This is a cool thing that someone posted on the Noah Bradley facebook, from gurney journey. I've often wondered how this works, depth and how edges work. Well now I know. (now to apply it *whimper)
In all honesty, what do you guys do when you're frustrated as hell at your progress? I feel like I've pissed in the wind for the last five months - can't render a proper sphere, can't construct a proper face, can't etc etc down the laundry list of frustrations. I gotta get over this, but its starting to really eat at me just how horrifically bad I am.
"Nothing in the world can take the place of Persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan 'Press On' has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race."
My life drawing teacher recommended them, I'm learning tons from them! Defo recommend picking them up.
They're mainly aimed at animation drawing, but they've got good stuff on life drawing and sketching in general too.
Make sure you have the brush tool selected. Opacity will be under Transfer, most likely you'll want to set control to pen pressure, and you should fool around with all the settings to see what they do.
Just shout if you needed more specific info.
SeraphSword on
Mastery is the result of ceaseless error, combined with ruthless self-appraisal.
So I need a bit of guidance. I've been doing a lot of monochromatic stuff. In classes, in my personal studying what have you, it's all generally been without color until this noah bradley camp thing. In monochromatic the guidelines are pretty simple. Establish your core shadow with a medium value, establish your darkest darks, create some mid tone and then your lightest lights.
Is there some way to approach color the same way or what? Doing my imagination pieces for the class this week, I am having a really hard time with color and picking colors. They're always WAY too saturated, and really it's the same problem I had when I first bought my digital stuff 2 or 3 years ago, everything looks so silly. My copies are coming out ok, so I know I can use the medium alright, but damn these imaginary stuff looks silly. Where do I start?
I guess that's kind of a broad question, but honestly I'm so mentally and emotionally drained after 1 or 2 of these that I don't even want to do anymore. Let me do more copies, those look pretty good. Let me draw from observation because those are easy to see where I messed up. Creating something though? Everything is fucked up
@Ninjai - Try creating something from your imagination, but use your observational skills to copy a color palette from another photograph/painting.
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ahdokFigment of your imaginationRegistered Userregular
Hi guys. So, I think I need some advice about inking with Adobe Illustrator.
I'm completely new to the program, so please assume I know nothing about its operation.
I have a couple of immediate issues that I spent a day trying to solve to no avail.
They're all frustrating enough that I can't currently bring myself to work with it.
So, before I start, let's show some digital art that I've made before, to showcase my crappy abilities:
Aah, how I love the texturiser filter.
Anyway, getting on to my query. If you look at the linework here, all the lines are wobbly and scrabbly. Some of these lines are really bad. That's because I drew them in photoshop. I've spent a while looking around in photoshop for something that'll smooth my lines into beautiful clean strokes, and best I can tell such a feature doesn't exist.
If I draw lines in Illustrator, they come out beautiful and clean, so I figure I should be using illustrator for linework.
Where I need help.
1) Try as I might, I can't find an image resize feature in illustrator. This is just annoying, because any artwork I import into it to ink over appears in the program very small - even if the scan was super huge. I think I want to be using the largest image possible to put linework over, so really need this.
2) When I draw a line that intersects with the previous line that I drew Illustrator seems to randomly decide between a) making two distinct lines and b) connecting my line to the previous stroke. this can result in half of the previous stroke vanishing entirely as the new line redirects it. are there hotkeys I can hold down to either i) force it to consider the two strokes independently, or ii) force it to connect the two strokes together? I'm a lot better at deciding what I want than it is.
3) This is the killer PLEASE HELP. When I draw a stroke that involves some tight corners (for example, if I draw a jellybean shape) Illustrator semms to decide that rather than the outline, it wants to fill in the insides of the tighter parts of the bends with black as well. I DON'T WANT THIS. - Coupled with the size of the canvas it's forcing me to use, I can't actually make linework that's functional.
Many thanks in advance, and apologies if people have answered these before.
Ahdok.
I'm not quite sure what you mean with question 2 and 3, can you provide some examples?
As for question one, you can manually increase the size of your imported image in illustrator by stretching it by the corners. You can also do this numerically by selecting the object you want to enlarge and inputting the size that you want in the top menu when using the select tool.
Also, what version of Illustrator are you using? Some of the older versions handle canvas sizes differently from the new ones.
Had a hunt around the forums for this to no avail, so sorry if this is covered somewhere.
I recently got myself a wacom int4 tablet and was wondering if there were some good tutorials for setting up Photoshop or some other software) for cartooning/comic art? In the past I've done some digital painting, but that was about 5-6 years ago, and I'm sure there's good ways to setup the workflow in Photoshop that I would get more milage out of if I had a good tut to run through.
Had a hunt around the forums for this to no avail, so sorry if this is covered somewhere.
I recently got myself a wacom int4 tablet and was wondering if there were some good tutorials for setting up Photoshop or some other software) for cartooning/comic art? In the past I've done some digital painting, but that was about 5-6 years ago, and I'm sure there's good ways to setup the workflow in Photoshop that I would get more milage out of if I had a good tut to run through.
Thanks!
Hey , not sure if this is what your looking for but in this he talks about setting up your presets and brushes and all that and gives a pretty cool explanation. --> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NygkJEc3yu4
Also checkout the video series on Ctrlpaint.com for learning and setting up Photoshop and Digital Painting. --> http://ctrlpaint.com/library/
Hmmm guys is there a place where I can pick up tips and tutorials for digital drawings
I have been using a tablet for a while but I have been using default brushes and only know how to use basic tools
I feel that I should be able to go a bit further now
Using Gimp currently if that helps
Well, one good resource is http://www.ctrlpaint.com/ Look through the video library for a lot of good info. Most of it (including the brushes) is intended for Photoshop, but most of the technique stuff can easily transfer to GIMP.
