Drawing / Sketching / Digital Painting

muraii wrote:

I've asked this before and ended up trying both GIMP and Sketchbook without really feeling it. This is certainly at least partially to do with being away from sketching for quite some time combined with learning to sketch on a digital tablet. I think there may be some latency to get used to over USB; I'm using a Wacom Bamboo Pen & Touch I bought from Citizen86.

It felt difficult to get a natural-looking stroke. I understand that this will come with practice, but I also wonder if there is something to the software that requires some extra attention or if, for instance, GIMP isn't really built with tablet input in mind? Should I look into trying Photoshop, or is that like getting a new pair of running shoes without first starting a running habit?

You want Clip Studio. It's popular among most of the artists I know as a cheap alternative to Photoshop. You can get it for around $20-ish and it's on sale often.

pyxistyx wrote:

Songbird - I was not familiar with those. MOebius's stuff is pretty nifty. I shall investigate further, thanks!

My main source of inspiration for drawing style has always been the old Fighting Fantasy book illustrators, plus More recently Chris Riddell's work (especially when he teams up with Neil Gaiman).

Just to follow up on this. Here's a couple of the FF book illustrations (various artists)

IMAGE(http://www.martinmckenna.net/content/assets/1447-654.jpg)

IMAGE(https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/ff/4b/22/ff4b227dcfaefd86ceec505471fd7a07.jpg)

IMAGE(http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-416zQoCV3nM/T4n6d84sxRI/AAAAAAAAJj0/0kh_2j8R8n0/s1600/russ%2Bmom02.png)

...and Chris Riddell's stuff he did for Gaiman's alternative take on Sleeping Beauty...WHICH IS FREAKIN' AMAZING.

IMAGE(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/A1vDbflXiqL._SL1500_.jpg)

IMAGE(http://www.lifo.gr/icache/2060/1236/1/991559_25284718-c769-4a99-bf1a-11dde87b434a-2060x1236.jpeg)

IMAGE(https://arosenamedsky.files.wordpress.com/2015/09/chris-riddell-06.jpeg)

Anybody seen this thing yet? Just popped up on my facebooks.
http://www.iskn.co/la-slate/
Looks neat, but I've been let down by these kind of devices before.

Rob_Anybody wrote:

Anybody seen this thing yet? Just popped up on my facebooks.
http://www.iskn.co/la-slate/
Looks neat, but I've been let down by these kind of devices before.

I like that it has the tooth of real paper, of course. Cool that there's an original drawing to keep or sell as well.

2016 may have sucked, but at least Santa's still keeping it real...

IMAGE(https://smackfolio.files.wordpress.com/2016/12/xmasprezzies.jpg)

(side note: I can't remember the last time I had to enter a serial number MANUALLY from the packaging of a DVD)

pyxistyx wrote:

2016 may have sucked, but at least Santa's still keeping it real...

...

(side note: I can't remember the last time I had to enter a serial number MANUALLY from the packaging of a DVD)

Nice gifts! What tablet is that?

Speaking of serial numbers from packages, I got a Wacom Intuos this month and it had the same sort of thing. The registration number to download/register the painting software was on the inner flap of the box. I thought, "Who even does this any more?" Apparently it's still a thing in the tablet industry.

_______

I've been playing around with a Pixel Art course this month. I don't have much of a clue yet, but things are starting to get a bit more comfortable. Here's my second shot at animation from yesterday: a 64x64 swordsman.

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/hu1g8AY.gif)

Godzilla Blitz wrote:

Nice gifts! What tablet is that?

This one:
Huion Giano WH1409 Wireless Graphics Tablet

I was a bit wary of getting something that wasn't Wacom but it seems to be working out fine. And it was reasonably cheap, which is the main thing!

Only drawback is the pen is a slightly uncomfortable shape in my hand and was starting to hurt my finger after prolonged use - nothing a strategically placed plaster couldn't fix though

...also cool mini sword dude

Godzilla Blitz wrote:

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/hu1g8AY.gif)

Tiny wee awesome!

My sketchy gift received from the mother-in-law... a new pocket sized moleskin. Misplaced my last one, so yay - Doodle time!

pyxistyx wrote:

I was a bit wary of getting something that wasn't Wacom but it seems to be working out fine. And it was reasonably cheap, which is the main thing!

