[Fred Flick Stone]

Hi all, this is my first attempt at really using painter. I found the tools fairly easy to work with, but I still don't seem to get a lot out of the textures...I was wondering if any of you painter pros out there can lend a bit of advice...

THe image is an experiment, I spent a little over an hour on it, and has no photo reference. I made her up. I am attempting to get a real painting look to it, for a project.

I haven't placed a background on it yet, as I am just getting used to it. I love this program, just wish I knew more about it.

Thank you for your time and comments...

[Visigoth]

I hate Painter, and with a passion...

But I love redheads. I like that pic...She looks kinda...angry...hehe

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Your car is a fiberglass penis extension.

[AliasMoze]

That's a nice image, Fred.
I am not a Painter pro, but I just started dabbling with it.
1. I love the oil pastels. They feel damn close to the real thing. Which is good, because they're one of the only things I've every colored with for real.
2. The Help files for Painter are pretty good and explain most of what you will want to know.
3. An interesting feature is that you can rotate the canvas like a sheet of paper.
4. You can save scripts of your work and replay, or even make movies out of them. Great for tutorials.

[samdragon]

You da man Fred! I love painter! I'll see if I can repay for all the help you've given me...
The real secret to painter is using custom brushes. Learn how to set them up correctly and you'll be flying. You shouldn't have a problem at all.
You may want to play with your brushes for painting on layers. when you paint on painter layers it leaves a white halo around the strokes, make a custom brush (variant) and turn down(off) the bleed, (brush controls/well) this will prevent the white from appearing in your strokes.
If you're wanting a texture "texture" then turn down the grain for you brushes or what ever, this will allow more paper to show through in your strokes.
Also, try playing around with the "just add water brush" it's great for real fast blending of colors, much better than Photoshop's version.

To give the impression of a canvas texture,use the "effects/surface control"
Play around with the "apply surface texture" and color overlay.
You can pick your different papers and color while you have the effects windows open.
Remember, the paper you have selected is the paper you are painting on, it does not stay the same each time you load, so if your working on something over time, be sure to reload that paper. (Art materials/Papers)

Yeah, the rotate tool is very nice, just double click it to return to original position. (rotate tool is under the hand in your tools window)
You can tear off brushes when you make new ones, just click the brush and drag it out of the brushes window, you can add more brushes to this new window.

You probably know by now that you can lock layers in painter to prevent you from painting on them. You can also group them.
Only thing I don't like about painter is the way it handles masks (crapolla).
Each time you open painter you should go to "EDIT/PREFERENCES/BRUSH TRACKING" this is how painter knows your strokes and it can set the tools to best suit your speed and tilt. (if you're using an intuos tablet, you can get the full benefit of tilt with your strokes. (check your brush controls window and look under expression)

If you need help on how to make a custom brush, I'll be glad to help you out, there is more to it that photoshop, but not much more.
My mouth is just watering to see some of the stuff you gonna do with painter!

Maybe Veb will come in here and finally tell us some secrets about painter

[Anthony]

Hmm, Painter, here are some tips:
1)Set up a Charcoal brush that's about 11pixels in size, min size 12%, min step 8%, squeeze 100, angle 25, Size controlled by tilt, opacity and grain by pressure. In the general control panel make the grain about 55%. That should give you a nice 2b pencil to use.
2)Use Simple Water under water colors. They're great. Try coloring(not filling) the canvas with black, and then working up from there. The reverse-out mode for layers is handy for overlaying a sketch. Pretend you're using a mix between acrylics and water colors. You'll find some interesting things happen.
3)Mess with the grain slider in the water colors. It can make a big difference. I usually leave it on 10%. But then I've just been blocking in with Painter and then switching to PS. The reason? You can't sample color from the water color layer, so adding details once the main colors are down is faster in PS.
Good luck, it's a nice program.

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-Anthony
Carpe Carpem

[Fred Flick Stone]

THank you all...this has been a great help. I will post this one when it is finished...I didn't realize you could spin the page, very good thing...


Thank you guys again, I wanna like this program, but well see...

[Farwalker]

Wow Fred, that is so very nice.

So much talent.
1000's of practice hours to get to the art level your are at now huh...

Well, back to my practice schedule.
Can't wait to see it done.

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www.gamingvault.com

[This message has been edited by Farwalker (edited August 14, 2000).]

