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The [chat] Who Circumnavigated Fairyland

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Posts

  • Bubster WolfBubster Wolf Registered User regular
    The doom scroll is real. I try to avoid most social media site these days, especially the Instagrams/Twitters and the like.

    By the way hello Everyone!

    I am an illustrator hobbyist looking to meet other folks going on their own art journeys. Pleasure to meet you all :)

  • Endless_SerpentsEndless_Serpents Registered User regular
    Hey gang, still thinking about a shared project.
    Maybe something as simple as one of those draw this word challenges, but it’s expressly a 20 minute max doodle.

    Thoughts?

  • DidgeridooDidgeridoo Flighty Dame Registered User regular
    Could be fun! Maybe you could do it as a prompt in the doodle thread?

  • Bubster WolfBubster Wolf Registered User regular
    I'm game that sounds rad! 20 min. max keeps things pretty stress free, and honestly I need to work on my drawing efficiency anyways.

  • JuggernutJuggernut Registered User regular
    Art thread I might need some help.

    So I'm playing with gold leaf and I ain't know what the flip I'm doing. Well, I just got an inquiry for a potential album art commission and they really like... the gold leaf.

    So, the problem here is I do not know how to translate gold leaf to a scan, and from the scan to a print. I guess I could theoretically use photoshop to make a fake gold layer but then you lose the shiny texture of the leafing. I guess I could also try to set it up as a foil? Somehow? Like, whoever handles the printing would get it and know to do X areas of hypothetical art as a foil?

    I don't know! This is all wicked new to me! I'm scared and alone!

  • Endless_SerpentsEndless_Serpents Registered User regular
    Could you photograph the art? Would that retain the gold more than scanning it? Foil on the gold areas on the prints would be cool!

  • Angel_of_BaconAngel_of_Bacon Moderator mod
    edited April 2021
    Juggernut wrote: »
    Art thread I might need some help.

    So I'm playing with gold leaf and I ain't know what the flip I'm doing. Well, I just got an inquiry for a potential album art commission and they really like... the gold leaf.

    So, the problem here is I do not know how to translate gold leaf to a scan, and from the scan to a print. I guess I could theoretically use photoshop to make a fake gold layer but then you lose the shiny texture of the leafing. I guess I could also try to set it up as a foil? Somehow? Like, whoever handles the printing would get it and know to do X areas of hypothetical art as a foil?

    I don't know! This is all wicked new to me! I'm scared and alone!

    I've never done this before, but the way I'd suggest doing it would be to shoot the work with a nice camera, setting up lights and such so you have control over how the gold is reflecting instead of having it get blown out.

    EDIT: Whoops, beaten to the punch.

    Angel_of_Bacon on
  • JuggernutJuggernut Registered User regular
    edited April 2021
    So after posting this I tried scanning a piece with gold leaf and it looks surprisingly OK? I guess I need to try and print it and see how that translates to paper. Worst case I have a decent mirror less camera and I can get some bounce lights and set up a shoot. Hopefully I don't need to buy a lens.

    Edit: scanned at 1200 dpi just about anything should look good.

    Juggernut on
  • Bubster WolfBubster Wolf Registered User regular
    So glad that worked out for you Juggernut!
    Watch out for the printing, that's something that I've been trying do do digitally and still have yet to find good success with.
    Mostly I paint digitally using ProCreate and then print onto canvas, hiring out to a printing company. It looks alright but most of the vibrancy of the colors get lost and it just flattens out overall.

  • DidgeridooDidgeridoo Flighty Dame Registered User regular
    I'm starting to go through Proko's figure drawing class, and am watching the gesture drawing critique video where he invites on Marshall Vandruff. I really have an immediate and irrational dislike of that guy, ha. Clearly very knowledgeable, but any time he makes a point I reflexively start eyeing the 'skip forward' button...

  • danxdanx Registered User regular
    Didgeridoo wrote: »
    I'm starting to go through Proko's figure drawing class, and am watching the gesture drawing critique video where he invites on Marshall Vandruff. I really have an immediate and irrational dislike of that guy, ha. Clearly very knowledgeable, but any time he makes a point I reflexively start eyeing the 'skip forward' button...

    In other stuff he's a very slow talker but doesn't say much. He's way too drawn out for me to listen to regularly. Get to the point man!

    How is the figure drawing course? Been eyeing it for a while.

  • danxdanx Registered User regular
    Just got 0.7mm and 0.9mm mechanical pencils. 0.5mm was too thin and didn't feel sketchy but these are much better. The 0.9 would be my go to pencil if the leads came in lots of colors like the 0.5 and 0.7s do. It's really good at shading and feels more like a regular pencil (without the need to sharpen).

