At 10/8/12 01:15 PM, Tomsan wrote: I feel that they look like they are hovering a little bit. Also it looks a bit like I edited a photo, which I didnt. probably because of the pillow. Still pretty content

Looks great! Maybe adding some sort of deformation, wrinkles and such, it'll look less floaty.
How did you do the fur? It looks like a lot of work.

At 10/8/12 01:15 PM, Tomsan wrote:

At 10/8/12 12:28 PM, ZaneZansorrow wrote:

Well I saw this one technique where you can make an easier color palette for yourself by taking a photo, picture, or screencap that you like and use a filter to turn it into a color palette. I've never done it for myself yet, but you can go about the background like so.

Plus if you carefully layer the cats properly then you can control their colors in photoshop to fit with the background.

Any further adjustments is up to you.

thx

I made it like this.

I feel that they look like they are hovering a little bit. Also it looks a bit like I edited a photo, which I didnt. probably because of the pillow. Still pretty content

Well I'm not much sure about how to solve your floating problem other then saying to try to do proper lighting and shadowing, but as for the photo edit problem. There can be several ways to solve that, and all that is an artist's "Personal Touch".

What I mean by this is that, maybe you want to tell a story of your picture. We all know that they are your 2 cats, but what do we know about them, you can answer that with their surroundings. You could add their cat toys, give them collars that make them unique, show that they like to scratch, or anything that makes the setting unique.

My example would be a proper lighting since what you had is still dimly flat and needs a stronger sense of lighting. Secondly I added tears on the pillow and gave the pillow with a tag "I wrote donut on it for lulz".

An artist personal touch is just something that you want to add and it what makes it uniquely yours.

At 10/8/12 02:01 PM, MrFap wrote:
Looks great! Maybe adding some sort of deformation, wrinkles and such, it'll look less floaty.
How did you do the fur? It looks like a lot of work.

Didnt do it in minutes, but it isnt that much work either. I cant find the tutorial I watched for this. Basically I made my own brush (10x10 pixels with 6 small randomly scattered squares), layed down a base color and some shading. then I would use my made brush with dodge tool (about 50%), then burn tool and then smudge (about 40%), then repeat.

and thanks, will work on the pillow a bit

At 10/8/12 02:20 PM, ZaneZansorrow wrote:

Well I'm not much sure about how to solve your floating problem other then saying to try to do proper lighting and shadowing, but as for the photo edit problem. There can be several ways to solve that, and all that is an artist's "Personal Touch".

What I mean by this is that, maybe you want to tell a story of your picture. We all know that they are your 2 cats, but what do we know about them, you can answer that with their surroundings. You could add their cat toys, give them collars that make them unique, show that they like to scratch, or anything that makes the setting unique.

My example would be a proper lighting since what you had is still dimly flat and needs a stronger sense of lighting. Secondly I added tears on the pillow and gave the pillow with a tag "I wrote donut on it for lulz".

An artist personal touch is just something that you want to add and it what makes it uniquely yours.

NIce I like it a lot thanks for this. Ill definitely add some similar light source, and work on a few more extra's in the background, maybe a blanky or a feather (since they love feathers).

I really like how the light seems to come from an half open door. If you dont mind I am gonna recreate that concept.

btw I actually drew them with collars (which they wear IRL), but since I hate it that I let them wear them I removed them. Thats about the only real artist impression I can claim.

thanks again

now, I liked how this turned out, thanks for the set up. I kinda had to follow the same light source since the light already came from that direction. I forgive myself.

I had to do this with the dodge and burn tool, since then you can use highlights instead of just greying or whitening the colors for lighting. I am always pretty wary to use those tools since I have to use them on my colored layer, and if I wanna change things after this, its nearly impossible. I assume there is no work around? What I mean is that normally I just put shades on a different layer using white and black with low opacity, but thats not possible with burn and dodge (I cant erase).

The feather is an altered picture I grabbed from google. I liked how the scratch marks turned out.

I also HAD to include the label, I used it to mark my work. A friend of mine always incorporate's his name/tag into the picture in a similar way so really good place imo for this.

