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[Noah's Art Camp] AC Group of supreme organization.

245

Posts

  • skyturtleskyturtle Registered User regular
    Spoilering the rest of my composition studies.
    tumblr_mn2nkx53Ag1sr9r88o1_1280.png
    tumblr_mn2nkx53Ag1sr9r88o2_1280.png
    tumblr_mn2nkx53Ag1sr9r88o3_1280.png

    On to colors, which I am very bad at.

  • JingissJingiss Registered User new member
    edited May 2013
    Its really hard to find the right colors, but from the color studies I learned alot. I see green and its orange^^ Sometimes I had to color pick cause I couldnt figure it out and it surprises me always when I find out what colors were used.

    image.jpg

    image.jpg

    Jingiss on
  • ninjaininjai Registered User regular
    edited May 2013
    boatscolorstudies_zps17759aea.jpg

    4 hours each, oil on 8 x 10's.
    This is my first time mixing with oil, and man, it's hard to see in the second photo but those colors are spot on. I got my pallet from this guy. He is super easy to understand and his pallet is really simple but easy to mix with. I'm super inspired by this oil stuff :D

    @Jingiss those are sick man!

    ninjai on
  • skyturtleskyturtle Registered User regular
    edited May 2013
    more color studies, I did notice I started to get better at picking out hues and values at least until I got tired.
    tumblr_mn66k0clf51sr9r88o1_500.png
    tumblr_mn66k0clf51sr9r88o2_500.png
    first detail master study
    tumblr_mn66o9JIZf1sr9r88o1_1280.png
    edit to add reference:
    tumblr_mn66o9JIZf1sr9r88o2_r1_1280.jpg

    skyturtle on
  • F87F87 So Say We All Registered User regular
    edited May 2013
    That is awesome, Skyturtle! I saw that painting when looking for one to study, I love it.

    ---

    More comp/color studies:
    week1_thumbset3.png

    Master Study:
    week1_masterstudy.png

    Ref:
    NikolaiKasatkin-Who1897.jpg
    This was really hard for me. But I learned a lot, especially about how I perceive color. I could spend so much time on this, but I have commission work to do too.

    Really excited for week 2! Nice work so far, guys! :)

    F87 on
  • IrukaIruka Registered User, Moderator mod
    Nice frank. You are going to benefit from this a lot, I can already tell. Glad you joined up! I'll try and do a little more/scan some stuff tonight.

  • ninjaininjai Registered User regular
    Untitled-1_zps955a8b75.jpg
    I thought to close out the week I'd reinstall my wacom drivers and try some digitally.

    Nope.


    After this 12 weeks I'll probably do this again but all digital, and I'll try to do some digital throughout some of the next exercises just to get some practice.

  • AgentflitAgentflit Registered User regular
    edited May 2013
    I'm so damn slow, hours and hours and I only got about 35 composition & 25 color studies done. Maybe I can squeeze in a full study. At least I can feel my brain growing. I guess I haven't painted much at all in the last five years.

    Some of my better color studies:

    color_studies.jpg

    Also I realized that my value studies are shit 'cause I didn't disable opacity/blending etc. Too many values! A quick filter helps a tiny bit:
    compositional_studies_filtered.jpg

    Agentflit on
  • skyturtleskyturtle Registered User regular
    edited May 2013
    @F87 Thanks! I like the one you chose for your master study, it looks very challenging with a lot of elements. Very nicely done!

    Another master study. I am really bad at landscape painting, there's so much going on I think I got overwhelmed. I probably should have chosen a simpler pallet.

    tumblr_mn6xyfJd0s1sr9r88o1_1280.png

    ref
    tumblr_mn6xyfJd0s1sr9r88o2_1280.jpg

    skyturtle on
  • ninjaininjai Registered User regular
    New assignments are up. He said we can work traditionally, but all I heard was "hahahaha you're fucked".

    There is no way to use that kind of trial and error process traditionally. Unless anyone has some ideas? I suppose I could do that game sort of thing where you make a bunch of squiggles and see what you can make of it, but aside from doing a bunch of planned drawings idk what to do.

  • NightDragonNightDragon 6th Grade Username Registered User regular
    Great color-matching, @Agentflit !

  • FugitiveFugitive Registered User regular
    So why are you working purely traditional, ninjai? Do you just straight-up not have a tablet/machine that's capable of running something like PaintTool SAI?

