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[Spreggo]

Okay, best idea ever:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Take images and manipulate them to be more dwarfy (or whatever) and then use the results as reference images.



Its great because it gives you proper proportions... This should work for animals and things too. I might try it with full bodies to get poses and things.

[Vester]

That's hilarious. Also a little terrifying.

It seems useful though.

[Deon]

A good way to get a full tonal range is to do the whole image in black and white, then add color after words, using a multiply layer in PS, then redo the specular highlights on a new layer. The benefit of using a multiply layer is that you can use the colors to touch up the shading and add texture et cetera...

Ah, multiply, layers... . Yeah it's much easier for me when I separate highlights, color and depth tonal layers in photoshop. However I tried to make my first one "by hand", to understand how it's done and what can be done without layers. I agree that I need a lot of practice first to make it worthy, however I am a bit afraid to jump ahead to layers, because it can make me lazy so I won't ever learn to draw "by hand" and to pick vivid colors right on a canvas.

But it may be a good start to try black and white. Thanks. You, guys, are great helpers (Spreggo, Balathustrius).

[Sappho]

Does anyone know of a way to home-make a stylus for my laptop's touchpad that actually works?  I tried using a battery and wrapping foil around a pencil, but it never really worked.  It would move some of the time, and I'd end up drawing things that looked like I drew them with my USB mouse anyway.  I'm dying to just draw things straight into the computer, especially since I don't own a scanner and the only copyshop in Prague that speaks English and scans charges me astronomical fees every time I use it, and is also 20 minutes away.

[Noctriate]

First time poster. Nothing special. Just a dwarf picking some fruit from a bush, I'm relatively new to the game and I thought this was pretty eventful.

Mainly trying out continuous line drawing.

[Deon]

I tried to use your tips to create some kind of foreground and add more details to a bland wall. Here's the result:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Someone requested it as a background so I resized it to 1024x768 (original file is 3000x1500).  I hope this one looks better.


P.S. Noctriate: Cool dwarf . Keep up the work. It looks like your dwarves are going to have a special character. I enjoy the different ways of people to draw things very much .

[Balathustrius]

That is a good idea; and great photo-manipulation.  Is that the liquefy tool?

With the paintings, you might try altering your brush settings a little for easier value transitions; it looks like you've got your opacity set to like 80% and size dynamics set to pen pressure, and the values aren't really blending together.  Maybe try setting the opacity to 100%, but turning on opacity jitter and flow jitter and setting them both to pen pressure.  Much more like a real paint-brush.  (opacity and flow settings are under 'other dynamics' in the brush window, which is F5 by default in ps, I think)

Just an idea.  The drawings are good, but I've always found it nearly impossible to render with the brush settings like yours.

I tried to use your tips to create some kind of foreground and add more details to a bland wall. Here's the result:

Nice work.  Only suggestion I could offer is, don't be afraid to cut into your picture-plane with big shapes.  In your painting, the only big shape is the cave mouth; so the eye goes right to that and then there's nothing else to move it around.

I like your painting style, though; it reminds me of Khang Le's work.  Check his site out, if you're not familiar with him; he's a fantastic environment painter:  http://www.khangle.net/

I keep meaning to draw some dwarves or something so I have something to post in here.  Hmm.

[Balathustrius]

Here's a sketch I'm working on.  Needs a lot of work, so maybe it's fitting to post it here!  Critiques very welcome.



It's supposed to be a glowing pit, with veins of adamantium in the rock and hideous carvings on the walls (namely that big slab on the right; haven't drawn them yet, but it should be fun, heh.)

[Armok]

That idea with photos is actually good!

I'm itching to try that "grayscale-then-multipylayer", but I cant find a GIMP option for that. Presumably there is some plugin somewhere that I need and I've not been able to figure out how to get those to work.

Ninjaedit: That looks awesome, I asume you'll add a lot of contrast and the actual eerie glow later?

[Balathustrius]

That idea with photos is actually good!

I'm itching to try that "grayscale-then-multipylayer", but I cant find a GIMP option for that. Presumably there is some plugin somewhere that I need and I've not been able to figure out how to get those to work.

Ninjaedit: That looks awesome, I asume you'll add a lot of contrast and the actual eerie glow later?

Thanks!  Yeah, it needs a lot of work. 

A caveat about multiply layers; they make everything darker.  They're really great for glazing effects, but for coloring greyscale drawings, they're a little tricky.  I like to combine them with color-dodge layers; glaze over with a multiply layer, then light things back up with the color-dodge layer.  It takes a few passes, though.  Best idea is to try out all the different layer styles available; a lot of them work well for colorizing greyscale paintings.

[Armok]

Thats a later concern, considering I can't make any of those layer types...

[Virex]

You can set most layer's behaviour from the layers menu, but I assume you've looked there already?

[Chromie]

Ooh this is great, I'll contribute when I get my hands on my tablet again...

And for those trying out Gimp, look up GimpShop -- it's a mod that does nothing besides rearrange Gimp's pretty-terrible interface to be a lot more like Photoshop, which is helpful if you're familiar with Photoshop (and IMHO finding things is a lot more intuitive)

[Siquo]

Followed for its awesomeness.

[Deon]

I need your help .

I want to draw a town scene in the night, so I am here to get advices and tips from the greater mentors.

Here's a quick sketch:
http://i34.tinypic.com/2hgec9f.png

At first, I am not sure about perspective. Probably I've picked a wrong angle. Please correct my possible perspective errors.

Also, character placement. Are their sizes fine comparing to the distance/perspective?

A third thing, what about "foreground"? I may draw a critter on the left, like that cat, but the bottom-right corner seems to be empty. Maybe I should make an edge of a fountain or a sewers hatch there?

Let alone the future problems with multiple light sources, help me to decide object placement first, please . I want to learn and I hope you can help me. I really appreciate all your tips and advices .