I am calling this done

At 10/8/12 07:13 PM, Tomsan wrote: now, I liked how this turned out, thanks for the set up. I kinda had to follow the same light source since the light already came from that direction. I forgive myself.

You know what? The original was looking a bit lackluster but with the addition a strong light source this looks a lot warmer and I think the overall "warm fuzzy" tone that was probably intended for this really comes through.

I had to do this with the dodge and burn tool, since then you can use highlights instead of just greying or whitening the colors for lighting. I am always pretty wary to use those tools since I have to use them on my colored layer, and if I wanna change things after this, its nearly impossible. I assume there is no work around? What I mean is that normally I just put shades on a different layer using white and black with low opacity, but thats not possible with burn and dodge (I cant erase).

In GIMP (and presumably Photoshop as well) you can create a layer and change its mode to either dodge or burn. By doing this I think you could have a layer over the colored layer and use black and white (or other colors) to get a dodge and burn effect, but still be able to erase what you did without damaging the originally colored layer.

Alternatively, you can make a copy of your colored layer and use the dodge and burn tool on the copy. That way, in case you do need to revert to the original colored layer, you've still got it there.

At 10/8/12 07:23 PM, johnnycancer wrote:
You know what? The original was looking a bit lackluster but with the addition a strong light source this looks a lot warmer and I think the overall "warm fuzzy" tone that was probably intended for this really comes through.

thx

In GIMP (and presumably Photoshop as well) you can create a layer and change its mode to either dodge or burn. By doing this I think you could have a layer over the colored layer and use black and white (or other colors) to get a dodge and burn effect, but still be able to erase what you did without damaging the originally colored layer.

well I just looked and there are indeed dodge layer mode's. I tried this but I couldnt figure out to make it work. But its probably something the internet holds the answer to, and I never really thought about the option being available in layer mode so thanks alot.

Alternatively, you can make a copy of your colored layer and use the dodge and burn tool on the copy. That way, in case you do need to revert to the original colored layer, you've still got it there.

ha I copy my layers so much, 'cause I am so scared to fuck things up, to the point CS will lagg because of the many layers. So I am using that method now, but its far from ideal.

my first whip on my art jam entry. its gonna be a cyclops losing his one and only eye.

any ideas for extra's on the background (didnt really think about it yet) are welcome. Hopefully ill make it since I got 1 hour left today and tomorrow very little time.

well out of time for today. I would appreciate some helpfull comments for tomorrow.

zombie contest entry. its finished but I am gonna tweak a bit.

especially her huge hands are an eye sore, but I dont really know how to change this easily. I am not gonna redo the hands. Maybe I can fatten up the upper arm.

I actually got that left hand (our left) line-layered, so I guess I can transform everything in it, but I am not sure how. I tried but no luck.

also not to happy with her nails... ideas?

At 10/16/12 05:41 PM, Tomsan wrote: zombie contest entry. its finished but I am gonna tweak a bit.

especially her huge hands are an eye sore, but I dont really know how to change this easily. I am not gonna redo the hands. Maybe I can fatten up the upper arm.

I actually got that left hand (our left) line-layered, so I guess I can transform everything in it, but I am not sure how. I tried but no luck.

also not to happy with her nails... ideas?

The right hand does look a little big. I think the left hand looks okay in terms of proper proportions, but that could just be foreshortening at work. I could be wrong on the exact measurements of this, but I think a human hand is about 2/3 the length of the face, or thereabouts anyway, so, if the fingers are going past where the hairline is the hand is probably a little overlarge.

I do really like how you rendered her complexion with the veins and overall sallow color of the skin.

As for the nails, I don't know, they look fine to me. Could it be that since they have a red color to them it's drawing attention to them in a way that makes them look unnatural? Looking at my own hands, the skin under the nail is pinker looking than the skin on my hands, but it matches the overall color scheme. Maybe the nails look wrong because red is the wrong color? Maybe they should be closer to a yellow?

Actually yellow would probably make some sense as yellow nails are associated with disease and decay.