[Pigeon]

For a quick addition of some texture, I always like using the 'square chalk' brush. Just choose the texture you want in the paper pallette and go to town with the chalk. The spatter airbrush and the charcoal brushes give softer texture. You can of course, make your own textures by marquee selecting an area, then using the capture paper command (I have Mac v5). I scanned in a canvas painting of mine to get a great canvas texture.

Also, another great tip: you can resize your brush on the fly by holding down command and option while dragging. A circle will pop up and expand or shrink to show you the size. Sorry I don't know the equivalent PC keys.

Have fun!

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-Pigeon
http://www.darklight.org/dunakin

[Fred Flick Stone]

Farwalker-thank you for the nice feed back

Pigeon-very cool tip. That was one frustrating thing for me, was constantly resizing, if it is on the fly though, that helps big time...thank you...

[hew]

Whats can you do in Painter that you cant do in PS5.5 ??

[ceenda]

Painter is often heralded as a package that produces traditional painted pics but it takes a pic like this to see the Painter tools at their best. The pic is absoulutely fantastic (he he, I also have a fancy for red-heads), but, as I say, it looks like a real oil painting. He he, you could do some promotions for Metacreations.

As ever, a great job Fred.

[SushiMaster]

hew, Painter is very different from Photoshop. In Painter you use simulations of real painting tools which look like "the real thing". In photoshop the brushes give "flat colours", whilst in painter, if you select a colour and the watercolour brush and brush a stroke, it will look very much like what it would have given with a real life watercolor stroke. I suppose it's not 100% accurate with real life brushes, but it's fairly close and has the added benefit of colour picking, and no mess, and, of course, the possibility to erase bits totally, which you could never do with traditional media.

Daniel

[Sumaleth]

I sent an email to the company that makes Painter asking if there was a demo version of the program available. He wouldn't answer the question in email, instead giving me a list of contact *phone numbers* for different places around the world and told me to call the one nearest to me! Nice support...

Anyone seen a demo of Painter 6?

Sumaleth

[samdragon]

Who knows whats going on with painter after Corel bought it. They put out an update that only puts the corel logo in the splash screen..whoopdydoo.
You used to get painter classic for free when you bought a wacom tablet of 6x8 or bigger.
It's a pretty big program, so I doubt you're gonna find a demo. Roughtly 264megs installed.
If you have photoshop, try visiting the folks who make deep paint. They used to have a demo of deep paint, which allows photoshop to pretty much do everything painter can, but with photoshop interface and layers.
Try www.righthemisphere.com
good luck.

[micke]

Cool, i dig your solid way of constructing
things. Nice and sharp.

-micke

[Joachim]

Looks good fred,
I have only done 1 pic in painter myself, so I can't really help you with anything about the program. Could be cool to have to texture or color from the canvas behing the girl though, since Painter is supposed to make the pic look less "digital".
I really like the look Painter gives, and it's a really fun program to play around in don't you agree ?

Anyway, nice work !



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Joachim
web:
http://home.online.no/~j-barrum/

[ozenzo]

simply Amazing!! sorry I'm no help. I've been trying to get a hold of painter 6 ,but just don't have the money. It seems to be a great tool,especially in your hands. I heard the paint mixes on the canvas....um screen. Is that true? I looks great. I'm looking forward to seeing the finished painting.

[vebjorn]

Ok..her`s my secret,-)

I don`t use many gimmicks and effects in painter. They just `give away that the image was done digitally too much. I use 90% a standard opac bristle brush/spray, just variations in size, opacity and feature. The only effects I use is the thick paint here and there, and lightning effects when I start up from scratch to remember which direction I`m sending the light...

all brightness and color adjustments, cutting, scaling etc are done in photoshop.

Oh..btw.. great pic Fred, even though I`m a fan of color, compostition, energy and big biceps and boobs ..hehe, and not so moved by portraits from pics.. SO I REALLY dig the fact that you did it without reference. Thumbs up!
I really encourage more of the "scanners" out there to make some from their head too, if you can get just as good results then, you know if you know your stuff for real.(bad sentence, but I think you got the point.I remember submitting many photorealistic airbrush pinup babes to an art director for conan years ago, and he asked me if I really could draw! So I went home and worked without pictures and figured out I needed far more training when it came to creating my own figures, poses and composition. Damn I really sucked.

Once again I`m rambling away....forgive me

-Veb

[This message has been edited by vebjorn (edited August 16, 2000).]