I don't know of any GIMP specific sites, but This Guy works entirely in GIMP, and he does some good stuff with it. He also has a Youtube channel with some speedpaints and stuff.
Hope that's a little helpful.
Mastery is the result of ceaseless error, combined with ruthless self-appraisal.
So there’s something I seriously no not understand about lighting. Lately I’ve been buckling down really hard working on head drawings at home and at life drawing on the weekends. I’m trying to focus on the Reilly technique so I’ve been frequently reviewing some demos that Glen Orbik put out (really cannot recommend these enough, just those ten videos have taught me so much about drawing).
Here’s the problem I run into. Orbik preaches about organizing your values into light and shadow groups and then putting all your efforts into refining the edges. Stop worrying about midtones, stop worrying about bounce light – better to have none than too much, he says. This idea has helped me so much – until I run into lighting situations that don’t exist in any of his demos, particularly when part of the face is receiving zero light. It could be one eye, both eyes or one entire side of the face This is when the wheels come off on my drawings and they become a big, muddy mess. Here’s some examples to demonstrate my confusion.
Here’s a drawing by Jorge Almeida:
Most of the face is in shadow but he renders the features and planes of the face in detail.
Here's a similar drawing with similar lighting from Michael Hayes, and he let's the features be almost entirely lost in shadow:
Why?!
The situation I run into in life drawing most often is that the model's eyes are shadowed by his brow ridge and are receiving no light. I'm still not sure how to handle this. For example, here is a self portrait by Glen Orbik in which he lets the eyes be lost:
And here is a sketch by Erik Gist in which he goes ahead and draws in the eyes, despite the shadow:
Again, why?
OK one more example, two pieces by Nathan Fowkes, similar lighting setups. But in the first everything is lost, and in the second, nothing is:
I suppose not knowing when to lose features and when to draw them is only a small part of the problem. By far my biggest problem is when one entire half of the model's head is receiving no light. Without the contrast between light and shadow to show form, that side of my drawing just becomes a muddy charcoal mess. Sigh, this is when I wish I had a teacher and wasn't forced to stumble around in the dark trying to figure things out on my own...
@lamp I see what you mean about losing the features. I'm going to assume you know where they exist on your model in order to offer you some guidance.
First off, these artists are using their artistic license to flatten or not flatten out their shadows. In the Michael Hayes, I'm not even sure why he removed the second eye, I don't think it helps the drawing at all compared to glen orbik who drew neither eye.
The medium can also constrain you to make a choice, as In the case of vine charcoal, you only get one value so mapping features can be difficult if you want to represent value accurately. Lead pencils also only get "so" dark.
When you are working with a chiaroscuro lighting situation, try putting a 70% grey behind the dark side of the face so you don't lose the shape of the head.
I hope this helps, but if its not enough, show us some work so help can be rendered on your behalf. You are not alone, you got PAAC here to gently caress you into awesomeness.
@Lamp: Yeah, I think you're looking for a scientific explanation here when it really can be chalked up to stylistic choice.
The Jorge Almeida and Michael Hayes ones not only have similar lighting setups, but were probably using the same lights with the model sitting in the same exact chair at Watts. The difference between the two isn't the lighting setup, it's the information they are making a deliberate choice to omit or include. Think of it like changing the exposure on a camera; Jorge's is overexposed to include the details in the shadows, by picking up some of the light bouncing onto the model from the surrounding walls, while Mike's is underexposed, crushing the shadows values together for a more dramatic, graphic feel.
The Orbik and Gist ones I would chalk up the difference not just to choice, but to time; these both look more like timed demos rather than finished pieces, so they had to make some choices of what to include and what not to include. Orbik is using more time drawing in the dark hair and beard, while has a light haired model and can let it go, a chose to spend more time with the eyes. If these had been 3 hour drawings instead of 25 minute ones, they probably wouldn't be so wildly different in the end.
The Nathan Fowkes ones I would argue aren't as similar as you're making them out, the latter one clearly has a lot more diffused light kicking around to soften/idealize the features, while the first looks more observational/realistic. It's a choice he's making for an artistic reason, not a scientific one.
As for the model's head 'receiving no light', that really is rarely the case, unless you're drawing in a room with the walls covered in black velvet or are in outer space. The model may not be getting light directly from the primary light source, but usually there will be some diffuse/bounce light kicking in from somewhere that can be used to justify details in the shadows. As long as you don't have the values in your shadows competing with values in your lights, it should all continue to work together. Rule of thumb being, "Your lightest dark (ie: darkest midtone value) shouldn't be the same value as your darkest light (ie: the lightest value within your shadows). You'll notice that rule is one all of these examples adhere to.
The main purpose for the "organizing your values into light and shadow groups and then putting all your efforts into refining the edges" technique isn't to say that there should never ever be midtone detail or detail in the shadows or any bounce light; it's a tool to really make your object be very solid in terms of form before adding detail, so those details will live properly within an established, considered hierarchy of light/shade; the usual beginner problem is that trying to cram in all sort of finicky bits of detail and shading ends up obliterating the overall form, so it's best to train to break that habit starting out. It's better to lose detail if that helps the overall read, but it's not like details in shadow areas are evil and are never to be drawn lest you release a hellspawn or some shit. You just gotta keep some perspective on them, that's all.
