Rabid's Ramshackle of Random Renderings [DIGITAL ART]

[Marth]

Rock Lee as Hitmonlee?

[ccoffee table]

ooo baboy its great to see your art skills have improved since I've last seen them, I enjoy looking at them all but if there were something I'd have to critique it would be the fact every colored one you made has every shade bricked (for lack of a better word, I dont even remember the pixel art term for that) on top of another. I would say to either smooth it out more or idk just feels like a couple steps above pillow shading but like not intensly bad. Show me some more

[LeleleleMAXIMUM]

dunno what you mean, but i sure know there is something wrong. thanks!


how do i eyes?

[Vipershark]

is that felix from golden sun?

[LeleleleMAXIMUM]

no i just drew hair and then thought to myself "guy needs a face"
then a neck
then a stupid scarf thing because i'm lazy

[triptych]

p.sure nit means you're banding
but
with "paint" instead of pixels


because you can literally point out every individual shade in everything you're shading when it really shouldn't look that choppy between shades

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/shades/

[Chutzpar]

Right, I'm gonna try and explain what the issue is with PURTY PICTURES.

Here is what you are doing:

It looks to me like you're choosing your whole tonal range first (like my little palette up on the right), and then just doing a little bit of blending between the two.
I have a much simpler (and sexier) method that will get similar (but sexier) results.
HERE GOES.


1: DRAW YOUR THING. Choose two colours. One will be your lightest, and the other will be your darkest. Block in the rough shape of your shadows with a regular hard-edged brush.
2: Sample either of your colours, and paint over the edge of the other one with a semitransparent brush. (I usually use about 30% opacity, but anything between 30 and 60 is pretty good for this step)
3: Sample your new middle colour, and paint over the edges of your light and dark tones.
4: At this point I change the method slightly. I sample my second lightest tone, and paint over the lighter half of my midtones, plus the edge of the lightest tone.
Then I sample my second darkest tone, and paint over the darker half of my midtones
THEN I sample one of the middle tones, and paint over the... midtones of my midtones
5: This is the result you get from repeating step 4 for a little while.
6: LAST CHANGE: once I'm happy with the form from steps 4 and 5, I set my brush to about 10% opacity, and just start selectively repainting the bits that have the poorest transitions. Rather than painting thick bands over everything, I'm doing lots of quick little brush strokes over the roughest looking areas, resampling after each stroke, and trying to follow the form.
You don't necessarily need to go as far as I have with the repainting, or in fact, you could go further. It depends if you want more of a painterly look, or something smoother.

A shortcut that will save your life (if you're using Photosop, anyway): alt and click samples a colour, so you don't have to keep choosing the eyedropper.

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Some bits to keep in mind: when you lay down your flats in step 1, it will almost certainly look as if the contrast is too great.
In fact, I might not have put enough contrast between my two colours.
If you find that you're not happy with the tonal range, just pick a new dark or light tone, and using a semitransparent brush, paint over the area that needs darkening or lightening, and then keep resampling and repainting until it's blended in as thoroughly as the previous colour. Banding, and then quick strokes.

Also, it might not be obvious, but I do all this on one layer per object. Usually if I'm painting something I'll have separate layers for different elements; say, the clothes and the hair and the skin will each have its own layer -- but the shading on the skin will just be part of the skin layer. Again, feel free to do whatever comes easiest. I would still suggest using a few different layers because it makes it easier to edit elements without disturbing other parts of the painting.

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ALSO ALSO:
I can't believe I forgot this: when you're working on the rougher steps, use a bigger brush. As you start to get a softer transition between tones, start decreasing the size of your brush a bit to work in detail and "fine tune" what you're doing.

I try and limit the number of brush sizes I use, because it stops me from noodling away at little details, and it simulates traditional painting a little better, so it feels more organic for me.

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(In exchange for my totally badass help there, you have to tell me how you got so badass at drawing the figure in perspective)

[LeleleleMAXIMUM]

i actually do the alt-click thing. look at my shelled thing in the doodles thread and the oddish.
i don't want it to be super blended, because then it looks super blurry, which i don't really want. i want it to look painted. step 4 or 5 is fine with me.
thanks, though! you seriously are the best at giving advice.

i don't think my perspective is anything to be proud of, but basically, i have a mirror in front of my workstation, one of those big, old ones. ever wondered why i couldn't draw my feet properly? well, there you go. i just look at my pose as i draw, just focusing on getting the outlines right. then i make a new layer, and enlarge/stretch/lengthen parts while i draw another sketch. THEN above this, on another layer, i start to zoom in and draw with a 3px hard round brush. usually, i stretch the arms and thin them, because my animu tastes don't find my own structure very pleasing.

alternatively (and you will hate me for this), i draw a crappy thumbnail of the pose. then i use google images and various sites, even sometimes modelling basic shapes in blender to get the bits and parts right. i make a crappy collage of the whole body (i don't even bother selecting the right parts, i just select, copy, slap it together). and then i copy. again, i enlarge parts to taste. and there you go.

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here is an example of what i want to achieve
http://sakimichan.deviantart.com/art/Ran...168h&qo=25
look at this dude's hair

but i think i make up for my lack of skill with just blurring everything :X

[DadNier]

woah cool i do the same thing zeemort (except my contrast is lower I think I'm going to start increasing it) that's comforting

ps everything here looks great rabid!! and im sure once you have a less banded way of doing coloring they'll look even more awesome
you should add eyes to mr rpg hero lookin' guy up there also

[LeleleleMAXIMUM]

[LeleleleMAXIMUM]

30 minute failure

[Gors]

this is N64 all over again

[LeleleleMAXIMUM]

yeah, i even used a 128x128 texture. ))
i want to use pixel art on the tex, but i just can't use win7 paint. :/

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oh and guess da pokemon

3d wip

[Gors]

Donatello

[Ashura]

Just wondering, what program do you use for 3D modeling? Metasequoia?

I'm having a bit of trouble fitting my UV maps into the save area.. any part of the uv map that's outside of that white square shaped area gets cropped out when I export it as a bmp