I was going to ask if English wasn't your native language, actually.
If you're not writing in english, I wouldn't worry about that. If you are, you may - in addition to menace's read a lot advice - want to do some serious immersion in colloquial media like television and comics, to try and get a feel for natural dialog flow.
I just purchased a Cintiq 13HD. The first night I used it with Manga Studio 5EX is was perfect, amazing... uh, really good... yo. The next day though, while using the ink brush I noticed quite a bit of lag... and then MS wasn't registering every other stroke. It was like getting a flat tire on a new car; sucked all the enjoyment out of it. I installed the latest driver and experienced the same problem. I then re-installed the driver on the disc to no avail. I don't have another system or art program to test it out in. I figured I'd pepper a forum here and there with my query; see what turns up. Thanks, ya'all.
Ugh, looks like all my problems have been solved by doing the same thing over and over again. I re-updated the drivers on Manga Studio and my Cintiq this afternoon and now all is fine... even though I had done that very same thing earlier yesterday. THIS is how I got OCD. This very kind of thing.
@Zombegon Wacoms drivers are notoriously bad. Generally some order of re-install drivers and resetting the system do the trick. unfortunately I dont have an cintiq, so I cant speak to that particular set up.
Manga studio wont respond to changes you make to the driver if the program is already open, though. That includes setting key bindings and such, I've noticed.
so how do I go about this. I've picked up sketching again after about 7 years of not doing it. College way back in the day kinda sucked my drive for creative work out of me, and compounded with not getting a job in animation or illustration and yadda yadda, that's about a decade ago. The point is, I'm starting to get back into the swing of things again after so long, but I'm... frustrated with using pencils and sketchpads. its not for lack of content or getting it ''just right'' but, I wanna say I'm done with that. besides its a pain to try and scan and digitize those sketches and then retouch them in photoshop and its just a hassle and I'd like to make the jump to the digital age and just get it all done digitally to begin with, because layers are be all end all.
I've been looking over tablets and tablet PCs and I'm curious what people are using and how they like them. I travel a lot for my real job, so something that functions like a real laptop is a huge bonus for me, because I look at my phone and seriously, fuck apps. I may be set in my ways but I want *PROGRAMS*. I want program suites that do *work*.
So that leads me to the Microsoft Surface Pro 2 and 3. I've heard that the 3 is actually the first actual tablet PC. If I should choose to, I could bluetooth or usb a keyboard and mouse onto it and use it as an ultrathin laptop and use all the programs that work with windows 8 and such with it. But its expensive, especially the i5, 256gb one I'm looking at. Also I've been hearing among digital artists like Gabe and a few youtubers that there is a noticeable lag when using photoshop and the like.
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So... that's kinda of my story with this? could peeps weigh in for me and the pros and cons, or even point me at something else that might be cheaper?
to boil it down, I'm looking for something that uses programs and even play games, but can be used as a drawing tablet as well.
Something that can replace my 4 year old laptop. can the surface pro 2 do that or should I wait for the 3 to drop price and get a little bit better at being snappy with drawing?
what programs do you guys use besides photoshop? photoshop being a 20$ a month thing kinda makes me grumble but if Manga Studios or openCanvas are good workarounds I wouldn't be averse to them.
The surface pro 2 can definitely do that, it runs full windows as far as I know. I think even the 1 did as long as you didn't get the 'RT' version which was app based. My brother has a pro 1 and uses it with photoshop and manga studio, enjoys both.
What kind of drawings are you looking to produce? Is there a goal in mind? I ask because of your aversion to paper. I get it if you need to end up with a finished digital illustration, then starting on paper can be an unnecessary step. But if you're drawing for drawing's sake, who cares what it's on? Is there a real need to scan it and 'finish' it on a computer? From my own experience I'd say it's easy to think this is so hard in pencil, paint, whatever. If I could do this on a computer it would be loads easier! Then I sit down at my computer and start drawing and suddenly its oh wait no its just me I'm crap.
Not steering you away from drawing digitally, just thought. Anyway, yeah the pro 2 will do everything you describe. So would a new laptop with an intuos of course. Both have their pro's and con's I'm sure you are aware of.
If you have a drawing tablet already with your laptop try 'krita'. It's a free drawing/painting program, I really like it. Next up in cost is probably manga studio / sketchbook pro. Then photoshop. Post some pictures!
thanks for the input, @sampangolin. The goal for me is to produce quality images that I can post online. Its more of a cleanliness aspect I suppose. I draw on paper, put in the basic sketch lines, flesh out the image a bit more, erase, flesh it out more, erase, find out I made the arm too small in proportion too late in the design, scrap it. And even when I just go progressively darker and not erase and damage the paper, the work gets rather busy.
I worked in photoshop years ago and its just so nice that if I want to try and experiment with something, I can just make a few layers, plot it out, if its good keep it, if not, scrap it and my work is still functionally untouched before I went on that tangent. I tried the old school drawing pads, and unless I can look at it like the Wacom Cintiq, it is just way way too jarring of a disconnect. It might have worked if the mouse pointer would react on screen, but last year of college was 2004, so yea, technology wasn't what it is today.
