My paint skills suck
polycounter lvl 7
I can't paint realistically at all and I want to change that.
My main art influences in life were comics and cartoons. My style followed that. However it's not giving my drawings the depth that I want.
Are there good free online resources for learning how to digitally paint as opposed to clumsy coloring? My style is the latter of those two.
I will be taking art classes next year, but I want to learn more now so I can push myself further.
My main art influences in life were comics and cartoons. My style followed that. However it's not giving my drawings the depth that I want.
Are there good free online resources for learning how to digitally paint as opposed to clumsy coloring? My style is the latter of those two.
I will be taking art classes next year, but I want to learn more now so I can push myself further.
Replies
FZD School
Other than that, if you search for "FZD School" on YouTube there are over 50 videos of Feng Zhu walking you through his process.
The others I'll be checking out a lot and trying to paint from real life.
When I got back into this, I think I got so exited about polygonal modeling, and sculpting that I forgot to build my basics back to where they need to be.
However, this also resulted in some other benefits. Previously, i wouldn't never consider doing models with cartoonish textures, mostly because it not just simple photo manipulation, but you actually have to do some painting.
So now that i started to learn painting, i'm actually getting more exciting about these cartoonish models, now i can actually make a good attempt at doing them.
So in a way, it actaully opened new possibilities even a as modeller or rather asset creator.
Anyway, sorry for a little of topic, just wanted to say, even if you are learning painting for something like concept and you still want to mostly be modeller, i learned that painting can actually help you improve other areas as well.
The same way as experience with sculpting is helping with painting forms and understanding 3d objects in flat space, it's all connected.
[ame="http://www.amazon.com/Beginners-Guide-Digital-Painting-Photoshop/dp/0955153077/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1353299792&sr=8-1&keywords=digital+painting"]Beginner's Guide to Digital Painting in Photoshop: Nykolai Aleksander, Richard Tilbury, 3DTotal Team: 9780955153075: Amazon.com: Books[/ame]
You should check it out...I haven't heard much about it other then I know at least one of the artist's in there but I'm sure its full of good info.
Samcole, that's an awesome book. I'll be getting that one come spring.
I've just spent the last 2 hours practicing color blending, creating gradients and setting up my tablet so the stylus responds correctly.
With the resources you guys shared I'm hoping I can get my 2d together and actually be proud of my work.
I just wanted to add that I'm sharing all this with my 11 year old aspiring anime artist. The knowledge that I'm getting from here is filling his creative little head.
1. Learn perspective - I don't have any really great resources for learning this but this one seems OK from what I've skimmed:
https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:G-RArC-Y1-MJ:www.arch.calpoly.edu/programs/documents/texts/drawing-form.pdf+&hl=en&gl=us&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESixknpsYJsrHwTROBdL5ebwWN0X2uOQag0jooT9a8kTPjHDx1K9oIHR_NvguluCKqkNY5oJoDqnv6I-VnSLlq8JpYaqszPBvFi2GuyTE-qhuuaues2f8_o--EvGNdx6XCefQrCe&sig=AHIEtbR_eUcGx5EMalvBMF_YuNmeXCL7Vg
Just skip to the "Perspective Basics" chapter. The only thing this doesn't appear to cover is 3 point perspective, but that's not too complicated, here's a page about it:
http://www.explore-drawing-and-painting.com/3-point-perspective.html
2. Learn about light. It's a good exercise to practice painting various 3d primitives like spheres and cubes in different lighting conditions (and different perspectives, for that matter). Feng Zhu's videos have some useful info about light. I haven't seen the Gnomon video TeriyakiStyle posted, but it looks pretty solid based on the description. Also I really like this book, I know you don't want to pay for stuff but this is probably worth it:
[ame="http://www.amazon.com/Color-Light-Guide-Realist-Painter/dp/0740797719/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1353308313&sr=8-1&keywords=color+and+light"]Color and Light: A Guide for the Realist Painter: James Gurney: 9780740797712: Amazon.com: Books[/ame]
If you really don't want to pay for it, I think a lot of the info is on his blog, it'll just take some searching to find specific info:
http://gurneyjourney.blogspot.com/
3. From here you can look into more specific stuff like different material properties, etc. But if you understand perspective and light it will be a lot easier to make use of any other info you pick up.
4. If you want to draw people you'll need to learn anatomy. I'm not that great with it, but this should be a good start:
http://www.alexhays.com/loomis/Loomis%20Figure%20Draw.pdf
If you get really serious about drawing people, though, you'll have to do lots of life drawing and probably actually study bone structure and learn about all the muscles and how they interact. (Which is why I'm not that great with it yet
Here's sort of an "all purpose" tutorial that I found really helpful. It's sort of a collection of random tips for intermediate painters:
http://androidarts.com/art_tut.htm
Finally, there's this thread. Basically this awesome painter set up a thread where people could submit their paintings to him and he'd do paintovers and explain the changes he made. Seeing how he 'fixes' other people's work can be really helpful, especially because there are definitely trends in the changes he makes, probably 70% or so of all the paintings he fixes had the same set of basic problems that were relatively simple to fix. This has been going on for like 6 years so you probably won't want to read it all in one sitting
http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?t=359226
Find tutorials and books that discuss decision making and theory, not ones that give you quick fix tutorials to paint some arbitrary subject.
This guy ^^ hahahahaha
Hey, he's better than I am.
Still no. The only problem I have with that guy and that book Samcole posted is the artwork in there is educational beyond the minimum amount, but it looks like it's just that, barely above minimum. Thats like trying to learn from somebody who's slightly better than you.
The book seems to go over simple photoshop UI stuff you can easily find online, and the general basics of painting, which again, you can find online. (feng zhu, Daarken, More feng zhu, etc)
The feng zhu tutorials go over everything from basic composition and color theory, to photoshop setups and painting techniques. I can't recommend him enough.
And here's a huge list of online tutorials on Cghub: here
I'd say to go after some of the more revered artists who have a much stronger since of value, form, and color theory. Broadway posted some good links to some much better artists and you'll get much more out of studying them.