Well, I haven’t done much sketching in years, but I’m inspired to get started with the skull tutorial here! Any comments/crits welcome (er, after I get something posted!)
-cheers- Scott
Sketchbook Thread of milw
milw
#1
milw
#5
Thanks for the welcomes! 
I hope I can make a decent effort!
Well, here's my beginning of a T rex skull. The original (below) is Stan, from the Black Hills Institute. The lighting is strong from the left, and softer from the right.
NR43
#6
nice start
at this stage you ought to correct the proportional flaws, before continuing to add detail.
a few remarks:
- the back of the skull should be more prominent
- it should also be a bit higher
- watch the proportions of the lower jaw part compared to the upper part
- there should be more mass to the front of the upper jaw
milw
#7
Thanks for the comments- I tried another start with only one gray level to try to get the major shapes right… I’m afraid my eyes just want to warp everything! Maybe I should try gridding it 
- note - I moved the lower jaw down and added some brighter area, I think this is closer…
Rebeccak
#8
milw,
Keep going! Check out the links here if you’ve not already:
Personal Sketchbook Primer and Tutorial / Workshop Guide
See all the links under “Recommended Shading Tutorial for Beginners” - this may be where you started from, but if not it’s a good place to look.
Just keep plugging away at this - in PS there is a grayscale slider which you can access from your Color / Swatches pallette - click the upper right arrow and you should see this:
[left]Also, to change your brush size, use the shortcuts, [ for smaller brush, and ] for larger brush. In PS, Shift + [ makes the brush softer, and Shift + ] makes the brush harder.
With your brush selected, you can temporarily change your brush to an eyedropper by alt + clicking over any area of your canvas and selecting that value or color. Release alt and your brush will become a brush again. This is something I use constantly while painting. Let’s say you select a value from your canvas that is in midtone. With that midtone selected, I then use the grayscale slider to select a lighter or darker value depending on whether I want to add highlights or shadow to the area. This is a process I use repeatedly, generally working dark to light on the painting.
Looking forward to your progress.
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milw
#9
Thanks for the handy links, Rebecca! and for the PS tips- I haven’t done much sketching with it- I knew the alt-eyedropper but not the brush controls- that’ll help a lot! I’m using a graphire, but I’d like to configure the pen pressure as opacity and not brush diameter… I haven’t found the right place for that setting yet, any clues? Thx again, I’m happy to be drawing again (but initimidated by all the other great talents in this forum :eek: )
-cheers- Scott
Rebeccak
#10
Hi Scott,
Don’t be intimidated, because I have seen a lot of people start from a beginning level and progress very quickly to produce beautiful work if they put in the effort and participate in the Workshops here. Check out the threads of YMS and Fatebringer, as well as NR43 and you will see some amazing progress. I’ve progressed a ton myself here by participating in my own Workshops (it’s more than half the reason I run them :D) and I think everyone is humble enough around here to admit to how far they’ve come.
Regarding brush settings / wacom settings, etc., a great thread to check out is here:
Digital Painting: Tips and Techniques for Beginners
http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?t=369421
Cheers!
milw
#11
An update. A question too- since there are deep shadowed interior parts of the skull that only are visible in the reference because of the contrast with the background, but they are necessary to see the shape… Should I change to a dark gray background instead of solid black? Thanks for looking!
-cheers- Scott
Intervain
#12
I will never stress that enough I think but LIQUIFY is a major tool in photoshop that helps an artist immensly… when you’ve painted something and you think the shape’s off you can easily fix that with the tool - try using it on the eyes or other parts you’re not happy with I love the tool personally… really useful and makes it so much faster than overpainting … 
keep going, I like that you’ve chosen sth different than the human skull 
milw
#13
Thx Magdalena! Will play with liquify now- but it wants to take over my entire screen so I can’t see the reference! Guess I’d better reclaim my other monitor from the child ;)…
anandpg
#14
Hi Milw!.. hearty welcome!! nice start!! Haha!!.. an extra monitor can be a great help!.. if you dont mind a kick or two from the kid!.. hehe!!
milw
#16
tonights update; I’m pretty happy with the proportions tho now that I’m dropping in some detail in the lower jaw, it doesn’t quite fit right. Liquifier, here I come!
Rebeccak
#18
milw,
One thing I recommend is creating swatches of solid values - from pure white, to mid gray, to pure black. About the background, I think a dark gray would be better than black.
For example, you don’t have to create perfect swatches, but you do want swatches that have 100% opacity and are distinct and represent a good range of values:
[left]After you have enough values on your canvas, you can alt + sample your canvas, and use the grayscale slider to select values that are either darker or lighter than the value you select, depending on whether you want to lighten or darken an area.
Hope that helps!
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NR43
#19
Hey Scott
great progress! proportions are a lot better now…
got a few tricks I do to quickly check proportions when drawing/ painting. I’ll give a few examples using your skull study.
1 looking at the ref, the most rightside point of the lower jaw. draw an imaginary vertical line upward. it meets the most rightside point of the upper half of the skull (can we call it the cranium?).
2 squinting my eyes helps seeing the proportions of the big “shapes”. eg the middle part of the side of the cranium needs a bit more mass, showing it to appear a bit wider. if this would be extended to the right, all the things righthand side of that part would move more to the right with it, solving the problem in point 1 at the same time.
3 triangles. the upper part of the cranium shows a big triangle. check the directions of the right and bottom triangle sides. the right bottom corner of this triangle could be “pulled” downwards and a bit to the right.
This works for every drawing if you think in terms of planes and shapes. (this triangle is a lot bigger than that square, that rectangle is longer than the other one,…)
4 directions of “lines”. I think the directions are allright. but just mentioning it as it’s something I often use. extending lines imaginary to see where they meet and comparing them is a quick way to check proportions.
Anyway,
I hope I haven’t confused you now.
I think this is looking very promising and I’m really looking forward to see how you will handle the shading.
Oh and please don’t feel stressed… I know how you feel when looking at all those wonderful drawings and paintings most people post in these forums. More than once I have thought: “omg I could never create something like this…”
Nowadays, I think “omg this is really nice… one day I will create something like this”.
Have fun creating!
43
