Monthly Cross-Product Challenge #1

Welcome to a new kind of Creative Challenge, where you get the chance to play with all your favorite Adobe tools, and perhaps try out some you’ve never used before!

How to participate:

You don’t have to be an expert! This is for anyone at any skill level. The main thing is to have a go, and let the joy of creating be its own reward.

Generate a starter image or a vector drawing based on the theme of the challenge, using Firefly, Adobe Express, Photoshop, or text-to-vector in Illustrator. Expand the image into a finished product of your choice using at least one other app from Creative Cloud and/or Substance 3D. The point of the challenge is to work across apps, so this is important. Bonus kudos for incorporating Adobe Fonts, Adobe Stock, or Substance 3D Community Assets. Video is okay too.

When you're done, save an image, screenshot, or video clip of your final artwork, post it here as a reply to this post, and tell us your process and which tools you used.

There are no prizes other than the joy of creating and the experience gained in making different tools work together to a final creative product.

Challenge 1: Animal Life

Begin in Firefly, Photoshop, Adobe Express, or Illustrator (vector) Generate a starter image of an exotic animal, fish, insect, or other arthropod (no limits, so long as it's alive). Ancient animals are okay, so if you’re a dinosaur fan, go for it! Create an environment around it, using Photoshop or Illustrator or any other Adobe tools you prefer. Add other creatures or plants to tell a story and complete the scene. Be as poetic or as whimsical as you like!

Here’s one idea: A cuttlefish birthday party!

It started as a Firefly generated drawing of a cuttlefish. In Photoshop, after removing some debris with the Remove Tool, I added the crab and expanded coral reef using Generative Fill after enlarging the image with the Crop tool. The balloon and the party hat are Generative Fill using the Selection Brush at 70%.  The birthday cake is from Adobe Stock (the water put the flames out, sadly), with an overall color tint to blend with the scene. Shrimps are Generative Fill (Selection Brush again). Finally, I took the whole scene into the Camera Raw filter to enhance the watercolor-and-ink look with the Clarity slider and desaturate the colors.