god this is hard

[SandeRRednaS]

how the hell do you guys do it? Oo

i've been trying to digital paint but i dont know where to start
if i start somewhere just randomly do stuff
smudging seems to be something i will never get a hold of
it's all so frustrating >.>

maybe im just not made for digital painting :(

[Ravenwolf]

that's nonsense Sander! You know you can do it! It just takes practice and figuring out your own techniques that work for you. I may not do things exactly how a tutorial says but it still works for me. try just putting down some base colors, maybe in different layers to get the main colors you want...then make new layers and put details or shadows or highlights and there are so many smudge settings one could use. Some people like to use dodge/burn too and some don't. I like to use it sometimes, but other times it looks bad. It's all about experimenting and seeing what looks neat to you. You'll get the hang of it! You should get a message system so you can talk to me if you need advice and any others :-)

[gusak]

just start out small and slowly work your way up. you can do it.

[Vyoma]

Ah! Do not loose faith, SandeRRednaS. Practice will do it.

You should see some of my early digital paintings - I am so ashamed of them, I never uploaded them. But still have them around, because I know that if I had not practiced, I would not have gotten as far as I have now.

Here is a tip - do not start of something random - start something really simple - even if it is boring. Do digital painting of a simple sphere/ball and do it again and again from different light angles.

Take line art from someone else, and fill it up as you did when you were a kid - instead of using the fill tool - use a brush and paint it. It will still be categorized as 'yuck' but as you do this even for a week - you will see that you are catching on to some tips and tricks of your own. :)

So - keep practicing, and keep posting. We are all here to give tips, suggestions and much needed encouragement when you need some.

Edit: Ah - Ravenwolf and gusak seem to have beaten me to reply. :P

[SandeRRednaS]

ah well, i guess ill keep on going

gonna start with a sphere then


found some usefull lineart too

http://www.arwenart.com/gallery/colouringbook/

[Vyoma]

That is a good set of line art there. :) And seems like permission is given to color them up. Do remember to give a credit link her when you upload your paintings. :)

[Dreleen]

One thing you can try if you have a tough time staying in the lines is (if you are working in PS) Use the wand and select any shape (head, shirt, hair, what not) and keep the selection on as you paint that way even if your pen wonders out of the lines it wont show up. Id use this myself but I don't have the patience for line work lol


Oh and if you are having a rough time with smudge, I addressed this in another thread


Aah so your talking bout an actual brush preset? I was talking bout the tool itself

I made a sample:

As you can see 70% vs 100% is a big difference. It really could make ot break the tool for peeps who dont know the settings. I hoping I have find this option in Painter cause I rely on it a lot.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v135/Dreleen/Tut%20Images/smudge.png





Hope this helps!

[Vyoma]

One thing you can try if you have a tough time staying in the lines is (if you are working in PS) Use the wand and select any shape (head, shirt, hair, what not) and keep the selection on as you paint that way even if your pen wonders out of the lines it wont show up. Id use this myself but I don't have the patience for line work lol
...


That is a good tip Dreleen. This becomes especially useful if you are drawing an industrial subject. For an organic subject, the stray brush strokes would look ok - but for a industrial object (architecture, robots, guns and the sort), the uneven lines really makes it look messy.

Another thing I do is, I use the select tool and copy stuff I am working on to a different layer. That way, I can work on it to my hearts content, and when I am satisfied, I just merge it back down.

[Dreleen]

Yes yes Layers are your friend! In my painting I usually have 20-50 layers at least. Itlls save you time if you need to go back and change something later

[SandeRRednaS]

thx guys
i allready aplied the things u said before seeing them xD

http://www.plaatjesupload.nl/img28/1194118848-10.png



...never knew one could be proud of something like this XD

[Vyoma]

Wow. That looks too perfect. :) The shading you did on that one is so close to what I would have got if I did a radial gradient in Inkscape. :P

You sure can be proud of it SandeRRednaS.

[Dreleen]

Very nice but you need to define the edge that falls in shadow by creating reflected light along the along the edge that's touching the cast shadow. Then it'll be perfect ^_^

http://www.williamsclass.com/ElectiveClassArt/ShadeValueSphere.jpg

[SandeRRednaS]

aha
will keep that in mind ^^

[Ravenwolf]

that ball is great Sander! See you are improving already!

[SandeRRednaS]

http://www.plaatjesupload.nl/img28/1194162132-050.png

is this kind of what you meant dreleen?

[Dreleen]

Beautiful but why is the cast shadow not round any more lol

[SandeRRednaS]

...because it didn't feel like being round? lol

[Steve]

I'm fearful to say "those balls look nice". But, they do. (No one is to take this out of context)

As far as the process to digital painting, it... Varies artist to artist. For what I do, you have to break everything down into layers and work on top on one another.

http://gimpdome.deviantart.com/art/Digital-Painting-WIP-65243851
(Submitted that a long time ago to Gimp Dome.)

Don't know if that might help or not, but that's my general process of digital painting.

[SandeRRednaS]

ah that's a good tutorial like thingie
i allways use seperate layers for everything and place them in different maps so that it wont be chaotic ^^
the spheres were getting to boring so i began coloring a free lineart :P