Like others here, I do hope that I can get to a professional level, and I probably would have been if I kept at this from so long ago, but I'm kinda starting all over again. With my current job and traveling, I feel that something that can play a few games on the plane, and let me flip to drawing and painting for no fuss no muss is the ideal road to take with this stuff.
As for pictures, I'll look and see if I can dig some of my old work up from way back when.
I'm designing a character, and while I won't go into generic BS stuff (mainly because I kind of don't want to right now) one part of his character is to be physically attractive. So without sounding really weird, I need to know what exactly is physically attractive on men, or basically what makes them sexy. Like evil sexy, y'know? (I feel like I might get banned for asking this the more I type it, but in for a penny) Like it's easy to tell what makes someone like Lust from FMA attractive; she has the sort of dark and (i hate saying this) mysterious kind of look to her, she very much defines male temptation.
So sorry for the weird question, thank you for your straight answers, and let's hope I don't get banned here.
people tend to find symmetry attractive - but beyond that, it's hard to point to a universal archetype.
Further to Iruka's suggestion, maybe have a look around at classically attractive men in art and movies, find what fits the characteristics you're after. If you're looking for evil-sexy in particular, seek out work that features antiheroes prominently.
(I don't know why you think you'd be banned for asking?)
Gouache anyone? Gouache. Let's talk about the gouache.
I just bought a sample platter of 12 colors and am trying to figure out the best way to travel with them. Do I dry them out in pans like watercolor or do I carry the tubes around squeezing them on site and if so what goes well with that? I heard they can dry up and get pretty crumbly, I need some kind of simple solution for lunch time scribbles that won't impede upon my daily active lifestyle.
Gouache anyone? Gouache. Let's talk about the gouache.
I just bought a sample platter of 12 colors and am trying to figure out the best way to travel with them. Do I dry them out in pans like watercolor or do I carry the tubes around squeezing them on site and if so what goes well with that? I heard they can dry up and get pretty crumbly, I need some kind of simple solution for lunch time scribbles that won't impede upon my daily active lifestyle.
So just an update for you guys that care enough. I went ahead and sprung for a Surface Pro 2, i5 with the 8gb of ram. I looked around to see if anybody mentioned anything about fixing the snappiness that was exhibited in the pro 3, but no one has said anything about that. and also looking over the specs and such, all the pro 3 really is just another 1 to 2 diagonal inches. Microsoft has a sale online dropping $200 off their pros, but I forgot about tax, so its about 100$ cheaper. Still, my job owes me about 800$ in mileage so that made the deal for me.
what that means for me posting art here is... Soon™
Gouache anyone? Gouache. Let's talk about the gouache.
I just bought a sample platter of 12 colors and am trying to figure out the best way to travel with them. Do I dry them out in pans like watercolor or do I carry the tubes around squeezing them on site and if so what goes well with that? I heard they can dry up and get pretty crumbly, I need some kind of simple solution for lunch time scribbles that won't impede upon my daily active lifestyle.
I'm also pretty sure that if you go with one of those palettes (which are awesome - I've used them before) that even if the gouache ends up drying out, you can "reanimate" it with a bit of water (I think this goes for watercolor too? Dang it's been awhile :P). So in other words, feel free to squeeze out a dollop of color onto the palette, and then just add water to it when you want to use it again (which will not be required all that often with one of those palettes).
Gouache anyone? Gouache. Let's talk about the gouache.
I just bought a sample platter of 12 colors and am trying to figure out the best way to travel with them. Do I dry them out in pans like watercolor or do I carry the tubes around squeezing them on site and if so what goes well with that? I heard they can dry up and get pretty crumbly, I need some kind of simple solution for lunch time scribbles that won't impede upon my daily active lifestyle.
I'm also pretty sure that if you go with one of those palettes (which are awesome - I've used them before) that even if the gouache ends up drying out, you can "reanimate" it with a bit of water (I think this goes for watercolor too? Dang it's been awhile :P). So in other words, feel free to squeeze out a dollop of color onto the palette, and then just add water to it when you want to use it again (which will not be required all that often with one of those palettes).
Gouache can be reactivated with water, but frankly it's never as good that way. Additionally, it dehydrates a LOT more than tube watercolor by comparison in my experience. (I have a 12-pan Winsor-Newton Cotman watercolor box that I supplement with Cotman color from tubes; the Cotman color dries hard onto the lid of the box and clings, so it doesn't flake off the lid when I close it.)
The gouache set I bought when I started getting back into water-paints did not work out well at all for portability. I tried using a few different portable boxes but basically the stuff does not "cling" like watercolor does and so I ended up giving up on the idea for the moment. I often use those "pill-a-day" type travel pillboxes for old folks as travel color pans; that would probably work well. You need a container with a lid for each color so that when the material dries out, the crumbs of color don't get loose and mix together.
I've never seen that Mijello palette before-- that's really cool! based on my gouache misadventures I would say that palette would be effective for daily use but if you end up storing it for a while you might still have some loose crumbly bits.
