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lofi
Apr 2, 2018




Yes! I love them. I've got a load of small pans magnetised to the bottom of my pencil case, so I can carry them everywhere.

I'd recommend getting some drawing gum if you do a lot of work like the one you posted, it'd make your life a ton easier.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Px8gpl4zLGw

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veni veni veni
Jun 5, 2005


Posted this in the resource thread, but I'm just gonna stick it here too since the OP linked this thread in the post before mine and I'll take as many opinions as I can get.

Some years back, a goon posted his WIP graphic novel here (possibly it was in GBS) and It looked incredible. I asked him about how was able to get such nice looking backgrounds/environments and he revealed that he was using a CAD program, and then I believe he redrew them in PS.

I'd like to do something similar. I have a project I'd like to start working on and I'd really like to build a foundation for what will amount to a ton of illustrations. I have zero experience with CAD. I'd like something that will let me build/pose crude models of my characters, and craft simple environments to create reference material for something that will later become ink/multimedia illustration. The only other requirement is that I'd like to have some sort of lighting system I can control. I guess tldr I want to be able to create story boards and remove the guess work from perspective and lighting because I'm lazy and let my self get too tripped up with perspective sometimes. It feels a little cheaty but whatever lol.

Do you guys have any recommendations for what program might be the best place to start? I know there are a lot of free ones, would they be sufficient and in that case which one would be the best? I'm also willing to pay a bit if it's worth the price although my funds are limited. Something that can run on a 5 year old macbook is also a huge plus.

Also any beginner tips would be greatly appreciated. I'm kind of a luddite and I have very little experience with using computers for art in any capacity.

lofi
Apr 2, 2018




I use blender[/blender] (freeware) and [url="http://terawell.net/terawell/"]design doll (limited free version). Mostly blender, it lets me make mockups like this:

High quality, huh? The main reason I use blender is that are a billion good tutes on youtube, and it's free. It's really good for lighting stuff in specific ways, and way more powerful than I need. The biggest downside is complexity (like photoshop but with another dimension!) and also it's really easy to get sucked into refining the model and accidentally spending a night making a far more detailed model than you intended.


Design doll I've only just got hold of, not used much, but it seems good for weird angled people:


Other things people use are Google Sketchup (free), and you can do a surprising amount by just folding some paper and making blu-tac blobs for characters, using a camera.

e: Just saw the luddite comment. I'd probably start with sketchup, mainly cos it's what was introduced on my art foundation where they assumed zero computer skill, so I assume it's fairly intuitive (I pulled a sicky that day, so can't speak from experience).

veni veni veni
Jun 5, 2005


Thanks! Yeah I went for blender and I’ve found some good tutorials for it already and I’ve been able to go from “what am I looking at here?” to feeling like I have some sort of idea of what’s going on, at least in regards to the interface. I still don’t really know how to do anything it haha.

I’ll probably grab sketch up too and try that out. This might be a dumb question but can you import/export models between the two?

veni veni veni
Jun 5, 2005


Blender Guru Youtube channel is great. This guy owns. I'm making donuts lol.

Sharpest Crayon
Jul 16, 2009

Always Wag. Always Friend. Very Safety.
Clapping Larry

veni veni veni posted:

Blender Guru Youtube channel is great. This guy owns. I'm making donuts lol.

I read this post first of all and was thinking what a great youtube channel this must be, all the things you can cook with a blender! Obviously a great recipe for donuts!

lofi
Apr 2, 2018




veni veni veni posted:

Thanks! Yeah I went for blender and I’ve found some good tutorials for it already and I’ve been able to go from “what am I looking at here?” to feeling like I have some sort of idea of what’s going on, at least in regards to the interface. I still don’t really know how to do anything it haha.

I’ll probably grab sketch up too and try that out. This might be a dumb question but can you import/export models between the two?

Maybe probably? They're similar enough in function that I don't think you'd really need to, though I believe blender is much more flexible.

Discussion here says yes, you can. I might have to check out sketchup more seriously myself, actually.

pixelbaron
Mar 18, 2009

~ Notice me, Shempai! ~
You can export SketchUp files to COLLADA (.dae) and import that into Blender, or vice versa if you are trying to get some geometry into SketchUp.

Exporting to COLLADA won't export the following, though:

Coordinate lines
Dimensions
Guide lines and guide points
Matched photos
Material pushpin locations
Rendering options
Scenes
Section planes
Section cuts
Shadows
Text

https://help.sketchup.com/en/sketchup/importing-and-exporting-collada-files

Anyway, trying to get various complex 3D programs to play nice with each other can be a huge pain in the rear end.

