Monthly Cross-Product Challenge #1
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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.
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This is, to borrow a phrase, insanely great!
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Tell me where I can adopt one irl or buy, tak'a'ma monney noooow
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1. FIREFLY: Prompt - “side profile of cartoon ladybug laying on its back with it's mouth opened really wide.” (not quite, but this one worked lol)
2. ILLUSTRATOR: Prompt - “popsicles melting on the ground. Amusement park scenery in the background.” Cleaned up some odd parts on the left side of the image (weird line and sky gradient). Added drips / shadows / highlights to popsicle. Isolated popsicle. Created the bug’s view of the popsicle.
3. PHOTOSHOP: Isolated lady bug, repositioned antennas, cleaned up eye and shell; added shadows at base of new antennas. Merged bug layers and brought both the bug and popsicle images into one file. Added shadows under the bug and changed its lighting, added/blended popsicle reflections into the eyes.
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Fantastic, Tina! That's a great workflow, too. Thanks for the detailed breakdown. (I can totally see the final result as a sticker!)
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Thanks so much @AlanGilbertson! ☺️
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Great piece!
Thanks for sharing your process Tina!
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Hello here some images showing the Sofa Safari collection. I have had several exhibitions with these creations, here are some images and the camel on the chesterfiled is one of the latest additions to the Sofa Safari.
All Made using Adobe Firefly and Adobe Express to actually create the design from scratch. the main character in each image has been helped with Adobe firefly and the rest of the image is put togther with several images to create the overall effect. The backgrounds are not generated, they are all collages using multiple images to create the backgrouns, even the florrs and the shadows are imported PNG shadows.
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Wonderful work! That's is exactly the kind of creative thinking this challenge is about. I think a lot of folks are going to take inspiration from these.
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Thanks very much Alan, im glad that you like them.
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Excellent!
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Thank you so much Christelle.
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Great work @Disenoideas !
Impressive use of firefly and Express!!!
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I started in Firefly with this prompt: steampunk frog king sitting on a lily pad throne
Then took it into Photoshop for more fun.
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Way to go! He definitely looks like he's expecting a royal kiss from a passing princess.
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Magnificent!
Love so much the composition and the textures
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Wow!
That's such a great piece!
Bravo!
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Archaeopteryx with blue feathers in a Jurassic forest
I don't thing this how Archaoepteryx is exactly represented ... Archaeopteryx is a feathered dinosaur that is sometimes called the ‘first bird’. This winged creature is the first to demonstrate the existence of an evolutionary link between birds and reptiles.
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Looking good. What was your workflow after generating the original image? This isn't a prompt-only challenge!
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Exactly Alan, I did a prompt-challenge. Sorry, I read too fast.
Next month, I'll be doing a real Cross-Product Challenge!
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Your Archaeopteryx and my Norwegian Blue parrot should get together. They probably have a lot to talk about. (Although, I have to admit he's a bit flirty.)
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Lovely bird @Christelle RD !
Nicely done!
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Thank you Franck!
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I created this nice zebra tycoon. They started a business of knitted zebras. So this took me a while, I had to knit the zebras first 😄 , take photos and add them into the scene. Add some ornament frames to present the zebras in a nice fashion. And then also add yarn and more yarn.
The images in the background are too bright, but this is the official portrait and they had to be somewhat recognizable, so it took me some dodging and burning to make them shine despite the bad lighting in this old-fashioned office 😄
I decided against the cigar, because the zebras would smell pretty badly. Customers would not appreciate.
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Beautiful! I suppose this is the Chief Executive Zebra? (Isn't this fun? What a wonderful create!)
I know zebra knitting takes a while. My grandmother used to knit zebras on weekends, but her specialty was crocheting cobras.
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Yes, this is the CEZ of the company.
How nice to hear that your grandma knit zebras! I've never met another person who does that.