At 10/16/12 05:41 PM, Tomsan wrote: zombie contest entry. its finished but I am gonna tweak a bit.

especially her huge hands are an eye sore, but I dont really know how to change this easily. I am not gonna redo the hands. Maybe I can fatten up the upper arm.

I actually got that left hand (our left) line-layered, so I guess I can transform everything in it, but I am not sure how. I tried but no luck.

also not to happy with her nails... ideas?

It looks pretty awesome. The left hand is kinda of tricky because of the whole perspective thing but maybe adding a shadow to the arm (as illustrated) might clear up the perspective a little.
As for the nails, they now seem to span the whole width of the finger. Leaving some skin next to it (as illustrated with the thumb and index finger) might make it look more realistic.
The shadow on the nose left side looks a little weak, darkening it and adding a highlight might make it pop more.
It's nice to also see some of your non-design work, keep it up :)

At 10/17/12 04:56 PM, johnnycancer wrote:
Could it be that since they have a red color to them it's drawing attention to them in a way that makes them look unnatural? Looking at my own hands, the skin under the nail is pinker looking than the skin on my hands, but it matches the overall color scheme. Maybe the nails look wrong because red is the wrong color? Maybe they should be closer to a yellow?

Actually yellow would probably make some sense as yellow nails are associated with disease and decay.

Yep that was pretty much it, needed a second opinion on that. I removed the red and used a dark 'dirty' yellow and lightened the nails up a bit. I used a schratch technique to fill it up highlighting and shading it a bit (you wont see it here, but it is noticble on a large size). I let the lining of the nails red since that is what turns red fast with an infection.

What worked is that the nails are less noticable and draw less attention which was necessary indeed.

At 10/17/12 05:59 PM, MrFap wrote:
It looks pretty awesome. The left hand is kinda of tricky because of the whole perspective thing but maybe adding a shadow to the arm (as illustrated) might clear up the perspective a little.

done (subtle shading)

As for the nails, they now seem to span the whole width of the finger. Leaving some skin next to it (as illustrated with the thumb and index finger) might make it look more realistic.

done and really cleaned things up!!!

The shadow on the nose left side looks a little weak, darkening it and adding a highlight might make it pop more.

I added shades, looks much better. I didnt add highlights, didnt really work, I tried.

also thickened the upper arm, and did something to the eyes (really like how that turned out). and brushed up some other minor things.

So you instruct I follow. Thanks a bunch, both!! much appreciated.

new piece in development. I lost the reference pic, since I started out on an other computer, but I have to admit that I did heavily relied on that pic for the body part. the outline is pretty much traced...

was good practice.

its my entry for the album cover contest thats in the forum now.

the clouds are done using smudge tool.

tshirt design line work. not sure yet If I am gonna go bright colors or a few greyish colors, to fill it up.

linework is not yet finished, but almost

whadda u think

At 11/6/12 12:11 PM, Tomsan wrote: whadda u think

I love this so far!

I would think that bright colors would probably go well with the subject matter. A lot of these little creatures look like they could be Kid Robot toys, and bright colors tend to work well with that.

What color will the actual t-shirt be?

At 11/6/12 12:53 PM, johnnycancer wrote:

At 11/6/12 12:11 PM, Tomsan wrote: whadda u think

I love this so far!

I would think that bright colors would probably go well with the subject matter. A lot of these little creatures look like they could be Kid Robot toys, and bright colors tend to work well with that.

What color will the actual t-shirt be?

yeah I am gonna go with bright colors, tshirt color is adjustable

Does anyone know a good way to color this in photoshop? I've been struggling with coloring for a while actually, I always use methods that seem overly complicated. the problem I have is with the paintbucket tool leaving pixel lines unfilled.

Normally Ill use a variety of tricks to fill those empty pixels but I guess there should be an easier way for this. I am guessing something can be done with the layer mode, but I dont know which one. If someone has any good methods to color this line art easily plz advice.

I did google this, I did not find anything useful, but I guess I could do a more extensive search. but never hurts to ask.

