First hand-painted texture

danshewan

So after being in a bit of a funk for a while, I thought I'd try something a little different for me by hand-painting a texture. Opted for a simple damaged brick wall, and this is what I have so far.





I'm not happy with several aspects of it, though it's been a fun exercise, namely the surface details and cracks. I started out using some grunge brushes at 50% opacity to get a feel for look, placement etc. then went over these placeholder cracks with a simple small, circular brush to try and get them to pop, but to be honest, I think they looked better prior to going over them.

I've never tried this kind of thing before, so I'd love to hear how you guys got on when you started hand-painting textures, and any suggestions for creating convincing damage / details etc. or general critique that could help me improve. Thanks in advance.

Progg

I think you are almost getting an inverse effect of what would naturally happen. You have your cracks as being a lighter value, whereas they would actually be darker than the bricks... so it is giving it an inverted look. Also there are too many cracks for how clean the individual brick's silhouettes are. If there were that many cracks you would expect some of the abnormally straight divider lines to be broken up and some of the bricks shaped more organically.

MRico

Yeah I agree with Progg...right now your cracks look more like veins, like they're bulging out of the bricks instead of being carved into them.

Also, I don't know if you cropped it wrong...but it's not tileable.

Edit: Also right now, your clean highlights around each brick make them look more like tiles. You should roughen up the edges make it more crumble-ly looking.

danshewan

Yeah, you're right on both counts. I'll add some shape variation to the actual bricks themselves, and re-do the cracks altogether. I'll try using some existing grunge and cracked brushes with an almost-black color, then touch up the highlights with a simple brush, see how that looks.

Thanks for the feedback!

Also, I don't know if you cropped it wrong...but it's not tileable.

Yeah, I never intended to make it tile, as I was focusing purely on actually getting something on 'paper' as it were, and trying out techniques. And yeah, the 'cracks' do look like veins...

PogoP

I'd say that the lines are a bit too random at the moment. Think about how these bricks could have broken apart; some bricks will have cracked along the edges into the middle. Search for reference pictures of bricks to see what I mean.

woogity

agreed with progg kinda a marble-y feel but without the colors of a marble, roughen up the edges anyways you would be hard pressed to find bricks with that tight of an edge given the depth of the bevel.

dur23

The first thing i would suggest is starting with one single brick. Right now (for you) your focus is too large. I think you'd be better served to see if you can do one really good brick. Then do another and another and another until bam! Wall!

danshewan

dur23 wrote: »

The first thing i would suggest is starting with one single brick. Right now (for you) your focus is too large. I think you'd be better served to see if you can do one really good brick. Then do another and another and another until bam! Wall!

That's a great idea - especially since I want to focus on strengthening my confidence in Photoshop technique as opposed to tiling etc.

I'll do it!

Thanks again for everyone's feedback, very much appreciated. Been going through some existing threads (listed below, for convenience of anyone else looking for similar resources) so I've got plenty to work on. Thanks again, guys. Feels good to pick up a stylus again and actually try creating something after such a long time off.

http://boards.polycount.net/showthread.php?t=71221

http://boards.polycount.net/showthread.php?t=71324

http://boards.polycount.net/showthread.php?t=70058

http://boards.polycount.net/showthread.php?t=68416

dur23

The idea i was suggesting is to take one brick and make sure you nail it. You seem to be lost in the details over the whole wall as opposed to making sure each brick is good.

danshewan

dur23 wrote: »

The idea i was suggesting is to take one brick and make sure you nail it.

Uh, yeah, that's what I thought you meant...!

Canadian Ink

I would take some time to look at games like wow and torchlight and see how they handle similar textures, that might give you a better starting off point.

Wells

zomg paintover!

people have mostly said what needs to be said, but i thought a quick example might help.

basically, it doesn't look like you're hand painting your hand painting. your lines are far too straight and look computer-assisted. don't be afraid to just drag your brush across the screen. it's all the imperfections your unsteady hand makes that makes 'hand-painted' textures awesome. using a hard, low opacity black will quickly give you some interesting, 3d edges. if you look on some of the bricks around the center one, that's almost all i did. quick, dirty strokes and BAM, you can already see the shapes.

i went a little crazy, but hopefully you get what i was going after




looking forward to seeing your progress!

danshewan

Wow, thanks for the paintover, Sec! Really appreciate it. And yeah, the whole thing felt kinda sterile as it stood, and I guess I'm so new at this that I'm trying to 'play it safe' and it's giving me bland, inaccurate and generally crappy results, so thanks again, man.