I don't know about Huion, but manufacturers other than Wacom are getting good at doing graphic tablets. I'm using a Yiynova pen display, and I have been very happy with it for the past four years. It's probably not as good as Wacom, but for less than half the price, I can live with it just fine!

My Intuos suddenly feels quite a bit smaller after looking at that tablet. Very nice indeed!

And thanks for the comments on the tiny wee swordsman! The lessons in the course are 32x32 or 64x64, so everything comes out pretty teeny. I'm trying the flying animation assignment I'm doing now at a larger scale.

EDIT: Today's assignment added: tiny wee dragon. The motion feels a bit random, especially in the front claws and legs. And I'd like to get a bit more torque in the body and tail. But I'm happy with the progress.

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/26yAsFH.gif)

Godzilla Blitz wrote:

My Intuos suddenly feels quite a bit smaller after looking at that tablet. Very nice indeed!

And thanks for the comments on the tiny wee swordsman! The lessons in the course are 32x32 or 64x64, so everything comes out pretty teeny. I'm trying the flying animation assignment I'm doing now at a larger scale.

EDIT: Today's assignment added: tiny wee dragon. The motion feels a bit random, especially in the front claws and legs. And I'd like to get a bit more torque in the body and tail. But I'm happy with the progress.

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/26yAsFH.gif)

Looks great. Is there a frame limit, or just size? Trying to remember stuff from Brad Bird or Disney's Nine Old Men I read a decade or so ago, and lost the bookmarks to, but a few extra keyframes could let the wing flapping have more of a shallow 'u' shape instead of going straight back and forth (try flapping your arms in front of the mirror and see the path they take). And a little pause at either end (but probably more on the bottom of the downswing) would give it a bit more weight, like it's generating lift with each flap.

The bottom legs would probably kick out too if you want to give it more weight.
What pixel art course are you taking?

Bonus_Eruptus wrote:
Godzilla Blitz wrote:

My Intuos suddenly feels quite a bit smaller after looking at that tablet. Very nice indeed!

And thanks for the comments on the tiny wee swordsman! The lessons in the course are 32x32 or 64x64, so everything comes out pretty teeny. I'm trying the flying animation assignment I'm doing now at a larger scale.

EDIT: Today's assignment added: tiny wee dragon. The motion feels a bit random, especially in the front claws and legs. And I'd like to get a bit more torque in the body and tail. But I'm happy with the progress.

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/26yAsFH.gif)

Looks great. Is there a frame limit, or just size? Trying to remember stuff from Brad Bird or Disney's Nine Old Men I read a decade or so ago, and lost the bookmarks to, but a few extra keyframes could let the wing flapping have more of a shallow 'u' shape instead of going straight back and forth (try flapping your arms in front of the mirror and see the path they take). And a little pause at either end (but probably more on the bottom of the downswing) would give it a bit more weight, like it's generating lift with each flap.

Thanks for the ideas! Much appreciated. There's neither a time limit or a size limit, per se. The assignment was basically to follow along as the instructor led you through animating a wing flap for a small cute bird. I didn't want to draw a small cute bird, so I winged it and turned it into a dragon. The lack of weight and lack of a pause probably comes from the difference between a dragon and a tiny bird. I tried to add a bit of weight to it but didn't spend much time on that part. I was flailing a bit getting done what I did. I think there are six frames total in there.

fangblackbone wrote:

The bottom legs would probably kick out too if you want to give it more weight.
What pixel art course are you taking?

That's true, isn't it. Good point. I wasn't sure what to do with the legs, as they weren't part of the tutorial. I kind of scrunched them up a bit on the pre-flap lift, but now that you mention it as the wings come down the legs could extend some.

The Pixel Art course is here on Udemy and here on HeartBeast. It's a gentle introduction to pixel art for beginners. I have little experience drawing anything with any medium, but I feel like I'm improving. I'm enjoying it more than I thought I would, despite some frustration at times working with pixels.

(If anyone's interested, Udemy always has $10 sales and I got the course on HeartBeast for $5 via a coupon, so there are deals there too. Don't pay full price.)

Just out of curiosity, how many frames is it or what is your target number of frames?
The reason I ask is I don't know if that course teaches secondary motion, I think it is called.
Some of the things that would help get that last 5-10% on your animation would be to not have everything be in sync. For instance, we were talking about the leg extension. If you delay that extension (or even the current movement) to reach its maximum length a frame after the wings flap, it will look more natural.
Creatures tend to do stuff in a loop, arc or figure 8 rather than a linear back and forth.
Take another example of throwing a pitch. Once the ball is released and the arm is extended as far as it is going to go, the back leg follow through kicks up a frame or more after.
The body/limbs acts more like a chain or rope rather than a wood plank. Think of what happens to the other end when you lift the opposite end of a rope suddenly. Make the animation unfold rather than happen if that makes more sense.

