Digital art advice

[Sam]

Hello all, my attempt at a Gundam RX-78-2 head.

For the digital artists amongst us, I respectfully seek your advice on learning how to do high quality colour / shading / highlights and/or "special effects" please.

Links to online tutorials and/or principles of digital colouring would be much appreciated. :)

(And yes, I have been searching for them myself...)

http://th00.deviantart.net/fs71/PRE/i/2014/249/5/2/gundam_rx_78_2_head_study_process_by_wildspark-d7y4gl1.png

http://wildspark.deviantart.com/art/Gundam-RX-78-2-head-study-process-480578293

[gamblor916]

That's pretty awesome work there. As for advice just experiment. Use the select tools and paths to be precise with the colouring. For the bike I did below I had lots of references and went through photoshop filters just trying things out.

http://i328.photobucket.com/albums/l356/leducly/checa_s_zps987d4e48.jpg

[SMHFConvoy]

Plug all that search criteria into YouTube and no doubt that there will be a ton of tutorials.

[gamblor916]

Here's a couple of tutorials I found useful. Links because the images are huge.

http://home.exetel.com.au/leducly/images/Concept_Rendering_Tutorial_by_AMVdesign_s.jpg

http://home.exetel.com.au/leducly/images/paintertutorial_s.jpg

[tinyJazz]

I'm not sure if this is exactly what you're after, but I think these are pretty good:

Basic to Advanced Color Theory and Illustration Techniques for Photoshop (http://www.floobynooby.com/ICG/artvalues.html) -it's a single page and image heavy obviously! Lots of small quick refs, tutes and process drawings.


http://www.ctrlpaint.com/ lots of free video tutes, excellent for beginners too.

Plus a basic masks and layers tutorial (http://goku-no-baka.deviantart.com/art/Masks-Layers-TUTORIAL-51082464) for digital colouring.

I wish I had a good light tute, because it seems to me that could help you the most. :o

[Sam]

Hey guys, thanks for the tutorial links - they are great!

gamblor - can I ask how you did the intricate motorbike parts? Did you use some 3D models, simply drew them in, or used photos? They look very detailed and I can't reproduce that level.

tinyJazz- I've been to ctrlpaint as well, now that I think more about it, I think the problem is more fundamental - I just suck at using the drawing tablet.

In theory it should work similar to the mouse but better, however, I find that I am not used to drawing on the tablet, and then looking up at the monitor to see where the line is actually going to.

I know you can get the large Cintiq ones that allow you to see directly on the tablet too - but I don't want to spend $900+ for a non-pro hobby (yes, I know that even as a non-collector I've probably spent more than $900 on Transformers, but that's different! ;p).

Thus I find that I lack the confidence to do fast / strong lines on the tablet than if I simply drew with a pencil on paper.

It's probably simply a matter of spending another 1,000+ hours of practice...

[gamblor916]

I scanned some instructions from a model kit and used that as a template to draw lines in Illustrator. Import those into Photoshop and use them to make paths for selections. Handy for things like symmetrical shapes, concentric circles and logos.

http://i328.photobucket.com/albums/l356/leducly/m1_zps6d3b0539.jpg

http://i328.photobucket.com/albums/l356/leducly/checa_zps3909ed00.jpg

[lancalot]

wow that amazing gamblor!!:eek: you have any transformer digital art works?.... or any other stuff as well...love to see it man

[Tober]

Gamblor, that bike still breaks my brain. I can see a bunch of bevel filters in the chain detail, but what other techniques did you use?

Sam, I did several pages for Verno's Beast Wars online comics recently where I did digital coloring. I was getting tired of all the 3D I usually do.

