Questions/Discussion/Tutorials Thread

bombardier

Take a step back from the whole photo. Look at little areas of it.









Now that you can't really tell what they are you shouldn't have a problem of thinking you know what it looks like and just drawing what you see. I dunno if that helps, but when I'm doing a life drawing I get my guidelines out then look at little sections like this and just pick away at it.

happy_killmore

bombardier wrote:

Take a step back from the whole photo. Look at little areas of it.









Now that you can't really tell what they are you shouldn't have a problem of thinking you know what it looks like and just drawing what you see. I dunno if that helps, but when I'm doing a life drawing I get my guidelines out then look at little sections like this and just pick away at it.

I was actually going to do an example of this too. Another way to beat out the logical part of your brain is to draw the image upside down

Anubis09

NeoBurritoXIII wrote:

What the hell is bittorent, and where can I get some?

there are many types of cilents to get....here is one.
http://bittorrent.com/download.html

bittorent is gods way of saying Sharing is caring, now leave that download window open all day asswipe so other people can get it too.

it's charming sometimes, while infuriating at the same time.

McAllen

I... I understand now .

Thank you for all you're help, Bombadier, DMAC, Tynic, Happy Killmore, Tripwire, Neo, Needoptic, Criminal Savant, and Angel of Bacon. If I missed anybody, I'm terribly sorry.

Manguy

Okay, I have no money as of now, so untill I can get a better tablet, I was wondering if some of you could help me decide if this perticularly cheap tablet is worth the cash.

So, for $89.99 CAD (about $72.34 US) I can get this tablet:
http://tinyurl.com/6svd4

Which has some of the following general features:


∙ Handwriting recognition & image editing capabilities.
∙ Professional painting, animation & web design tool.
∙ Write, highlight, sketch in Net Meeting & Chat.
∙ Pressure Sensitive Tablet.
∙ Compatible with MAC/PC. USB ready. Art Dabbler Software included.
∙ Dimensions: 5" x 3.75" (12.7cm x 9.52cm)

Is this worth the cash or not?

M2tM

Waste of money. And, as an aside, those "general features" are not general features, they are general things you can do with a tablet that has features, but they do not describe the features themselves. There is an exception for statements like "pressure sensitive tablet", but the ability do do professional graphics manipulation is available to any point and click device.

The Wacom tablet is king in the land of tablets.

Save up and get a 6x8 graphire 3, ask for help buying it as a christmas preasent:

http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=636380&Tab=13&NoMapp=0

or, for only 30 bucks more than you're spending right now you could get a 4x5 graphire 3, but I'd go with the 6 x 8 and beg my parents for money if I were in your shoes:

http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=636374&CatId=140

also available if you can swing it is the intuous series (which is a little better) a 6x8:

http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=686289&CatId=140

and, the size I have, a 9x12:

http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1059139&CatId=140

or, holy hell, the size ape has, a 12x12, but this is only an intuous 2, the rest are on to version 3:

http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=709390&CatId=140

Angel_of_Bacon

I know nothing about this company or its products, but looking at its features/software list, it looks like it's geared towards more buisness/notetaking/whiteboard functions than art.

Angel_of_Bacon

Emperor Awesome wrote:

So here I am trying to get into the glamorous world of drawing cartoons and learning all the technical stuff involved, and I am in dire need of assistance buying the proper inking devices.

I've been looking at all of these fountain pens and whatnot and speedball's website is pretty easy to navigate, but I would like to know what I should use, any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. As far as thickness is concerned, everything from very fine detail stuff to bold, thick outlines.

Thanks a bundle.

PeterAndCompany

To answer Emperor Self-Proclaimed Awesome:

I used to use pens all the time, but they're so restricting when it comes to natural variations in line weight. Honestly, if you're going to be inking comics and cartoons, learn how to properly handle a brush stroke and make it do what you want it to when it comes to inking line art.

Then save up 50 bucks and go buy yourself a couple Windsor-Newton Series 7 brushes (sizes 1 and 2) and a bunch of waterproof drawing ink.

That's my suggestion.

McAllen

I dunno, I think it would be fun if everybody showed how they make their guidelines when drawing the human body. This is mainly for everybody, me included. Just in case someone might be doing guideslines wrong for drawing the body. It would also be cool if peoplel ike Angel, Bomb, and DMAC showed their guidelines skills. Maybe it would help us, but mainly I wanna see how you better artists set up a drawing so I can emulat- I mean learn from it.

I.E. Do you just use lines or do you flesh it out? do you make circles/ovals or do you just use lines?


EDIT: It's not good to draw from life without understanding how things work? Like folds and such?

PeterAndCompany

Correction: Drawing from Life is how you learn how things work.

Stupid Mr Whoopsie Name

Anyone here have any experience using actual comic book pages?

EDIT: DJ to the rescue!

McAllen

PeterAndCompany wrote:

Correction: Drawing from Life is how you learn how things work.

So you kinda learn naturally?

.Tripwire.

Yeah, it's often a lot easier to figure out how something behaves through observation rather than reading about it.

red_wyrn

Does any one know if there any specific way to sharpen those damn prismacolor pencils? I've sharpened one a third of the way down befor i could even use it.

Is it more like luck or is there some kind of skill involved?

NeoRedXIII

Personally, I would widdle 'em with a knife. Seems a bit more pleasing to ones self.

tynic

NeoRedXIII wrote:

Personally, I would widdle 'em with a knife.

... widdle ... them?

whittle, possibly. :lol: Great mental image, though.

red_wyrn

thanks neoredXIII, wittleing them makes alot of sense, and it helps too

NeoRedXIII

tynic wrote:

NeoRedXIII wrote:

Personally, I would widdle 'em with a knife.

... widdle ... them?

whittle, possibly. :lol: Great mental image, though.

heh, they never taught us how to spell that word in sk00l.

Ringo Rebo

Ok, digital photography question...

Ok, so ISO is supposed to be the digital equivalent of film speeds right?
I was wondering what types of lighting warrant which ISO.

My digital camera can do 50, 100, 200, and 400 ISO. Sometimes my pictures look really 'noisy.' There are a lot of pixels that are off-color randomly.

Also, with a Canon digital camera, do they magically look better if you open them with Canon's software? I only open them in Photoshop so I was wondering.
(My camera is a Canon Powershot S1 IS. It is 3.2 megapixels.)

Thanks for any help.

bombardier

You would use a higher ISO if your exposure time is going to be more than 1/60th of a second. I don't know if you can, but lower your f-stop if possible for more light. Higher ISO is going to give you grain in dark settings so if you can get a shorter exposure length than 1/60 then drop your ISO setting.

Edit: It's best to use the lowest ISO possible as long as you can keep the 1/60 exposure length unless your subject is still or you have a tripod.

From what I've learned each ISO setting down requires twice as much light, so twice the exposure length. Each stop or fstop up lets in half the amount of light too (lower is best but remember how it will affect your depth of field).

Angel_of_Bacon

I'm not much of a photographer, but I believe if you're using a tripod and nothing in the frame is going to be moving, you can use a longer shutter speed to let more light in, thus letting you use a lower ISO and still get the lighting to show.

Adjusting the Fstop is a much better solution though, so if you can, do that...save my reccomendation for when that fails.

Kodak FAQ about film speeds for anyone else interested:
http://www.kodak.com/global/en/service/faqs/faq0010.shtml

benz0rs

Are there any good artists here that never took art classes and just learned by looking and asking on PA?

Millions

Having a web development problem, I hope some one can clue me in.

Working on a web site for my mom, it's going to have an image background with PNGs with transparencies overlayed. For whatever reason, NONE of my graphics programs are exporting the PNGs properly...they all still export with a matte behind them. Using PNG-24...tried in Photoshop, Image Ready and Fireworks.

Using Dreamweaver to make the page, but I don't think it's a Dreamweaver issue because whenever I preview it from any other web editing program it still has the damn matte. But if I save them FROM the webpage and open them up in Photoshop or something, it does maintain a transparency.

And yes, I have previewed it in several browsers, I know PNGs don't work with everything. Something I'm missing? Some stupid Windows or browser setting or something that's jacking up my PNGs? Thanks.

bombardier

This MIGHT help... I used it for making a transparent CS spray, just scroll down to the photoshop part: http://www.forumplanet.com/counterstrike/topic.asp?fid=8447&tid=1468543

bombardier

Blinky also has something on his site that might be of use: http://www.handmethekeys.co.nz/rakugaki/pngdemo.htm

Millions

Hrmm! I'll give it a try when I get home. Meh. If worse comes to worse I'll just load it up here from work.

It's weird because when I put it into Dreamweaver or just straight view it in a browser, it has a matte...but if I SAVE the PNG from the browser and open in PS or something, it has the transparency. >_O

Thanks for the links though man

needOptic

benz0rs wrote:

Are there any good artists here that never took art classes and just learned by looking and asking on PA?

I'm not sure how you define good.... but all that i've ever done was through my own studies. Never went to school for it.

Then again - my stuff pales in comparison to the pro's like chewie and Dmac.

Hotlead Junkie

I'v figured out I draw a lot better, am a lot more focused on making my work look good and have more fun drawing when I'm around a few people, be it during class, around the table in the library with a few of freinds or even on the bus on the way home. Since Sunday I tried to do some drawings seing as I'm at home all week on a break, but they came out pretty badly. Last night I sort of figured out that I seem to draw a lot better when I'm around people because I'm subconsciously more focused on making the drawing look good al the time (be it keping the piliminary sketches clean all the time and so on) just in case somone peeps over my shoulder. Ok, even more conclusive evidence that I'm an attention whore :wink: , but while drawing on my own today I tried to imagine somone was going to look at my work at any time (like they would when I'm out and about with my book) and it worked pretty well. I focused a lot more and the drawings came out a lot better

I'm just wondering if anyone else has an opinion on this idea of making yourself feel like your work could be critisized at any moment, making you focus more, notice more mistakes, etc.



And by the way, another thought comes to mind. When people say 'practice, practice, practice' when somone asks how they get better at art, you obviously consider they mean study anatomy and whatnot. Would you say aynalising and disecting questions about things like 'why can't I draw well in this way' and finding a logical solution why (like I just think I have) is an even bigger form of study you have to do to be a good artist? I mean, I was pretty pretty terrible a year ago, focusing entirley on 'how to draw things' sort of books, but now I'm always really thinking about ideas like this and usually improve after I just sit down for an hour and really think hard about things. I'm probably rambling now and seeing as I'm outta Lucozade for the week my brain not function too well at making legible conversation, so I'll just stop here

NeoRedXIII

Hmmmm, my brain almost auto drives myself to suck artisticly with people and friends around me. Meh. I feel better when I'm in the confines of my room. I do have a tendency to be fine with drawing with people around me as long as I surround my self with music (headphones), dulling the effect of distractions at mid-point comments that throw me off of what I want to accomplish first.

When people say practice, practice, practice, I think of doing whatever you're doing with references. Different poses. Many times. Until you know every which way of it until you could make it into a Transformer or mess with it like a rubix cube.

My question was: Is there something worth buying that will draw a pretty thin white line over almost anything permanent and be it's color. I was hoping to hear something non-permanent, but now I think it wouldn't really matter. Now thinking of it, I'm thinking would a thin white-out type pen work well? I'm basically thinking of something thin where I could apply fine touch ups with precision on perhaps inks and possibly pencils.

Hotlead Junkie

If you are talking about using some sort of tool to help you fix your inked lines, if you are working on a good enough material you can always lightly scratch the ink off with a small blade or knife

NeoRedXIII

Hotlead Junkie wrote:

If you are talking about using some sort of tool to help you fix your inked lines, if you are working on a good enough material you can always lightly scratch the ink off with a small blade or knife

Not exactly to fix, but add highlights. I could try scratching, but I don't know how well it will work with Prismacolors as they tend to bleed within the paper. I'll try it out when I have the time later on various papers. I would expect that bristol paper would be the easist to scratch off, but i'm sure it will make the glossy smooth paper look ugly and fuzzy.

Edit: Like how white charcoal is to black charcoal. Except most white colored pencils are pretty weak and show over half of what is under it.

Hotlead Junkie

Ah, I see. I tried using white ink pens for doing things like that, but if you draw straight onto ink or crayon with them they are pretty useless (the ink/crayon is too smooth so the white pen won't stick). I'd bet that a bottle of correction fluid with a small brush would be your best bet

that1bander

a summer or two ago i saw on these forums a "how to" of mouths in animation. for a class project i am doing a animation in flash and cant find that tuitorial. any help would be great.

p.s. i tryed google, no luck.

Abarame

Prisma color markers actually have their own style of paper. Its lightly glossy and fairly expensive. They are a miracle of pen due to the blank pen that allows blending. With prisma color and that paper I was able to render color better then any other medium. The point of that is it doesnt sink into the paper. You can erase off of it but it ruins any eraser, so the best bet is a white paint pen.

freek

that1bander, hope this helps. I was really bored at work one day and decided to start this stupid mouth animation. Then I got bored and stopped. I have another from being bored as well. They're both Flash files.

Let me sum up, no there is too much - 3.7 mb

Penny Arcade guys - 2.6 mb

Dog

I've looked back at the archives a few months (years?) and I still can't find it.

What was the windows program Gabe used to capture, in video, his amazing session drawing a comic, and when did he post about it?


I thought I had the file somewhere, but can't find it...

Thanks.

---

Found the link to the movie file. inking.swf
still doesn't tell me when or how it was made, but it's a start.

that1bander

FreekBoy wrote:

that1bander, hope this helps. I was really bored at work one day and decided to start this stupid mouth animation. Then I got bored and stopped. I have another from being bored as well. They're both Flash files.

Let me sum up, no there is too much - 3.7 mb

Penny Arcade guys - 2.6 mb

thanks! that helped a lot.

Dog

Sure. here's the link to Camtasia Studio, and the relevant spotlight on PA.


http://www.techsmith.com/spotlight/mkrahulik.asp

a bit costly for our "corporate" needs though. Anyone can suggest something cheaper?

Abarame

Does anyone know of a good internet resource in which I could find a Tombo Brush Pen?

I am looking for much better materials then I have now for drawing so any other inking, or obscure medium would be useful.