@ahdok it will really help if we know what version of illustrator you are working with, but here are my suggestions:
1) If you are dragging and dropping, or trying to open the raster image directly, try and open a new canvas and place it (file>place). I have never really had a problem with this so I might not be understanding. Usually when you paste an image into a new canvas you can just free transform it with the selection tool. Just grab a corner anchor and hold shift to keep the proportions and drag it to the size you need.
2) Sometimes this happens to me if my previous line is highlighted (illustrator thinks you are modifying a previous line instead of making a new one), but if you deselect the previous line (ctrl, shift, a) it will release it and not try to make the connection. My guess is that you have "keep selected" turned on in your brush options and might not know it, highly advise you turn it off. check out these other brush options as they are handy to modify and keep in mind (from adobe's site)
NOTE: to access this menu you must double click on the brush tool icon, it is not found in the brush options of the brushes window.
Fidelity Controls how far you have to move your mouse or stylus before Illustrator adds a new anchor point to the path. For example, a Fidelity value of 2.5 means that tool movements of less than 2.5 pixels aren’t registered. Fidelity can range from 0.5 to 20 pixels; the higher the value, the smoother and less complex the path. Smoothness Controls the amount of smoothing that Illustrator applies when you use the tool. Smoothness can range from 0% to 100%; the higher the percentage, the smoother the path. Fill New Brush Strokes Applies a fill to the path. This option is most useful when drawing closed paths. Keep Selected Determines whether Illustrator keeps the path selected after you draw it. Edit Selected Paths Determines whether you can change an existing path with the Paintbrush tool. Within: _ pixels Determines how close your mouse or stylus must be to an existing path to edit the path with the Paintbrush tool. This option is only available when the Edit Selected Paths option is selected.
3) This answer is also in the brush options, under Fidelity. It is not creating enough anchor points as you draw sharp curves. Another workaround would be to simply draw bigger and shrink later, but you should probably mess with those brush options.
Yes! Thank you for the guidance AoB. Particularly the bit about camera exposure -- duh! That makes so much sense.
When I was talking about one side of the face receiving "no light" I indeed meant no direct light from the primary light source. In that case I seriously struggle to organize my values in the on a shaded part of the face in a way that allows the forms to read and doesn't create a muddy mess. I think what is throwing me off is understanding how bounce light works. So for example if you take a look at the Jorge Almeida cowboy hat drawing, for the parts of the face in the light, the top planes are lit and the underplanes are in shadow. But in the shadowed parts of the face it's the reverse. It's easy for me to understand why; those planes are actually receiving light that is bouncing off of the environment from below, in a direction opposite to the primary light source, which is up high.
But then, say, look at the second Fowkes piece I posted up there (the greenish portrait). The side of the head that is in shade seems to be lit in accordance with the primary light source, so the front/top planes recieve more light than the side/underplanes. So I contrast that with another painting by Nathan Fowkes, which obviously differs in that there is a secondary light source:
So in that piece, the planes are lit opposite on either side of the face, again for obvious reasons. I guess maybe I'm having trouble differentiating between how regular diffuse bounce light will reveal the shadowed forms vs. how directional bounce light or a secondary light source will? I have a feeling that I'm essentially trying to come up with a formula and really there are just way too many variables in a given lighting situation to explain how it "should" work every time.
Ugh, sorry if any of these questions are stupid and poorly worded, I find I have to be overly explicit and really reach for examples to get across my meaning when I'm trying to explain the issue in writing. I'm going to try to start a thread this week with some drawings so hopefully I can get some direct advice about what I'm doing wrong.
Well, the lighting setup in Jorge's piece really isn't the same as the one in the Fowkes drawing- although on first blush they have similarities, I can see how it could be confusing if you conflated the two.
As you said, Jorge's has light bouncing from the primary light source off ground/wall surface, and back up into the underside of the face. The Fowkes piece looks different because the lighting situation appears to be simulating having some of the primary light sourced diffused overhead- a common situation would be where the light of sun is being diffused by clouds, or fog/mist, or overhanging trees, or just bouncing around the blue of the atmosphere. So you've got your primary light, and then you've got this soft, diffuse, reduced light bouncing in from all directions overhead. There's also some bounce light kicking up from below, as you can see the on the underside of the chin; it's intentionally made subtle, because the other ideas Fowkes is trying to get across are being considered as more important to the piece. There's no cheat or weirdness going on here, you just have to be careful in breaking down the lighting situation into sensible terms, rather than trying to shoehorn it into a single lighting formula in your head.
While I don't know how he specifically set the model up for this, a common way to get this effect in a studio setting is to set up a primary light as per usual, and then point a second light up at the ceiling (maybe with something in front of it like cheesecloth to diffuse it), which will then bounce back down across a large area of the ceiling to create a nice, diffuse fill light.
I don't know what you're looking for with the green/red light picture in terms of information. It's 2 primary lights directly hitting the face with equal intensity, so the values of the lit areas will be the same for each; this setup is not equivalent to a single primary light source with a bounce or fill light kicking up into the shadow, so it wouldn't make sense to design the values as if they were.
I can't tell you 'here's the breakdown of what all the values should and should not be under these circumstances'- only that when if you're setting up a setup like this one, you should know why you're doing it. It makes sense if you're trying to show your model obviously being lit by artificial lights, (the only way you'd get this effect with sunlight would be if your model is supposed to be standing next to a mirror, or they are on Tatooine.) But even then, Fowkes is making a deliberate consideration when it comes to the placement of the lights; he could have easily put the lights closer together, which would make them overlap across the center of the face and create a brighter area, but doing so would obliterate any place to put in a core shadow, which in turn would reduce the read of the form, flattening out the face. The core shadow is a tool he retains, having learned it's value with single-light setups. However, if you didn't value form, you might want that; for example, photo shoots for fashion models will often deliberately blast the model with light from all sorts of directions to soften/flatten the form (which is why I'd recommend not using them for drawing reference, because it can be far too confusing to pin down what exactly is happening with the light.)
