[ZippZopp]

I've been drawing now for 3 years and have improved drastically, but still have much to learn. I've gotten a tablet recently to start in on some digital painting and have found myself getting very frustrated. my drawing relies heavily on smooth shading from value to value. and i've found it so hard to do painting digitally in photoshop. what are some techniques that are commonly used to get smooth shading over a range of values and color?

[Ian Jones]

I feel your pain. The first time I tried digital painting I got the same problems. Part of it was not understanding enough about painting, how to economise and reveal form with edges, light & shade etc...

Sounds to me though that you have the same question as me... because I haven't cracked it yet, and I still have to over render and smooth out areas with 'banding'.

Maybe we are approaching things in slightly the wrong way. I work from scanned in drawings with a well established form. This then leads me to 'colour in' working over the form of the lineart. This is kind of like a reverse process, where we begin painting the defined areas first and then smooth it out. We should probably be starting out with large brushes, establishing some form and then workng and developing it to completion. That way we would only render the areas that needed it, and avoid any of the noodling that you tend to do when you are colouring in a pre-defined form like that of lineart.

I dunno, maybe it's somethng to do with that.

Take a look at Micke or Joachims work. Take a long hard look at the forms and imagine the process of building them up. I think those two guys are real masters of 'economy of strokes' because they define the form so well with every carefully placed and shaped stroke.

Hope that helps.