@Iruka -- those Nalgene jars look amazing; I have been trying to figure out a way to travel with my Dr Martins colors and I think this might just do it! I looooove Dr M colors, but loathe carrying around a half-dozen clanking glass bottles everywhere I go.
So, I went to the Container Store on 6th Ave in Manhattan today to find out more and pick up some of those Nalgene jars. I ended up buying a dozen of the 0.4oz snap top Nalgene canisters and a few other sizes and variations, to test them out with my Dr Martin's collection, and I can report that tests with the Sepia brown pretty conclusively showed me everything I needed to see; they're awesome and really nice size for traveling, at least compared with full size products. I would guess that these canisters would work well with gouache because of the water tightness of the design.
I also went over to Blick because they're more or less directly across the street from there and did a little label reading. A lot of modern gouache products are acrylic gouache, which means the binder is effectively plastic instead of gum Arabic. I have a suspicion that acrylic gouache probably sucks for the purposes of being reconstituted later, but also probably has superior binding on paper, better opacity, better archival quality, and other good art-stuff traits.
Nice. You can find similar-ish containers in a lot of stores in the travel section. The convenient thing about the airports stupid liquid restrictions is that they now make a huge variety of small containers for makeup and lotion. Generally, they are cheaper options than stuff I've found at jerry's made specifically for supplies.
Acrylic gouache is terrrrrible, it will not reconstitute whatsoever and dries quickly.
I will have to look into the containers cause yeah, I filled up some watercolor pans with gouache to see how it'd fair and it's already pretty crumbly, it doesn't grab like you say. I've heard that that Schminke and M. Graham brand are suppose to be good for pans from some random internet post, but they're pretty spendy and I just bought a 12 set of Holbein's Artist Gouache.
This is basically what my current watercolor kit looks like, just with full size pans instead of half, so instead of 6 small ones I have 3 on each side. It's really fantastic and I absolutely love it, I'd love to make gouache work with it, but I don't know if that's going to happen.
I'll admit that I have sort of a PTSD response to gouache and dont like using it. I mostly use plain Acrylic, which you can layer a little retarder over the top of a color and preserve it for a few hours. When it comes to truely arting on the go, I rarely whip out the paints, in favor of things that can fit in my pencil box, so markers.
I'd say if you had tubes small enough to travel with, that's probably the best you can do. I found a nice little organizer box at the Container Store while I was there, so I'm probably going to make that my travel kit; I could probably squeeze a dip pen handle and some crow quills in along with 12 of the .4oz vials. I'm letting the Dr. Martin colors dehydrate a little before I cap them; while it would be fine to travel with them wet based on the tests I did last night, they seemed to travel really well in sort of a thick to dried out state and work fine when reconstituted in the other palette I made a while back (which ultimately failed when my bag got wet during a bad downpour; everything survived but it was such a huge mess that I gave up on it).
I am a total 'tiny container' packrat (especially for stuff that will hold small sculptures, but really, anything tiny is intriguing, heh.) - - the Nalgene stuff is such an exceptionally good choice for such a tiny price. The flat-walled jars turned out to be way too big for what I wanted but they'll do just fine for storing travel size water for painting.
What do you find you get from the dr. Martin's, other than the translucency? I feel like you could do the same with the right selected watercolor pans, avoiding the chalkier ones?
I'll admit that I have sort of a PTSD response to gouache and dont like using it. I mostly use plain Acrylic, which you can layer a little retarder over the top of a color and preserve it for a few hours. When it comes to truely arting on the go, I rarely whip out the paints, in favor of things that can fit in my pencil box, so markers.
That little watercolor kit actually fits in my pencil bag which is probly 5x3"? That along with waterbrushes and a watercolor sketchbook has been really good to me. Don't have to carry around water or worry about ruining good brushes. The only thing is I can't really do any drybrush effects. I like markers too, I go back and forth.
But this guy has always been my favorite and I would love to get to this point. He's using gouache, that much I know. I've gone through his posts curious about his setup with no luck. These look like he's using reconstituted gouache, they don't have that thickness to them. I was thinking of gluing down gouache bits inside the pan with a little honey, and just carry a tube of white gouache for little touches which I do anyway. :X
that's a good question, actually. I think I started using them because I was doing a lot of ink sketching for a while, and it was sort of a different way to do linework that could then be blended out in unusual ways. I like the hyper translucency and I find they blend especially well. I use traditional tube and pan watercolors too, though.
Those linked illustrations are fascinating-- looks like a really neat mix of traditional ink brushing techniques used with the variable opacity of the gouache.
Those are great! I struggle to get such nice edges with just paint. I like the effect I get with an ink line drawing + watercolour, but painting on it's own is crazy hard. I want to get better at it though, let's start a watercolour / gouache thread mebbe?
But it does not fit other cases well. I can stick little tubs of water in it if I need too. Its metal, I may experiment with using magnets and fabric to section it off.
@sampangolin I could make the September monthly enrichment traditional media.
Okay @F87, just my opinion, so take it for what it's worth, someone might have a different, more efficient opinion than mine.
