2D digital art tutorials for beginners?

peteed1985

So I find tutorials for digital art only show you how to use the programs rather than teaching you art. I want to get into digital painting and drawing and learn the techniques to make art like this as an example.

http://www.deviantart.com/art/Heros-with-sapphire-eyes-292101076

I learn best by copying someone else exactly step by step

All 3 images at the end were done in the same week with the same rough level of skill but the first was done purely by me while the 2nd and 3rd were following step by step youtube videos for drawing.

Anyone know some step by step digital painting tutorials for painting that teach you both the art and the digital side at the same time? I have Photoshop as well as Autodesk Sketchbook Pro 7 and Corel Painter Essentials 5

pangaea

http://www.ctrlpaint.com/library/

Good luck with your studies.

littleclaude

Best of luck, have a go at the exercises in the this thread "Journey-of-an-Absolute-Rookie",
http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php/870-Journey-of-an-Absolute-Rookie-Paintings-and-Sketches

You will need to make a login to see the work

In 2002 he posted this


A few years later he posted this

peteed1985

Cool, thanks for those since I'm not too good at painting and am working on a project that they are doing in painterly style they asked me to photobash for them to paint over. Must admit I have no idea what he's expecting of me. Just a bunch of cropped and cut out pieces of images in the general spots the final work should have the thing or some of my crappy painting on it too or what? First time hearing the word and it's my job on an assignment for an actual game for a real commercial client as part of my college course.

pior

Anyone know some step by step digital painting tutorials for painting that teach you both the art and the digital side at the same time?

The technical part is actually much more simplier than it seems. It's all about accuracy in your mark making, the ability to correctly pick/chose/use colors ... and that's about it, there is nothing really "technical" (in the digital sense) about that. Don't go into this thinking that digital art is about layers and "tricks" - it is not

From there on, don't limit yourself to digital painting "tutorials". At this point your best course of action is probably to enroll in a weekly life drawing class. It will have to be one with an active teacher though, not an untaught "sketch group" are these are mostly social gatherings and fun ways to motivate oneself, but not real classes.

Regarding the examples posted by LC : these are indeed very interesting, because they clearly show that getting good at this stuff is really not about innate skill or talent. To be more precise : between the crude early studies and the very nice still life, this artist changed a number of things workflow wise. Namely :

- Working from reference rather than trying to make things out of thin air
- Understanding the need for a good still life composition (that is to say : preparation, instead of just opening a blank photoshop file and staring at it)
- Understanding the need to properly establish a controlled lighting and value range in the subject
- Understanding stroke economy
- Understanding canvas composition
- Setting up a proper studio space, most likely with consistent lighting between the subject and the canvas
- and so on.

I am actually under the impression that such results can be achieved even faster once one understand these things (and a few more ). Otherwise one is very likely to develop bad habits which can be hard to unlearn.

In short : it's not so much about tutorials, and more about developping a clear understanding of picture making.
I should also mention that learning straight with digital is probably going to slow you down, as both regular tablets and screen tablets are an order of magnitude less practical and precise than traditional media, especially for learning.

As for photobashing : this is mostly a way to generate design ideas easily. It got very popular in the movie industry a few years ago, and it is gaining popularity in games too, especially when a realistic style is involved. Good examples of such a technique can be seen in the art of the movie Elysium, where stock photography of military soldiers and equipement are "scifi-ed up" by slapping mechanical elements on top.

https://www.google.com/search?q=art+of+elysium&es_sm=122&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0CAkQ_AUoA2oVChMI_YuR06D6xwIVRbQaCh1WQAQO&biw=1449&bih=955#tbm=isch&q=art+of+elysium+movie

It's a viable technique, but ironically it is a bit predictable and easily recognizable.

Good luck !