  • DidgeridooDidgeridoo Flighty Dame Registered User regular
    edited May 2021
    danx wrote: »
    Didgeridoo wrote: »
    I'm starting to go through Proko's figure drawing class, and am watching the gesture drawing critique video where he invites on Marshall Vandruff. I really have an immediate and irrational dislike of that guy, ha. Clearly very knowledgeable, but any time he makes a point I reflexively start eyeing the 'skip forward' button...

    In other stuff he's a very slow talker but doesn't say much. He's way too drawn out for me to listen to regularly. Get to the point man!

    How is the figure drawing course? Been eyeing it for a while.

    I'm pretty early on, so hard to say. I'll report back after I've spent some more time with it! I've been dragging my feet a bit since my initial gesture drawing attempts came out extremely poorly, but I really just need to power through that mental block. Gotta draw a bunch of crap before I can start drawing semi-decent stuff, eh?

    So far it seems pretty good, but I'm glad I waited until doing (most of) Draw a Box first. It's definitely not a course for a total beginner, so I probably would have washed out VERY quickly if I had jumped right into it.

    Edit: Oh I forgot there's a figure drawing thread now! I'll probably pop in there later with my attempts.

    Didgeridoo on
  • danxdanx Registered User regular
    Not sure it's right for me then right now. I recently watched a design cinema episode (89 - Just Draw) that talked about how much drawing people actually do versus how much is needed to get good and realised I wasn't really doing much drawing at all. So it was no surprise I wasn't getting better. Trying to build the drawing habit to build hand eye coordination before paying for more stuff.

    It's been a lot more fun since then. Especially after watching some John Muir Laws nature stuff instead of focusing on figure drawing. Nature Journaling is more my jam.

  • DidgeridooDidgeridoo Flighty Dame Registered User regular
    You could also give Proko's free versions of the vids a shot if you're not sure! His Youtube channel has truncated versions of all the figure drawing stuff. You might be ready to jump in, it's always worth a shot! Honestly it's probably more of a confidence thing than anything else. I'm very hesitant with human figure drawing because it's something I really want to do well at, so I'm much more critical on my practice attempts than I am on more neutral subjects like generic boxes and cones.

  • danxdanx Registered User regular
    Thanks. I'll give those a try. It's definitely confidence. It wouldn't be so bad if it just went to zero when it goes down instead of going negative. At least it feels that way.

  • Bubster WolfBubster Wolf Registered User regular
    I got a question for folks who have experience printing digital paintings with the goal of framing and hanging.
    I am looking for a way to print my work in a way that it is near-identical in quality to the original file. I paint in ProCreate and save as a tiff file, then transfer to desktop.
    Unfortunately even when sending the file to a professional photography printing company it still looks too dull; much of the vibrancy of color and tonal contrast is lost.
    I printed out onto canvas btw.

    Anyone else run into this problem?

  • IrukaIruka Registered User, Moderator mod
    @Bubster Wolf

    I suggest working with a local place and doing small test prints.


    I was taught a few things at school: Other than having a well calibrated monitor (which, who has that really) you can turn down your brightness a little to try to get an idea of what color might not shine through. Because your screen is backlit, you're always getting a bit of vibrancy that wont be in the print itself.

    I generally try to kick up the saturation on my print files just a bit, and brighten them. If you have nice, separated layers (I never do) bumping up any parts that are particularly dark, like deep navy colors, will help.

    Glossy vs Matte will also make an impact on the richness of darker colors, and so will the light of room where its intended to hang. You can apparently varnish printed canvases, so that's a potential option, but I dont know if there's anything to look out for before trying that.


    Working with a local place, Our print shop will actually give us a call after the first print and let us know if its running too dark. They also will send paper samples and you can order some one offs to get a sense of what is going to happen. Being able to drive over there is a big help. Unfortunately, there's generally not a great short cut to this other than to be familiar with the paper, your printer, and your monitor, so minimizing costs while allowing yourself time to get that understanding is what I personally suggest.

  • Bubster WolfBubster Wolf Registered User regular
    That is so much good advice, thank you thank you @Iruka!
    The printer I worked with mostly left everything to me and washed their hands of the back and forth process sadly. Looks like I have more research to do on local print shops :)

    If it makes prints that look mostly good I will happily go the extra steps. I'm spending money anyway.

  • IrukaIruka Registered User, Moderator mod
    edited May 2021
    No problem! If the printer kinda sucks, mock up your own test pages with thumbnails and experiment, Just make 5x5 thumbnails of your work and cram them onto a sheet at different brightness levels with labels. Really make the cost one sheet work for you.

    The last time I printed we worked with Mindzai, who I do believe ship, but they are local for us which keep costs way down. Great service and quality though, but I had a sizable order which helps grease the wheels of interactions with small businesses. ]

    Good luck! Printing is fun when you get rad results, so I hope this helps!

