Painting everything?

[SpeccySteve]

I have been browsing the ports today and noticed some extremely realistic looking pictures that claim to be entirely in photoshop. Now photoshop is not only a painting program and can use real pictures and stuff to make them LOOK painted, drawing ect ect.
If you're referring to the PS filters, they're pretty easy to spot in most cases.


I noticed alot of the space themes seem to have some of the most AMAZING vechicles, and it is just my personal opinion that some of these had to been done in 3dsm or someother modeling program. Edges and lines are just so perfect.
Maybe some of them were, would it matter really?
I have no idea how this could be achieved by the hand

Practice. Lots of it.

my 2p worth

[SmallPoly]

There are master painters out there who are good enough to achieve extremely high levels of realism without manipulating photographs or renders, whether painting on a physical canvas or a digital one. They get there through many years of study/observaion and rigorous work. As mentioned, filters are easy to spot once you know what to look for, and you can often tell when people are trying to "cheat" using photographs by a lack of quality in the parts they had to paint in manually.

Super sharp edges and smooth curves can be done by taking selections from the pen tool (or the vaious selection tools, using masks, etc), though skilled artists (often using a wacom tablet or similar device) won't necessarily need this aid. You can also maintain the intregrity of a sharp edge by locking the transparent pixels (assumining the sharp edge is created with transparency).

As far as a "normal" approach goes, it varies between artists. Just try different things and use whatever method seems to work best for you.


My current method is to start with a few crude sketches for basic concept, some sort of bird's eye view floor plan, as well as some stream of consciousness writing to work through some ideas and figure out the key points of a scene. Next, on a small canvas (maybe 500 by 500), I'll use the crop tool to adjust the proportion of the width and the height to something suitable. Next, i'll figure out the eye level/horizion line and draw it in as well as the central vanishing points. Then I'll determine the ideal viewing distance so I will know how far off my screen to "place" the diagonal vanishing points, then draw a few lines going to each to indicate where they are (look up the Handprint site on perspective in the tutorials. I don't remember the URL off the top of my head).

Next I typically hang a generic human of apx. my own height off the eyeline to help with proportions and start blocking out the basic composition with chickenscratch lines with a 1px brush, then set that layer to a low opacity, create a new layer and build up detail on top of it while slowly working out perspective problems.

I might also note that when using a 1px brush at 100% zoom, it makes it much easer to see where the brush is by turning on the old "standard" brush cursors. I also prefer to use the pencil tool with all pressure-sensitive features turned off since the pencil tool calculates much faster than the brush tool and isn't going to show up in the final work anyways.

At certian intervals I resample to a larger size and possibly use a sharpen tool on the sketch layers before lowering the opacity and building upon the layer. When do I do this? When I find that to squeeze in any more detail I have to zoom in by 300-400 percent, it's time to resample up so I'll instead be working at 100%. While this means a lot of redrawing, each time refines the work. I can always cut and paste if something already has as much detail as it needs. Some things should have less detail if they would otherwise distract from the focus areas of the painting.

I've also recorded an action for Flip Canvas Horizontal and have mapped it to a function key so at short intervals you can defamiliarize yourself with the work and thus more easily see your mistakes.

After the linework is finished, I'll start figuring out a palette and start blocking out the diffuse colors with no lighting applied.

Next, i'll determine where the light sources are coming from and start making mental calculations for how light is hitting the objects, at what angles, how light is bouncing around the scene, etc. I'll use this information to add to the palette.

Next is just blocking out forms and refining them based on the sketches made earlier, often moving the sketches to a upper layer and a low opacity and taking my color samples from the pallette rather than the painting itself. I've found it's incredibly easy for the colors to get muddied if I don't.

Then it's just a long process of rendering the forms in the space of the world to the best of my ability, making changes where necessary.

[cantsee]

Thanks alot, your way of going aout it is very close to how I go about.

1) Start from rough sketch (I only draw normally out my head)
2) Lay down a few more layers for color, shadows/light, reworked image
3) After i lay down perspectives and get a idea of where i am going with it and then move from there.
4)at end deleting sketch layer, keeping it there makes it much easier to paint more accuratly while keeping straighter painting lines.

Also I know the difference between a master painter and someone who cheats the system. I also know there are many different ways of achieveing straight edges.

I also use a WACOM tablet. In my opinion I have no iea how you could still maintain a decent imag with a mouse.

Anyway thanks for the input,
Cant See

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