What do you like doing most? Start with that. Do what you enjoy first cause then you'll want to do it and it won't feel like a chore.
I like doing sets/environments the most, I'm not as good at characters in my opinion. I can manage, but I can't compete with someone who makes that their living, you know? So I think it's important to make what you enjoy you're living cause then even on shitty days it won't be so bad.
Even with something like environments there's lots to process. Anything can be broken down to smaller more detailed components. Do some fast messy concept explorations of buildings, car designs, or a character, a page of signages, quick environment thumbnails. Pick your idea apart, break it down, do some quick concepts, and then bring it all together in one final piece. So future dystopian city for example, place yourself inside it and start asking yourself questions: what does it look like? Gather reference, word reference, etc. Or however you want to do it, in whatever order. But just cram lots together in a thoughtful manner, make it cohesive, make it rational, make it obvious that you understand the fundamentals of good design. Color and light it properly, it's very important to show your ideas with a proper understanding of lighting and coloring, I've passed over portfolios in the past for this reason alone.
I think it looks better when you appear focused on world building, which I have personally failed terribly at, but that's basically what you're doing on the job anyway- you're working with someone else's world and building it up.
I agree with @Kallisti. Don't try to stretch yourself too thin by creating concepts in absolutely every area, and in every genre.
A piece-by-piece breakdown of a finalized idea seems to be well-received in a portfolio. So, as an example:
- A page of thumbnails/sketches/shape explorations of a "witch's hut in the woods"
- A couple of loose color roughs of the hut during multiple times of day (afternoon, dusk, evening).
- A clean interior line drawing and/or rendered piece with strong sense of lighting (this could also be displayed as a "shoebox" diorama, like this).
- A page of clean line-drawn or rendered prop explorations of things that feel very strongly tied with this witch's hut...like a gnarly, bent, iron wrought lamppost you'd see outside...a shelf of mysterious potions/preserved ingredients, a pile of old musty books with ancient markings and cracked spines...etc.
That's not to say that you'd need all of those things, but it builds on what Kallisti mentioned regarding "worldbuilding" and coming up with a clear idea of the multiple parts that would come together to tell that story.
A breakdown like that would show if a potential candidate has a solid grasp on silhouette definition, color theory, lighting, material definition, perspective, style-coherence, storytelling, creative thinking, etc.
What I absolutely would not worry about would be having a bunch of pieces in your portfolio that "cover all the bases". Don't worry about designing tanks and guns and then fantasy weapons and armor and then spaceships and elaborate scifi environments. It is incredibly rare that you will find a single person who is excellent at all of these things...generally they tend to really excel in a few areas. If you can think of some places you'd like to work (and whose games/films/etc are right in your wheelhouse, aesthetically), I'd suggest trying to develop some portfolio pieces based on what you think those companies/studios would like to see. Unless you're aiming for Blizzard or something extremely specific in style, I think that would help you narrow your focus and make a nice portfolio that shows your strengths and has an overall cohesion.
Hey guys it's me, I was wondering about portfolios, pens, and pencils. You see the next year of my life is being dedicated towards developing a portfolio to enter into a college art program and one part of that from my understanding included a sampling of my traditional art abilities.
So here's what my counselor ( she's this special education therapist that specializes in developing proper study habits in children with ADHD, and she also does a lot of art on her own time) told me about portfolios, please feel free to point out if I'm wrong: The most important part of displaying a portfolio is presentation and professionalism so you can't let your portfolio be in a notebook, it'll look better in a sketchbook with plain white sheets; she also said that all the figure drawing and poses I doodle could actually be good enough on their own to show off as pieces of my work and ability; also I'd need to learn how to use more pens in my work and use my tablet more.
The thing with pens is I'm not sure if there is a point where I should start at, because the ones she showed me at our session were a water brush and some sort of graphite pencil for sketching, that managed to make a very nice and blended shading of what I was drawing.
I'm looking to finally give my doubts a kick in the pants and try this drawing thing out. If I can at least achieve a decent level like random doodles or what have you, I'll consider it an accomplishment.
Someone gave me a link to free Loomis guides I can read online. I was wondering if there was a recommended order to the books for someone who wants to start from zero and work their way up?
Also, uh...do people still use regular number two pencils? Or should I try something a little fancier?
How old are you, and what colleges are you planning to apply to? Are you in highschool? if so, are you taking AP art?
I'm 19, I graduated from Hightower in 2013, and was enrolled in the 3D media program (so I have a lot of knowledge with 3D software, and photoshop, but I like SAI), I've been drawing since Sophomore year, but only get really serious during my Junior year. A lot of my art focuses on the dynamic form of the body. I haven't taken a formal art class but 'm planning for one in the Spring semester. Some of my sketches I've actually posted in a thread (it's pieces from my sketchbook) so have a look there if you're curious about my doodling ability. All in all I say I have about 3 years experience.
If you're an absolute beginner, I'd actually suggest checking out a book called Drawing on the Right Side of the brain before anything else. Some of the science is pretty dubious (you can skip over a fair chunk of the text), but the exercises are really useful for training your brain to get over preconceived symbols, and prepare you for learning to draw.
