[Delusion]

I read a lt of the past topics and I saw this superb graphic by a guy named "Craig Mullins" I mean , that really looked GREAT , and then it said he used a MOUSE to color it , and not a WACOM. Now is that a joke , or is he just that good ??? Btw if you know this guy , could you give me a url to his site if he has one ?


Thanks ,
Delusion

[Ko]

www.goodbrush.com

....he uses a tablet

Ko

[Joachim]

that you are willing to waste time and energy to master a mouse instead of a tablet, does that make you a better artist?

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Joachim's Place

[kanabis]

no it means you are poor..

[Snake Grunger]

Joachim - "Does wasting time and energy mastering the mouse instead of the WacomTablet make you a better artist?"



[This message has been edited by Snake Grunger (edited December 11, 2000).]

[Delusion]

Yes it means I'm poor

No seriously , I'm first gonne work on my normal drawing skills , and then If I feel good about it I'll probably buy one , but I'm not gonne buy a tablet to use it for just a week and then just leaving it there on my desk That would be a waste of the little money I have hehe

Thanks for the replies

[Anthony J]

well i spent a year or so drawing with a mouse, and man o man do ppl make fun of you

they call you a brick user!

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Digital Painting Gallery
http://anthonys.8m.com

"you must feel the force in order to use it Obi-Wan..."

[NDR113]

Maybe I have a tip for you. I have an Aiptek Tablet...A what??? Yes indeed a cheap crappy tablet of about US$50. I'm really really glad I bought it though. it doesn't have as many pressure lvl's as a Wacom etc. But I'm just trying it out. getting used to the feel of using a tablet and stuff. I cant draw that well yet. Mostly just cartoonish stuff. So I didn't feel that I needed professional equipment. Anyway maybe it's a tip for you. just buy a cheap one first and see if it works out for you. I don't regret it myself.

[Blitz]

A brick user...ahahahahahahhahahah
I have to wait till I get to my college to paint with a tablet. I will not even try with my mouse at home anymore. But I need a tablet, so that is why this should be a good christmas.

I heard Craig was some sort of Godly creature. Or was that him that tried to tell us that

Blitz.....Brick user...ahahahahahhahahah

[Delusion]

No , I think I'll go straight for one of those sweet lookin wacoms but as I said , I'm first gonne learn and improve my handdrawing skills

[Awetopsy]

actually I admire someone with enough patience to use a mouse to draw something.

I dont think using a mouse or a tablet means anything insofar as having talent. If you have the talent, you'll use whatever means to use that talent, be it a brick.. er mouse, or a tablet, or pencil or pen... heck even a quill....

all of my learning was using a pencil... my very early stuff was crayon.... those arent the easiest things to draw well with.

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I think Im wearing out my CTRL-'z'
http://noelsart.cjb.net

[Periadam]

You don't need a tablet to do digi-art well. I just got mine a month ago cuz I was too po before to buy one. I used the mouse for 4 years before that. I don't think it's too shabby. Some of the stuff I've posted was done with a brick

I don't think it's inhuman for a person to do really REALLY good art with a mouse. It just takes longer.

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<:=:Periadam:=:>
Seperato nos ab veritate

[Delusion]

Holly CHrist , I've been touched by the hand of GOD Thanks spooge (I know that YOU are Craig now ) And it's not the technical stuf I like about your work , I love every pixel about it At first I tought you used textures , but then I kept on zooming in and saw that it was ... NOT A TEXTURE ! So you can pretty much say yu kick ass when it comes to digital art hehe.
Anyway thanks for the long ... long ... long explanation I really appreciate it that all you people make time for beginners as me , and I hope to be able to show you some of my lineart soon (anime , 1vs1 fight ) I'm just having trouble with hte hands right now hehe , it's pissing me off , and I almost wanted to quit it just an hour ago , but I guess that's all part of the learning process


So Thanks

Delusion

[Delusion]

Holly CHrist , I've been touched by the hand of GOD Thanks spooge (I know that YOU are Craig now ) And it's not the technical stuf I like about your work , I love every pixel about it At first I tought you used textures , but then I kept on zooming in and saw that it was ... NOT A TEXTURE ! So you can pretty much say yu kick ass when it comes to digital art hehe.
Anyway thanks for the long ... long ... long explanation I really appreciate it that all you people make time for beginners as me , and I hope to be able to show you some of my lineart soon (anime , 1vs1 fight ) I'm just having trouble with hte hands right now hehe , it's pissing me off , and I almost wanted to quit it just an hour ago , but I guess that's all part of the learning process


So Thanks

Delusion

[Delusion]

Sorry for the double post , and sorry for all those smileys

[BrunnenG]

Hi Delusion, take a look at the tutorials on hands here: http://www.polykarbon.com/tutorials/index.htm

Might help ya, might not - but a good anime site.

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Of all the things I've lost, I miss my mind the most

[Blitz]

Hey spooge
I was wondering if you knew Eric Shovan. (Cant remember how to spell his name)
Just curious because he does alot of matpainting and such. He is also on the advisory board at my college, and tought there to.

I have taken a few things from what you do but it is mostly technique. Just because I started painting though.

I also like the idea of trying to get your own style. That is the whole point of drawing for me. I like your stuff but there are others I like better as far as a style. That is me. I do like the idea of trying to get an emotion out of a painting. A realy strong one. I have something in mind that I will post that will get a good strong emotion out of you.

See yas

Blitz

[synj]

using a mouse really isn't that hard, or amazing. I just got a tablet a week or so ago and I've been doing digital art for years and years with the outcome being very similar. Once you get used to it you can simulate close to the same style you have on paper IMO.