    Iruka on
  • DidgeridooDidgeridoo Flighty Dame Registered User regular
    Has anyone bothered with the paid version of Line of Action? (https://line-of-action.com/practice-tools/figure-drawing/)

    I'm finding it very helpful for gesture and figure drawing practice, but am, uh... pretty unclear on what the paid version offers over the free version. It keeps asking if I'd like to upgrade to premium but not really specifying what it gives you!

  • Endless_SerpentsEndless_Serpents Registered User regular
    edited June 2021
    I’m doing a pet project, a fictional adventure game. Very eventually I’d like to have about fifty well drawn “official” artworks of the characters, enemies, locations and items.

    cdblxpuwuhmn.jpeg


    1. Chatty crow.
    2. Many haunted skulls.
    3. Dough person.
    4. Pine tree person.
    5. Unsettling dragonfly god.
    6. A guru.
    7. Terrifying yet friendly creature in shadows.
    8. Bamboo person.
    9. Tooth fairy.
    10. Many haunted swords.
    11. Rotating faux-3D square.
    12. Sassy cat.
    13. Disassociating totem pole.
    14. Dark Souls unobtrusive floor words.

    Endless_Serpents on
  • Endless_SerpentsEndless_Serpents Registered User regular
    Do you like drawing in Procreate? Do you wish you had pencils that were as shitty as the ones you stole from work?

    q5bkjcjasu5i.jpeg

  • DidgeridooDidgeridoo Flighty Dame Registered User regular
    @Endless_Serpents , I really like the brushes and the game ideas you've come up with lately! Have any of them jumped out at you as something you'd like to develop more fully? I'd love to see something you narrow in on and flesh out from one of the awesome ideas you've put forward! That chatty crow is a favorite of mine.

  • Endless_SerpentsEndless_Serpents Registered User regular
    Didgeridoo wrote: »
    @Endless_Serpents , I really like the brushes and the game ideas you've come up with lately! Have any of them jumped out at you as something you'd like to develop more fully? I'd love to see something you narrow in on and flesh out from one of the awesome ideas you've put forward! That chatty crow is a favorite of mine.

    Yeah, I’m gonna be working solely on “Quadruple Quest” for a long time. It’s a slow start, but once I get a pixel art app I’m happy with I’ll be churning out concept art and animating sprites of a similar standard to a good SNES game. In theory I could eventually collect them together and sell them—I’ve seen people doing that over on itch.io.

    For the guide character, I’m liking the crow too. I think ultimately I might use the crow, skull and guru. It’s just an art project, not a game I’m gonna code, but I imagine the crow would offer general tips and hints, the skull could just say something funny (and always be positioned near a trap), while the guru would provide optional lore dumps, but not be necessary to speak to.

  • Endless_SerpentsEndless_Serpents Registered User regular
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    Discuss.

  • DidgeridooDidgeridoo Flighty Dame Registered User regular
    Animations are fun! I should really try to mess around with it more.

    On a different note, I've been noticing that lately I'll think all my exercises and practice drawings are garbage. I'll go do something else for a few days, then re-look over my work and realize that my recent attempts were displaying elements that I was working toward, but could not recognize at the time.

    Long story short: brains are stupid, and I guess I just have to keep believing I'm making progress even if I feel like I'm just spinning my wheels.

  • DidgeridooDidgeridoo Flighty Dame Registered User regular
    edited July 2021
    danx wrote: »
    Not sure it's right for me then right now. I recently watched a design cinema episode (89 - Just Draw) that talked about how much drawing people actually do versus how much is needed to get good and realised I wasn't really doing much drawing at all. So it was no surprise I wasn't getting better. Trying to build the drawing habit to build hand eye coordination before paying for more stuff.

    It's been a lot more fun since then. Especially after watching some John Muir Laws nature stuff instead of focusing on figure drawing. Nature Journaling is more my jam.

    Oh and sorry for the double post, but I wanted to circle back to this! @danx , from what you've posted I personally feel you would benefit from the Proko course. I've gotten farther into it now, and have noticed really strong improvements in my gesture and figure drawing even at my novice level. Bean and Robo-Bean lessons in particular have completely changed the way I approach most sketches, and have started to help me past the 'stiffness' I hated in most of my personal projects.

    Didgeridoo on
  • danxdanx Registered User regular
    Thanks for the update. Glad to hear it's working for you! It sounds like something that'd be a good experience. Does it have a good structure? Sometimes online courses are a bit messy and don't have clear stages and goals. They're just kinda all over the place including random stuff and aren't up front about the amount of time they expect you to spend on things.

    I'll probably pick it up when I have cash and aren't feeling like crap. Been dealing with an infection that just won't quit since April so I haven't drawn much of anything since. It's not bad just tiring. Combined with the heat I have had no energy until this week so I'm trying to get back to it.

