[madcow]

I am new to the digital art world, I REALLY love the speed painting style and how the strokes are transparant and everything. I recently bought a WACOM tablet and haven't used it yet, I have photoshop as well. My question is, what settings do you use with your brushes and such? I am interested in trying the style that is used in some of your paintings and those of goodbrush.com How do you go about starting the paintings? Where do you change the opacity, on the brush or do you change it on the actual layer? Also, are there any good sites with tutorials on this style? Any help would be VERY appreciated! I am very eager to learn more about this style..

Sorry if this has been covered before and for my newbie questions, but hey gotta learn somewhere!

[ December 13, 2001: Message edited by: madcow ]

[jabber]

i of course cannot speak for others, but myself, i use the paint brush with a large brush setting, set the size, opacity to stylus, and then the main opacity to something low, like 15 or 20%

but then, i think it depends on what you want to do. experimenting with it is probably the best thing to do.

as for what to paint, just look around you, pick something and go nuts.

hope that helps

[Derek]

I definintely agree with the GO NUTS philosophy... have a blast. Don't get caught up yet in the how, you'll find all kinds of ways to learn that very soon; and how to tweak and change and trick things out. That may sound counterintuive, or harmful to developing skill, but here's the idea: if you aren't having fun from the start and not really giving a damn about results, you'll probably start to think of it as 'work'... or not really getting you results or looks that you're hoping for.
But draw a bit, and when you can, as suggested above, bring a few real life objects into your room, and light them under a good light, and see if you can paint them up in photoshop. Don't worry so much about speed, enjoy it, see what you're capable of, then start to look at how to understand why some things work, others don't. Go easy with it at first.
Also, PLEASE, don't be fooled by work that is done quickly and looks great. A lot of times there will be a couple reasons as to why it appears so. First, let's assume the work was done fast and was just 'nailed', just great. Well, it probably has to do with many years of slow and careful observation, so that when the speed was put out, they were hitting all of the important things faster than someone who would have to search would hit them, because they 'knew' them so well. This is part of building up a great visual vocabulary, and is really important, and fun too.
Second, sometimes someone can simply 'fool' you into thinking their stuff is dead on, because they know how to break the rules well, or because you aren't so familiar with how they've goofed or gotten lazy or whatever.
Anyway, have a blast, and paint and draw like mad...

A drill I give to friends of mine... in Photoshop, take a really dark blue or brown, fill the screen with it. Then use only the eraser tool. ONLY! Set it to a few opacities, and draw from the darks... this helps people get over any qualms about working with shadows, about what is necessary to reveal form, and a few other bits I'm not gonna mention. You'll figure 'em out.
A lesson for later perhaps... find a few undeniable masters of traditional painting, you'll find names aplenty around here... and get a book or two if you can on them. Then, open up to a favorite painting, and see if you can reproduce it, either in traditional media, which I suggest, or in photoshop too.
I would avoid downloading graphics to work from... because then you have to overcome the desire to simply use the eyedropper to grab color from one and use it in the other... not that anyone would ever do that, right?

[ December 14, 2001: Message edited by: Derek Smith ]

[[Shizo]]

What Derek Smith said is very good and profound.
I suggest you read it

[egerie]

I would firstly like to answer this because I absolutely love painting in "mani�re noire". It's pretty much what Derek Smith described as starting from a dark background and painting 'light' instead of applying shadows to a given object. It forces your mind into focusing as of where the light falls on an object and where it bounces instead of timidly pushing shadows on a shape.
Ok maybe this is a little off topic but I think it could be relevant for some ppl.. It at least really helped me 'click' on concentrating on the shape of objects and how everything is defined by light instead of by shadows.
You gotta start somewhere right ?

Now, albeit more appropriately, the option of opacity can be found in the 'option' window for the selected tool. click Window -> Show Options. When you're using most of the tools, you'll have the possibility to toggle the size, opacity and in some cases color. Thus the more pressure you put on your stylus the more affected is your stroke depending on what you toggled.
Try a combination of things like using paintbrush with only Opacity checked. Then with Size and Opacity checked. Also the Airbrush tool etc.
P.S.: also check for newer drivers from Wacom's website.. sometimes it fixes ugly bugs.

[MoleculeMan]

yeah in the upper right corner of photoshop6, there is a pull down butting (on the tool bar on, but on the otherside alone) and you can set the tablet to change the opacity, size, and color of the brush in a few settings: off, stylus, fade. stylus means its effected by the pressure applied to the tablet, off means its not effected, and fade means the stroke fades out in a certain amount of time or soemthing, I dont remmeber exactly what.

jake

[c]

(hey derek u got a website or something we can all look at? )

and if your just beginning don't be too worried about speed. there are definite advantages to the 'fast and loose' approach, but you have to remember that it's relative.

an accomplished artist will probably bust out something great in what seems to us a very short time. but to the artist, it might have been slow, methodical work. a fast painting for him might have been something done in 1/10th of the time. he would sacrifice certain qualities like nuance and refinement for other qualities like energy and boldness. there is always a tradeoff.

so, again, think relatively. you need to have an understanding of what your own 'pace' is. after that, you can experiment by quickening that natural pace of yours or slowing it down.

and don't worry about style. make your work the best you know how and a style will develop on it's own. get stuck on a style too early on and it will be more of a crutch than a gift.

[ December 16, 2001: Message edited by: c ]

[Malachi Maloney]

What Derek said.

M

[Mr. T]

first few pages of the "speed painting" thread have some good advice, especially spooge's posts.

[Derek]

C-

Thanks for asking, but I don't have a website up yet... with everything else I do there just hasn't been time. Have had one registered for a while and done nothing with it. I will get something up soon, and thank you for asking about my work being viewable.
Another minor, heh, problem is that a lot of work I've done is now owned by the folks I did it for, and I never made copies or scanned it, and I usually dump the stuff I do on the comp. Not too bright, but I never worried about having any of it.

Hope everyone is geting a lot from all of the posts here, some really good stuff...

When I was in school, I belonged to an illustration club, the Shrunkenheadmen. Our motto was 'Fire It Up!'... which is exactly what I suggest to everyone here. Go out and kick some, taking names and having a blast.