Need Suggestions on Digital Painting! Pearl from SU & Others

MaryManatee

Hi everyone, I'm Mary and I'm 24 years old! I mostly do 3D work, but I decided to dive back into 2D recently and I've loved my results. However, my painting looks a little sketchy and I don't want to abuse the smudge or blur tools. Also, I have no idea how to do masking to help this.

What other painting suggestions do you have for me? Here's my work: 

EricElwell

Hey Mary, looks like you're having fun with it which is a big advantage! For rendering, I would think that it is more about your approach than the tools. Consider the method that you're applying to describe form change. These two examples use strictly line rather than light/shadow. Of course, that is fine if you are going for a cartoony look. If you want less line work, then use more shadow shapes. If you want to maintain this style and are just looking to have a cleaner line work, then use a fully opaque brush (maybe with a pressure size-taper) and practice drawing from the shoulder and elbow to get big smooth strokes. That just takes practice to get the muscle memory going. Of course, one well placed clean stroke can eliminate the "need" for many scratchy strokes. 

As far as smudge/blur, in my opinion you really don't need them, especially up front. They're fine tools if you know exactly how you want to use them. However, if you're really just starting to develop your painting skill I believe that you would learn more and save yourself a lot of tooling around by avoiding smudge/blur for now, and just use standard brushes. I'd recommend one for each type of edge you want: A soft edge, a hard edge, and maybe a squared and a rounded variant for the hard edge brush. It's more about getting your edges right to communicate form than anything else. Down the road you can get more complicated with brushes, but I would recommend simplifying your tool set up front so that your energy goes to sharpening your most powerful painting tool: your mind. Keep having fun with it! Post some more art Good luck!

MaryManatee

EricElwell said:

Hey Mary, looks like you're having fun with it which is a big advantage! For rendering, I would think that it is more about your approach than the tools. Consider the method that you're applying to describe form change. These two examples use strictly line rather than light/shadow. Of course, that is fine if you are going for a cartoony look. If you want less line work, then use more shadow shapes. If you want to maintain this style and are just looking to have a cleaner line work, then use a fully opaque brush (maybe with a pressure size-taper) and practice drawing from the shoulder and elbow to get big smooth strokes. That just takes practice to get the muscle memory going. Of course, one well placed clean stroke can eliminate the "need" for many scratchy strokes. 

As far as smudge/blur, in my opinion you really don't need them, especially up front. They're fine tools if you know exactly how you want to use them. However, if you're really just starting to develop your painting skill I believe that you would learn more and save yourself a lot of tooling around by avoiding smudge/blur for now, and just use standard brushes. I'd recommend one for each type of edge you want: A soft edge, a hard edge, and maybe a squared and a rounded variant for the hard edge brush. It's more about getting your edges right to communicate form than anything else. Down the road you can get more complicated with brushes, but I would recommend simplifying your tool set up front so that your energy goes to sharpening your most powerful painting tool: your mind. Keep having fun with it! Post some more art Good luck!

You're so helpful! Thank you so much. What are some examples of hard-edge brushes?

EricElwell

Left to right:
soft edge oval, round opacity/pressure, rounded size/pressure, square size/pressure. 

If you wanted. you could add a square opacity/pressure, but this is the basic line up I would recommend starting with to get the hang of it.