Internet Kraken
Apr 24, 2010

slightly amused
I'm trying to understand colour theory and running into a pretty big issue.

so I understand the concept of warm and light colours. I get that you usually want your lighting and shadows to be close to opposite on the colour wheel. What I don't get is, when you go to actually apply this to a drawing, what shade of these colours you should use. Cause if I just use coloured lighting near its max hue value it looks weird as hell in most cases. How close to white are supposed to make it? How close is the shadow supposed to be to black? Am I missing something obvious here? It just feels weird.

FunkyAl
Mar 28, 2010

Your vitals soar.

Internet Kraken posted:

I'm trying to understand colour theory and running into a pretty big issue.

so I understand the concept of warm and light colours. I get that you usually want your lighting and shadows to be close to opposite on the colour wheel. What I don't get is, when you go to actually apply this to a drawing, what shade of these colours you should use. Cause if I just use coloured lighting near its max hue value it looks weird as hell in most cases. How close to white are supposed to make it? How close is the shadow supposed to be to black? Am I missing something obvious here? It just feels weird.

Observation will help you here more than anything. Look at how the light changes, spilling on an object over the course of a day, paint a white wall and try to get the colors its reflecting while still maintinging its "whiteness," See how different colored lighting affects the local color of things like skin (ideally irl but movies are good practice for this) and other stuff.

Other than that, I think the question of "what color to use" is better answered by "what tone do I want?" No colors ever just white, even white aint just white, and barely anything is the most saturated form of the color. You have thw whole spectrum to choose from and theres no color it "should" be but the one suggesting the feeling you want it to.

lofi
Apr 2, 2018




I'd simplify it a bit from 'just observe stuff' at first - start with something simple and isolated, and re-paint it with different lighting setups. There's a reason for all those bowls of fruit people used to paint!

JuniperCake
Jan 26, 2013

Internet Kraken posted:

I'm trying to understand colour theory and running into a pretty big issue.

so I understand the concept of warm and light colours. I get that you usually want your lighting and shadows to be close to opposite on the colour wheel. What I don't get is, when you go to actually apply this to a drawing, what shade of these colours you should use. Cause if I just use coloured lighting near its max hue value it looks weird as hell in most cases. How close to white are supposed to make it? How close is the shadow supposed to be to black? Am I missing something obvious here? It just feels weird.

Don't think of it as light and shadow as being opposite in color. Think of it more in terms of any light source is usually going to have some color associated with it, even if its subtle (completely neutral lighting is rare). The areas that are most strongly lit by that particular light, will have the most of that light's color on it. Then you get progressively less of that color as you get closer to the shadow. So if you have a very warm light, your shadow will be cooler, yes, but also the highlights will be especially "hot" when compared to the surrounding light areas as well. The shadow then is going to be more of the local color (the actual color of the object) because it's not being influenced by that light directly. But it looks cooler because that area is next to a warm lit area and its that contrast which makes it cooler. Every color works in relation to the other colors in the piece, so it helps to keep that in mind as you are figuring out how warm or cool a surface should be.

Reflected light in the shadow area works the same way, if you put a grey ball on a piece of warm red paper, the reflected light will be warmer compared to the rest of the shadow, if you put a grey ball on a piece of cool blue paper then the reflected light will be cooler.

A fun exercise is to take some digital paintings that you think have good color then examine them very closely with the color picker. Try to figure out their value range, and if the colors match up to how you expect. Try to find the warmest area of the painting, the coolest, lightest, darkest. Is there any area in the shadow that's lighter than the darkest part of the light? etc. Just spend a lot of time looking closely at a painting. The picker is great cause it lets you isolate colors, while then taking note of how that color looks when surrounded by all the other colors in the painting. It'll give you an idea of how far you'll have to go to get a certain kind of contrast or effect and might give your own ideas of experiments you can try. If you do a copy of the painting though, don't use the picker to choose your colors for you. Study it first, then when you go to paint choose your colors by eye based on what you've learned about the painting.

gmc9987
Jul 25, 2007

Internet Kraken posted:

I'm trying to understand colour theory and running into a pretty big issue.

so I understand the concept of warm and light colours. I get that you usually want your lighting and shadows to be close to opposite on the colour wheel. What I don't get is, when you go to actually apply this to a drawing, what shade of these colours you should use. Cause if I just use coloured lighting near its max hue value it looks weird as hell in most cases. How close to white are supposed to make it? How close is the shadow supposed to be to black? Am I missing something obvious here? It just feels weird.

