At 6/11/10 07:27 PM, Zombie-Eskimo wrote: i really love ur art. would you mind doing my character some time?

The vexon, right? Sure, but don't expect it this week, since I'm a bit busy artistically.

At 6/11/10 07:25 PM, Luxembourg wrote: I'm working on two pieces at the moment: The lineart for Ashy's and my doubles entry, which is taking precedence, and this one. I really want to get better with backgrounds. The doubles one (which I won't post) has a pretty complicated background, but this one's feels too plain and I'm having trouble deciding how to color it. Any opinions on colors/details or anything at all? I won't be able to finish this until after I give the doubles entry to Ashy, however, but I'll ask now anyways.

First off...LOVE the stars. They have depth and texture and a sense of movement and don't just look like little pinpoints of white...like so many stars tend to do.
They almost look like tiny fractals, wavering.
To go along with those, maybe you could paint the sky in multiple layers of complimentary blues, then throw some sort of multicolored wash over that for an auroreaborealis effect?
Same thing with the grass...multiple levels of different, deep greens, to give it depth.
For the mountains, in order to offset the saturation above and below, just a very short grayscale...maybe 4-5 shades at most..and then a complimentary set of browns for the house.
In keeping with that colorset, I would do "Ophelia" in all pastels, or at least contrasting colors to everything around her, in order to make her pop off the page/screen.
No matter what you decide to do with it, I'm interested to see how it turns out, so I am going to keep an eye out.

At 6/11/10 08:20 PM, antiandy wrote: Stuff (too much to keep in quotes)

I wasn't intending on coloring Ophelia; I intentionally made it in monochrome because I like the effect.
The suggestion for colors are nice, thanks for those.
A color scheme I was thinking of was kind of an unrealistic one, though one I think might look decent: Varying shades of a dull turquoise for the mountains and grass, and an olive green roof for the house with a gray structure. I'd make the sky varying shades of purple.
These colors are a little ridiculous, though, and wouldn't look right being that the image is a night-time shot. Your proposed color set would have a better kind of contrast and would look more natural. I think I'll use something a little like yours and I'll use my proposed colors to color the girl's clothing instead.

Thanks.

At 6/11/10 08:34 PM, Luxembourg wrote:

At 6/11/10 08:20 PM, antiandy wrote: Stuff (too much to keep in quotes)

I wasn't intending on coloring Ophelia; I intentionally made it in monochrome because I like the effect.
The suggestion for colors are nice, thanks for those.
A color scheme I was thinking of was kind of an unrealistic one, though one I think might look decent: Varying shades of a dull turquoise for the mountains and grass, and an olive green roof for the house with a gray structure. I'd make the sky varying shades of purple.
These colors are a little ridiculous, though, and wouldn't look right being that the image is a night-time shot. Your proposed color set would have a better kind of contrast and would look more natural. I think I'll use something a little like yours and I'll use my proposed colors to color the girl's clothing instead.

Thanks.

Honestly, after getting a mental picture of your own ideas for coloration...I'd really enjoy seeing them.
I know most artists don't like doubling up, (I know I don't), but maybe you could do differently colored versions and post them, for some impromptu voting? :)

Yeah, so I did what was probably my biggest, most detailed lineart piece for the Double's competition with Ashman.
Go look at it, I guess, if you want.
That said, Ashman did an awesome job coloring it. So did Kernalphage on my first Doubles one. I'm starting to realize how badly I need to get better at coloring/lighting/shading, because I'm now seeing how awesome my work could look if I was better with those things.
I'm trying to take it one step at a time. First, I'm working on making lights. I have absolutely no idea how to make lights in photoshop (I know no shortcuts), so I'm just doing things old-fashioned, with brushes and opacity. Here's me practicing making some glows. I really want to get better with this shit.

Does anybody have any tips?

At 6/25/10 09:51 PM, Luxembourg wrote: Yeah, so I did what was probably my biggest, most detailed lineart piece for the Double's competition with Ashman.
Go look at it, I guess, if you want.
That said, Ashman did an awesome job coloring it. So did Kernalphage on my first Doubles one. I'm starting to realize how badly I need to get better at coloring/lighting/shading, because I'm now seeing how awesome my work could look if I was better with those things.
I'm trying to take it one step at a time. First, I'm working on making lights. I have absolutely no idea how to make lights in photoshop (I know no shortcuts), so I'm just doing things old-fashioned, with brushes and opacity. Here's me practicing making some glows. I really want to get better with this shit.

