Valo's gonna draw sometimes.

[Valo]

Spoiler

Just got a drawing tablet, so trying Sai out. This is the first digital art ive done outside of pixels. Ill try to keep updates frequent.

[Filler]

Dang, that's some good shading. Very nice job!

[E-Man]

For something that's your first time in the world of actual digital art, I'm very impressed by what I've seen! I used to love checking out your work on the other threads, so it's great to see that you're still keeping your talents strong!

[Valo]

Spoiler

(added spoiler to last post too, sorry about that)

Well, that was fun!

being my first attempt i think i'll do a little 'final thouhgts' type thing here.

I think the colors turned out great for the most part, a few contrast issues here and there, mostly on the blue/purple(ie the fingers/feet) and the torso spring.

I should have actually thought about how those joints worked before i drew them. Alignment goofiness aside, if you pay attention, the joints dont work for the most part .

I need to keep note of brush settings, i kinda screwed up the blur tool part way through, thus some of the shading blends are different throughout the thing, this is most notable on the fingers on our right.

Im not entirely happy with the hand on our left. I just think it didnt end up looking as nice as the one on our right. The problem started with the initial sketch.

I kinda lost my patience on the brain part and kinda did a quick and dirty blend to it, in future i should probably do something like that in chunks in between working on other parts so i dont lose interest and rush to get it done.

Overall, i think it turned out alright, but I doubt its gonna be one of those works i look back on in a few months or years and say "yeah i'm still proud of that one"

[Gors]

the biggest problem i can see here is that the shading doesn't look strong enough. Metal surfaces usually have high contrast and even if the character happens not to be metallic, a little bit of contrast can work wonders

One little tip I can give (if you have photoshop) is to open up the drawing on the program and play with the color filters. Even changing filters mindlessly can yield color schemes that might surprise you, trust me

SAI lacks the color filters and additional effects photoshop is known for, so try working with both programs in tandem - SAI can even export in .psd format!

this being said it's a nice start my fam, keep up

[Valo]

Thanks. I'll be honest i went with softer colors simply because i thought it looked nice. Ill keep the metal contrast in mind in future though. Thanks for the photoshop tip too!



Trying to mimic a style this time

[Valo]

well that was fun

[Gors]

tbh that looks very convincing especially if you shrink it down to game size

some of the shapes seem a little rough but I guess it works. The mid-shade for the hair looks a little weird due to being hueshifted to blue/green and not to red like the outline, but it's probably stylistical.

[Valo]

tbh that looks very convincing especially if you shrink it down to game size

some of the shapes seem a little rough but I guess it works. The mid-shade for the hair looks a little weird due to being hueshifted to blue/green and not to red like the outline, but it's probably stylistical.

It is, I pulled all the colors from the other official arts in the style.

[puggsoy]

Just gonna say at the size your avatar is at, it looks like it's a sprite rip from the 3DS game or something.

[Valo]

I'm really not feeling the hand so I'll stop there for the night and come at it tomorrow when im awake enough to see straight again

[Valo]

I think i'll do one more in this style before moving on

[Gors]

I really like those, but here's a tip:

When you zoom the image in, you'll notice you left out some pixels without being painted, leaving those weird artifacts on her face



An easy way to paint an entire area with a solid color is to select the desired area and press Crtl F (Fill). Here's a quick tutorial:

1: Draw the outline on Layer 1



2: Create a Layer 2 under Layer 1



3: Go back to Layer 1 again, and select the magic wand tool



4: Select the area you want to paint as usual



5: Go back to Layer 2 and press Ctrl F.



BAM! A quick potato, just for you.

"But gors you suck, look at all those NASTY anti alias around the color!!"

you're correct, and that's actually the next part of this tutorial. You don't want to leave nasty AAs around your coloring.

6: Go back to this step, as usual



7: And go to selection>increment. This will expand the selection mask 1 pixel in all sides.



8: Repeat process as much as you want until the desired pixels are covered. I did this twice to ensure there will be no AA dots.



9: Your fresh GMO-free AA-free potato is good to go!



There are many ways to use those tools, this is just one way you can use them. Be creative!

[Valo]

-advice-

Ah thanks, and sorry about that... I'll admit i was outright avoiding the fill tool because it doesnt read the AA pixels on the outline, i'll give that a go on the next one for sure.

[Valo]

Wip, Ghost trick has very few clear examples of how it handles metal/reflective shading and they all seem to contradict each other so I'm winging it...