So I can't say to you, "this is what a 2 light setup looks like here now and forever", because there are infinite numbers of ways to set up 2 lights on a model along with an infinite number of reasons to set those lights up that way.
As the Glenn Vilppu would put it, "there are no rules, just tools". Like I said before, the simple light/dark Orbik describes is a tool; it's something to help make sense and interpret the information at your disposal, not to blindly follow in such a way that you wind up blindly disregarding the information right in front of your face, in favor of some kind of one-size-fits-all-formula.
There are certainly some actual "rules" and "formulas" about light (the entire field of Optics), but it's important to remember that those rules are almost always subservient to good aesthetics.
Can you elaborate a little on your confusion on the difference between the two Fowkes paintings? They look different because the lighting setup is totally different.
Yeah, that's probably a crucial clarification. When I said "no rules, just tools" that's in reference to art, not, you know, physics. I'm not trying to pull some New Age bullshit on ya. :P
That's awesome!
If it was in response to my question, idk if that was the answer I was looking for, or maybe I didn't ask the right question.
What I guess I'm asking is how to decide what type of shapes in a drawing and when and why, so perhaps it has more to do with decision making than design? Idk how to ask the question.
What happened was I made a sketch, and the design of it looked fast. The drawing looked fast, not the object but the design. For example an f16 sitting still on the ground with its gear down looks fast. (not speed, design, i dont know how else to word it) So I sketched the night away trying to replicate that feeling, sketching figures, cars, mecha and whatever, and I can't quite figure it out.
Yeah, draw a Mini Cooper, then draw a Ferrari.
Aerodynamics are visible. You could make a toaster "look" fast if you really wanted to.
How to help you draw things from your head that look fast will be difficult, try drawing things that look aerodynamic and see if that helps any.
Ninjai: Nah, I was just posting it because it's a cool link and people should see it.
I can't suggest any good resources for you question, but what you could do is find some heavily stylized drawings with strong silhouettes (western animation probably works best for this) and break them down in to simple forms. The dragons from How To Train Your Dragon are a good example, compare the shape of Toothless to that lumpy dragon with tiny wings. I'd also suggest doing a lot of gesture practice, so that you understand how forms flow in to one another.
On the subject of speed and stuff, does anyone know any exercises or techniques for increasing drawing speed? Obviously nothing beats practice, but I've been noticing that I keep erasing and redrawing things over and over again to try and get them right, so I wanted to know if anyone had any specific tricks to combat this? I've tried practicing with pens to commit more to lines and also setting a timer for myself... Apologies if this has been asked about a hundred times before...
I believe the new designer is markedly better. I also feel that the old site feels dated, and like it has a Microsoft Frontpage feel to it.
So why I can tell that there is a difference, and the difference of the second is better than the first (in my opinion at least), I do not have the words or capability to describe what exactly it is that makes the second one better than the first. Or what makes the first feel dated. What design elements of the first are poor.
Also in your opinions, based off an understanding that the first site more closely matches our school colors, what template in the new portfolio would you guys adopt? Personally I'm liking Metro, but I don't have a designers eye. (Collegiate is nice too, but it'll be difficult to get an image to work as well as they did with the field.)
I'm not a designer, and not qualified to comment in any real capacity. And I don't have time to really look through the portfolio of the other guys, sorry. But if you're looking at things wrong with the original site, there's a lot of superficial problems before delving even as far down as layout - low-res graphics, elements badly lined up, text not fitting into the space provided. If giving an overall criticism, I'd simply say the site is overcrowded and bloody ugly.
That might not cut it as a rationale for your meeting though, so hopefully someone with more useful comments will come by.
They say you shouldn't judge a book by it's cover... but let's be honest, for most of us, this will be our first impression. The current page looks very dated, and for someone who is evaluating the school for the first time through the internet, this will be the perception that they'll take away, a school stuck in time.
In order to project an image of a school in touch with the needs of it's students I would vote to change the image of the current web page.
(I'd really avoid using terms like “looks better”, because people grow attached to things when they've had them for a long time.... also, is the new one mobile friendly?)
What I guess I'm asking is how to decide what type of shapes in a drawing and when and why, so perhaps it has more to do with decision making than design? Idk how to ask the question.
What happened was I made a sketch, and the design of it looked fast. The drawing looked fast, not the object but the design. For example an f16 sitting still on the ground with its gear down looks fast. (not speed, design, i dont know how else to word it) So I sketched the night away trying to replicate that feeling, sketching figures, cars, mecha and whatever, and I can't quite figure it out.
Any ideas where to start?
So there's two parts to this. Generally speaking curves will slow the drawing down and sharp curves or straight lines will speed it up, having a mixture of the two will create visual interest and tension. If you look at any of Shane Gline's drawings for example, his women tend to look fast and curvy, treating one side of the leg as curvy and the other as sharp and fast. Having a single strong curve or line that takes you from one part of the drawing to the next will also help to create that speed as your eye will be travelling along it.
