[Jaymo]

It happened several times to me now, that I read something in the forums about this and that technique, but never find any more in-depth tutorials on them. And someone said dhabih's tut would probably be no more representative for his recent coloring technique. Then there was that lasso-thingy...and so on. Is there a good spot where we could find/gather tutorials on these matters? If not, maybe we should think of creating one. Opinions?

[Svanur]

An excellent idea if I may say so.

[newt]

Also put in the tutorial for the technique where you strap half a dozen pens to your forehead and slam your head into the tablet.

[Chapel]

I think you did. Just make sure you use the mechanical pencils. That way get a nice little kick back.

[endrigan]

Im against tutorials , all those cool little things you see dhabih or spooge do are their trade marks ..........*

enough out of me ...bye

[edible snowman]

why are you against tutorials? Everyone started off not konwing at some point. Dhabih and spooge didnt just magically learn what they know, they were taught at least some of it.

[ThE_JacO]

i don't think it's in the technique that spooge, liquid , dahb , or whoever u want to mention from the bigguns array find their strong points.
It's all about style and talent the difference between being good and being excellent.
most techs are just normal art techniques and color theory applied to a program , the tool is different but the procedures are just something u could learn in any art course and then revert it over PS.

IMO traditional art courses and a lot of practice on paper will help u a lot more then just numerical/techy approach tutorials

i'v seen extremely skilled technical ppl knowing in depth photoshop not producing a decent art piece for years just because they lacked the basical art tastes and education , in the same way i'v seen ppl with traditional arts backgrounds approaching applications more techbitchy then photoshop (like softimage|XSI or maya) and doing miracles in a matter of a few months.

Ever wondered why ILM or pixar ask over everything else a traditional education in arts and allow only minor softwatr understanding ? (beside the fact they use a lot of propietary tools)

EDIT: corrected the improbable amount of typos and double words =)

[This message has been edited by ThE_JacO (edited October 03, 2000).]

[Jaymo]

ThE_JacO: I do agree that good knowledge of traditional art is the lacking skill most of the times, still I would like to see some nice tutorials concentrating on digital art technique. If you don't expect to learn everything about drawing by doing some tuts you can't go wrong IMHO. If one does not realize he lacks the drawing skills, not the technique, it's not my problem, right?

[sear]

hi,
i guess that finding a "own" technique by yourself is way much better than reading tuts and so.
and yeah, if you know the basics (about drawing, and so on) you don't need to be a technique's god to produce effective and interesting pictures... see what i mean?

peace

[Jaymo]

Well. Actually I am interested in one technique right now.
Which AGAIN is: how do you guys do your shading instead of using the burn-tool? Just the appropriate color with opacity driven by the wacom? I'd really like to hear about the different approaches, so please post your technique-o-choice!

Hey, I know you are listening!

[ThE_JacO]

well i'm far from being anything good on digital painting, but for what it's worth..
the shading (ligthing techniques) is done in different ways depending on the final effect u wish to obtain.
the "low end" comics colouring is a lot about lasso and gradients (or mesh gradients in illustrator) usually with 3 levels of colors, base midtone darker tones and then highlights, obviously rendering metals is pretty different from cloth and so on .

the painting effect is usually a blocking (filling the areas of the drawing with their respective dark midtones) followed by one pass with a darker tone (a lot of ppl uses hard edged brushes, personally i'm one of those), for the first shading avoid bothering with stylus pressure size and just use pressure opacity (someone does the opposite).
the same procedure with a lighter tones follows to give further volumes to masses, then add as many passes as u think u need/want, the less tone variations (this obviously involves more passes) between passes the smoother the resulth will be (the effect will anyway be more consistent and better looking then the dreaded 0% hardness airbrush =).
finish with details, small highlights and whatever u think will pair up with ur style.

the key to it is a good knowledge of color theory (u don't darken pinks with black or highlight em with white, u use browns (various degrees of warm depending on the effect wished, yellows, graysh yellows etc. it all depends from skin tone etc. also choosing what colors contrast or melt better is important, complementary colors etc.) and a lot of patience (add also never overdo and save when the image looks cool

Layer management and so on is totally personal , there's ppl painting a whole block on a same layer like on a canvas and ppl that prefers to use different layers and add some multiply or screen layers for certain effects, that's all about experience.

i hope this friggin long crap made any sense (and it's been of some help ).

Any biggun in here could surely detail more this explanation and correct some flaws or anything i left behind.

[img:1381653513] http://www.thejaco.com/images/facebeta.jpg [/img:1381653513]

i know it sucks compared to most works present on this forum , but those are just 3 or 4 passes for the skintones .
btw it's my first pic with no pencil sketch , and it's around half an hour of work

[Flexible Elf]

I tend to use 'Multiply' and 'Soft Light' quite a bit when shading my line stuff.

But when I am plain old painting, I try just playing with different colors and just painting over other values as 'Normal'

-Flexible Elf

------------------
http://www.geocities.com/flexible_elf/Main.html

[Chapel]

I know a great deal about proportions, color theory, painting techniques, so and so on.. but I lack the talent that someone like spooge has. No tutorial is going to give it to me. However, I find tutorials are more of a confidence builder. Its like.. if they can do it then so can I.

ThE_JacO: "low end"? What is that supposed to mean?

[ThE_JacO]

hmm low end isn't quite the right word, but i couldn't come up with anything better at the moment.

personally i think there's a lot of comics around whose colourists aren't paid enuf or simply they are asked to sort of hold on a dated style, or maybe they are aksed an average of 32 pages a day i really dunno.
most marvel's best sellers just present a "bucket like" colouring with little effort to place one or 2 additional tones with edges so sharp they don't add much to volume.
low end as in "crappy"
it's just my opinion sure, but i don't think something shaded with one or 2 gradients can get anywhere near good these days.

[Jaymo]

ThE_JacO: Thanks a lot for your reply. And yes, it's been of some help!
Flexible Elf: I'll give it a shot. Finally got rid of my trusty old artpad and want to try something new on that intuos...
Chapel: I know there are a lot of kids lacking talent, trying to compensate with tutorials. Guess you'll count me in til I post some more, eh? Sorry, got nothing else up right now, you'll have to wait or have a look at the pic I posted earlier: http://www.sijun.com/dhabih/ubb/Forum2/HTML/004635.html
Hmm, certainly says nothing bout my knowledge of colour or anatomy, but hey...
Whatever, it's always good to know the basics, don't have to stay with'em. And digital art ain't the same as traditional art (never heard of DaVinci using multiplying layers), so tuts on the subject are well justified IMHO. Noone says it will suffice to produce great art.