I made a mistake here and the real combination is "Ctrl + Alt + Z"Proverbial Jon said:
This is a good topic Mr. Shark.SweetShark said:
Thank you very much for your good wordsEclipse Dragon said:
I've tried but it is an exercise in frustration every time. I like drawing the abstract shapes first then going on to detail everything.Eclipse Dragon said:
Drawing the shapes first is actually the best way to go about it (even in pen). It gives you a good starting point for the relationships (the eyes to each other, the eyes to the nose, the nose to the mouth, the mouth to the chin, ext...). Not being able to erase is always frustrating, but with practice you get even better and then you can really know how good you are because you drew it without ever erasing.Cpu46 said:
Doesn't have to just be when you're out and about. Even at home, try to keep up your drawing. It's a practice thing, and the only way you'll get better is to improve and always be ready in case you have the urge to draw something.SweetShark said:Sadly for me, because most of the time I am at work when I am out, I don't have time to sketch even if I wanted -_-...
At least I can use my computer, like just now
Amaria said:
thats interesting...I havnt really gone far into coluring because I'm still working on the other stuff...I tend to just use light/darker shades of the surrounding colurs...but that said so far Ive only really put in "flat" colurs because the style is kind of comicy/cartoony..anyway I might try thisSweetShark said:
Have you ever tried drawing with pen?Eclipse Dragon said:
Wow, I really didn't knew this trick with the opacity of the layers. Thank you very much for your advice!!!Amaria said:Doesn't have to just be when you're out and about. Even at home, try to keep up your drawing. It's a practice thing, and the only way you'll get better is to improve and always be ready in case you have the urge to draw something.SweetShark said:Sadly for me, because most of the time I am at work when I am out, I don't have time to sketch even if I wanted -_-...
At least I can use my computer, like just now
But if you're at home with digital stuff - combine and layer colors, don't just go with one that you've created/found on the palette. Paint one color with a brush, then lessen the opacity and paint a different color over it. Do this over and over again with different colors. This has several purposes; one, it breaks up the color there, keeping the entire drawing from being exactly the same color - life's not like that. Everything's all different shades, tones, and mixtures. Skin has blue tints in its shadows, pink tints where the blood's close to the surface, yellow tints where it's not, highlights depending on the light in the room... You get the idea. Adding the different layers of color makes it both more interesting, and more realistic.
Another purpose here is to keep everything that you make a bit more unique. You might have added a bit more green in one drawing when compared to another, making a color that you don't normally use - that's a good thing! Learning's about doing new things, testing things, seeing if they work. If you find something you like, whether for the interesting effect or because it captures what's really there more accurately, remember what you did, and then work off of that with other tweaks. It's all a matter of trying new things,
The final purpose here is that it keeps you from using the standard 'burn and dodge' tools. Someone already mentioned it here earlier, but you really should try to stay away from using those as your shadows/highlights. Shadows are more than black or a darker shade of the earlier color, and the same for highlights with lighter colors. It's not accurate, it never quite looks right alone, and most artists can instantly tell you used dodge/burn because it has this overly-saturated, samey shading look.
I would like to agree with Eclipse Dragon. This is a wonderful topic; I've never really been a pen person, so the tutorial there was interesting and enlightening. ^_^
I have Photoshop Elements 10 (came with the tablet) as well as SAI, and I *literally* only use Photoshop for the special brushes if I need leaves or something and I'm feeling particularly lazy or if I want to look at what an image would look like with a specific color scheme with a gradient map or such. Other than those specific uses, I find SAI to be better than PS Elements for basically everything. Also, since SAI can use *.psd files, you can easily move images between it and PS and back if you need to switch for something specific, with the only potential problem being if you're using layer groups since Elements doesn't support them. SAI is also *far* easier to use than PS because it isn't cluttered up with all of the functions that are really only useful for photo editing and have little, if any, use in digital art.Vault101 said:
It has layers, layer groups, opacity, several different kinds of brushes (the water brushes make great blur/blending brushes), and, though it doesn't have photo things like lens flare, it does have layer types that can make it quite easy to replicate them should you feel the need with only a little bit of work. SAI has everything you need to make great digital art, just a few less shortcut options than Photoshop because of its simpler brush system and lack of unnecessary photo editing based stuff.Vault101 said:
Mhmm. Happy to help.SweetShark said:
The opacity of the brush is helpful, too; sometimes you want one area of something to be more of a color than another. Essentially, tweak both until it seems right. Layers are always your friends!
Thank you so much for your advices.Amaria said:Mhmm. Happy to help.SweetShark said:
I usually use this for my shadows and highlights, yes; that way there can be highlights that are more iridescent than a single color. Shadows are much the same, since light tends to have a certain tint of color, too; the absence of that color would change what color the shadow looks like. For example, if the main light were... Say... Yellow-tinted, the shadows (in an absence of the yellow) could look a bit more blue in comparison, something that wouldn't happen if you stuck with a darker shade of the original color. I hope that makes sense, I'm trying to make this simple xD
I did mean the tutorial on inking that you posted. Thanks for that! When I work in pen I tend to rely entirely on crosshatching, rather than line weight; I pile up lines and lines until it looks right - I've been told that I sketch/draw like a painter, which I think is rather accurate. I add layers on top of layers on top of layers, and work in the details slowly rather than starting with them. It's always fun seeing how artists that don't use my painterly method go about things - line weight, using a brush and a pen in tandem, doing it carefully the first time and getting it exactly right. It's an interesting look on how other artists do stuff, and I want to try it for myself, now. Maybe get better at line weight...