Inspiration: Assemblage, Montage, and Collage

Mar 17th in Effects by Sean Hodge

We've assembled some resources that will encourage you to combine and unify elements, review traditional concepts, look at current work, and get inspired by digital masters. Learn powerful collage techniques and how to apply them in your designs. Jump into the mix!

Author: Sean Hodge

Hi All! I recently moved to the outskirts of Orlando, Florida. I'm the editor of Psdtuts+ and Vectortuts+. Also, visit my blog AiBURN where I feature some of my creative work and ideas. Or follow me on Twitter: @seanHodge.

Digital Art

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  Daniel Delgado Volchaire

  This collage work brings in 3D-style shapes, photos, bright colors, textures, and Photoshop effects. It's difficult to pull together so many disparate elements into a unified design. This work successfully achieves this cohesion.

  Visit Artwork

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  Teodoru Badiu

  Assemblage is a sculptural technique of composing into a unified whole a group of unrelated and often discarded objects. Artists go out and collect junk and use it to build 3D sculptures. Teodoru Badiu follows a similar process, only he uses his camera to collect these objects. Then he assembles them together in Photoshop along with textures he's collected. He has some exceptional Photoshop tutorials, and his Web site is a must-see.

  Visit Artwork

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  Luis Arujo

  His illustrations have a traditional pasted collage feel, while clearly being digital. He brings in rough-cut photos and grunge shapes to make his work. You can view his HTML-based portfolio. The link below is to his Flash-based portfolio. You'll have to select the Illustration section after following the link below.

  Visit Artwork

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  Theo Aartsma&mdashSumeco

  Sumeco is a well-done Flash portfolio. There is a collage category, and the work there pulls fragments together well with lots of details. He mixes vector and pixels in many of his pieces. It's really cool stuff and a great portfolio.

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  Justin Maller—Superlover

  This artist is the Creative Director of Depthcore and a successful Illustrator. He has a really cool collage style that mixes 3D shapes with textures and images. The 3D shapes are the most consistent element in his work, though his approach with collage is still distinctive without them. Fabio interviewed him not too long ago as well.

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Tutorials

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  PSDTUTS Collage Tutorials

  We have some great collage tutorials here at PSDTUTS. Recently, Fabio made a tutorial on Creating a Cool Vintage Collage. Collis made a great tutorial on creating a Collage Poster, follow the link below.

  Visit Tutorial

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  Computer Arts Collage and Montage Tutorials

  Computer Arts has a bunch of collage tutorials: Photoshop Expertise | Photoshop Street Art | Photoshop Recycling | 2D Images to Life | Transform Photos. The link below goes to a tutorial about making Photomontages with Photoshop and Illustrator.

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  Working With A Wacom Tablet To Create A Collage In Photoshop CS3—Video Tutorial

  This tutorial covers layer masks really well. It also shows off some Wacom tablet techniques to use when making collages in Photoshop. Its a pro video tutorial.

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  Photoshop How-To: Quick-and-Easy Collages

  This is a simple tutorial that covers basic techniques to use to build collages in Photoshop. There are lots of tutorials out there that cover these basic techniques. This tutorial has clear steps to follow. If your just getting started with Photoshop collages you may want to start here.

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  Create a Realistic Torn Paper Effect in Photoshop

  If you want to achieve a natural look in your digital collages, torn edges will help to achieve that. This is a good tutorial on creating torn-paper edge effects in Photoshop.

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Other Cool Stuff

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  All Collages

  This is a really big collage group on Flickr. There are tons of inspirational pieces here. This would be a great community to get involved in. There is also a medium-sized group called Collage Crazy worth checking out. If you would rather post to a small group and you're just getting started with collage, try Photoshop Collage. Follow the link to the large collage group below.

  Visit Group

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  Montage / Collage

  This article defines, explains, and gives historical examples of the differences between montage and collage. After reading this article, you'll understand the differences, though keep in mind that in Photoshop this distinction is trivial.

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  International Museum of Collage, Assemblage, and Construction

  This museum is located in Fort Worth, Texas. Some of the work is presented on their Web site. They also have an open call for entries to the museum. A category they are accepting for is Digital Collage. They look to collect contemporary work. Send yours in.

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  Red Studio—Remix

  The Moma has some really cool Flash sites that explain art concepts or allow you to interact with art in unique ways. The Red Studio is targeted at high school students but still has some cool stuff to play with. Remix is the title of an interactive Flash collage. It gives you some tools to cut up and remix some images. You can whip up something cool really fast.

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  Cut and Paste Collage in the Digital World

  This is an interesting PDF download that covers techniques and the process involved in creating a digital collage from old image sources. The process also reviews repairing damaged images.

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