Sentry cyborg WIP

[ACFred]

Looks like an awesome start, as usual.
Definitely keep updating this guy.

I'd like to see those laser guns on the top beefed up a little bit -- fatten them up to make them look a little more imposing, although it may compete with the face a bit more.

Keep 'em coming!

Alec

[Sleepless]

Thanks Fred, they do look a bit anemic don't they. Will adjust/redesign them.

[phoenix]

impressive very impressive......................

like the idea...........reminds me of the midevil times

[Sleepless]

phoenix- thanks, always like to make an AD smile.

Here's an update, guess I'll start painting soon.

http://www.leeillo.com/cgart/Sentry2_web.jpg

[VShane]

Looks like an excellent start, you do pretty much what I do. Even though I work digitally , I still do underpainting.

Great Job! Look forward to the rest.:thumbsup:


WK

[Kirt]

Is that a door knocker hanging from his nose? I love all your work you post sleepless, but sometimes don't reply for fear of being to redundant. I hope you take this one step by step so we can see how you produce such lovely textured illustrations.

I like it so far ... waiting for the next update. :bounce:

[Sleepless]

Kirt-here's a detail with one of my fave brushes shown. I have not started the color yet, can't make up my mind on the scheme. I'll shoot myself if I do another green/red pic. (a bad habit)

http://www.leeillo.com/cgart/Sentrydetail_web.jpg

[Kirt]

Call me lazy, but I have yet to make any custom brushes. Getting away from the Photoshop defaults would probably make a difference in my paintings. :D Thanks for showing you brushes, but I'm more curious now about how you work with channels. It's one of those features in Photoshop I never took the time to figure out. I almost exclusively work with layers. Could you explain what you're doing with the channels a bit? Any helpful tips for us?

Oh ... and for your colors. I like the earth tones in a lot of your paintings, maybe you can do this one with copper, gold tones and a touch of blues for highlights? Just a suggestion.

[dmcgrath]

I agree with Kirt on the color scheme. Metallics would be really cool, as well as a challenge to make them look really good.

Kirt, I use the Channels area for Alpha masks, it's a good place to keep greyscale selections that you use frequently. If you look there with quick mask on, you will see that is where it is storing the information.

I also like to use it to check the shadow depth and highlights on my images (I need all the help I can get there). Hold down Ctrl and press 1, 2 or 3 and it goes from red, green, and blue channels. The ~ brings back RGB. Of course 1234 for CMYK.

If you have a pencil or pen drawing and you want to select the lines, you can dupe the blue channel and then name it something like Alpha_1. Then you can select it under load selection anytime you want.

[Sleepless]

dood those are standard PS7 brushes, I made some minor tweeks to them such as spacing, fade, opacity etc. then I saved them as new brushes so they would always be there. I'm too lazy to make my own too. I think I'll try you color suggestions. Thanks

--Had a feeling somebody would ask about the masks.

DmcGrath has some good tips in his post, there's so much I don't know about channels---thanks I'll use your info!!!

My method is probably not correct but it works for me, for now...For something like this I did the drawing/underpaint right in the alpha channel. It's fast and I don't lose it. When done, I select all in the channel and copy/paste it to a new layer then paint in color like normal. (Much thanks to KoryH for his help with channels) The second mask (flat black one) is made by pasting the image into a new alpha channel, clean it up, change the levels so it's solid black. I load selection and use it to adjust the painting later. whew that's a ton of typing...

[Sleepless]

To whom it may concern,

Here's a way you might use the image in your alpha channel. Hope these will help you think of ways you could use them. I don't do it this way all the time but it's kinda cool method. I spend more time painting right on the layer. (as I said many will have a better way to work)

for exampke only...a basic digital rock texture, transform-scale it to up the size needed. (I use my own scanned acrylic painting ground normally.)
http://www.leeillo.com/cgart/Basic-rock-photo.jpg

Load the alpha channel in your desired layer.
http://www.leeillo.com/cgart/Load-alpha1.jpg

I used the a basic airbrush tool just to show this. @50% opacity and started painting over the loaded channel /alpha. You can make it fade in an out dark to light etc.... Wow it majically appears.
http://www.leeillo.com/cgart/1st-purple.jpg

Invert the mask or not, but adding other colors.
http://www.leeillo.com/cgart/2nd-color.jpg

and more color with a texture brush....this was just an example not actual art. sorry for the length and big images. Good luck in your experiments. PS. you can have several different masks for other figures etc.
http://www.leeillo.com/cgart/3rd-purple.jpg

[Kirt]

Thanks for all the info sleepless. It's just not clicking with me right now, but that's probably because I'm at work and don't have a chance to try this out in Photoshop. I'll mess with it at home sometime soon and let you know if I have any other questions.

Thanks also to dmcgrath for the added info. My grey matter is really soggy and mucky due to age ... but I'm sure I'll pick something usefull out of this to apply to a future project. :thumbsup:

[wasted weasel]

wow!!!
sleepless that's awsome, it makes a lot of sense to me now. I want to try that really bad now.

excelent work, and thanks for the great tips.

I like the green scheme you had going, that sort of military look. it was trademark, you see a green picture and you automatically know who did it.

[Titan]

wow, I really love youre painting style....how did you develop this look? was it something you stumbled across or something you conciously developed.

good stuff man

[Sleepless]

wasted weasel & Titan thanks, The paint style evolved from working traditionally and trying to mimic digitally. Then just experimenting in PS and reading whatever I could find at the various forums for the last 6 months.

painting so far. ouch, many subtle colors dropped out when the optimized for web.
http://www.leeillo.com/cgart/Sentry3_web.jpg

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