricks or elaborate techniques. The process is mostly a composition exercise in order to achieve a certain balance. 2) Speaking of balance; Temi is a master at combining both patterns and bright colors which is hard to do. It is very easy to abuse either of those elements in the process ending up with an overly saturated piece. This is never the case with Temi’s work and I admire that very much. Here is where I think I failed a little bit. I think I went a little bit too far. Like I did one too many tricks. If you take away a few elements from my design you will still achieve the style rendering those elements unnecessary. 3) I am starting to notice a pattern in my approach for this whole series. I tend to over do things. It must be because I gathered a bunch of images and use them as reference on a mood board. I keep them on sight throughout the process so I feel the proclivity to feature a lot of the hallmarks of the artist’s work in one poster. The result often feels like I’m trying too hard. That’s because I am! The beauty of this self diagnosis exercises where I critique myself at attempting different styles from other artists relies on trying new things and pinpointing all these areas of my design game that I could improve upon. But at the same time those shortcomings on my part carry a profound sense of respect and admiration for all these artist’s craft and sensibilities which make them unique. On a side note, last week I tried a new technique from a tutorial and I ended up with a bunch of images that resemble someone else’s work! I’ll share those tomorrow! For next week I will try a poster based on the style of @fries_vansevenant ! His style is very cool and unmistakable. This should be a fun one!