I have some words but it might help you get better feedback if you post an example of what you're doing that looks weird, any chance for a quick screenshot or example? Your last few questions are all very subjective and depend entirely on what you're trying to convey.

Mirage
Oct 27, 2000

All is for the best, in this, the best of all possible worlds
The color of a shadow depends on the environment and/or other lit objects projecting some of their reflected light back onto the darkness.

For instance, in a sunny outdoor scene, the primary light source is the sun, which is whatever color you consider the sun being (usually white/almost-white-yellow, but maybe closer to egg-yellow or orange-red in the morning and evening). But there's another light source: the sky, which is usually an even blue color projected from the entire 180-degree sky dome. This makes shadows look bluish instead of pitch black. This also gives objects a second, smaller, murky grey-black shadow directly underneath them no matter which direction the sunlight comes from. However, the sun is still many times brighter than the sky, so this fuzzy shadow is often washed out completely. (You can see that shadow much more clearly on cloudy days.)

But then! There are probably other objects in the scene, each of which is its own source of reflected sunlight. This reflection is a mix of the color of sunlight plus the color of the object. The closer an object is, plus the more direct the light is on that object relative to your subject, plus how light-colored or reflective the object is, determines how intensely it will color the dark side of your subject and its shadows.

Then you have to consider how several of these objects may light up the subject and each other and aaaaargh

OR ... you cheat. You consider maybe two or three of the most obvious light and color sources, and figure everything else just sort of blends into grey mush.

Indoor scenes are somewhat similar, except you replace the sun color with your primary light source (which may still be the sun), change the skydome color to the color(s) of the walls and ceiling, eyeball/imagine how much reflection is coming off the floor/carpet, and darken things down a tad.

But yeah. As many people have said already, observe observe observe. If you're ever in a place or see a picture or watching a movie and think "Wow, I like this feel," stop and analyze the light sources, the colors, and especially the shadows. After a while it becomes instinctual.

FunkyAl
Mar 28, 2010

Your vitals soar.
You guys ever think about multimedia? There's always the idea in your head but who knows how it comes out and how the lens changes it. A camera's lens replicates something close to an approximation of the human eye, but it is difficult to pin down your eye's own approximation in the form of a drawing or a painting. the process of the media of each changes the end result, if a painting can never be "photoreal" like a photograph can but its merit is jusdged at least in part by its relation to that, either in trying to approximate photorealism or trying to stray from it. Even a photo is only photo real, and not the really real. what's real that a photo cannot replicate but a drawing can? what can motion do? If there's so many ways to approach and idea or explore a concept, why not use now all the available options? I've been thinking I want to create related works in different media or genres of media but i also don't want to make it dense and unreadable. Like approaching an orb from many angles, like how the orb the earth has many stories at many points, I want to just make a world to inhabit concepts in. But if it's like a world, if we are reading that "world's" media, it makes sense that the media is diverse. Is media all we know about places we've never been, is it all we know about the past? Why live in "living" media when the best it can depict is the recently dead? This post is in the past baby, you're reading the past! Can cheating death cheat life? The imaginary things one depicts from their head are not real, clearly, but are the expressions you make of them? The lines are all there, do they mean anything? Why and how do they mean something?

lofi
Apr 2, 2018




Timecubism?

FunkyAl
Mar 28, 2010

Your vitals soar.

lofi posted:

Timecubism?

Yes.

Al!
Apr 2, 2010

:coolspot::coolspot::coolspot::coolspot::coolspot:
i think about multimedia cdroms like, all the time. is that what you mean?????





one of the projects i've been kicking around in my head for a very long time but have only made a few abortive attempts on is to create a series of fictional interpretive centers, like you see in national parks in something like unity or unreal engine. it's probably my strongest "game design" idea but unfortunately i get frustrated trying to do 3d modeling to the point where it's physically uncomfortable to continue working on it.

lofi
Apr 2, 2018




What do you mean by interpretive centre? An info-kiosk sorta thing?