    Trying to rebuild the habit is so hard. Buying stationary is easy though. Guess which one I've been doing!

  • danxdanx Registered User regular
    After not having used a pen for anything more than a grocery list for months my wrist is like your warm up was enough. You're five minutes are up. No drawing for you. Eww.

  • DidgeridooDidgeridoo Flighty Dame Registered User regular
    danx wrote: »
    Thanks for the update. Glad to hear it's working for you! It sounds like something that'd be a good experience. Does it have a good structure? Sometimes online courses are a bit messy and don't have clear stages and goals. They're just kinda all over the place including random stuff and aren't up front about the amount of time they expect you to spend on things.

    I'll probably pick it up when I have cash and aren't feeling like crap. Been dealing with an infection that just won't quit since April so I haven't drawn much of anything since. It's not bad just tiring. Combined with the heat I have had no energy until this week so I'm trying to get back to it.

    Trying to rebuild the habit is so hard. Buying stationary is easy though. Guess which one I've been doing!

    Proko's course seems pretty well structured, with the lessons clearly building on one another. It's a little fuzzy on exactly how much time you're meant to spent practicing each lesson before moving onto the next, but the community over there is really friendly and good about giving advice if you need feedback on the exercises.

    If you're looking for something that's very rigidly structured and clear about how much to do before moving on, Draw a Box is very good for that.

  • danxdanx Registered User regular
    I am probably going to create some kind of study plan for it so it's helpful to know it's a bit fuzzy on things before picking it up. It's kind of hard to keep everything straight just winging it. That's my default right now and it's just not working out at all.

  • gavindelgavindel The reason all your software is brokenRegistered User regular
    Taking a break from Watts to play around on my own, and its really strange to come back to a mechanical pencil after years of charcoal. Doodling in high school I never understood why my pencil doodles never had the "feel" of the experts; now its easy enough to say that's the difference of edge and tone. Still, I haven't adjusted to be able to replicate those with a mechanical pencil.

    Did you guys have that experience? If not with mechanical pencil maybe inks?

    Book - Royal road - Free! Seraphim === TTRPG - Wuxia - Free! Seln Alora
  • DidgeridooDidgeridoo Flighty Dame Registered User regular
    Yuko Oto, one of my favorite artists, has been posting some 'behind the scenes' breakdowns of her process on Patreon and I find it SUPER helpful. She's the artist from Johnny Wander/ Barbarous.

    Here's a snippet:

    ecvmmfl4on64.jpg

    When I see art I admire, it's easy for me to start feeling like I'll never measure up to that, and that the artist must have unfathomable skills to be able to conjure it out of the ether. Seeing an artist I really look up to talk plainly about how they use resources and models to help construct a scene makes it seem way less scary. Maybe even attainable by me, some day!

  • danxdanx Registered User regular
    Didgeridoo wrote: »
    I'm starting to go through Proko's figure drawing class, and am watching the gesture drawing critique video where he invites on Marshall Vandruff. I really have an immediate and irrational dislike of that guy, ha. Clearly very knowledgeable, but any time he makes a point I reflexively start eyeing the 'skip forward' button...

    I started the same course after your recommendation and had the exact same reaction to Marshal in the first vid. They seem to get more focused in the next one. Hopefully that continues, the first one was a bit of a let down.

  • Endless_SerpentsEndless_Serpents Registered User regular
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    Still making brushes. Not doing much art I can show though! It’s all going into this pet project of mine. I’ve got tomorrow off though so we shall see!

  • danxdanx Registered User regular
    Drawing beans for this Proko course is kinda weird. Ask me to draw an oval/ellipse on it's I have enough muscle memory from DAB exercises to draw them pretty confidently in one or two passes. A bean though? It's a zillion squiggly lines even the initial oval. It's like my brain forgot I can draw ovals and other curves pretty well already and went back to old habits.

  • danxdanx Registered User regular
    I started rewarding myself for completing things and just finished a sketchbook I started for Figuary. My reward for it was a pack of blackwing 602s. My reward for drawing was more drawing! Didn't think that one through huh?

    The pencil is pretty nice though. Thought people were exaggerating about the smoothness but naw. It's silky smooth. I've had roller ball pens rougher than this.

  • danxdanx Registered User regular
    Started a (brush) calligraphy course. The instructor has us doing a universal line of beauty down stroke variant as part of our drills from day 1 to help us with pressure control. I hate it! The other strokes are going fine but that one is going to take a lot of trees to get right.

  • gavindelgavindel The reason all your software is brokenRegistered User regular
    Yeah, calligraphy is a beast all its own. Always jealous of the really confident calligraphy where some illustrator paints the words on a shop sign free hand...

    Book - Royal road - Free! Seraphim === TTRPG - Wuxia - Free! Seln Alora
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