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The Animator's Survival Kit is a great one to start with if you are wanting to do animation. Beginner's Guide to Digital Painting in Photoshop and maybe some Masters Collections; Digital Painting "Techniques" are really great too. Color and Light: A Guide for the Realist Painter & Imaginative Realism: How to Paint What Doesn't Exist are a fun read, very insightful stuff. =)

At 5/19/13 07:17 PM, KilledByRob wrote: Hey I'm rob and I'm soon to finish my game design course at uxbridge college! My art work is shabby to say the least and I am practicing almost everyday as I have a dream of becoming a concept artist. I realise it is a lot of work but I am willing to put the work in to get there. Any tips and advice anyone can give me would be greatly appreciated :P!

As a start though how did everyone start their learning process when it came to drawing more complex stuff! Like the massive enviroments I see people drawing or awesome character. It must have all started some where, did you start with just doodles or did you take a class in human anatomy :o would love to know so please share :P

I just finished my first semester in college studying for Fine Arts. I've learned quite a bit from my university but I've also learned a lot from CGMA academy watching their sample videos, as well as their interviews on youtube via CGMWORKSHOPS channel. Other various artists on Youtube have taught me a great deal as well.

I've researched 80-90% of what i know in the last 5 months and the remaining 10% from college so far. It's always a plus to obtain a bachelor's I've read and I still have a lot to learn from school so I believe I am going to stick it out. It will also teach me better responsibility and better discipline when working on assignments, going to need it when I am on commissions.

http://ravish261.deviantart.com/art/Untitled-1-372805529

and done :)

2 hours of work after previous post.

Working on Tweety ;P

inspired by Dan LuVisi

some doodling with color and value~

At 5/19/13 01:59 AM, LeeIsMyName wrote: One thing I would definitely love to know is how to set up my canvas, and how to use the zooming. I was told by a few people that it's typically best to make a huge canvas, like 3k x 2k size, and then just zoom in. I'm not really sure I get it, but I don't know if I can explain why I don't get it... hopefully you understand. It seems like when I zoom into a portion to start my drawing, because it's on a smaller scale, the lines get pixelated and blurry around the edges.

What I do in Photoshop is create a canvas size around 2400 width x 3200 height and set the resolution to 300 ppi. I leave it in Portrait for characters and for anything else i just rotate the canvas in Landscape.

I then create a layer for the line work, setting brush opacity to about 50% and draw very loosely. After i have a good composition i then create another layer and go over the rough line work with better and darker line work, drawing forms and shapes more accurately.

I create another layer behind the better line work and add flat color values so the colors don't draw over the line work. While doing this you can also create a background layer under the layer you used for color.

I create another layer over your color layer but still under the line work layer and set the line work layer's opacity to about 50%. With this new layer is where i start to add value and depth and paint forms to make it pop, adding shadows and highlights and then pushing them further and further until im satisfied. I also add color value, hue/saturation, curve layers to adjust tones and darks and lights even further. You can always right click and set a clipping mask to the "color value", "hue/saturation" or "curves" layer and it will only affect the layer beneath it so it doesn't change the background.

occasionally i will hide the line layer and see what i have. I look to see if it appears flat or if I need to push values more to make it appear more 3 dimensional.

Hope this isn't confusing x.x but this information is what really helped me and wish i knew this stuff when i started so I could practice and make a habit of really pushing each painting. Hope this helps!

At 5/18/13 07:14 PM, LeeIsMyName wrote: Hey guys. I've always been drawing, but always with a pencil and paper. I've been watching Jazza's YouTube videos a lot and as such, he convinced me to not only make an account here, but as of yesterday I have a tablet. I'm trying to get used to drawing with it, but it's so much harder to use than pencil and paper. I want to get better though because of the fantastic coloring options, shading, smoothness of digital drawing etc. I'm just having a lot of issues at the moment.

I figured since this is the art section, you guys might be able to give a few "newbie friendly" tips, maybe some things that you wish someone would have told you when you first started.