(I hope this goes without saying that my posts is intended to be constructive and overly specific to illustrate a point and not ZOMG learn to animate n00b)

edit: in your example, the center of mass (the rib cage at the point the wings attach) is the "end of the rope" that the wings are pulling on. So, the head and the legs and the tail are the opposite ends of "the rope" that need to unfold or ripple in reaction to.

Thanks fang, that's really helpful. The course didn't cover that—it's very much focused on beginning aspects of animation. The current animation only has 6 frames total. It did mention using extra frames to control movement pauses.

I'm looking forward to trying more with this. I started working in the Pixel Art course as part of a December Challenge to myself to "make something" every day in December. I'm enjoying creating art more than expected.

Heard good things about Aseprite as a sprite editor, and their pinned tweet leads to this: http://animation-boss.com/principles..., which is helpful.

Bonus_Eruptus wrote:

Heard good things about Aseprite as a sprite editor, and their pinned tweet leads to this: http://animation-boss.com/principles..., which is helpful.

The course uses Asesprite for the final three assignments. I picked it up on Steam for a little over $10 during the winter sale this week. The dragon was the second assignment I did using the program. I really like the layering system. The front half of the course uses PiskelApp. That worked fine too for basic stuff, but Aseprite is more powerful for animation for sure.

Thanks for the link to the animation information. I particularly liked the part on timing.

Today was a simple assignment to draw only key frames for a sequence of motion. I ended up doing four frames for a leopard run. I like the feel for this one better than the dragon sequence. It was also much quicker to put this together. Yesterday I was learning the program as much as I was trying to learn to draw. Today I felt less clueless.

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/n9L5oDc.png)

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/qMPCUpt.gif)

I love your enthusiasm. And you can see how if you ask me or any other artist to talk about art or the process, we'll never shut up
You may not know it but your latest animation shows a lot of the concepts from that animation link:
squash and stretch, slow in/slow out, anticipation, follow through, arcs and secondary motion.

Thanks. The feedback and thoughts and information got me looking at things in a different light and I appreciate it. I hope it's okay to post stuff here that isn't very good though.

I finished up the pixel art course today with the bonus lecture on creating a house. It was an easy, recipe style lesson but it was interesting to see what goes into creating buildings.

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/uHrKPns.png)

As kind of an update, I've been taking some time to learn Illustrator. I've used it enough in the past to have fundamental skills and whatnot. I've never had formal training, though, so I was certain I had a lot of inefficient work habits. I started with a short course on the basics, and am now about halfway done with a longer course that goes into more intermediate skills. I've learned quite a bit, and was most definitely doing a lot of dumb things.

I'm thinking to do the same with Photoshop after l finish the Illustrator series.

____

On a side note, I needed to make a favicon for a website project at work this week. Whenever I made one before, it ended up coming out like Swamp Thing, no matter what I was trying to make. But this time I said, "Wait, I can use my newfangled pixel art skills!"

I fired up Asesprite and 5 minutes later, bingo, nice functional favicon. Pixel art practice pays off!

Godzilla Blitz wrote:

Illustrator - I've used it enough in the past to have fundamental skills and whatnot.... I was certain I had a lot of inefficient work habits....and most definitely doing a lot of dumb things.

I'm thinking to do the same with Photoshop after l finish the Illustrator series.
____

I fired up Asesprite and 5 minutes later, bingo, nice functional favicon. Pixel art practice pays off!

I'm the same Godzilla, i've used illustrator for maybe 15 years for work and mostly self taught, my employer at the time about 10 years ago paid for a very limited short course if I recall. As new versions have been released over the years I am sure I'm missing knowledge on new tools and although have enough knowledge to get by and get the work done... I'm sure am not being efficient in its use and missing out on some tools that could help be more creative with it. Same with Photoshop. If I need a new technique for work, I'll YouTube it but not ideal.

You'll have to let know how that intermediate course goes and link to what's involved - may be interested to brush up myself. I'm still on CS6 however so might limit me I guess on up to date courses, loathe to shift to the creative cloud subscription just yet.

