★ Heartless' Digital Art Classroom || DA Q&A ★

[VaanDiablo]

Teacher! The student sitting next to me has died! XXD

[Heartless]

ah well, one less to teach!

[VaanDiablo]

XXD He was saying something about his new age, or something. That reminds me, I was meaning to ask thins, but will you put the proportions question I asked in your thread in here?

[Heartless]

Yes. I'll put everything here but I will put the proportions tutorial in my thread in GFA too as I have mentioned it there. I'll leave it as a link to here and put the separate links on the first page as a kind of contents thing.

[VaanDiablo]

Cool idea.

[Heartless]

Question, how do you start drawing (use the brushes in photoshop) what is the best version of photoshop to get do you think? furthermore what are some cool techniques to heighten your pieces I could learn?

@hodge3244 Thought I would start with this first before I crack on with the rest.

Personally I start drawing on an A4 canvas with a 300dpi using a black hard brush at 5px. This means I have the pen pressure to use if I want to and I can control it rather well at that size. When drawing at 300dpi, it means that you can draw in more detail as the brushes appear 'finer'. This is just personal preference however. Try out different sizes to see what suits your style best! =D

As for the best version of Photoshop. Anything from CS2 and above. I use CS2 as it is just what I am accustomed to (and it's the only version my laptop can handle lol). CS3, 4 and 5 have no real differences, just the odd new thing here and there that no one really uses anyway unless they are editing photos and such.

For techniques, keep having a look at some of the answers I will be giving. Ones I have already done and ones that I will be doing. I don't know your skill level so I can't really comment but if anyone asks a question you think you can learn from, then watch this space. If I answer a question and you want to know a bit more, then ask away!

[Heartless]

@Anni

Ah that is an amazing thread Heartless Sorry i'm late!

So i loved many of your reply so far, so here my first questions:

May you explain me how to use the pen tool on photoshop to ink outline (or its use in general)?

and well i guess this could take time but....... what process you use to paint in realistic way starting from a skectch as you usually do?

Thanks

Right, for making the lines using the pen tool is actually easier than you would think. I also think showing it rather than trying to use words would make things a lot easier, so here we go!

1 - First, sketch out your image roughly. Make sure that you have a white background layer and your sketch on another layer on top of it. NEVER DRAW ON THE BACKGROUND LAYER! Once you have your sketch lower the opacity to about 50%. Make a new layer on top as this is where your ink lines will be on.

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2 - Now to use the pen tool. Using this tool is rather easy. FIRST - Go to 'brushes', set the brush to a 1px brush size and make sure the colour is black. Then, take the pen tool and make sure it is set to the setting that is show below at the top of the image. This means you are working in 'paths'. The 'paths' option is found next to the layer panel.
PEN TOOL SETTINGS

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PATHS PANEL LOCATION

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3 - Now you can start going over you sketch with the pen tool. The black lines will not appear straight away as it is a path, but we will deal with that later. First though, here is a little bit of information on how to use the pen tool.

If you press it once, a tiny small box will appear. Think of it like a full stop. This is actually called an anchor point, it defines the point in a line where you can change the direction of the line and whether you want to bend the line or not. Do not try and draw with the pen tool as it will not work. Follow the instructions below for more information.

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If you click again to another area it will make another anchor point as well as a straight line which is your 'path'.

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If you click and hold instead of just clicking, you are able to move the line and make it into a curve. This way you can follow the lines of your sketch.

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Once you do that, you MUST press the 'alt' key on the anchor point to tell it that you have finished making the curve. If you don't do this and you make another anchor point, then it won't look right. Try it for yourself to see what I mean. Also, you only have to hold the 'alt' key and press the anchor point after you make a CURVE, you don't have to do it after making a straight line. After you press the alt key and click the anchor point, it should look like the image below with only one 'handle'.

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Once you get the hang of that, carry on until you reach a point in your image where you need to stop. At that point, we will fill the path with the black to make the ink lines. This is always done in stages and always on a separate layer.

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Now go to the path option and you will see your 'work path'.

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Right click the 'work path' and select 'stroke path'. Remember that your brush tool is set to black and it's size is 1px!

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Once you have pressed stroke path, this is what should pop up. Make sure it is on the brush setting and that the box remains un-ticked.

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Click ok, and the black line will appear where the path is. Click off the path to view the line without the anchor points.

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Now carry on with this process until the image is complete and then remove the sketch underneath to leave you with lovely clean lines.

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There we go. Hope that helped!

I know I added a little more about the pen tool that I needed to but it was more for the sake of other people looking that don't know how to use it =D

Right...what's next!

[Anni]

@Hertless thank you very much for this, is really clear and wow that drawing looks amazing!<3

[Heartless]

@VaanDiablo @Anni because I had I would do this.

ACCURATE HUMAN PROPORTION TUTORIAL!!!

It's quite a large image so it might take a while to load.

http://img809.imageshack.us/img809/8...ontutorial.png

[Descendent]

Hey Christie , thanx a lot for all your input and help. This thread is totally awesome and I hope you continue enriching our skills with your experience.

A bow of thanks from a loyal artist.

[Anni]

@Heartless THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THIS! i love you!!! *bow bow*

[Heartless]

Made this for my real class and thought I would share it here.

This is a panel of Texture Spheres. I'm going to use them as examples of textures that can be used on an image. Of course, it's a little redundant without me talking about it a lot more but still. If anyone wants to use them for reference then feel free to do so.

[VaanDiablo]

I know it's not my place to say this, especially seeing as I'm no expert, but I feel that the leather has quite a bit too much gloss on it. Most leather I see, that's as gragged as that, is quite a bit duller. Not matte, like the camo, but dull.

[Heartless]

Depends on the light source and the shape and stretch of the leather. As it's a ball, the light source is sharper, perhaps a bit too sharp but still acceptable. Plus I can always say that it has PVC in it XD

[VaanDiablo]

Cheater. XXD I need to learn textures, as I've just started self-teaching 3ds max, and I'm in the throws of creating a HELMET-THING! So I just need to make so dull, brushed iron coloured texture, really. Shouldn't be too hard, but still, would you deign to give me pointers? I also need to learn how to make a bumb-map, and accurately. Just to give it that feel of not being a block. XXD