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Thread: Digital art advice

  1. #1
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    Default Digital art advice

    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://wildspark.deviantart.com/art/...cess-480578293

  2. #2
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    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.


  3. #3
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    Plug all that search criteria into YouTube and no doubt that there will be a ton of tutorials.

  4. #4
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    Here's a couple of tutorials I found useful. Links because the images are huge.

    http://home.exetel.com.au/leducly/im...MVdesign_s.jpg

    http://home.exetel.com.au/leducly/im...tutorial_s.jpg

  5. #5
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    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 -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 for digital colouring.

    I wish I had a good light tute, because it seems to me that could help you the most.
    "The Decepticons keep bad company - each other!" - Jazz, G2

  6. #6
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    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...

  7. #7
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    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.




  8. #8
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    wow that amazing gamblor!! you have any transformer digital art works?.... or any other stuff as well...love to see it man

  9. #9
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    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.



    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.
    Which brings us to where we are today...



  10. #10
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    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!

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