At 11/6/12 06:06 PM, Tomsan wrote: Normally Ill use a variety of tricks to fill those empty pixels but I guess there should be an easier way for this. I am guessing something can be done with the layer mode, but I dont know which one. If someone has any good methods to color this line art easily plz advice.

I might be misunderstanding the question but I'll try to explain how I would do this. Now, I use GIMP almost exclusively, but this should be applicable to Photoshop as well.

As always, make a copy of your base layer first, just so you're not doing anything to the original.

Next, make a New Layer with a white background. Then, set the layer mode to Multiply.

Once you set the mode to Multiply, colors that you put on this new layer will show up on the original drawing as well. After that, just use the brush tool to fill in your line art with the colors that you want.

You might want to make multiple layers for different colors.

When it comes to shading, I usually use the brush tool and the smudge tool and draw over parts of the colored drawing with gray or shades of blue.

That's how I would color something like this. I'm not sure if that's what you were asking for or not, but hopefully that is helpful in some way.

At 11/6/12 06:22 PM, johnnycancer wrote:

At 11/6/12 06:06 PM, Tomsan wrote: Normally Ill use a variety of tricks to fill those empty pixels but I guess there should be an easier way for this. I am guessing something can be done with the layer mode, but I dont know which one. If someone has any good methods to color this line art easily plz advice.

I might be misunderstanding the question but I'll try to explain how I would do this. Now, I use GIMP almost exclusively, but this should be applicable to Photoshop as well.

As always, make a copy of your base layer first, just so you're not doing anything to the original.

Next, make a New Layer with a white background. Then, set the layer mode to Multiply.

Once you set the mode to Multiply, colors that you put on this new layer will show up on the original drawing as well. After that, just use the brush tool to fill in your line art with the colors that you want.

You might want to make multiple layers for different colors.

When it comes to shading, I usually use the brush tool and the smudge tool and draw over parts of the colored drawing with gray or shades of blue.

That's how I would color something like this. I'm not sure if that's what you were asking for or not, but hopefully that is helpful in some way.

Oke i will try that tomorrow, but from my head I dont see how a multiply layer will do anything. I usually color on a separate layer (normal mode) then select an area I want to color from my line layer, fill that area on my color layer and then fill the empty pixels with my brush later on. Another way is that I color on my color-layer with a large brush out of bounds of the line-layer and then select the line layer (outside) and delete the selection from the color layer.

What exactly does the multiply modus do in this case?

I got all individual monsters (the lines) on a separate layer. I just want to fill them with a color. Atm I am doing it as follows: select a monster-line-layer outside the lines (so that the whole screen is selected), inverse selection, modify --> contract, fill selection on color layer.

This doesnt fix all my pixel problems, there will still be pixels colored outside the lines (especially sharp corners, which I dont want). The only way I know that really gets a clean result is by carefully erasing (or filling whichever coloring method you chose to do) the colors along the lines. So you either color the empty pixels along the black lines on your separate color layer zoomed in heavily, or you erase the color pixels that are out of bounds, also zoomed in.

This just sounds way to complicated. But as far as I know a multiply layer works the same right?

At 11/6/12 07:02 PM, Tomsan wrote: This just sounds way to complicated. But as far as I know a multiply layer works the same right?

I'm not sure exactly how to express it in technical terms.

If you're working directly on a normal layer, if you have a black line that you drew, any color that you add (using the brush tool, for example) will cover up that original black line.

If you are adding color to a layer above the black line and its mode is set to multiply, then the color doesn't cover up the black in the layer beneath it. The effect is basically the same as if you were coloring in a coloring book.

An alternative would be to select the black lines and erase all of the white on the layer so that you have a transparent layer. Then, create a new white layer beneath your transparent line art layer, and add color to that new layer.

I think THIS tutorial does a good job of walking you through the process using layers set to multiply mode if you want to take a look at it.

At 11/6/12 08:28 PM, johnnycancer wrote:

I think THIS tutorial does a good job of walking you through the process using layers set to multiply mode if you want to take a look at it.

