Stone ledge alphas produced in Corel Painter for Sean Malony’s thesis, “Bam! Kapow! Meow!” (2012).

Storm cloud alphas produced in Corel Painter for Sean Malony’s thesis, “Bam! Kapow! Meow!” (2012).

The following imagery is a sampling of backgrounds rendered in Photoshop for Sean Malony’s thesis, “Bam! Kapow! Meow!” (2012).

The original textures for the backgrounds were created on 18 x 12" watercolor paper using black, blue, and maroon-colored acrylic paints and inks. For additional textural changes, rubbing alcohol, instant rice, plastic wrap, and organic sponges were applied to the wet paint. The paintings were later photographed and their files imported into Photoshop, where most were reduced to grayscale textures. Backgrounds were created by compiling anywhere between one to seven of these textures in combination with color solids, gradients, and adjustment layers. There were 464 texture files derived from the photographed paintings in total; 95 finished backgrounds were produced from these files.