    Alternatively, the cheap option would be to invest in some charcoal/conte, a kneaded eraser, and maybe something like this. Charcoal is much more forgiving to work with than watercolors, you can work both additively or subtractively, and it will at least let you use some of what you've learned about black and white composition.

    As for color... you've probably got some investments to consider. But if its any consolation, they're investments that will last you a good number of years and you won't feel like you're struggling with the wrong tools.

  • ninjaininjai Registered User regular
    edited May 2013
    Fugitive wrote: »
    So why are you working purely traditional, ninjai? Do you just straight-up not have a tablet/machine that's capable of running something like PaintTool SAI?

    ,.

    a number of reasons, one i really like working traditionally, i can take it with me and do plein air or on the bus, and I'm much more comfortable with the materials its very tactile, i still struggle with using a tablet. Drawing from the shoulder on an elevated surface such as an eisle or drafting table vs drawing flat on a tablet is still a big mental barrier for mw. Another reason is my PC hasn't been very reliable Lately, and I'm afraid that I'll be working on something for a while and forget to save or it will randomly crash without the opportunity to save.

    The main reason is the steep learning curve of learning all the tools, how to make a brush and to make one that i can use consistently, controlling the medium with varied edge AND varied weight (i.e. Rotating a flat piece of charcoal with varied pressure at the same time) i don't know really how to use the brushes Photoshop or how to use Photoshop in general. For example last night i was trying to use the eye dropper tool and it would always send the selected swatch to the back swatch so i would have to tap x to swap them to use it. This never happened when i was using PS before. I would select a color and i didn't have to swap them.


    I have color oils and a variety of dry medium, and i have a few colored inks, but digital just feels like an insurmountable obstacle because of the initial time investment to learn the tools and how to use them.


    Edit, that isn't to say I won't try it. I was Doing some comp studies last night that you can see up this page a ways, and the consistency between those and my traditional ones in ink or oul are night and day. I was also practicing some gesture stuff before bed and they were awful. It feels like I've never drawn when using PS which scares me. Its pretty intimidating for me to see myself draw like that after improving so much recently. Kind of crushes my spirit :(

    ninjai on
  • kevindeekevindee Registered User regular
    I have so much respect for people trying to through these assignments traditionally. Outside of charcoal or pencil for figure drawing I really doubt I'd be able to manage anything in a traditional medium.

    I struggled with illness a bit and didn't get everything done, tackling this week's master study before all the small stuff now.

  • FugitiveFugitive Registered User regular
    For the eyedropper thing, it sounds like it's stuck in alt-click mode for some reason. You might want to go through your preferences or keybindings for your tablet/PS to figure out whats going on there.

    Like Noah pointed out in the last video, these exercises are a good way to learn your way around an unfamiliar medium. As long as you're getting something out of the work - be it getting more comfortable with a medium or learning something about composition and color theory - then it's worthwhile, even if the studies aren't as good as you know you could be doing.

    That said, you'll probably absorb more about composition and color if you're not battling with your tools. But learning how to paint digitally will likely be incredibly helpful for you down the line. There are things you can do digitally that you can't do traditionally, and once you become comfortable with it I think you can churn out certain kinds of practice work a lot faster and with fewer headaches.

    If I were you, I might try dedicating a percentage of your current studies to working digitally.

  • ninjaininjai Registered User regular
    Fugitive wrote: »
    Like Noah pointed out in the last video, these exercises are a good way to learn your way around an unfamiliar medium.

    If I were you, I might try dedicating a percentage of your current studies to working digitally.

    This seems like a reasonable goal. I'll do that this week and see what I can come up with.

    I did a few of the creative part of the assignment with sharpie and ball point. This is pretty fun :D

  • AgentflitAgentflit Registered User regular
    edited May 2013
    Great color-matching, @Agentflit !

    Thanks :). This color assignment was, oddly, easier than the composition one. I guess it's because I've been coloring my comic digitally but drawing it traditionally.

    @ninjai I'm not new to PS but I am basically brand new to digital painting, it's not so bad. I found coolorus which is way better than adobe's shitty color selection GUI. For brushes I had these sitting around from forever ago and they're more fun than the default ones.