Al!
Apr 2, 2010

:coolspot::coolspot::coolspot::coolspot::coolspot:

lofi posted:

What do you mean by interpretive centre? An info-kiosk sorta thing?

they're most prevalent west of the rockies but they're usually fairly large museum type things plopped down in the middle of a national park and they have this unique weird mixture of national park scientific institutionalism and roadside tourist attraction atmosphere i'd like to capture

here's a couple of examples from the pnw

http://www.mountsthelens.com/visitorcenters.html
https://www.historicoregoncity.org/

FunkyAl
Mar 28, 2010

Your vitals soar.

Al! posted:

i think about multimedia cdroms like, all the time. is that what you mean?????





one of the projects i've been kicking around in my head for a very long time but have only made a few abortive attempts on is to create a series of fictional interpretive centers, like you see in national parks in something like unity or unreal engine. it's probably my strongest "game design" idea but unfortunately i get frustrated trying to do 3d modeling to the point where it's physically uncomfortable to continue working on it.

I mean it all! Multimedia's an incredibly diverse concept I think....a film is audiovisual, so were operas, they count as multimedia....CD-Roms totally! Sketches of Things that would later be paintings or tapestries. A movie based off a book. ARGs to promote dumb 2000s movies. etc

mutata
Mar 1, 2003

I think very often of multimedia CDROM softwares I used to get for my old Windows 3.11 machine way back when. MICROSOFT had a ton of just single-subject suites of like "Musical Instruments" or "Dinosaurs". I had a "The Way Things Work" CDROM. It was very very cool stuff, especially for me as a kid who wasn't allowed to have computer games but still spent hours at the computer clicking on things to see them animate or make noises and the like. Much the way I am planning to go back and make some vanilla Quake 2 deathmatch maps, I wouldn't mind working on such a project someday.

Internet Kraken
Apr 24, 2010

slightly amused

gmc9987 posted:

I have some words but it might help you get better feedback if you post an example of what you're doing that looks weird, any chance for a quick screenshot or example? Your last few questions are all very subjective and depend entirely on what you're trying to convey.

I've been really apprehensive about posting anything here since I'm so poo poo compared to everyone else but fine;



I'm still trying to figure shading and poo poo out. I basically ignored doing additional shadows in my older pieces entirely and haven't figured out how I want to portray them yet. But stuff like the purple hue of the shadow feels way to visible too me and I dunno, sometimes I feel like I'd be better served ignoring this poo poo entirely and trying to grind out my lineart until it looks less poo poo. But that's just so boring.

Art is hard.

cubicle gangster
Jun 26, 2005

magda, make the tea
Just for a quick one - the reason why your shadow looks weird is because you're treating it as an on / off thing with a very soft transistion. In real life you get shadows in the light parts in crevices, and light leaks into the shadowed parts.
You should think of shadow as a means to define a volume and shape rather than something that has to be there. Add color later.

A good excersize I found was to copy a simple photograph with a pencil, shading and all - then copy it again, but this time just the linework and try to change the direction of light. It all kind of fell into place when I did that.

You should definitely be working on learning shading on known real world subjects before you try it on your own design/characters.

lofi
Apr 2, 2018




e: Oh, so that's how people double-post. Huh, I'd always wondered.

lofi fucked around with this message at 16:13 on Aug 17, 2018

lofi
Apr 2, 2018




My advice would be to get some practice drawing (and shading) from life - grab something out the fridge, fruit and veg are ideal, and draw it. Maybe do the same thing in different lighting to see how that effects it (what colour does an apple go in a streetlight?). It might not be what you want to draw 'for real', but it'll help you get a feel for how shadows work in real life on a relatively simple shape, and then you can apply that to the stuff you actually care about.

And yeah, art is hard. But it's really cool too!

The self-taught thread should have some good info, and could do with ressurecting!

gmc9987
Jul 25, 2007

Internet Kraken posted:

I've been really apprehensive about posting anything here since I'm so poo poo compared to everyone else but fine;



I'm still trying to figure shading and poo poo out. I basically ignored doing additional shadows in my older pieces entirely and haven't figured out how I want to portray them yet. But stuff like the purple hue of the shadow feels way to visible too me and I dunno, sometimes I feel like I'd be better served ignoring this poo poo entirely and trying to grind out my lineart until it looks less poo poo. But that's just so boring.

Art is hard.

First of all: You don't have to feel bad about posting this drawing, it's a perfectly fine drawing.