The second part being a question of what your story is, what is the story to your character and how will you use it to determine the shapes you decide to use? There's a kind of visual vocabulary for this using straights and curves. For example if you were to create a scary bad guy you'd want to go with sharp contrasting shapes and maybe incorporate the color red. If you want something to feel more safe and comfortable you would use more curves and subdued color. There's a great interview by Cory Loftis who goes over his design process and touches on this idea: http://cory-loftis-interview.blogspot.ca/
There's also another way to create movement that has more to do with animation and physics, and that's by making a drawing feel like it's in the moment of the action. So for example if you were to draw a car going around a corner, you would want to draw the impact the action is having on the car. So maybe the wheels are lifting off a bit, and it's slanting a bit to the left, which we know visually is what happens when a car quickly takes a corner.
They say you shouldn't judge a book by it's cover... but let's be honest, for most of us, this will be our first impression. The current page looks very dated, and for someone who is evaluating the school for the first time through the internet, this will be the perception that they'll take away, a school stuck in time.
In order to project an image of a school in touch with the needs of it's students I would vote to change the image of the current web page.
(I'd really avoid using terms like “looks better”, because people grow attached to things when they've had them for a long time.... also, is the new one mobile friendly?)
I have my own preference (Metro) but if you were picking from that portfolio of designs, what would you go with?
When I look into how people create their web comics, they always seem to work in 300-600 DPI on a large canvas size and then scale down for the comic. This means they can use their high res for prints, etc.
The problem I'm having is in scaling down these super high res images after your done, to get a nice crisp JPG. It seems no matter how I attempt to bring the size down I end up with a pixellated mess.
When I look into how people create their web comics, they always seem to work in 300-600 DPI on a large canvas size and then scale down for the comic. This means they can use their high res for prints, etc.
The problem I'm having is in scaling down these super high res images after your done, to get a nice crisp JPG. It seems no matter how I attempt to bring the size down I end up with a pixellated mess.
How do they do it?
Photoshop > Image Size…
Select your size, I do it based on pixel width, so say 800px. Check "Resample Image" and choose "Bicubic (best for smooth gradients)".
Yeah bicubic will get you the smoothest results by far. Always make sure you have resampling on when resizing images, otherwise that happens. Basically what resampling does is it recreates your image.
Nearest neighbour uses the information from the nearest pixel, bilinear takes the surrounding two pixels and bicubic the eight nearest I think it is. Sometimes nearest neighbour is best, say if you have something with super crisp edges, otherwise bicubic is the best.
Posts
This is a cool thing that someone posted on the Noah Bradley facebook, from gurney journey. I've often wondered how this works, depth and how edges work. Well now I know. (now to apply it *whimper)
"Nothing in the world can take the place of Persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan 'Press On' has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race."
– Calvin Coolidge
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Drawn-Life-Classes-Stanchfield-Lectures/dp/0240810961
My life drawing teacher recommended them, I'm learning tons from them! Defo recommend picking them up.
They're mainly aimed at animation drawing, but they've got good stuff on life drawing and sketching in general too.
The Scoundrel & The Bastard
My Comics Thread
Make sure you have the brush tool selected. Opacity will be under Transfer, most likely you'll want to set control to pen pressure, and you should fool around with all the settings to see what they do.
Just shout if you needed more specific info.
So I need a bit of guidance. I've been doing a lot of monochromatic stuff. In classes, in my personal studying what have you, it's all generally been without color until this noah bradley camp thing. In monochromatic the guidelines are pretty simple. Establish your core shadow with a medium value, establish your darkest darks, create some mid tone and then your lightest lights.
Is there some way to approach color the same way or what? Doing my imagination pieces for the class this week, I am having a really hard time with color and picking colors. They're always WAY too saturated, and really it's the same problem I had when I first bought my digital stuff 2 or 3 years ago, everything looks so silly. My copies are coming out ok, so I know I can use the medium alright, but damn these imaginary stuff looks silly. Where do I start?
I guess that's kind of a broad question, but honestly I'm so mentally and emotionally drained after 1 or 2 of these that I don't even want to do anymore. Let me do more copies, those look pretty good. Let me draw from observation because those are easy to see where I messed up. Creating something though? Everything is fucked up
I'm completely new to the program, so please assume I know nothing about its operation.
I have a couple of immediate issues that I spent a day trying to solve to no avail.
They're all frustrating enough that I can't currently bring myself to work with it.
So, before I start, let's show some digital art that I've made before, to showcase my crappy abilities:
Aah, how I love the texturiser filter.
Anyway, getting on to my query. If you look at the linework here, all the lines are wobbly and scrabbly. Some of these lines are really bad. That's because I drew them in photoshop. I've spent a while looking around in photoshop for something that'll smooth my lines into beautiful clean strokes, and best I can tell such a feature doesn't exist.
If I draw lines in Illustrator, they come out beautiful and clean, so I figure I should be using illustrator for linework.
Where I need help.
1) Try as I might, I can't find an image resize feature in illustrator. This is just annoying, because any artwork I import into it to ink over appears in the program very small - even if the scan was super huge. I think I want to be using the largest image possible to put linework over, so really need this.
2) When I draw a line that intersects with the previous line that I drew Illustrator seems to randomly decide between a) making two distinct lines and b) connecting my line to the previous stroke. this can result in half of the previous stroke vanishing entirely as the new line redirects it. are there hotkeys I can hold down to either i) force it to consider the two strokes independently, or ii) force it to connect the two strokes together? I'm a lot better at deciding what I want than it is.
3) This is the killer PLEASE HELP. When I draw a stroke that involves some tight corners (for example, if I draw a jellybean shape) Illustrator semms to decide that rather than the outline, it wants to fill in the insides of the tighter parts of the bends with black as well. I DON'T WANT THIS. - Coupled with the size of the canvas it's forcing me to use, I can't actually make linework that's functional.