Thanks in advance :)

Hey! Very happy to hear you are giving digital art a go! My advice would be to stick to whatever program you start with, be it Photoshop, Corel painter, or whatever and get the feel for it. Get to know the user interface and eventually customize it to your liking. Another good exercise I would recommend is to import your pencil art into the program you are using via scanner and go over the line work. Practice sketching lines at different angels, rotating your canvas etc.

Also starting out I would advise to just scribble lines and shapes, practice drawing straight lines and ellipses as well and just mess with brush settings and tweak things to make it feel better to you.

watch lots and lots of helpful videos! On Youtube I would subscribe to; Sycra, Dave Rapoza, imaginefx, Matt Kohr, CGMWORKSHOPS and FZDSchool and just take it all in and have fun with it!

Hope this helps you out a bit!

Been working alot lately, but I have another update on my Alien project!

Been kind of a slow day today, but here's one more update before bed.

At 5/15/13 12:17 PM, HeThinkzLikeNoOthEr wrote: Are you right handed or left?.....just asking because your Photoshop workspace is different

I'm left handed, yeah it's a bit more comfortable layout for me. =)

kool ....im freakin shweet for figuring that out..if i must say so myself!! :)

ha nice, good catch!

At 5/15/13 12:17 PM, HeThinkzLikeNoOthEr wrote: Are you right handed or left?.....just asking because your Photoshop workspace is different

I'm left handed, yeah it's a bit more comfortable layout for me. =)

At 5/15/13 11:22 AM, Escalus wrote:

At 5/15/13 11:15 AM, Ravish261 wrote: Just wanted to share this WIP with you guys cause I'm pretty excited about it, hope you guys don't mind! what do you think about it so far?

As nice as your WIPs are, it's best that you keep them all in one thread instead of making new threads for each individual one.

:/ okie doke

Just wanted to share this WIP with you guys cause I'm pretty excited about it, hope you guys don't mind! what do you think about it so far?

Some original stuff I'll be working on later.

"The General"

another view

Alien commission I am currently working on.

Figured I'd add my mojo here too. :P

Invader Zim!

Another update. wooo

At 5/12/13 11:43 PM, Absinthe wrote:

At 5/12/13 11:25 PM, Ravish261 wrote: Koopa Troopa Painting I did. He should probably quit his job.

Aww He looks so sad, must suck to live in a totalitarian state. The drawing is incredible please show more.

Thanks!! Will do, I will be busting my ass painting over the summer! So there will be plenty to come :)

At 5/12/13 11:37 PM, Kinsei wrote:

At 5/12/13 11:25 PM, Ravish261 wrote: Koopa Troopa Painting I did. He should probably quit his job.

Awesome!
thanks for putting that in the portal.
Faved!

Much appreciated! I'm so glad this is so well liked!

Koopa Troopa Painting I did. He should probably quit his job.

At 5/12/13 11:05 PM, bigjonny13 wrote: Flipping back through your post history, I remember your "Swine with a Sign" thread, and hot damn, you've drastically improved since then.

Well thanks! I have been working hard to improve! Forcing myself to become OCD about my work and learning to apply more focus and discipline, hopefully it'll pay off! ha

To keep some variety in here I'm gonna upload some other artwork of mine ;P

Here's a little study I did of yoda to try and grasp color & value and understand it a little better.

At 5/12/13 09:56 PM, KiwiSundae wrote: Sorry OP, just thought I would make a statement to *aherm* bitchwhoshallnotbenamed *cough*, saying how she completely misinterpreted my original comment. Anyway, if you have more art, I would love to see it. Everyone else, carry on.

Sure thing!

Be sure to visit ravish261.newgrounds.com or ravish261.deviantart.com to check out more of my work and don't forget to follow me! http://ravish261.newgrounds.com/follow

Thanks!

Still a long way to go, but here is what I have so far.

At 5/11/13 09:13 PM, HeThinkzLikeNoOthEr wrote: so far I really like the details in his mouth....that's amazing!!

Thanks! Much appreciated!

A closer look.