The Gnomon workshop dvds are great. I haven't really used them for Photoshop or Painter but I'm sure you won't be disappointed. Personally, I think Photoshop is easier to work with than Painter. I feel like it gives you more freedom to edit what you've done. Photoshop is meant to assist many different type of artists. Not all of the tools are meant for 1 person to use. I think it's more about the hotkeys. When I paint I have one hand on the tablet and one hand on the keyboard. These are the keys that I use the most: b for brush [ ] for decreasing/increasing the size of my brush Numbers 1 through 10 for changing opacity of the brush. I hit 5 twice for 55% percent. It's close enough to 50%. Z for zoom E for erase To give some oomph to your colors: alt L for levels alt U for hue/saturation
I also paint with an active duplicate open so that I don't loose focus of the whole piece. I keep one zoomed out while I'm zoomed in on the other. That's under Window/arrange/New window for (title of artwork). Hope that helped.
Personally, I think Photoshop is easier to work with than Painter. I feel like it gives you more freedom to edit what you've done. Photoshop is meant to assist many different type of artists. Not all of the tools are meant for 1 person to use.
Agreed. I've used Painter off and on since version 5.5, and ever since Photoshop's brush engine got overhauled in version 7, I've always eventually come back to Photoshop. Painter, to me, is basically a fun toy. It has a lot of neat brushes that are a lot of fun to play with, but when it comes down to actually turning out art, I'm always so much more productive in Photoshop. I think it's mostly to do with Painter's garbage interface and all its weird quirks about what brushes you can use where, etc. I know there are some effects you can get in Painter that are next to impossible in Photoshop, but unless you need impasto strokes or something (you don't) Photoshop should do you just fine. Especially since in CS4, they've fixed the one issue that it still had -- you can now free-rotate the canvas.
Oh man, why didn't I think to post that one? That's a great resource for a lot of fundamental painting concepts. Though I think it does help to illustrate the fact that it's all just about painting. Nothing in that tutorial is specifically "digital".
My usual recommendation (and this is as far from digital as you can get, but of course it's applicable) is Andrew Loomis. "Creative Illustration" has a lot of good color theory.
EDIT:
It's very, very intimidating, particularly because most of the artists there are ten years my junior and have a thousand times the skill.
I was thinking about this post, and I wanted to reply to this specifically. I know how you feel. I quit drawing for about 7 years when I was around 20. I only started drawing again about 3 years ago -- so I'll be 30 next month, and I feel like I have the skills that I should have had at 23. Sometimes, that's really frustrating, and I let it get to me. I need to take a step back and accept that I made a mistake, but there's nothing to do about it now except work hard to "catch up". It IS frustrating sometimes seeing punk kids who blow me away, but really, it's not a contest, and it's not a race. This is one nice thing about it -- I know that when I was 20, I didn't have the patience or the humility to do the kind of study and hard work that I'm doing now, and as a result, I'm sure that I'm improving faster now than I would have then.
It's very, very intimidating, particularly because most of the artists there are ten years my junior and have a thousand times the skill.
It intimidates me too. I avoided going there for a long time. I had a friend who stuck with it. While I avoided the forum for a long time, he improved a lot. I have a sketchbook there now. It's really hard to be noticed so don't expect to get a lot of attention. Maybe it would be inspiring to see a sketchbook of someone who goes from mediocre to solid. If I pass by one I'll link it but I haven't been there for a while.
You keep saying this and saying this all the time about ConceptArt.org! Didn't art school teach you not to beat yourself up like that?
Nope.
...You just seem to get bummed.
Yup.
Just apply the techniques of light and shadow that you know from real media. Digital or otherwise, These speed painters just have a lot of practice PAINTING. At it's base level, it's all about having a grasp of color technique, not about using Photoshop. Just practice the base techniques, the rest will follow.