Many thanks in advance, and apologies if people have answered these before.
Ahdok.
As for question one, you can manually increase the size of your imported image in illustrator by stretching it by the corners. You can also do this numerically by selecting the object you want to enlarge and inputting the size that you want in the top menu when using the select tool.
Also, what version of Illustrator are you using? Some of the older versions handle canvas sizes differently from the new ones.
Had a hunt around the forums for this to no avail, so sorry if this is covered somewhere.
I recently got myself a wacom int4 tablet and was wondering if there were some good tutorials for setting up Photoshop or some other software) for cartooning/comic art? In the past I've done some digital painting, but that was about 5-6 years ago, and I'm sure there's good ways to setup the workflow in Photoshop that I would get more milage out of if I had a good tut to run through.
Thanks!
Hey , not sure if this is what your looking for but in this he talks about setting up your presets and brushes and all that and gives a pretty cool explanation. -->
Also checkout the video series on Ctrlpaint.com for learning and setting up Photoshop and Digital Painting. -->
http://ctrlpaint.com/library/
Using Gimp currently if that helps
This will be here until I receive an apology or Weedlordvegeta get any consequences for being a bully
Well, one good resource is http://www.ctrlpaint.com/ Look through the video library for a lot of good info. Most of it (including the brushes) is intended for Photoshop, but most of the technique stuff can easily transfer to GIMP.
I don't know of any GIMP specific sites, but This Guy works entirely in GIMP, and he does some good stuff with it. He also has a Youtube channel with some speedpaints and stuff.
Hope that's a little helpful.
Here’s the problem I run into. Orbik preaches about organizing your values into light and shadow groups and then putting all your efforts into refining the edges. Stop worrying about midtones, stop worrying about bounce light – better to have none than too much, he says. This idea has helped me so much – until I run into lighting situations that don’t exist in any of his demos, particularly when part of the face is receiving zero light. It could be one eye, both eyes or one entire side of the face This is when the wheels come off on my drawings and they become a big, muddy mess. Here’s some examples to demonstrate my confusion.
Here’s a drawing by Jorge Almeida:
Most of the face is in shadow but he renders the features and planes of the face in detail.
Here's a similar drawing with similar lighting from Michael Hayes, and he let's the features be almost entirely lost in shadow:
Why?!
The situation I run into in life drawing most often is that the model's eyes are shadowed by his brow ridge and are receiving no light. I'm still not sure how to handle this. For example, here is a self portrait by Glen Orbik in which he lets the eyes be lost:
And here is a sketch by Erik Gist in which he goes ahead and draws in the eyes, despite the shadow:
Again, why?
OK one more example, two pieces by Nathan Fowkes, similar lighting setups. But in the first everything is lost, and in the second, nothing is:
I suppose not knowing when to lose features and when to draw them is only a small part of the problem. By far my biggest problem is when one entire half of the model's head is receiving no light. Without the contrast between light and shadow to show form, that side of my drawing just becomes a muddy charcoal mess. Sigh, this is when I wish I had a teacher and wasn't forced to stumble around in the dark trying to figure things out on my own...
First off, these artists are using their artistic license to flatten or not flatten out their shadows. In the Michael Hayes, I'm not even sure why he removed the second eye, I don't think it helps the drawing at all compared to glen orbik who drew neither eye.
The medium can also constrain you to make a choice, as In the case of vine charcoal, you only get one value so mapping features can be difficult if you want to represent value accurately. Lead pencils also only get "so" dark.
When you are working with a chiaroscuro lighting situation, try putting a 70% grey behind the dark side of the face so you don't lose the shape of the head.
I hope this helps, but if its not enough, show us some work so help can be rendered on your behalf. You are not alone, you got PAAC here to gently caress you into awesomeness.
The Jorge Almeida and Michael Hayes ones not only have similar lighting setups, but were probably using the same lights with the model sitting in the same exact chair at Watts. The difference between the two isn't the lighting setup, it's the information they are making a deliberate choice to omit or include. Think of it like changing the exposure on a camera; Jorge's is overexposed to include the details in the shadows, by picking up some of the light bouncing onto the model from the surrounding walls, while Mike's is underexposed, crushing the shadows values together for a more dramatic, graphic feel.
The Orbik and Gist ones I would chalk up the difference not just to choice, but to time; these both look more like timed demos rather than finished pieces, so they had to make some choices of what to include and what not to include. Orbik is using more time drawing in the dark hair and beard, while has a light haired model and can let it go, a chose to spend more time with the eyes. If these had been 3 hour drawings instead of 25 minute ones, they probably wouldn't be so wildly different in the end.
The Nathan Fowkes ones I would argue aren't as similar as you're making them out, the latter one clearly has a lot more diffused light kicking around to soften/idealize the features, while the first looks more observational/realistic. It's a choice he's making for an artistic reason, not a scientific one.
As for the model's head 'receiving no light', that really is rarely the case, unless you're drawing in a room with the walls covered in black velvet or are in outer space. The model may not be getting light directly from the primary light source, but usually there will be some diffuse/bounce light kicking in from somewhere that can be used to justify details in the shadows. As long as you don't have the values in your shadows competing with values in your lights, it should all continue to work together. Rule of thumb being, "Your lightest dark (ie: darkest midtone value) shouldn't be the same value as your darkest light (ie: the lightest value within your shadows). You'll notice that rule is one all of these examples adhere to.