    I guess these things cost money though, there's probably cool free stuff all over

    Agentflit on
  • ninjaininjai Registered User regular
    edited May 2013
    ninjai wrote: »
    boatscolorstudies_zps17759aea.jpg


    edit: ramblings, blah blah, comparing my oil version and my digital version.
    Untitled-1_zps5e1144e0.jpg

    ninjai on
  • m3nacem3nace Registered User regular
    Decided I would join in on this for fun, began this morning.
    ATc97OF.png

  • ninjaininjai Registered User regular
    edited May 2013
    myInvocation_zps40e01017.jpg
    Untitled1_zpsee1693ab.jpg
    Ok, I think I'm getting the hang of this. Lets dooooooooo it

    a guy on noahs thing linked this video to me. It's helping a lot uderstanding the work flow

    ninjai on
  • FugitiveFugitive Registered User regular
    Looking good, Ninjai.

    Uuuuuuuuughh I guess I'll post some of these. I think I'm doing alright on the colors but jeeze these are taking me a lot longer to do than they should.

    col1merged.jpg

  • ninjaininjai Registered User regular
    edited May 2013
    Haha love your gator/dragon dudes. Made me laugh. Looking good though man.

    Are you working the same aspect ratio in your studies? All I do is open the image file of the original and increase canvas size 200% either height or width and instant aspect ratio and I don't have to measure or guess. That may or may not help with your proportions

    ninjai on
  • FugitiveFugitive Registered User regular
    I honestly haven't been focusing on proportions a whole lot while starting out with these. I do have a hard time eyeballing things, but for the color studies I focus a lot more on getting the saturation and transitions right, and the shapes and proportions "acceptable".

    I think I need to invest in an egg timer though and start going through these a lot faster because at this pace, I'll have finished the first week of assignments by August.

  • IrukaIruka Registered User, Moderator mod
    My damn intenet is out at home, Comcast has been shifty for two days. Ill update the op as soon as it comes back.

  • ninjaininjai Registered User regular
    the-bather-1879_zps2da64119.jpg

    Start of my long one for the week.

    fantasy_zps0e5359b6.jpg

    Idkwtf I'm doing :/ I don't usually draw from imagination because I'm always practicing and drawing from observation.

    @iruka, damn that sucks. Where's the "not awesome" button?

  • m3nacem3nace Registered User regular
  • kevindeekevindee Registered User regular
    edited May 2013
    nicolai-fechin-master-study-small.jpg
    nicolaifechin-nude.jpg

    Master study for this week, after Nicolai Fechin. Been having a tooth ache all week, I just want go rid of it at this point so I can actually get something done instead of just taking painkillers every day. Ugh.

    Fug I think you've got a good thing going with those color studies, loose but with a good read.

    kevindee on
  • JingissJingiss Registered User new member
    My first Master Study. I cant manage finishing his assignments, he said it would be cool if we do twice as much but how ^.^? Maybe Im drawing too slowly or I focos too much on details I have no clue.
    image.jpg
    frank_frazetta_luana.jpg

    Im already trying the imaginary stuff. Its really hard...^.^

  • ninjaininjai Registered User regular
    edited May 2013
    compilationforupload_zpsb85897d7.jpg

    Am I meeting the intent of the assignment or should I spend more time on these?

    @nightdragon your advice has helped quite a bit thanks :)

    edit; also I'm finding that brushes with transfer turned on make images very blurry, is there another way to blend between tones? And rendering, I'm finding it hard to make details appear not gobbed on, even with a tiny brush, is there some technique to rendering things digitally? Is it all really about the brush you use?

    ninjai on
  • BoomSamsonBoomSamson Registered User regular
    Wow great thread!

    First time poster/lurker here! I was browsing through links on Google of Noah's Art Camp blogs and such, looking for reviews and what people think of the course.

    I then stumbled upon this site! I'm really surprised at the camaraderie and warmth from the posters here as most art forums these days like conceptart.org and cghub.com are pretty cold and dead :p
    And I found some cool well-done sketchbooks in the forum as well! This is site is looking shaweeet!

    Now, the reason i'm here lol I was looking for reviews and personal thoughts that people have about the course so far? Most being the quality of the teaching and video that Noah provides. Are they informative, helpful? Or is it just more about the exercises that will give you the progress...

    One of the posters in the forum mentioned the FB critique sections being a huge clusterfuck as well, which kind of sucks seeing as how that's an integral part of improving :S

    The reason i'm asking all of these questions is that I'm trying to get a feel for whether this course is something that I could use to help me with my digital painting *never really done before*

    My only experience is working with Jonathan Hardesty (aka. MindCandyMan) in his online atelier and then my own watercolour and drawing that I do @ home.