-synj www.synj.net

[spooge demon]

I started using Photoshop before tablets were widely available (or affordable or practical, I can�t remember) so a lot of the stuff on my site was done with a mouse. All the 500 nations images are mouse. The marathon stuff is mostly mouse. They have a lot of photos in them as well. I have not used photos in this way for a long time.

If you work with a mouse, be sure to work large, including working zoomed in so that a large arm movement is what is controlling the cursor. Keep your other hand on the numeric keypad to control the opacity, in order to simulate the pressure sensitivity. There is not much that is not possible with a mouse that is with a pen. This may be less true with different styles. But with my style, which is rather direct and can work with flat shapes it is not as much of a burden. Actually I like the mouse sometimes, because it forces you to be more decisive, and not hide lack of structure and drawing behind a lot of calligraphic fireworks. That is the idea of learning to paint with gouache in the first place. It is too easy to hide behind oil paints inherent pretty textures and blends.

When I started doing digital, nobody including me had a clear idea of how to paint with Photoshop. I originally bought a computer (a quadra 700 with 36 MB ram) as a way to scan in color roughs and explore different ideas before committing to blocking in a larger finished painting. I was working at the time with gouache and acrylic, two media that by chance have many similarities to how Photoshop works. Over time, I learned to control the pixel side of things well enough that I could do the whole thing digital. Convincing my clients that it was OK that their image was done digitally was hard at first. I think they imagined chrome spheres bouncing on reflective checkerboard floors. But even then, if the illustration was for print, they drum scanned it. That meant peeling the illustration board. If the painting was gouache it came back in a tube and all cracked off. So they finally saw the logic in saving the money of not having to scan.

Getting the files to the client was also an adventure. At first I had to hoof it in to them on a floppy, then a Syquest drive. Then came aol, and I even paid and set up some clients and taught them how to use it so I would not have to drive. Things are much better now, I can live anywhere I want, and I am going to do just that, hehe.

If you like my work, I am flattered (or maybe you don�t like, but think it is technically good) but keep in mind a few things.

1) I had the benefit of somewhat proper training, which a lot of people here are too young or not as fortunate to have had
2) I have been working hard at it for a number of years. I have done piles of images, probably thousands by now. You cannot underestimate the importance of �mileage.�
3) Doing commercial work has the strange benefit of forcing you to do things that you would never have tried if you were a fine artist. It broadens you.

I see the influence of my work in a lot of things posted on this board and I have mixed feelings about it. I looked at and emulated a lot of artists that I admired, and you can still see definite echoes of them in my stuff today. I think that is what is happening here, and that is fine. What I don�t like to see is if someone is too influenced and tries to get work with this and the work is sold as �I am cheaper and available.� That does nobody any good, and I have seen it happen to other illustrators, and not a few. But I know that people might learn from where I have been and move on to bigger and better things. I will do the same, and that is part of the reason for my hanging out around here.

[[Shizo]]

thank you... I think now i'm determined for life eheh

Alright peoples go home..
Spooge the king has left the building!

[DRX]

Craig is the guy that inspired me to keep on going, no matter what.
I like the 'true to life' paintstyle he has and am always looking forward to his next artwork! (Also his Matte Images are amazing!)

Thank you, Spooge!

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DRX
Aspiring Artist
URL forthcoming

[SlightlyTwisted]

I painted with a mouse for 5 years before getting a Wacom just a month ago. Call me a cheapskate if you will, you'd probably be right. But it can be done! Its harder work, which is probably what puts most people off...

[This message has been edited by SlightlyTwisted (edited December 12, 2000).]

[Sumaleth]

Spooge said;
>I see the influence of my work in a lot of
>things posted on this board and I have mixed
>feelings about it.

Ooh, I think I fit into that catagory. :> Most of my posts seem to have the phrase "influence by Spooge's ___ pic" somewhere in the description.

To be fair (to myself), I actually don't really draw a picture unless I'm particularly inspired by something I see, and it's probably no coincidence that most of the time that inspiration comes from an image posted by Spooge. Something that turns on that "shit, got to do something like that" valve and forces me to set aside an hour at the end of the day to get away from work and do something for fun.

I guess I want some of that style, or whatever it is that makes the image look nice, to rub off onto the stuff I do for work (mostly game/character textures and some concept art).

You have *no* idea how much that cube stuff from earlier in the year helped my work. Thats one reason I was so keen on going with it - I could ser that the stuff learnt in that task was exactly what I was going to be needing for the tasks that I had coming up.

I don't do anywhere enough art to be where I want to be at (I've done maybe up to 40 pictures, of mostly small sizes, over the last 15 years) so I tend digest new "cool" ideas by trying to paint something 'in the style of' it. But I think that, even when I'm trying to be influenced by a particular image/style, it still largely ends up looking like something that I did. (whether good or bad, I don't know)

My style is now, unavoidably, largely based around two principles of Spooge's work; work really large, and you don't necessarily need to fine turn every pixel. I did digital art in the 'pixel-by-pixel' style for about 8 years before I read about these ideas on Spooge's site, and the moment I tried it out it was like a massive weight had been lifted off me. I no longer had to worry about every damn pixel, I could suddenly be very free.
This made art much more enjoyable for me (most of those 40 images have come since I discovered Spooge's web site), but as a side effect this has give my pictures certain traits that look somewhat Craig-Mullins'y.

But anyway, I will make it a point to try and learn why something works in the future without resorting to near-copying.

Row.

[micke]

Synj: I know what you mean about the mouse-thing. I got so used to it so i almost used it as easy as a pencil.The only thing is that you don't get that smooth pressure-sensitivity.

[Delusion]

What do you mean with 'that cube stuff fro earlier this year' ?