The main purpose for the "organizing your values into light and shadow groups and then putting all your efforts into refining the edges" technique isn't to say that there should never ever be midtone detail or detail in the shadows or any bounce light; it's a tool to really make your object be very solid in terms of form before adding detail, so those details will live properly within an established, considered hierarchy of light/shade; the usual beginner problem is that trying to cram in all sort of finicky bits of detail and shading ends up obliterating the overall form, so it's best to train to break that habit starting out. It's better to lose detail if that helps the overall read, but it's not like details in shadow areas are evil and are never to be drawn lest you release a hellspawn or some shit. You just gotta keep some perspective on them, that's all.
I went over the same principle just yesterday basically, coming from the opposite direction: http://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/26895296/#Comment_26895296
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1) If you are dragging and dropping, or trying to open the raster image directly, try and open a new canvas and place it (file>place). I have never really had a problem with this so I might not be understanding. Usually when you paste an image into a new canvas you can just free transform it with the selection tool. Just grab a corner anchor and hold shift to keep the proportions and drag it to the size you need.
2) Sometimes this happens to me if my previous line is highlighted (illustrator thinks you are modifying a previous line instead of making a new one), but if you deselect the previous line (ctrl, shift, a) it will release it and not try to make the connection. My guess is that you have "keep selected" turned on in your brush options and might not know it, highly advise you turn it off. check out these other brush options as they are handy to modify and keep in mind (from adobe's site)
NOTE: to access this menu you must double click on the brush tool icon, it is not found in the brush options of the brushes window.
Fidelity Controls how far you have to move your mouse or stylus before Illustrator adds a new anchor point to the path. For example, a Fidelity value of 2.5 means that tool movements of less than 2.5 pixels aren’t registered. Fidelity can range from 0.5 to 20 pixels; the higher the value, the smoother and less complex the path.
Smoothness Controls the amount of smoothing that Illustrator applies when you use the tool. Smoothness can range from 0% to 100%; the higher the percentage, the smoother the path.
Fill New Brush Strokes Applies a fill to the path. This option is most useful when drawing closed paths.
Keep Selected Determines whether Illustrator keeps the path selected after you draw it.
Edit Selected Paths Determines whether you can change an existing path with the Paintbrush tool.
Within: _ pixels Determines how close your mouse or stylus must be to an existing path to edit the path with the Paintbrush tool. This option is only available when the Edit Selected Paths option is selected.
3) This answer is also in the brush options, under Fidelity. It is not creating enough anchor points as you draw sharp curves. Another workaround would be to simply draw bigger and shrink later, but you should probably mess with those brush options.
Hope that helps!
When I was talking about one side of the face receiving "no light" I indeed meant no direct light from the primary light source. In that case I seriously struggle to organize my values in the on a shaded part of the face in a way that allows the forms to read and doesn't create a muddy mess. I think what is throwing me off is understanding how bounce light works. So for example if you take a look at the Jorge Almeida cowboy hat drawing, for the parts of the face in the light, the top planes are lit and the underplanes are in shadow. But in the shadowed parts of the face it's the reverse. It's easy for me to understand why; those planes are actually receiving light that is bouncing off of the environment from below, in a direction opposite to the primary light source, which is up high.
But then, say, look at the second Fowkes piece I posted up there (the greenish portrait). The side of the head that is in shade seems to be lit in accordance with the primary light source, so the front/top planes recieve more light than the side/underplanes. So I contrast that with another painting by Nathan Fowkes, which obviously differs in that there is a secondary light source:
So in that piece, the planes are lit opposite on either side of the face, again for obvious reasons. I guess maybe I'm having trouble differentiating between how regular diffuse bounce light will reveal the shadowed forms vs. how directional bounce light or a secondary light source will? I have a feeling that I'm essentially trying to come up with a formula and really there are just way too many variables in a given lighting situation to explain how it "should" work every time.
Ugh, sorry if any of these questions are stupid and poorly worded, I find I have to be overly explicit and really reach for examples to get across my meaning when I'm trying to explain the issue in writing. I'm going to try to start a thread this week with some drawings so hopefully I can get some direct advice about what I'm doing wrong.
As you said, Jorge's has light bouncing from the primary light source off ground/wall surface, and back up into the underside of the face. The Fowkes piece looks different because the lighting situation appears to be simulating having some of the primary light sourced diffused overhead- a common situation would be where the light of sun is being diffused by clouds, or fog/mist, or overhanging trees, or just bouncing around the blue of the atmosphere. So you've got your primary light, and then you've got this soft, diffuse, reduced light bouncing in from all directions overhead. There's also some bounce light kicking up from below, as you can see the on the underside of the chin; it's intentionally made subtle, because the other ideas Fowkes is trying to get across are being considered as more important to the piece. There's no cheat or weirdness going on here, you just have to be careful in breaking down the lighting situation into sensible terms, rather than trying to shoehorn it into a single lighting formula in your head.
While I don't know how he specifically set the model up for this, a common way to get this effect in a studio setting is to set up a primary light as per usual, and then point a second light up at the ceiling (maybe with something in front of it like cheesecloth to diffuse it), which will then bounce back down across a large area of the ceiling to create a nice, diffuse fill light.
I don't know what you're looking for with the green/red light picture in terms of information. It's 2 primary lights directly hitting the face with equal intensity, so the values of the lit areas will be the same for each; this setup is not equivalent to a single primary light source with a bounce or fill light kicking up into the shadow, so it wouldn't make sense to design the values as if they were.