Thanks, after I did some more researching I figured that what I have in my head is just not possible. I will have to manually fill line work (the borders that is). The tutorial also used multiply but I still have no idea as to why. As long as my line layer is on top of my color layer it will go behind it. I may have to use a different program for coloring.

anyways.. end result.

Hi,

Could somebody please help me with the location of the top eye? I cant figure out a good position.

Also; if someone has any suggestions on highlights making the squid a bit more dynamic that would be much appreciated.

thank you.

At 1/28/13 01:50 PM, Tomsan wrote: Hi,

Could somebody please help me with the location of the top eye? I cant figure out a good position.

Also; if someone has any suggestions on highlights making the squid a bit more dynamic that would be much appreciated.

thank you.

umm i think the actual location of the eye is fine (maybe a little more to the right?) but i think whats not working is that it's too bulbous. you know, bloated, in comparison to the bottom eye. As for dynamism i guess you should try and get the longer tentacles to follow the direction of the movement (pointed down and to the left) but that might end up looking bad. I dont know. great concept btw

At 1/28/13 11:26 PM, RogueSoul wrote:
umm i think the actual location of the eye is fine (maybe a little more to the right?) but i think whats not working is that it's too bulbous. you know, bloated, in comparison to the bottom eye.

and I think you were right. I changed it, but actually I didnt ask my question correctly. I was having problems defining the location of the pupil, not so much the whole eye.

idk, changing the upper eye lines made it somewhat better, but still I am not sure if I should replace/resize the pupil of the top eye.

since most of you are now coming home from work, school or whatever ill bump this a last time to ask advice in regard of the pupil of the top eye

At 1/29/13 06:17 PM, Tomsan wrote: since most of you are now coming home from work, school or whatever ill bump this a last time to ask advice in regard of the pupil of the top eye

eye looks fine, dude. Really.

'ello again.

So i'm working on a scenery picture with which I have very little experience. its for the 'win a tablet' competition. I thought I might learn some background skills.

I included my progress, but I dont think its worth commenting on yet (just starting to get in some details). What I am here to ask if anyone knows some good tutorials on sceneries like this. I have found some, but they are a bit lacking in technical information.

actually I am hoping people may have tips on creating stuff like this, and tell me about pitfalls which I should look out for etc etc.

its gonna be a shadow of the colossus reference

can someone please give some pointers on how to make this better? I am reasonably satisfied with the left part, including the giant, but the right side needs work. This is my first try working this 'technique' and I am a little like a fish on dry land. I would appreciate feedback

http://www.newgrounds.com/dump/item/9ef73e9d01d41f1360a57538 d141dd98

At 2/28/13 10:28 AM, Tomsan wrote: can someone please give some pointers on how to make this better?

Your details are lost in darkness and the greens are nearly black. Brighten it up my friend.
Try to make the giant more blue to have him belong in the background.
Good luck.

At 2/28/13 02:10 PM, Cairos wrote:

At 2/28/13 10:28 AM, Tomsan wrote: can someone please give some pointers on how to make this better?

Your details are lost in darkness and the greens are nearly black. Brighten it up my friend.
Try to make the giant more blue to have him belong in the background.
Good luck.

thanks mayun! The darkness is also a bit of issue on NG. In PS its much much brighter, though darker then your version. a lot of details are lost somehow when uploading. Though I noticed it also depends on what kind of screen I watch it (desktop shows more detail on NG then on laptop). I think Ill lighten things up once the drawing is done, but I do intend to keep the big difference between light and dark. (again, how it shows now on my desktop in paintshop is the right coloring)

I really like what you did with the branch, ill copy that. I also agree that I need to make the giant more blueish. Also the arm positioning is nicer in your version. thanks

This one is nearly finished. Its a Tshirt design for the occasion of Queensday. Our queen resigned and the new king will be inaugurated on queensday. All hail the king!

anyway I am hoping someone is willing to give some pointers if needed. The rock is unfinished. I used fat black lines which is better if its a tshirt design, but since The faces are pretty detailed I am not sure if it fits. all ideas are welcome..

http://www.newgrounds.com/dump/item/471bf1c765a68cb6fc422122 5a05d107