Once a month, Fotolia makes a PSD file created by one of the world's top digital artists available as a free download. It's part of a simple but brilliant project called TEN, currently in its second year.
Seoul-based graphic designer Soongyu Gwon, creative director at D.FY Inc. Design Group, is up this month. His piece, Kentauros, combines Greek mythology with fantasy elements, depicting a centaur – a mythical creature which typically has the head, arms, and torso of a man and the body and legs of a horse – as a young girl.
"Creativity is not about inventing what doesn’t exist," Gwon says, "but about seeing in a new way what already does. TEN season two was an opportunity to conceive a work without compromise or constraint, and to give free rein to my imagination."
"I found the perfect image of a young girl on Fotolia," Gwon says. "I replaced her legs with those of a foal, rather than those of a horse, to emphasize her fragility. The presence of crows increases tension and generates fear. The dead tree branches create protection around the centaur. The three moons in the sky lend a fantastic atmosphere to the whole piece. I finished by adjusting the colour tones, adding some blue tones, to give it a cold feeling."
Gwon’s PSD is available free of charge, from 10am tomorrow (Friday 8 February), for just 24 hours. The PSD includes all layers and effects, and shows you how to flesh out an idea by including various unrelated photos, using image manipulation, saturation and colour.
An accompanying video – featuring subtitles in 12 languages – was shot in the artist’s native Korea. Check it out below:
