nah, I should probably do the same thing, but I'm probably not going to. Playing with the grids has at least made me less hesitant to set up something crazy, perspective wise.
The big thing that seems to be lacking here is transitioning- you're changing the values, but not really doing much with changing up the hue or saturation as you make things lighter or darker, which tends to deaden the colors you put down. Without even getting into the pertinent facts of the scene (ie: the color, the type, the intensity, the diffuseness of the light hitting the object, etc.), just more or less arbitrarily forcing a temperature (which I'm defining here as a shift in hue within a range of a single color, ie: a cyan blue vs a purplish blue, or a yellowish orange vs a reddish orange) and/or saturation shift by adjusting the hue up or down from the base color with your lights and darks is enough to punch up your palette.
Let me show you what I mean, explaining it in convenient Photoshop terms (and some handy dandy quickly painted blue balls)- by adjusting the hue and the saturation as you go, you can get much more vibrant coloration without a ton of effort.
Adjusting the hue is probably going to get you more immediate impact in terms of punching something up in the short term, but it's worth exploring what you can get from saturation transitions as well.
(Slight aside: For example, I did some studies awhile back where I used a single color and just adjusted the saturation and value to see how much I could wring out of a color. Using the fact that against a saturated color, a desaturated version of that color will appear as that color's compliment, it's possible to make a grey sky and sea appear blue, or a grey tree and field appear green: http://bacon.iseenothing.com/saturation_experiment.jpg http://bacon.iseenothing.com/saturation_experiment2.jpg
Which may seem like a stupid art parlor trick, but it actually does come in more handy than you'd think- not a terrible exercise to try if you're trying to expand your bag of color tricks. A lot of people make the mistake of making things consistently grayed out or consistently very saturated, and end up with flat or visually chaotic results.)
Now, I took a quick pass at applying the hue transition idea to one of your dudes here, putting more cyan into the highlights and more purple into the shadows on the blue parts, and putting more red into the darker midtones of the beige underbelly. (As well as knocking down the emphasis on those pesky details in order to reinforce the broader cylindrical form of the body, but I'm trying to limit myself to talking mostly about color here. Also chucked in a rim light because it's a hella cheap way to get some impact.) I also picked an area where I wanted that contrast to be highest, near the head, rather than applying the colors equally everywhere- this is to drive the viewer's attention more easily to the most important bits. The result is it starts looking a bit more alive and solid already, even if the rendering here is pretty rough.
omg yes!! aob to the rescue. right click and save. thank you sir.
ok some of this might have gone over my head but what i did get is that saturation is hella important.
how should i technically go about making something less saturated? right now i only change my flow and always leave opacity at 100 and thats pretty much it. set a low flow for less saturation and a high one for more. maybe there is a better way? like changing opacity levels.
also when you say that hue goes up and down from the base value, does it go always up for light? and down for dark? or that doesnt matter? im not really sure what you mean by up and down there.
how should i technically go about making something less saturated? right now i only change my flow and always leave opacity at 100 and thats pretty much it. set a low flow for less saturation and a high one for more. maybe there is a better way? like changing opacity levels.
It doesn't have anything at all to do with flow or opacity settings on your brush, it purely has to do with what you pick on the color selector. What your brush settings are do not matter in the slightest in regards to anything I'm talking about here.
In the default Photoshop color selector (as used in my examples), you've got 2 things:
1) The hue selector on the right where you choose your color (the rainbow lookin' thing on the right).
2) The big box on the left. In this box, it is set up so the lightest value is at the top, and the lowest value is at the bottom. Also, the minimum saturation is at the left, and the maximum saturation is at the right. So if you've got a yellow hue selection, the yellowest yellow is going to be on the far right edge- your greyest yellow is going to be on the far left edge.
Desaturating is just a matter of making your color selection further to the left in the big box- saturating is a matter of making your selection further to the right.
also when you say that hue goes up and down from the base value, does it go always up for light? and down for dark? or that doesnt matter? im not really sure what you mean by up and down there.
No, it doesn't matter which way it goes, at least in an abstract color theory sense.
By up and down I just mean moving the selection up and down on PS's hue selector. In my particular examples of hue transitions, I moved from cyany blues (which are lower on the hue selector, closer to the greens) towards more purpley blues (which are higher on the hue selector, closer to the reds). It might be hard to see with my it being so small, but that's what I was trying to get across with those circles and arrows.
Now, depending on the color of the light you're trying to express in your scene, going one way or another may make more logical sense for that particular circumstance. IE; if your blue object was lit by a red light rather than a yellowish one, and there was a blue fill light being cast from the sky somewhere, it might make more sense to have your lights be more purple and your darks more cyan, rather than the opposite.
so again im sorry for the photo. this is the progress thus far.
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NakedZerglingA more apocalyptic post apocalypse Portland OregonRegistered Userregular
Angel....