As for Loomis, most people recommend starting with Figure Drawing for All It's Worth first, however there's lots of information there that's difficult to apply until you've mastered some of the basic concepts. For example, anatomy and shading are really really useful to know, but until you've started to get the hang of gesture drawing and proportion then those concepts won't be as valuable to you. You'll probably want to read through all of his books once and then return to them periodically as you become a better artist.
The second book you check out should probably be Successful Drawing. It contains a lot of very useful information about perspective that you should be able to pick up even as a beginner. Again, you'll probably return to this later, because perspective can be pretty complex, and it's unlikely you'll memorise it all straight away.
His other three books are pretty interchangeable, but all useful. Fun With a Pencil was aimed more at younger readers but it still contains some very useful information about characterisation and exaggeration.
These books aren't the be all and end all of drawing references, you should definitely check out other sources. In my opinion Figure Drawing for All It's Worth does a pretty weak job of explaining gesture drawing, for example. Proko does a really good job of explaining a lot of Loomis' core figure concepts while filling in some of the holes. Figure Drawing: Design and Invention is a great way to start getting in to anatomy. There's heaps of stuff out there!
Just to chime in and add to the books that are great to learn from.
Bridgman's "Complete Guide to Drawing from Life" is pretty great.
I am also particular to Sheppard's "Anatomy" A Complete Guide for Artists"
as well as Hogarth's "Dynamic Figure Drawing"
But realistically, If you are really trying to learn to draw from the ground up I would suggest studying Charles Bargue. His drawing course is basically the foundation for academic draftsmanship that everyone should have access to. Most other art books and courses are stylized and personalized for the individual artist that makes them. Bargue teaches how to simply look and draw what is seen in a simple step-by-step process sometimes called envelope drawing (Or as one art teacher I knew called it, reductive drawing...). Essentially it teaches you very competently how to break objects down into digestible 2-d geometric forms.
And if you are really serious, then you should very much consider going through the program "The Language of Drawing" by Anthony Waichulis.... it is not fun, and it is a ton of work, aaaannd its repetitive and might make you want to kill yourself just a little..... but the results are impressive to say the least. He is also finishing up the Language of Painting, so soon we will have access to that as well.
I'm not a total beginner, I actually posted some of my art on this forum a couple of days ago(maybe a week, too bored to check). It's under "Pieces from my sketchbook", a lot of it is of figures and more than anything, and some of the photos came out flipped somehow. I posted the album on a reddit C&C and the one person who wrote me back said that I need to devote time to properly studying the 3d space. Personally I need to work more on my facial expressions and depicting emotion through the body.
Beforehand, my style was very centered in a Western point-of-view, all bulky men that could give greek gods a run for their money (and my women looked like sewer mutants). Lately my style has been drifting to focus more on stylization. I'm trying to build to a style like Tezuma ,Oda, or even gashi-gashi: where the entire concept of the character (their mannerisms, their position, their persona) is present in the first splash shot of the character.
I have a few books by Hogarty, he's been the foundation of most of my art starting up (looking back I really should have started with videos, that way I could actually SEE how that collection of circles becomes Superman). I've been rather reluctant to purchase Loomis for some reason, probably the main reason being lack of a positive cash flow as of late.
TL;DR: I'll see where I can find these books ( I remember there being some online site that had all sorts of books available online?), I'm at least an amatuer, and my sketches are on this forum, so please take a look for yourselves and offer me your feedback.
These guys do a free weekly ~20 minute video of nude models posing. From video 95 onwards it's actually filmed rather than a slideshow, so it's a lot more like a real figure drawing session. Plus it's timed in 1, 2 and 5 minute chunks. Pretty great for a warmup.
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If you're not writing in english, I wouldn't worry about that. If you are, you may - in addition to menace's read a lot advice - want to do some serious immersion in colloquial media like television and comics, to try and get a feel for natural dialog flow.
Ugh, looks like all my problems have been solved by doing the same thing over and over again. I re-updated the drivers on Manga Studio and my Cintiq this afternoon and now all is fine... even though I had done that very same thing earlier yesterday. THIS is how I got OCD. This very kind of thing.
Manga studio wont respond to changes you make to the driver if the program is already open, though. That includes setting key bindings and such, I've noticed.
I've been looking over tablets and tablet PCs and I'm curious what people are using and how they like them. I travel a lot for my real job, so something that functions like a real laptop is a huge bonus for me, because I look at my phone and seriously, fuck apps. I may be set in my ways but I want *PROGRAMS*. I want program suites that do *work*.
So that leads me to the Microsoft Surface Pro 2 and 3. I've heard that the 3 is actually the first actual tablet PC. If I should choose to, I could bluetooth or usb a keyboard and mouse onto it and use it as an ultrathin laptop and use all the programs that work with windows 8 and such with it. But its expensive, especially the i5, 256gb one I'm looking at. Also I've been hearing among digital artists like Gabe and a few youtubers that there is a noticeable lag when using photoshop and the like.