Does anybody have any tips?

That Doubles piece is sick...love it a lot.
Both your lineart and Ashmans coloring look fantastic.

As for your light blobs...honestly, some of those look pretty damn good.
I think that once applied to a full piece done in your style, that sort fo thing ought to look nice.

As for tips...there's always the PS lighting shortcut:
Filter>Render>Lighting Effects
or
Filter>Render>Lens Flare
Depending on what you're trying to do.

I don't use them often, but I know people who do and get some interesting results.

One shortcut that I do use a lot, particularly on Sigs, that might be helpful to you is:
Layer>Layer Style>Inner(or Outer) Glow
Make sure you're not on your background layer doing this or it won't work.
Also, make sure you've cleaned up the edges of whatever you're making glow, because it will be obvious if you don't.

None of that may help, with what you want to do, but I figured I'd offer anyway.
Can't wait to see you start doing some killer PS stuff.

At 6/25/10 10:47 PM, antiandy wrote: That Doubles piece is sick...love it a lot.
Both your lineart and Ashmans coloring look fantastic.

As for your light blobs...honestly, some of those look pretty damn good.
I think that once applied to a full piece done in your style, that sort fo thing ought to look nice.

As for tips...there's always the PS lighting shortcut:
Filter>Render>Lighting Effects
or
Filter>Render>Lens Flare
Depending on what you're trying to do.

I don't use them often, but I know people who do and get some interesting results.

One shortcut that I do use a lot, particularly on Sigs, that might be helpful to you is:
Layer>Layer Style>Inner(or Outer) Glow
Make sure you're not on your background layer doing this or it won't work.
Also, make sure you've cleaned up the edges of whatever you're making glow, because it will be obvious if you don't.

None of that may help, with what you want to do, but I figured I'd offer anyway.
Can't wait to see you start doing some killer PS stuff.

Yeah, well, don't get impatient. I'm terrible with photoshop. It'll be a long time before I can actually start using it even half as well as most people do; I will probably never get as good with it as you.
Thanks for the tips. I kind of like that I can try and do it without a shortcut, but I'll still try those methods out and see what I can get out of them.

I've realized I haven't really made a good, finished piece in a while. Everything I start just ends up in a folder, unfinished. Man, I really need to get on this stuff.

dont use lens flare it never turns out well and just looks unnatural, just do what you did there, normal brush, spacing all the way down, and set brush opacity onto the pen pressure, use that for shading and highlights, for light sources just get a bright colour then radiate out like youve done, and to be honest, you nailed it there, it looks awesome

Okay, don't focus on the ugly, simply lineart here. I'm trying to apply some lighting here.
Thoughts? Tips?

At 6/26/10 05:57 PM, Luxembourg wrote: Okay, don't focus on the ugly, simply lineart here. I'm trying to apply some lighting here.
Thoughts? Tips?

Lighting looks neat. ~ Kinda TIm Burton-ish?

Fix the line art! Or even just apply this to another piece, I'd love to see it!

At 6/26/10 06:41 PM, TrevorW wrote:

At 6/26/10 05:57 PM, Luxembourg wrote: Okay, don't focus on the ugly, simply lineart here. I'm trying to apply some lighting here.
Thoughts? Tips?

Lighting looks neat. ~ Kinda TIm Burton-ish?

Fix the line art! Or even just apply this to another piece, I'd love to see it!

This isn't really much of a "piece", it's just me practicing application, so I can better use it in future pieces. Lineart is currently my forte (if a somewhat weak forte), I'm just trying to get better with things I'm weaker with at the moment, so I'm not paying much attention to the lineart. If you want to see some of the better lineart, go look on the earlier pages of the thread.
Thanks for the comments! You're nowhere near the first one to compare me to Burton.

Oh, and Ash, I neglected to respond to you! Thanks for the comments and the tips.

lighting looks fine, only tips would be, clean up the lighting, as in make it a more gradual blend, that brush is also a bit wierd for lighting, doesnt reeally look as natural as the first one, also the top of everything underneath it would be covered in light, and the light would bend and twist around that tree branch at the top

At 6/26/10 06:47 PM, Ashman wrote: lighting looks fine, only tips would be, clean up the lighting, as in make it a more gradual blend, that brush is also a bit wierd for lighting, doesnt reeally look as natural as the first one, also the top of everything underneath it would be covered in light, and the light would bend and twist around that tree branch at the top

You're right. Strangely enough, I actually used the same brush as I did for the other ones. I guess I just didn't blend it well enough. It's probably because I worked on this with a different opacity and sizes. The others were actually done on a very large scale then reduced in size.
I wasn't entirely sure if the light would reach the branch above it. I'll mess with it some.
Thanks!

