Lessons

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Lessons

Post by +Anonymous »

I've got a graphics tablet but have never been very good at drawing since i left school, And chance of doing a tutorial section on the website?
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cowsmanaut
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Post by cowsmanaut »

uhm, I suppose if I had time I could try. Though I don't know what I could teach anyone.. I could show some tricks like how I did the wrinkles in the skin or got sunlight effects.. I can show ways of aproaching fur and hair.

However, I can't really teach you to paint. It's something people learn from themselves more than any art class can show you. You will find in a commercial art course (I teach in a computer animation course) that the teachers will tell you whats off about an image and give suggestions on how to improve it but there is little in the way of teaching how to paint. The only thing we can teach is how to train your eye and what to focus on. As apposed to any acedemic course where you have but one way of doing something and it has a very structured formula. Art does not have that.. it's personal and it's some thing that gets better by experimentation and practice.

I've been doing that since about 1990 and I'm still learning.

A good place to look for painting tutorials though is here:

http://www.gfxartist.com/

I found this place just the other day and it's awesome. The show some step by step painting and give some theory but again.. it won't teach you to paint but you can get feedback and advice from everyone there.

moo
+Anonymous

Post by +Anonymous »

What I ment was, was more of a guild on how you build up the pictures.

i.e. When you did your dragon picture you could post around 20 shots of the image building up and what you are doing, applying a blur then adding some more colour with the air brush .....
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cowsmanaut
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Post by cowsmanaut »

Yeah, I possbly could have done that. Had I thought about it. Thing is I don't ever have an established plan and just do what comes to mind. I'm very chaotic that way. The site above has what you mention though. there are a number of begining to end painted images with indepth info on what they were doing and why.

Not to mention it's more than one artist. So you get a wider variety of methods to pick from.

I don't know that I would have the time to plan out and go step by step in some understandable manner. I do that in 3D but I would need to make an effort in 2D to do a good job.
+Anonymous

Post by +Anonymous »

Just a quick couple of questions

I've got a A5 Graphics Tablet and Photoshop so where do you recommend starting?

What res do you draw your picutes at?

Do you make the tablet only work on part of the screen or the hole screen?

Do you have any tips?
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cowsmanaut
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comfort is everything

Post by cowsmanaut »

I set my stylus to full screen myself, I also set the opacity of my brushes to the pressure of the stylus.

One rule of thumb is to set the painting area larger than you intend the final version to be as this allows you to paint it and then shrink it. If you've ever seen a painting from far away you will understand the benefit to this. Most of you mistakes vanish unless they are really big mistakes.. then they haunt you for ever.

Make best use of layers possible. Get the painting to a point you like and then add a new layer.. also use layers to place effects and test things. You can always fade or remove a layer at any time in you painting. Layers are also good for exactly that layering your image.. do the sky, then some kind of ground plane, then some trees.. some more hills, some more trees, some more hills, a cabin, then some people.. add in some birds.. maybe a foreground. Each step a new layer. It makes the process so much more forgiving.

Most painters will paint dark to light. so you place on the shadowy colours and then build up lighter and lighter tones as you go giving more depth. I personally though paint middle and the paint in shadow and the light..

all of this though is just advice and you should try things.. be inventive and set things up so you are comfortable. If you are confortable you will enjoy the process and if you enjoy it you will do it more often and if you do it more often you get better.. and so the ball rolls.

hope this helps in some small way. if you like, you can show me your work and I can give suggestions. However, that's up to you.
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