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So... that's kinda of my story with this? could peeps weigh in for me and the pros and cons, or even point me at something else that might be cheaper?
to boil it down, I'm looking for something that uses programs and even play games, but can be used as a drawing tablet as well.
Something that can replace my 4 year old laptop. can the surface pro 2 do that or should I wait for the 3 to drop price and get a little bit better at being snappy with drawing?
what programs do you guys use besides photoshop? photoshop being a 20$ a month thing kinda makes me grumble but if Manga Studios or openCanvas are good workarounds I wouldn't be averse to them.
Thanks in advance, peeps.
Steam - NotoriusBEN | Uplay - notoriusben | Xbox,Windows Live - ThatBEN
What kind of drawings are you looking to produce? Is there a goal in mind? I ask because of your aversion to paper. I get it if you need to end up with a finished digital illustration, then starting on paper can be an unnecessary step. But if you're drawing for drawing's sake, who cares what it's on? Is there a real need to scan it and 'finish' it on a computer? From my own experience I'd say it's easy to think this is so hard in pencil, paint, whatever. If I could do this on a computer it would be loads easier! Then I sit down at my computer and start drawing and suddenly its oh wait no its just me I'm crap.
Not steering you away from drawing digitally, just thought. Anyway, yeah the pro 2 will do everything you describe. So would a new laptop with an intuos of course. Both have their pro's and con's I'm sure you are aware of.
If you have a drawing tablet already with your laptop try 'krita'. It's a free drawing/painting program, I really like it. Next up in cost is probably manga studio / sketchbook pro. Then photoshop. Post some pictures!
I worked in photoshop years ago and its just so nice that if I want to try and experiment with something, I can just make a few layers, plot it out, if its good keep it, if not, scrap it and my work is still functionally untouched before I went on that tangent. I tried the old school drawing pads, and unless I can look at it like the Wacom Cintiq, it is just way way too jarring of a disconnect. It might have worked if the mouse pointer would react on screen, but last year of college was 2004, so yea, technology wasn't what it is today.
Like others here, I do hope that I can get to a professional level, and I probably would have been if I kept at this from so long ago, but I'm kinda starting all over again. With my current job and traveling, I feel that something that can play a few games on the plane, and let me flip to drawing and painting for no fuss no muss is the ideal road to take with this stuff.
As for pictures, I'll look and see if I can dig some of my old work up from way back when.
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I'm designing a character, and while I won't go into generic BS stuff (mainly because I kind of don't want to right now) one part of his character is to be physically attractive. So without sounding really weird, I need to know what exactly is physically attractive on men, or basically what makes them sexy. Like evil sexy, y'know? (I feel like I might get banned for asking this the more I type it, but in for a penny) Like it's easy to tell what makes someone like Lust from FMA attractive; she has the sort of dark and (i hate saying this) mysterious kind of look to her, she very much defines male temptation.
So sorry for the weird question, thank you for your straight answers, and let's hope I don't get banned here.
Like, dark? Like this?
http://english.bouletcorp.com/2012/02/01/darkness/ (NSFW)?
(not a wholly serious answer.)
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Further to Iruka's suggestion, maybe have a look around at classically attractive men in art and movies, find what fits the characteristics you're after. If you're looking for evil-sexy in particular, seek out work that features antiheroes prominently.
(I don't know why you think you'd be banned for asking?)
I just bought a sample platter of 12 colors and am trying to figure out the best way to travel with them. Do I dry them out in pans like watercolor or do I carry the tubes around squeezing them on site and if so what goes well with that? I heard they can dry up and get pretty crumbly, I need some kind of simple solution for lunch time scribbles that won't impede upon my daily active lifestyle.
I was directed to them by the inimitable @ChicoBlue
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCO9M96O9O1Ce01lkrJbRNsQ/videos
@Kallisti
http://www.jerrysartarama.com/discount-art-supplies/painting-supplies/palettes/air-tight-palettes/mijello-air-tight-palettes/mijello-artelier-air-tight-palette.htm
I dont know "on the go" you mean by on the go. If your pallets are super limited, Id just get some make-op travel containers:
http://www.containerstore.com/shop/travel/bottlesMedication?productId=10000245&N=253
what that means for me posting art here is... Soon™
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I'm also pretty sure that if you go with one of those palettes (which are awesome - I've used them before) that even if the gouache ends up drying out, you can "reanimate" it with a bit of water (I think this goes for watercolor too? Dang it's been awhile :P). So in other words, feel free to squeeze out a dollop of color onto the palette, and then just add water to it when you want to use it again (which will not be required all that often with one of those palettes).
Gouache can be reactivated with water, but frankly it's never as good that way. Additionally, it dehydrates a LOT more than tube watercolor by comparison in my experience. (I have a 12-pan Winsor-Newton Cotman watercolor box that I supplement with Cotman color from tubes; the Cotman color dries hard onto the lid of the box and clings, so it doesn't flake off the lid when I close it.)
The gouache set I bought when I started getting back into water-paints did not work out well at all for portability. I tried using a few different portable boxes but basically the stuff does not "cling" like watercolor does and so I ended up giving up on the idea for the moment. I often use those "pill-a-day" type travel pillboxes for old folks as travel color pans; that would probably work well. You need a container with a lid for each color so that when the material dries out, the crumbs of color don't get loose and mix together.
