Doodles and Finished Pieces

[Virt]

Whalesal.

Gorseal.

[Zac]

Bubbie.

[Candel]

Moby Dick

[Gors]

Whalesal.

[Garamonde]

Hey um I need some like, drawing advice...

Not for a specific thing, but just for general purposes.

When I go to draw something I think to myself that I will just "do it" whether it's crappy or not, but... then when I actually try to "do it" I come back to the same exact problem time after time again: I don't know to go about it or execute it.

ATM I'm trying to learn to use the brush as opposed to the Pen Tool. At first I thought I would try like blocking out shapes and then shaping them later like you do in pixel art, but then I come to the problem of certain parts, like those that overlap, are not defined this way. It's all just a giant depthless blob/block. In an attempt to fix this I draw a black line to define overlapping shapes but as you might expect that looks awful and I can't stand to look at it so I delete it.

I then try to outline it in black as a sketch type thing but that just does not look nice and I was trying to avoid outlines (especially black) for now.

So basically what I'm asking is, how do you guys start your drawings? How do you go about it? I'm just at a loss of how to even do this stuff. This is why I need to start learning and gaining experience...

[Previous]

I usually doodle in Inkscape and make vectors but sometimes I work with GIMP or Photoshops and, well

I make a "skizzle" layer where I make a rough sketch (lines) in pale gray and then I refine it in darker gray. Once I think I can work with it, I create a new layer above it, lock the old layer (sometimes set it to 50% opacity to make it less visible so it won't distract / falsify the actual lines later) and make a cleaner drawing above it (or, when working with vectors, start placing connected points so I get a jaggy construct of straight lines which I then will fix up, make round and shape according to the sketch below).

Sometimes I end up thinking the sketch looked much neicer >:I

[Garamonde]

By "refine it in a darker gray", do you mean you erase parts of the lighter lines and detail it in the darker color or you just draw on top of the lighter lines? That sounds like the lines would mix together and look confusing, but I'll experiment with that idea and see if it works for me. Thank you Previous.

[Previous]

I draw above them. Sometimes I make them even lighter first, depending on the shade of gray I started with.
They tend to look confusing, yes
Especially when I start drawing limbs over limbs and such weirdness.

[Baegal]

I draw in doodles. I like lines a lot, so I draw with a sketch and then outline on paper. TBH, I rarely add color unless it's digital.

For digital drawing, I have a tablet (Wacom Intuos III), and draw on photoshop CS5. I always start with drawing on a transparent layer, so if I do want to add color, I color on the layer below it.

Of course, I don't always do this; it's just the most common for me. I like lines more than color, so most of the time color comes later.

My advice would not be to think about it too much. I don't know you, but I personally think drawing for the sake of drawing ruins the experience. Draw because you want to draw, rather than setting deadlines. When you doodle something, how do you start it?

TL;DR: There really is no set format, but if you do want one (like some people do), I prefer drawing the lines first on a transparent layer in Photoshop using a digital tablet--mouses and trackpads are way to difficult IMO.

[Garamonde]

Well, the main thing here is that I don't have a tablet -- thus I have to use a mouse. Believe me I don't want to but I can't get one yet. It's probably the only reason my lines turn out so wobbly and bad. I'm trying to practice though, I just have to overcome this problem of the whole execution of it in the beginning.

And uh... to be honest I'm currently trying to start on my Halloween gift... so I kinda do have a deadline. I want to make it nice by trying to make it in that "painty" style like how Starpower and others do it. I could do it in an outline if I had to but not in black, and not with the pen tool because I don't want it to look vector-y, but painty as I mentioned.

As for my usual (flawed) method, at least when I do vector art in Photoshop (I use CS3 myself, I may consider upgrading at some point but for the moment CS3 is pretty comfortable for me), I always start with the outlines, and once they're finished I color and shade. I would normally try to go along with that same procedure with this but the outlines just don't look good to me... I know I need to try to ignore that and push forward but it's so hard when you can't even get the general shape/figure/angle right and you have to keep undoing it and trying again.

EDIT: Hmm, Previous' sketch method seems to be working for me so far, I finally have something decent enough to be considered a sketch. I'll see how it goes from here. Thank you guys for your replies~

[Baegal]

Also, if you want to go for that "painty" feel you're talking about, try the C+C from this thread from a few years ago. It's helped me a lot.

[Garamonde]

Oh wow that's actually insanely helpful. I didn't even know how to do it really.
But uh...

it's a bit too messy

it helps if you think of digital painting as spriting + blending

1. build up forms with two darker shades, mid shade, highlight, 100% opacity, opacity jitter off
2. blend between shades with 50% opacity brush, opacity jitter off
3. details with smaller brushes at 100% opacity but with opacity jitter
4. yeah innocence basically said all this. u__u

I don't exactly know what Rabid means here.
By mid-shade he means like the base color right...? Then have two darker shades, and a highlight? Also this sounds like a lot to remember but I'll try to practice with it when the time comes for coloring/shading it.

[Baegal]

basically, this:

1.)Base color, shadows, highlights (hueshifting is key here!!)
Lay them out like in pixel art--unrefined, blocks of shading to get an overall feel.
Think of this as the "sketching" part to digital painting.

2.) Blend the colors. It doesn't necessarily have to be 50% opacity--this is the part where the intermediate colors are painted. It can be done by either manually choosing the colors, or using a brush at a lower opacity to blend the two. Experiment and see what works best for you. don't lose the values here! If you blend too much, your form will be a cluttered mess of shades, destroying the overall volume. That's why pixel-art is so successful at conveying depth with such few colors--These regions are strategically placed to imply depth. If these regions are lost, the overall volume of the form is lost.

3.) This is the step for details. Opacity Jitter is like pressure sensitivity, but for opacity, if that makes sense (less pressure, less opacity and vice versa).
Basically, you can add darker shades, refine, add textures (like I did with hatching or crosshatching), it all depends.

Remember, you don't have to follow a format--this is just a general breakdown of one way of painting (block, blend, refine).

Good luck!!

[Garamonde]

Digital Painting 101 with Baegal

But seriously wow, I wasn't expecting this detailed of a response! I understand all but one thing now: how does opacity jitter work if you're using a mouse where the pressure is always the same instead of a tablet?

Otherwise I feel pretty inspired now and with this technique I think I can actually make art that I can feel completely proud of. Thank you very much Baegal for all your help and for taking your time to help me out. I feel like I've already improved today.

[Zero Kirby]

Discovered that Draw This Again thing. So I decided to do it.



Hmm. I've still got a lot I could improve on, but will definitely say I've improved a lot over five years!