I'm not finding it that simple, sadly. I already know how to paint, obviously, and I think I'm pretty good at figure drawing as well. I think the areas I need the most improvement in are costume/clothing design, environments, and rendering in a non-cel-shaded manner in Photoshop. I watched some of the previews of the demos by guys at Massive Black, and I see their cursors flying all over the picture and can't figure out for the life of me how to replicate what they're doing (yet).
For example, in real life if I want to create a texture on a painting, I change colors, brushes, or rub the surface with a paper towel or something. I don't have the intuition (yet) to build brushes that do what I want them to do in Photoshop, and I keep getting hung up on this, and on the first steps of any piece.
For example, in real life if I want to create a texture on a painting, I change colors, brushes, or rub the surface with a paper towel or something. I don't have the intuition (yet) to build brushes that do what I want them to do in Photoshop, and I keep getting hung up on this, and on the first steps of any piece.
That's the thing about digital -- getting some of that analog randomness and roughness is the hard part. Do you know what it is that you want your brushes to do? If you just want something more textural, to look more like real paint, I have some stuff that might help. Here are the basic settings I use for my brushes: And here are a couple of pages of brush strokes I scanned that you can use to make all kinds of different brushes with some nice texture. page 1, page 2. They're as-scanned, so you'll probably want to crank the contrast a little before making brushes if you decide to play with them. I hope that helps a little. If you have anything more specific that you're interested in, I might be able to help.
Since we had a thing about drawing hands in the concept sketch thread the other day -- I stumbled across this excellent hand tutorial today. Actually, that whole blog is full of great tutorials, including a very in-depth series on caricatures.
Comments
Personally, I think Photoshop is easier to work with than Painter. I feel like it gives you more freedom to edit what you've done. Photoshop is meant to assist many different type of artists. Not all of the tools are meant for 1 person to use. I think it's more about the hotkeys. When I paint I have one hand on the tablet and one hand on the keyboard.
These are the keys that I use the most:
b for brush
[ ] for decreasing/increasing the size of my brush
Numbers 1 through 10 for changing opacity of the brush. I hit 5 twice for 55% percent. It's close enough to 50%.
Z for zoom
E for erase
To give some oomph to your colors:
alt L for levels
alt U for hue/saturation
I also paint with an active duplicate open so that I don't loose focus of the whole piece. I keep one zoomed out while I'm zoomed in on the other. That's under Window/arrange/New window for (title of artwork). Hope that helped.
On a side note, here's a really good general tutorial link: http://itchstudios.com/psg/art_tut.htm
My usual recommendation (and this is as far from digital as you can get, but of course it's applicable) is Andrew Loomis. "Creative Illustration" has a lot of good color theory.
EDIT: I was thinking about this post, and I wanted to reply to this specifically. I know how you feel. I quit drawing for about 7 years when I was around 20. I only started drawing again about 3 years ago -- so I'll be 30 next month, and I feel like I have the skills that I should have had at 23. Sometimes, that's really frustrating, and I let it get to me. I need to take a step back and accept that I made a mistake, but there's nothing to do about it now except work hard to "catch up". It IS frustrating sometimes seeing punk kids who blow me away, but really, it's not a contest, and it's not a race. This is one nice thing about it -- I know that when I was 20, I didn't have the patience or the humility to do the kind of study and hard work that I'm doing now, and as a result, I'm sure that I'm improving faster now than I would have then.
For example, in real life if I want to create a texture on a painting, I change colors, brushes, or rub the surface with a paper towel or something. I don't have the intuition (yet) to build brushes that do what I want them to do in Photoshop, and I keep getting hung up on this, and on the first steps of any piece.
And here are a couple of pages of brush strokes I scanned that you can use to make all kinds of different brushes with some nice texture.
page 1, page 2.
They're as-scanned, so you'll probably want to crank the contrast a little before making brushes if you decide to play with them. I hope that helps a little. If you have anything more specific that you're interested in, I might be able to help.
http://www.karenpetrasko.com/blog/tips/
Color theory and brushes with examples of her own work.
Thanks : )
It's your birthday!
Tom Rhodes