Currently, I'm working on doing a sketch of Zombie's Vexon. I'll probably finish that tonight.

directly above no it wouldnt be there but it would on most of it to the side, and yeah if you use the brush bigger itll bring out the texture more, use it big for putting it down where you want it then scale the brush down to blend it

Two birds, one stone.
Zombie-Eskimo requested I do a Vexon, so I did one. I also brought lighting into the picture.
The other lights are in the distance, which is why they're smaller and why only one light source is in effect. I'll do multiple light sources soon enough.
Any Comments?
Next up, fixing some little things with the lamp picture.

quick tip, unless its an extremely bright light, the highlight will not be completely white, itll just be brighter than the base, but yeah in this short time youve improved a hella lot with coloring and shading

At 6/27/10 11:09 PM, Ashman wrote: quick tip, unless its an extremely bright light, the highlight will not be completely white, itll just be brighter than the base, but yeah in this short time youve improved a hella lot with coloring and shading

I was kind of realizing that it looked like he was covered in powder, so I kind of got that I was doing it wrong. I'll not make that mistake again. Thanks, you can kind of consider yourself a source of inspiration for that.
(Bigger Version)

VERY pretty piece.
I like your interpretation of the character and those will o' the wisp lights look excellent.
I agree that the highlights on the vexon are a bit powdery, but you can tell you're dedicated and inspired...so you'll fix that quick.
I like it.

At 6/28/10 12:06 AM, antiandy wrote: VERY pretty piece.
I like your interpretation of the character and those will o' the wisp lights look excellent.
I agree that the highlights on the vexon are a bit powdery, but you can tell you're dedicated and inspired...so you'll fix that quick.
I like it.

Thanks, Andy. I'll mess with it some tomorrow, and I'll post better versions of this one and the other lighting one then too.

Okay, it came later than I expected it to because I got distracted with other things, but I tinkered around with the lighting a bit.
It's now smoother and I used other shades than white. Not that much different, but a bit better still.

Time to show a WIP with some lineart. I'll be coloring this next.
Trying for multiple light-sources, although I guess not in quite the best way I could. The three light sources: The moon, light shining out of the tent, and the lamp ontop of the tent.
This is a sized down version, the actual drawing is 900x900. The grass is also just a placeholder; I intend to replace it with grass like the grass in Ophelia.

Any suggestions on how I could make the lineart better or how I should color this?

I've seen the vexon character has made many appearances on to art at least from what i've seen made towards him recently. I would not be surprised he make any small cameos in any animations.

CHOW submission this week.
I'm posting it here since this thread hasn't seen any activity and since most people don't really offer critique within the CHOW thread itself, and since it's obviously art made by me.
Comments are nice.

I've also done most of the coloring on that lineart I recently posted. I hope to have that done soon enough.

Another CHOW. I was trying to do a couple of things with this.
A- create something that doesn't feel flat.
B- make some more noticeable shading
C- make a girl with damned short hair still look feminine

I don't know if I really succeeded at any of these things. I haven't gotten a word of feedback on it yet.

Full Size. It's a big drawing. It also has a story that goes with it posted with the art forum submission.

Since the internet rapes the quality, here's a detail on the girl.

I no longer have access to a scanner, but I recently gained access to a decent digital camera. I took some pictures of a recent pencil drawing, and I'd like to know if you can tell it's a photograph rather than a scan, or if it has enough contrast or anything of the sort. If anyone thinks this looks good, I'll post some more recent pencil drawings.

I'm fucking happy! I now have a working scanner again, and it's not a bad scanner at that.
So, I'll be showing some pencil drawings that I've done since my old scanner broke through today and tomorrow. I haven't gotten a comment in this thread in a long time, but what the hell?
Not all of these are immediately recent. My scanner broke several months ago.

This one is a more realistic practice in which I studied a grave. Drawn in my moleskine.

Bit of a quality rape on that last one. Bleh.

Owl in my moleskine. Everyone seems to love this one.

No! All of them are appearing blurry in the forum.

Centipede monster.

He just wants some hugs.

Surreal drawing in pen. I personally like this one, flawed though it is. Last one for tonight. I've got some bigger, better ones I'll scan up tomorrow.