Liked your pixel bits btw. I tried a bit in illustrator as it goes a while back... But might be cool to try out some of the pixel art progs you mentioned.

I am still waiting for someone to make a 3d version of Illustrator's Warp tool. the grab tool in most 3 sculpting programs comes close. But I want one for lines and curves to tweak them in 3d. I also love the tools ability to refine or simplify whereas most grab tools in 3d sculpting only stretch and often times add way too much detail.

I did a bit of a project for a fishing buddy recently and am pretty pleased with the outcome. After following my inktober exploits he asked me to do a series of trout illustrations for him in trade. I just dropped them into the mail for him yesterday so he hasn't seen them, but I think he will dig them.

I just started using Google Photos to back up my phone photos, so I've never tried sharing images from there before. Let me know if these don't show up for you folks.

Edit: I uploaded them to photobucket, don't feel like trying to figure out what's what with google photos.

Oncorhynchus mykiss
IMAGE(http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b39/atomic_dog/IMG_4881_zpsmvbwmz3y.jpg)

Oncorhynchus clarkii
IMAGE(http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b39/atomic_dog/IMG_4877_zps1xxkjz3b.jpg)

Salvelinus fontinalis
IMAGE(http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b39/atomic_dog/IMG_4879_zpsmlanghwd.jpg)

Salmo trutta
IMAGE(http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b39/atomic_dog/IMG_4884_zpsbxw4kjxk.jpg)

Done using a Pentel Pocketbrush pen, Lami Safari fountain pen, white gel pen, and watercolor.

yep, can see those fine - very nice!

I cannot, weirdly.

Wonderful work.

Awesome fishies! Salvelinus fontinalis is my favorite.

Bubblefuzz wrote:

I'm the same Godzilla, i've used illustrator for maybe 15 years for work and mostly self taught, my employer at the time about 10 years ago paid for a very limited short course if I recall. As new versions have been released over the years I am sure I'm missing knowledge on new tools and although have enough knowledge to get by and get the work done... I'm sure am not being efficient in its use and missing out on some tools that could help be more creative with it. Same with Photoshop. If I need a new technique for work, I'll YouTube it but not ideal.

I'm more familiar with Photoshop than I am with Illustrator. Neither is the main focus of my work, so I end up using them sporadically. I'm probably working in Photoshop a few times a week, but it's usually low level photo edits and simple stuff. I'm in Illustrator even less, maybe a couple of times a month. I'm functional but no better at either of them.

Bubblefuzz wrote:

You'll have to let know how that intermediate course goes and link to what's involved - may be interested to brush up myself. I'm still on CS6 however so might limit me I guess on up to date courses, loathe to shift to the creative cloud subscription just yet.

I'm not sure yet what I think of the Illustrator course yet. Here's the link though: Adobe Illustrator CC Tutorial - Training Taught By Experts. I'll try to post more complete thoughts when I finish it. There's certainly a lot to it, and the instruction is on target. However, the instructor's style comes off as pedantic rather than helpful at times. Also, it's heavy on instruction but light on application. I wish there were more project-based challenges in the course. As it is, there is great instruction on tons of little points, but nothing really to tie them together and apply the concepts.

Still, I'm definitely learning a lot, and I'm sure I can find some fun Illustrator projects to try when I'm done.

Does anyone here use something for digital art other than Photoshop or Illustrator with a tablet and really like it? I'm pondering trying PS CC for a month to see if my tablet works more smoothly with it. Of course at this point that's like buying running shoes without first starting a running habit but….

I got the latest version of Painter for xmas but I've only really lightly dabbled with so far. it definitely leans more towards simulating actual painting vs other stuff though but it's probably one of the best packages for doing that stuff as far as I can tell. Alternatively, Manga Studio (it has another name as well (which I forget) for promoting in the west - i assume - , but the two are the same package) seems pretty good for comic / lineart.

Other than that, I have a few other packages (most of the ones on steam) but generally I tend to find I always gravitate back to photoshop.

muraii wrote:

Does anyone here use something for digital art other than Photoshop or Illustrator with a tablet and really like it? I'm pondering trying PS CC for a month to see if my tablet works more smoothly with it. Of course at this point that's like buying running shoes without first starting a running habit but….

I've been really enjoying Sketchbook Pro. They have a lite version with limited functionality, but I went ahead and got the full subscription. Way cheaper than photoshop, but it doesn't really do photo retouching, it's more for creating.