Man it's really awesome of you to do the stuff you do! That last toutorial you just laid out is so helpful, to many people i'm sure, and your paintover is just awesome. I love this community, and it's stuff like that that make me hate humanity a little less. Thanks for taking the time to help people that aspire to reach your level. I don't mean to be all sappy, but some people (me) just learn better the way you laid it out, and really appreciate you taking the time.
Guitarist doodles. Can you guess all six? (not counting Vader) Bonus points if you can guess Quasimodo at the bottom.
If the upper right one isnt Zappa, you have it all wrong and need to go draw from life and buy new CD´s. :P
Edit: I recognice Hendrix, then one of the ZZ top guys? and maybe Dave Mustaine (the red head) if you count him as "guitarist"
FANTOMAS on
Yes, with a quick verbal "boom." You take a man's peko, you deny him his dab, all that is left is to rise up and tear down the walls of Jericho with a ".....not!" -TexiKen
0
NakedZerglingA more apocalyptic post apocalypse Portland OregonRegistered Userregular
From left to right: Clapton (his hair got away from me) Hammet, Hendrix, Gibbons, Mustaine and Joe Bonamassa. True story: if you start from the bottom up to the head, you will end up with a "Jizzed in my pants" faced character.
a WIP for my rapidly approaching exhibition. crits very much appreciated. Spent about 6 hours on this so far, haven't spent this long on a piece for ages and it feels good, using a reference for once in my life has definitely helped out a fuck ton
I have been on a Penny-Arcade binge for the past few weeks. Went and re-read the last couple of years' comics, and watched the entire PA series; as well as Mike's drawing vids. Afterwards, I was inspired to plug my tablet in (trusty old Graphire 2) for the first time in a few years... can't half tell I've been influenced quite a bit by Mike's art hahah. It feels good to draw again, though. Maybe I'll keep it up!
sidenote: AoB, that post was fantastic. Thanks a bunch for taking the time to write up such a detailed explanation. The visual guide on how the colour picker changes position really helped drive your points home. I've saved the image for future reference.
i tried to apply bacons methods to this thing, i think the face turned out ok, but the alien arm thing still looks rather dull and its not pulling focus. i guess i should put stronger highlights in it? maybe?
First thing ive done with realistic values in a while! I hate the friggin trees, I have no idea how to render black and white foliage
(im going to take it to color when im done, but not before I have the values worked out in b/w)
Halp...
Shankbone on
We shall see that at which dogs howl in the dark, and that at which cats prick up their ears after midnight.
@Shankbone Neat, but the values are really busy. I think the extreme background elements could really benefit from more atmospheric haze and less scribbly hatching to bring your midground into focus.
@Shankbone the values are also kind of light and in decisive. This is super rough, but it should be slightly better than me trying to explain without a visual:
When I am doing value, I start with a pretty large, soft brush, and then work into the details after getting the base tones down. This gives you a cohesive sense of whats going on, and allows you to know what details are going to fall away into shadow. Its like going from low poly to high poly, you start with the broad, chunky polygons and then slowly define edges until the building blocks are gone.
Colored that monstrosity from before (in spoiler for size), Its really rudimentary and I'm not satisfied with it...
I think one day i'm going to have to teach myself how to actually paint.
Shankbone on
We shall see that at which dogs howl in the dark, and that at which cats prick up their ears after midnight.
Posts
I love chrono trigger too much as you can tell.
You might have to see this episode of TNG to get it, Genesis, everyone devolves.
Gamer Dater - My Video Game Dating Website full of Faygo
Strip Search Wastebasket of Broken Dreams App I made
Yar, but I'm trying not to use it. My main goal is being a competent construction draftsman, so I need to internalize perspective.
(I appreciate it though and I love you and everything that you do please don't hate me)
I suspect I am subconsciously ripping off Gibs there
Let me see if I can be of some assistance.
The big thing that seems to be lacking here is transitioning- you're changing the values, but not really doing much with changing up the hue or saturation as you make things lighter or darker, which tends to deaden the colors you put down. Without even getting into the pertinent facts of the scene (ie: the color, the type, the intensity, the diffuseness of the light hitting the object, etc.), just more or less arbitrarily forcing a temperature (which I'm defining here as a shift in hue within a range of a single color, ie: a cyan blue vs a purplish blue, or a yellowish orange vs a reddish orange) and/or saturation shift by adjusting the hue up or down from the base color with your lights and darks is enough to punch up your palette.
Let me show you what I mean, explaining it in convenient Photoshop terms (and some handy dandy quickly painted blue balls)- by adjusting the hue and the saturation as you go, you can get much more vibrant coloration without a ton of effort.
Adjusting the hue is probably going to get you more immediate impact in terms of punching something up in the short term, but it's worth exploring what you can get from saturation transitions as well.
(Slight aside: For example, I did some studies awhile back where I used a single color and just adjusted the saturation and value to see how much I could wring out of a color. Using the fact that against a saturated color, a desaturated version of that color will appear as that color's compliment, it's possible to make a grey sky and sea appear blue, or a grey tree and field appear green:
http://bacon.iseenothing.com/saturation_experiment.jpg
http://bacon.iseenothing.com/saturation_experiment2.jpg
Which may seem like a stupid art parlor trick, but it actually does come in more handy than you'd think- not a terrible exercise to try if you're trying to expand your bag of color tricks. A lot of people make the mistake of making things consistently grayed out or consistently very saturated, and end up with flat or visually chaotic results.)
