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View Full Version : Cowboy Swordsman - Critique and Tips Wanted!

IronWarrior
01-02-2010, 12:08 AM
Hullo there CGTalk, recently became interested in transfering my pencil and paper drawing skills to the world of Digital Art. Got me a Wacom Bamboo and have been playing around with it for the last week or so, really enjoying being able to draw with an undo button, among other things. Just finished my first full picture, and was wanted some critiques. Bear in mind I've never really done any kind of digital painting before, outside of texturing hard-surface objects in 3d, or ever used a tablet before.


http://img63.imageshack.us/img63/4365/donsketchcompleted.jpg

He's sort of a cowboy swordsman dude. Any kind of critique is welcome, and I have a few questions for people who have done digital painting before (I'm using Photoshop, by the way)

1 - I would do a rough sketch with the paint brush, then a refined outline with the brush, again. I would fill this outline with the main color of whatever it was, delete the outline, and paint lighting and shadows overtop on seperate layers. My problem is that this doesn't always create a really smooth edge, filling with the paint bucket. What do most people do to create the main outline/fill of a drawing?

2 - I always see everyone having such smooth lines on their drawings, but I find it somewhat difficult to get that accuracy with the tablet. Is there any special way to draw smooth lines, or is everyone just really good with the tablet? I've only had it for about a week, so I dunno how good you can get with it.

3 - First thing I noticed when using the tablet is you can't turn the "paper," something I would always do when drawing. Sometimes I'd just rotate the canvas to accomodate this, but how do most people solve this? Just learn to draw horizontally?


I know these questions are kind of broad, but there's alot to learn...thanks for any help or critiques!
Ravis3057
01-20-2010, 01:25 AM
Hello Iron,
I am not much of a 2d artist either, I am still learning a bit, however I have been through the questions you are asking. I used to put each element such as shadows and highlights on seperate layers as well. I know it makes sense, because if they are separated, they can be easily adjusted, however I have found that when you use seperate layers, these elements usually end up feeling like they are not part of the whole image. Now, I usually save new layers for clothing or eyes, but try to keep skintones, lights and shadows on the same layer. Smooth lines will come to you with practice however I would suggest trying to paint with volume rather than line work. You will get used to the Tablet. Try rotating your wrists or the tablet itself. I used to do that all the time, but I have noticed that now a days it comes naturally to change the angle of my wrist. Good luck and keep painting.

Ravis
My Painting (http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=31&t=844421)
Bouke285
01-20-2010, 02:44 AM
Depending on your version of photoshop, you actually can turn the paper, I think it was just added in cs4 maybe 3 i didn't use it very much its called the Fluid canvas rotate tool i think to wards the bottom of the main bar, there is also a shortcut for it Alt-Space i think. There is a very help full tool in the history panel called "Snapshot" It allows you to take a picture of your painting at any point in the process and moves it permanently to the top of the history panel so you can try something that would go beyond your undo history without having to bother with multiple saves. You can also paint back only certain sections of the painting to whatever history stage you choose using the history brush. this way you have no need to fear working on fewer layers.


In this painting your skin is almost completely monochromatic skin has many layers and texture which adds up to something amazing it will take lots of time looking at refference of skin and studying anatomy to come up with something amazing. I need major work on this as well.
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01-20-2010, 02:44 AM
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