[chrisk82]

I can't get smooth shading worth crap. I especially need it for a face I'm working on write now. Anyone want to take a shot at it and explain to me (and others) how to get Smooth Shading? For ex: Dhabih's eclipse face, Marius's Midevil Face.

Thanks

[Affected]

First of all, it's mediaeval (Or for the US folks, medieval)
Anyhow, to the shading. I'm not absolutely certain what you mean, but I'll give it a shot. I'm guessing you have two shades that don't blend quite as smoothly as you want them to: there's an edge. Sample the colour in between the two shades, where the transition is, and using a large, soft airbrush, paint over the transition area. Repeat where rough transitions are visible.

Someone also mentioned using gaussian blur. Never tried that.

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Affected
http://affected.cjb.net

[Trance-R]

Combo of blur tool and guassian blur work pretty well together. But make sure you make a selection of the places you want to blur, else you will get fuzzy edges. I usually set the pixel rate in Guassian blur to 1 to 2 pix. depending on how rough the transition is. Affected method works really well, but I guess it's time consuming.

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Trance-R =P
[email protected]

[SPike.CoM]

Use a big big airbrush at a less opacity and it'll work great. Set it's mode to "multiply" too.

Then, hilight with the same but with the mode "screen". Works 80% of the time.

[Shrimpish]

I didn't use any airbrush on my "Medieval" chick's face. It was all dodge/burn set to highlights. You have to start with a middle value, not a value that would look like skin color to start with, because when you still have to put the highlights on it.
To get that "smooth" shading effect, shade with a huge feathered brush to start with, and then make it smaller for more detailed highlights and shadows.
I don't really see why you would have to use blurring. That would only make your pic look washed out. That's just me though.