Now, I took a quick pass at applying the hue transition idea to one of your dudes here, putting more cyan into the highlights and more purple into the shadows on the blue parts, and putting more red into the darker midtones of the beige underbelly. (As well as knocking down the emphasis on those pesky details in order to reinforce the broader cylindrical form of the body, but I'm trying to limit myself to talking mostly about color here. Also chucked in a rim light because it's a hella cheap way to get some impact.) I also picked an area where I wanted that contrast to be highest, near the head, rather than applying the colors equally everywhere- this is to drive the viewer's attention more easily to the most important bits. The result is it starts looking a bit more alive and solid already, even if the rendering here is pretty rough.
Twitter
Also... Know how I know you're from Northern California?
ok some of this might have gone over my head but what i did get is that saturation is hella important.
how should i technically go about making something less saturated? right now i only change my flow and always leave opacity at 100 and thats pretty much it. set a low flow for less saturation and a high one for more. maybe there is a better way? like changing opacity levels.
also when you say that hue goes up and down from the base value, does it go always up for light? and down for dark? or that doesnt matter? im not really sure what you mean by up and down there.
and yah thats enough from my stupid brain.
It doesn't have anything at all to do with flow or opacity settings on your brush, it purely has to do with what you pick on the color selector. What your brush settings are do not matter in the slightest in regards to anything I'm talking about here.
In the default Photoshop color selector (as used in my examples), you've got 2 things:
1) The hue selector on the right where you choose your color (the rainbow lookin' thing on the right).
2) The big box on the left. In this box, it is set up so the lightest value is at the top, and the lowest value is at the bottom. Also, the minimum saturation is at the left, and the maximum saturation is at the right. So if you've got a yellow hue selection, the yellowest yellow is going to be on the far right edge- your greyest yellow is going to be on the far left edge.
Desaturating is just a matter of making your color selection further to the left in the big box- saturating is a matter of making your selection further to the right.
No, it doesn't matter which way it goes, at least in an abstract color theory sense.
By up and down I just mean moving the selection up and down on PS's hue selector. In my particular examples of hue transitions, I moved from cyany blues (which are lower on the hue selector, closer to the greens) towards more purpley blues (which are higher on the hue selector, closer to the reds). It might be hard to see with my it being so small, but that's what I was trying to get across with those circles and arrows.
Now, depending on the color of the light you're trying to express in your scene, going one way or another may make more logical sense for that particular circumstance. IE; if your blue object was lit by a red light rather than a yellowish one, and there was a blue fill light being cast from the sky somewhere, it might make more sense to have your lights be more purple and your darks more cyan, rather than the opposite.
Twitter
[img]http://photos-g.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/s720x720/574492_4601305684364_208200655_n.jpg[/ img][/img]
Man it's really awesome of you to do the stuff you do! That last toutorial you just laid out is so helpful, to many people i'm sure, and your paintover is just awesome. I love this community, and it's stuff like that that make me hate humanity a little less. Thanks for taking the time to help people that aspire to reach your level. I don't mean to be all sappy, but some people (me) just learn better the way you laid it out, and really appreciate you taking the time.
I'm going to play around with colors now!
If the upper right one isnt Zappa, you have it all wrong and need to go draw from life and buy new CD´s. :P
Edit: I recognice Hendrix, then one of the ZZ top guys? and maybe Dave Mustaine (the red head) if you count him as "guitarist"
a WIP for my rapidly approaching exhibition. crits very much appreciated. Spent about 6 hours on this so far, haven't spent this long on a piece for ages and it feels good, using a reference for once in my life has definitely helped out a fuck ton
Not sure exactly, but for reference:
[img][/img]
sidenote: AoB, that post was fantastic. Thanks a bunch for taking the time to write up such a detailed explanation. The visual guide on how the colour picker changes position really helped drive your points home. I've saved the image for future reference.
well here's this, with bad lightning
im kind of stuck at this point.
i tried to apply bacons methods to this thing, i think the face turned out ok, but the alien arm thing still looks rather dull and its not pulling focus. i guess i should put stronger highlights in it? maybe?
(im going to take it to color when im done, but not before I have the values worked out in b/w)
Halp...
When I am doing value, I start with a pretty large, soft brush, and then work into the details after getting the base tones down. This gives you a cohesive sense of whats going on, and allows you to know what details are going to fall away into shadow. Its like going from low poly to high poly, you start with the broad, chunky polygons and then slowly define edges until the building blocks are gone.
The Scoundrel & The Bastard
My Comics Thread
something completely different to most of the work I'm doing at the moment, do u even lift?
I think one day i'm going to have to teach myself how to actually paint.
edit: wait crap