    Anyways, thanks for taking the time to read this way too long post! And I hope to meet some of you guys in the Art Camp :)

  • ninjaininjai Registered User regular
    BoomSamson wrote: »
    Now, the reason i'm here lol I was looking for reviews and personal thoughts that people have about the course so far? Most being the quality of the teaching and video that Noah provides. Are they informative, helpful? Or is it just more about the exercises that will give you the progress...

    Seeing as how it's only a week and a half so far, it's hard to give fair review, but to state what has happened thus far, Large volume of work, force you out of your comfort zone, learn from the masters.

    Those are all very good things, especially the large volume of work part. The community aspect makes it easy to keep busy because you don't want to fall behind everyone else. I recommend get on it asap while it's still just starting.

  • IrukaIruka Registered User, Moderator mod
    I maybe a little critical, but I think Facebook is a poor platform for this sort of activity. If Noah asks for feedback at the end of the course, I am certainly going to suggest he seeks a more level platform, like a forum, that can handle the volume. That being said, people are active and critiquing within the group.

    You are paying for the videos, really, which are instructional and chock full of tips and advice. You get to download them and keep them forever, which is great for further self direction. It is, as ninjai says, a bit early to judge, so we'll see.

    If you join camp, feel free to post in our thread when you get started!

  • kevindeekevindee Registered User regular
    I agree with Iruka. It's only week two, but I'm not a huge fan of the facebook platform. I think a lot more people signed up for this than Noah anticipated, and it's hard to manage the kind of volume of work. My main gripe would be that I don't really enjoy my work being critiqued by other people who are also learning. Most of the comments you get on things are people saying they like it, or people asking where you got this cool brush. Then again, some of it is straight-up valuable critique.

    The instruction is solid, though. The real value is in the variety of exercises, and the workload. I wouldn't be doing half of this on my own if I didn't have to serve the Bradley. I am falling behind on my Nathan fowkes course, though :/

    Some of the imagination comps:

    imagination-comp-3.jpg

    imagination-comp-7.jpg

    imagination-comp-8.jpg

  • BoomSamsonBoomSamson Registered User regular
    Sweet! Im sold on the camp :p

    So I signed up and paid by Paypal... how does this work? do I get an email or do I have to email Noah to get set-up? perhaps I just wait...?

  • IrukaIruka Registered User, Moderator mod
    check your spam filter, you should get an email but I didn't see mine until I went into my spam box.

  • skyturtleskyturtle Registered User regular
    Another detail master study.
    tumblr_mnhac0YZt31sr9r88o1_1280.png
    tumblr_mnhac0YZt31sr9r88o2_1280.jpg
    I'm kind of behind in the studies and struggling with the imagination. For one thing I start a picture then after about twenty minutes I don't know what else to do with it so I'm definitely not putting an hour into it.
    tumblr_mnhb9fCcfC1sr9r88o3_250.pngtumblr_mnhb9fCcfC1sr9r88o2_250.png

    I learned I have a lot to learn :)

  • BoomSamsonBoomSamson Registered User regular
    Fantastic! Got all my emails and I'm ready to go :)

    I hope you guys don't mind but I am an uber-noob when it comes to digital and I might be asking some pretty basic questions :p

    Here's my first one: How to I get my brush to be fully opaque so that when I lay down the value for my studies it doesn't show the layer underneath, or blends anything? I just want that flat colour to come out with no reliance on pen pressure just same value/colour no matter how hard I push down. (How Noah does it in his video tutorial)

    PS. I am using Photoshop 6.


  • ninjaininjai Registered User regular
    edited May 2013
    I'm pretty sure he's got opacity set to pen pressure @BoomSamson
    Here's the answer
    http://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/26871147/#Comment_26871147

    Here's all I got done today. My side is in so much pain it was a struggle just to draw today, I get to the chiropractor first thing in the morning so hopefully I feel better tomorrow.

    myconcordia_entrance_zps5f912b19.jpg

    Also sometimes I don't even know why I'm doing this. But I guess the trick is to do it anyway :C :C :C

    ninjai on
  • BoomSamsonBoomSamson Registered User regular
    OMG NINJAI!!! THANK YOU!!

    O man I can now actually start painting things! I never knew what those meant, but now I know its the way to change the edge of the brush and different features of it. Such a godsend, thank you!

  • ninjaininjai Registered User regular
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umpmbbcAzgU
    this video may help you get started. 25:43 he talks about blending, and I'm pretty sure Noah has his brush opacity set to pen pressure also (at least at the beginning)

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