I've never seen that Mijello palette before-- that's really cool! based on my gouache misadventures I would say that palette would be effective for daily use but if you end up storing it for a while you might still have some loose crumbly bits.
@Iruka -- those Nalgene jars look amazing; I have been trying to figure out a way to travel with my Dr Martins colors and I think this might just do it! I looooove Dr M colors, but loathe carrying around a half-dozen clanking glass bottles everywhere I go.
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So, I went to the Container Store on 6th Ave in Manhattan today to find out more and pick up some of those Nalgene jars. I ended up buying a dozen of the 0.4oz snap top Nalgene canisters and a few other sizes and variations, to test them out with my Dr Martin's collection, and I can report that tests with the Sepia brown pretty conclusively showed me everything I needed to see; they're awesome and really nice size for traveling, at least compared with full size products. I would guess that these canisters would work well with gouache because of the water tightness of the design.
I also went over to Blick because they're more or less directly across the street from there and did a little label reading. A lot of modern gouache products are acrylic gouache, which means the binder is effectively plastic instead of gum Arabic. I have a suspicion that acrylic gouache probably sucks for the purposes of being reconstituted later, but also probably has superior binding on paper, better opacity, better archival quality, and other good art-stuff traits.
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I will have to look into the containers cause yeah, I filled up some watercolor pans with gouache to see how it'd fair and it's already pretty crumbly, it doesn't grab like you say. I've heard that that Schminke and M. Graham brand are suppose to be good for pans from some random internet post, but they're pretty spendy and I just bought a 12 set of Holbein's Artist Gouache.
This is basically what my current watercolor kit looks like, just with full size pans instead of half, so instead of 6 small ones I have 3 on each side. It's really fantastic and I absolutely love it, I'd love to make gouache work with it, but I don't know if that's going to happen.
I am a total 'tiny container' packrat (especially for stuff that will hold small sculptures, but really, anything tiny is intriguing, heh.) - - the Nalgene stuff is such an exceptionally good choice for such a tiny price. The flat-walled jars turned out to be way too big for what I wanted but they'll do just fine for storing travel size water for painting.
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That little watercolor kit actually fits in my pencil bag which is probly 5x3"? That along with waterbrushes and a watercolor sketchbook has been really good to me. Don't have to carry around water or worry about ruining good brushes. The only thing is I can't really do any drybrush effects. I like markers too, I go back and forth.
But this guy has always been my favorite and I would love to get to this point. He's using gouache, that much I know. I've gone through his posts curious about his setup with no luck. These look like he's using reconstituted gouache, they don't have that thickness to them. I was thinking of gluing down gouache bits inside the pan with a little honey, and just carry a tube of white gouache for little touches which I do anyway. :X
Those linked illustrations are fascinating-- looks like a really neat mix of traditional ink brushing techniques used with the variable opacity of the gouache.
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But it does not fit other cases well. I can stick little tubs of water in it if I need too. Its metal, I may experiment with using magnets and fabric to section it off.
@sampangolin I could make the September monthly enrichment traditional media.
What do you like doing most? Start with that. Do what you enjoy first cause then you'll want to do it and it won't feel like a chore.
I like doing sets/environments the most, I'm not as good at characters in my opinion. I can manage, but I can't compete with someone who makes that their living, you know? So I think it's important to make what you enjoy you're living cause then even on shitty days it won't be so bad.
Even with something like environments there's lots to process. Anything can be broken down to smaller more detailed components. Do some fast messy concept explorations of buildings, car designs, or a character, a page of signages, quick environment thumbnails. Pick your idea apart, break it down, do some quick concepts, and then bring it all together in one final piece. So future dystopian city for example, place yourself inside it and start asking yourself questions: what does it look like? Gather reference, word reference, etc. Or however you want to do it, in whatever order. But just cram lots together in a thoughtful manner, make it cohesive, make it rational, make it obvious that you understand the fundamentals of good design. Color and light it properly, it's very important to show your ideas with a proper understanding of lighting and coloring, I've passed over portfolios in the past for this reason alone.
I think it looks better when you appear focused on world building, which I have personally failed terribly at, but that's basically what you're doing on the job anyway- you're working with someone else's world and building it up.
A piece-by-piece breakdown of a finalized idea seems to be well-received in a portfolio. So, as an example:
- A page of thumbnails/sketches/shape explorations of a "witch's hut in the woods"
- A couple of loose color roughs of the hut during multiple times of day (afternoon, dusk, evening).
- A clean interior line drawing and/or rendered piece with strong sense of lighting (this could also be displayed as a "shoebox" diorama, like this).
- A page of clean line-drawn or rendered prop explorations of things that feel very strongly tied with this witch's hut...like a gnarly, bent, iron wrought lamppost you'd see outside...a shelf of mysterious potions/preserved ingredients, a pile of old musty books with ancient markings and cracked spines...etc.