For the shadows: For me, personally, the issue isn't the color of the shadow, that is a perfectly fine shadow color. Partly, It looks like you decided to add the shadows after the fact, and your drawing wasn't really built with an idea in mind of where you wanted the shadows to go. I'd recommend, for your next drawing, working out the shadows before you start doing color - figure out where the dark and light areas of the piece will be, shadow-wise, and do your coloring with that in mind. I did a piece a while back with some egyptian gods in a bar, here's some WIP screenshots from that piece where I experimented with different lighting and shadows before I put any color down. I figured out where my light source was coming from first, and that helped out with the coloring immensely.




If you're having problems with shadows, putting them off until the end isn't going to get you any better at them - jump in and start making some lovely shadows first, and then they'll become not-lovely in a short while.

Internet Kraken
Apr 24, 2010

slightly amused
I don't really get how you're supposed to add shadows before adding colour. I always design my pictures with a lightsource in mind but trying to do the shadows first is difficult to understand.

Al!
Apr 2, 2010

:coolspot::coolspot::coolspot::coolspot::coolspot:
do you guys typically go through a final brightness/contrast/levels/curves/hues balancing pass when working digitally? i'll do this sometimes when i'm putting a lot of effort into a drawing. typically i'll make adjustments to individual layers that aren't quite looking right then a final pass on a flat layer

gmc9987
Jul 25, 2007

Internet Kraken posted:

I don't really get how you're supposed to add shadows before adding colour. I always design my pictures with a lightsource in mind but trying to do the shadows first is difficult to understand.

You're just planning where the shadows will fall, not necessarily putting the final color down. Try and incorporate your light and shadow areas into the composition of the piece from the beginning - insted of doing linework, then color, then shadows maybe try coloring the whole picture roughly in grayscale first, and using that as a guide to where to put lighter and darker colors.

Papa Was A Video Toaster
Jan 9, 2011





Have you finished that bar piece? It looks really good.

dupersaurus
Aug 1, 2012

Futurism was an art movement where dudes were all 'CARS ARE COOL AND THE PAST IS FOR CHUMPS. LET'S DRAW SOME CARS.'

Internet Kraken posted:

I don't really get how you're supposed to add shadows before adding colour. I always design my pictures with a lightsource in mind but trying to do the shadows first is difficult to understand.

Remember the elements of art (color, line, shape, texture, space, and form) and the principles of design (harmony, balance, heirarchy, scale, emphasis, and contrast) and how you use them to create good composition. Just spitballing, shadows can be covered under at least color, shape, form, balance, emphasis, and contrast. Most of those are things you'd probably consider pretty much right from the start. They don't have to be detailed shadows (gmc9987's pics are on the more detailed side), but shadow is an important piece of composition.

gmc9987
Jul 25, 2007

TVsVeryOwn posted:

Have you finished that bar piece? It looks really good.

Yeah, a while ago actually. And thanks!



After some reflection I made the bar and skin tones too similar to each other but it was definitely a fun piece to work on, despite the hundreds of bottles.

FunkyAl
Mar 28, 2010

Your vitals soar.
Never forget shadows aint just for form...theyre for drama!

ThePlague-Daemon
Apr 16, 2008

~Neck Angels~
Photoshop question:

I want to make a flat brush and control the direction. I have the grip pen so I don't have rotate, but I think it should be possible since it was possible in Corel Painter. I'm not sure if Photoshop is recognizing my pen's tilt at all. Any advice? Thanks.

Edit: Just updated the tablet driver to see if that'd fix it. No luck

ThePlague-Daemon fucked around with this message at 22:48 on Aug 19, 2018

Argue
Sep 29, 2005

I represent the Philippines
I have such a brush, but my pen has rotate. I don't think it matters though since the angle control is set to pen tilt. Best I can think of is you should check the tilt sensitivity in your tablet options?

FunkyAl
Mar 28, 2010

Your vitals soar.







I wrote a little thing in my sketchbook....and here it is! There is at least one very conspicuous typo

lofi
Apr 2, 2018




I enjoyed you bug story. :)

Papa Was A Video Toaster
Jan 9, 2011





I just met with another local VJ and I am very squee.

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SkaAndScreenplays
Dec 11, 2013

by Pragmatica
I took a bit of a break from writing after being a disappointment to myself in Thunderdome and started blacksmithing at the local Makerspace out of the desire to find something other than the misery of everyday work to inspire me.

I've got some more architectural stuff in the works but it's been pretty exciting and I'm going to be running blacksmithing demos at Makerfaire here in Milwaukee, which is the largest free Makerfaire in the free world.






SkaAndScreenplays fucked around with this message at 23:18 on Aug 21, 2018

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