I can't tell you 'here's the breakdown of what all the values should and should not be under these circumstances'- only that when if you're setting up a setup like this one, you should know why you're doing it. It makes sense if you're trying to show your model obviously being lit by artificial lights, (the only way you'd get this effect with sunlight would be if your model is supposed to be standing next to a mirror, or they are on Tatooine.) But even then, Fowkes is making a deliberate consideration when it comes to the placement of the lights; he could have easily put the lights closer together, which would make them overlap across the center of the face and create a brighter area, but doing so would obliterate any place to put in a core shadow, which in turn would reduce the read of the form, flattening out the face. The core shadow is a tool he retains, having learned it's value with single-light setups. However, if you didn't value form, you might want that; for example, photo shoots for fashion models will often deliberately blast the model with light from all sorts of directions to soften/flatten the form (which is why I'd recommend not using them for drawing reference, because it can be far too confusing to pin down what exactly is happening with the light.)
So I can't say to you, "this is what a 2 light setup looks like here now and forever", because there are infinite numbers of ways to set up 2 lights on a model along with an infinite number of reasons to set those lights up that way.
As the Glenn Vilppu would put it, "there are no rules, just tools". Like I said before, the simple light/dark Orbik describes is a tool; it's something to help make sense and interpret the information at your disposal, not to blindly follow in such a way that you wind up blindly disregarding the information right in front of your face, in favor of some kind of one-size-fits-all-formula.
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Can you elaborate a little on your confusion on the difference between the two Fowkes paintings? They look different because the lighting setup is totally different.
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Okay, I'm gonna try this stuff out tonight, and see if it helps, and if it doesn't, I'll screencap everything that goes wrong.
That's awesome!
If it was in response to my question, idk if that was the answer I was looking for, or maybe I didn't ask the right question.
What I guess I'm asking is how to decide what type of shapes in a drawing and when and why, so perhaps it has more to do with decision making than design? Idk how to ask the question.
What happened was I made a sketch, and the design of it looked fast. The drawing looked fast, not the object but the design. For example an f16 sitting still on the ground with its gear down looks fast. (not speed, design, i dont know how else to word it) So I sketched the night away trying to replicate that feeling, sketching figures, cars, mecha and whatever, and I can't quite figure it out.
Any ideas where to start?
Aerodynamics are visible. You could make a toaster "look" fast if you really wanted to.
How to help you draw things from your head that look fast will be difficult, try drawing things that look aerodynamic and see if that helps any.
I can't suggest any good resources for you question, but what you could do is find some heavily stylized drawings with strong silhouettes (western animation probably works best for this) and break them down in to simple forms. The dragons from How To Train Your Dragon are a good example, compare the shape of Toothless to that lumpy dragon with tiny wings. I'd also suggest doing a lot of gesture practice, so that you understand how forms flow in to one another.
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I'm making recommendations to our school board to switch from one web host/designer to another.
The current site is
http://www.wmtps.org/wmtps/
And the portfolio of the new designers is this
http://designstudio.sharpschool.com/portfolio
I believe the new designer is markedly better. I also feel that the old site feels dated, and like it has a Microsoft Frontpage feel to it.
So why I can tell that there is a difference, and the difference of the second is better than the first (in my opinion at least), I do not have the words or capability to describe what exactly it is that makes the second one better than the first. Or what makes the first feel dated. What design elements of the first are poor.
Also in your opinions, based off an understanding that the first site more closely matches our school colors, what template in the new portfolio would you guys adopt? Personally I'm liking Metro, but I don't have a designers eye. (Collegiate is nice too, but it'll be difficult to get an image to work as well as they did with the field.)
That might not cut it as a rationale for your meeting though, so hopefully someone with more useful comments will come by.
In order to project an image of a school in touch with the needs of it's students I would vote to change the image of the current web page.
(I'd really avoid using terms like “looks better”, because people grow attached to things when they've had them for a long time.... also, is the new one mobile friendly?)
So there's two parts to this. Generally speaking curves will slow the drawing down and sharp curves or straight lines will speed it up, having a mixture of the two will create visual interest and tension. If you look at any of Shane Gline's drawings for example, his women tend to look fast and curvy, treating one side of the leg as curvy and the other as sharp and fast. Having a single strong curve or line that takes you from one part of the drawing to the next will also help to create that speed as your eye will be travelling along it.
The second part being a question of what your story is, what is the story to your character and how will you use it to determine the shapes you decide to use? There's a kind of visual vocabulary for this using straights and curves. For example if you were to create a scary bad guy you'd want to go with sharp contrasting shapes and maybe incorporate the color red. If you want something to feel more safe and comfortable you would use more curves and subdued color. There's a great interview by Cory Loftis who goes over his design process and touches on this idea: http://cory-loftis-interview.blogspot.ca/
There's also another way to create movement that has more to do with animation and physics, and that's by making a drawing feel like it's in the moment of the action. So for example if you were to draw a car going around a corner, you would want to draw the impact the action is having on the car. So maybe the wheels are lifting off a bit, and it's slanting a bit to the left, which we know visually is what happens when a car quickly takes a corner.
I have my own preference (Metro) but if you were picking from that portfolio of designs, what would you go with?
The problem I'm having is in scaling down these super high res images after your done, to get a nice crisp JPG. It seems no matter how I attempt to bring the size down I end up with a pixellated mess.
How do they do it?
Photoshop > Image Size…
Select your size, I do it based on pixel width, so say 800px. Check "Resample Image" and choose "Bicubic (best for smooth gradients)".
Nearest neighbour uses the information from the nearest pixel, bilinear takes the surrounding two pixels and bicubic the eight nearest I think it is. Sometimes nearest neighbour is best, say if you have something with super crisp edges, otherwise bicubic is the best.