That's not to say that you'd need all of those things, but it builds on what Kallisti mentioned regarding "worldbuilding" and coming up with a clear idea of the multiple parts that would come together to tell that story.
A breakdown like that would show if a potential candidate has a solid grasp on silhouette definition, color theory, lighting, material definition, perspective, style-coherence, storytelling, creative thinking, etc.
What I absolutely would not worry about would be having a bunch of pieces in your portfolio that "cover all the bases". Don't worry about designing tanks and guns and then fantasy weapons and armor and then spaceships and elaborate scifi environments. It is incredibly rare that you will find a single person who is excellent at all of these things...generally they tend to really excel in a few areas. If you can think of some places you'd like to work (and whose games/films/etc are right in your wheelhouse, aesthetically), I'd suggest trying to develop some portfolio pieces based on what you think those companies/studios would like to see. Unless you're aiming for Blizzard or something extremely specific in style, I think that would help you narrow your focus and make a nice portfolio that shows your strengths and has an overall cohesion.
So here's what my counselor ( she's this special education therapist that specializes in developing proper study habits in children with ADHD, and she also does a lot of art on her own time) told me about portfolios, please feel free to point out if I'm wrong: The most important part of displaying a portfolio is presentation and professionalism so you can't let your portfolio be in a notebook, it'll look better in a sketchbook with plain white sheets; she also said that all the figure drawing and poses I doodle could actually be good enough on their own to show off as pieces of my work and ability; also I'd need to learn how to use more pens in my work and use my tablet more.
The thing with pens is I'm not sure if there is a point where I should start at, because the ones she showed me at our session were a water brush and some sort of graphite pencil for sketching, that managed to make a very nice and blended shading of what I was drawing.
Someone gave me a link to free Loomis guides I can read online. I was wondering if there was a recommended order to the books for someone who wants to start from zero and work their way up?
Also, uh...do people still use regular number two pencils? Or should I try something a little fancier?
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I'm 19, I graduated from Hightower in 2013, and was enrolled in the 3D media program (so I have a lot of knowledge with 3D software, and photoshop, but I like SAI), I've been drawing since Sophomore year, but only get really serious during my Junior year. A lot of my art focuses on the dynamic form of the body. I haven't taken a formal art class but 'm planning for one in the Spring semester. Some of my sketches I've actually posted in a thread (it's pieces from my sketchbook) so have a look there if you're curious about my doodling ability. All in all I say I have about 3 years experience.
If you're an absolute beginner, I'd actually suggest checking out a book called Drawing on the Right Side of the brain before anything else. Some of the science is pretty dubious (you can skip over a fair chunk of the text), but the exercises are really useful for training your brain to get over preconceived symbols, and prepare you for learning to draw.
As for Loomis, most people recommend starting with Figure Drawing for All It's Worth first, however there's lots of information there that's difficult to apply until you've mastered some of the basic concepts. For example, anatomy and shading are really really useful to know, but until you've started to get the hang of gesture drawing and proportion then those concepts won't be as valuable to you. You'll probably want to read through all of his books once and then return to them periodically as you become a better artist.
The second book you check out should probably be Successful Drawing. It contains a lot of very useful information about perspective that you should be able to pick up even as a beginner. Again, you'll probably return to this later, because perspective can be pretty complex, and it's unlikely you'll memorise it all straight away.
His other three books are pretty interchangeable, but all useful. Fun With a Pencil was aimed more at younger readers but it still contains some very useful information about characterisation and exaggeration.
These books aren't the be all and end all of drawing references, you should definitely check out other sources. In my opinion Figure Drawing for All It's Worth does a pretty weak job of explaining gesture drawing, for example. Proko does a really good job of explaining a lot of Loomis' core figure concepts while filling in some of the holes. Figure Drawing: Design and Invention is a great way to start getting in to anatomy. There's heaps of stuff out there!
Bridgman's "Complete Guide to Drawing from Life" is pretty great.
I am also particular to Sheppard's "Anatomy" A Complete Guide for Artists"
as well as Hogarth's "Dynamic Figure Drawing"
But realistically, If you are really trying to learn to draw from the ground up I would suggest studying Charles Bargue. His drawing course is basically the foundation for academic draftsmanship that everyone should have access to. Most other art books and courses are stylized and personalized for the individual artist that makes them. Bargue teaches how to simply look and draw what is seen in a simple step-by-step process sometimes called envelope drawing (Or as one art teacher I knew called it, reductive drawing...). Essentially it teaches you very competently how to break objects down into digestible 2-d geometric forms.
And if you are really serious, then you should very much consider going through the program "The Language of Drawing" by Anthony Waichulis.... it is not fun, and it is a ton of work, aaaannd its repetitive and might make you want to kill yourself just a little..... but the results are impressive to say the least. He is also finishing up the Language of Painting, so soon we will have access to that as well.
These guys do a free weekly ~20 minute video of nude models posing. From video 95 onwards it's actually filmed rather than a slideshow, so it's a lot more like a real figure drawing session. Plus it's timed in 1, 2 and 5 minute chunks. Pretty great for a warmup.