http://i273.photobucket.com/albums/jj230/AUST_Tober/th_primal___issue__1___page_6_by_tf_tvc-d7ryvkn_zpsc706912d.jpg (http://s273.photobucket.com/user/AUST_Tober/media/primal___issue__1___page_6_by_tf_tvc-d7ryvkn_zpsc706912d.jpg.html) http://i273.photobucket.com/albums/jj230/AUST_Tober/th_primal___issue__1___page_12_by_tf_tvc-d7rywc3_zpsf300e53b.jpg (http://s273.photobucket.com/user/AUST_Tober/media/primal___issue__1___page_12_by_tf_tvc-d7rywc3_zpsf300e53b.jpg.html) http://i273.photobucket.com/albums/jj230/AUST_Tober/th_primal___issue__1___page_13_by_tf_tvc-d7t7e0t_zps940c6cd0.jpg (http://s273.photobucket.com/user/AUST_Tober/media/primal___issue__1___page_13_by_tf_tvc-d7t7e0t_zps940c6cd0.jpg.html) http://i273.photobucket.com/albums/jj230/AUST_Tober/th_primal___issue__1___page_14_by_tf_tvc-d7y4vqn_zps5fb0570b.jpg (http://s273.photobucket.com/user/AUST_Tober/media/primal___issue__1___page_14_by_tf_tvc-d7y4vqn_zps5fb0570b.jpg.html)

Flat coloring, then tri-tone shaded, then blurs and blends, then gradient overlays, followed by textures and filters for glows and effects.

Just to emphasize; I only did the coloring, pencils/inks and text were done by others.

[kurdt_the_goat]

Yeah seriously Gamblor, i've worked with photoshop and illustrator for the last 13 years and couldn't come close to achieving what you've done with that bike!

[Sam]

I scanned some instructions from a model kit and used that as a template to draw lines in Illustrator. Import those into Photoshop and use them to make paths for selections. Handy for things like symmetrical shapes, concentric circles and logos.

http://i328.photobucket.com/albums/l356/leducly/m1_zps6d3b0539.jpg

http://i328.photobucket.com/albums/l356/leducly/checa_zps3909ed00.jpg

Mate, that is a fine piece of work.



Sam, I did several pages for Verno's Beast Wars online comics recently where I did digital coloring. I was getting tired of all the 3D I usually do.

http://i273.photobucket.com/albums/jj230/AUST_Tober/th_primal___issue__1___page_6_by_tf_tvc-d7ryvkn_zpsc706912d.jpg (http://s273.photobucket.com/user/AUST_Tober/media/primal___issue__1___page_6_by_tf_tvc-d7ryvkn_zpsc706912d.jpg.html) http://i273.photobucket.com/albums/jj230/AUST_Tober/th_primal___issue__1___page_12_by_tf_tvc-d7rywc3_zpsf300e53b.jpg (http://s273.photobucket.com/user/AUST_Tober/media/primal___issue__1___page_12_by_tf_tvc-d7rywc3_zpsf300e53b.jpg.html) http://i273.photobucket.com/albums/jj230/AUST_Tober/th_primal___issue__1___page_13_by_tf_tvc-d7t7e0t_zps940c6cd0.jpg (http://s273.photobucket.com/user/AUST_Tober/media/primal___issue__1___page_13_by_tf_tvc-d7t7e0t_zps940c6cd0.jpg.html) http://i273.photobucket.com/albums/jj230/AUST_Tober/th_primal___issue__1___page_14_by_tf_tvc-d7y4vqn_zps5fb0570b.jpg (http://s273.photobucket.com/user/AUST_Tober/media/primal___issue__1___page_14_by_tf_tvc-d7y4vqn_zps5fb0570b.jpg.html)

Flat coloring, then tri-tone shaded, then blurs and blends, then gradient overlays, followed by textures and filters for glows and effects.

Just to emphasize; I only did the coloring, pencils/inks and text were done by others.

I don't think I will ever get to say "I was getting tired of all the 3D I usually do." :p

Your colours really bring the art work to life!

[gamblor916]

Thanks guys and sorry to Sam for hijacking his thread :o

Tober nice work. I wish I had your 3D 'problem'. I used mainly noise for textures and the paint brush with path selections for almost everything else. Lots of blurs and radial blurs for things like brake discs. Bevels up and down for the brake assemblies. I used multiply and screen overlays for things like sky reflections and deep shadows.

I don't have any more artwork to show other than the Rossi version. The idea was to produce a series but it just takes too long to complete. I wish I had more time to devote to it. The size by the way is A2 at 300dpi.

http://i328.photobucket.com/albums/l356/leducly/rossi_zps35a1d263.jpg