[spooge demon]

Hey there,

I learned to paint (still am) by doing hundreds, if not thousands, of little sketches. Don't spend more than 1/2 hour on them. Try to get the main information down as quickly as possible. Get rid of the plain white canvas as soon as you can. Cover it up with something, anything, just so you can start comparing values.

Here's an example-

mountain sketch and the photo it was done from

quick, no fuss, but the main info is there. The media, whether photoshop or real paint is unimportant.

Some people have asked about a staged drawing, here is a movie file that shows the whole process. That's better than stages, eh? It is 1.7 mb, so be prepared. It is also from a painter script. which is not my normal habitat, so watch me screw up quite a few times. But the idea of general to specific is pretty clear.

bridge movie

have fun!

spooooge



[This message has been edited by spooge demon (edited January 14, 2000).]

[DuKEZ]

wow those mountains look like a photo almost :P

ive never been really good at painting.. even wit traditional paints and brushes :P

im still messing around since i got my tablet and all.. and it came wit painter classics, pretty niffty program.. i havent made anything good wit it.. i ran all the scripts already too.. its cool hehe :P im downloading yer movie as i speak :P

Okay when i pressed yer link it booted up windows media player.. (streaming video).. but it said it couldnt play cause didnt have no decompressor (i connected and tried to download a codec, but none found) so i downloaded the mov to my hardrive instead and it still wont work.. same error.. the odd thing is that i have other .mov files that i can view wit media player fine..

i know gates tried to kill .mov and push his .avi a while back.. but i dunno :P it doesnt work for me..

[This message has been edited by DuKEZ (edited January 14, 2000).]

[BooMSticK]

Hey there SpoogeD

Thats pretty good advice. It all sums up to 'practice, practice, practice, ...'

I paint in all of my sparetime (or as much as my girlfriend allows me to). Hope to post something here real soon...

and btw, the mountain sketch is very nice...

until later,

;P

[BooMSticK]

* well don't know what happende but my first post never showed up....ahh well *

Hey there SpoogeD

That is a great advice. Doing small scribbles has always been a good way of evolving. It all comes down to: practice, practice, practice and then practice some moore...

I've been drawing all life and been painting digitally for almost a year now. I'll post a couple of pics very soon...

Sorry, I haven't made the obligatory 'Hi I'm new' post so I'll do it here in the amazing Craigh Mullins post (sorry Craig)...

until later,

;P

[Acryl]

wow ! i liked the mov very much ..
you could do more of that if you have time ;D but please not in painter ... as it doesn�t reflect your cool dodging style .
and imho painter is not very comfortable to use .. =) ...
so please photoshop ;D ...

acryl http://members.xoom.com/pointnpixel

[Funfetus]

What do you find uncomfortable about Painter?

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Funfetus
iCE VGA Division
http://www.funhousedigital.com

[Acryl]

well , the painter interface is a pain .. looks nice but very crappy to use .. like all meta creations tools , I think they would have been better by making a neutral interface ... windows .. etc.
and the way it handles layers is also very strange .. i just don�t get comfortable with it .
That�s my point if you like to use painter , ok =D ..
And my reply was focusing on that special dodging that spooge is doing ..
that�s all ..

acryl http://members.xoom.com/pointnpixel

[sfr]

fwiw, I think Painter just feels better in use - the tools in Photoshop are somehow very linear and digital-feeling, Painter is a more friendly experience... But this is just my personal touchy-feely opinion, your reasons for disliking Painter are valid as well.

I have to say though, I really hate dodge/burn in Photoshop. It seems to me that 98% of the time it just teaches people bad habits by making them use that evil supersaturated dodged look everywhere. Even when dodge is used reasonably, it's a technique that just jumps at you - "oh, that bright bit there was done with dodge". That can ruin the feeling in my eyes even if it's a good image otherwise. Of course there are Photoshop wizards who can really use dodge/burn well (like mr. spooge here), but they seem to be few and far between...

Saffron / Sunflower

[Acryl]

I perfectly agree with you that Photoshop has got a more technical feeling in use as it was not meant to simulate real life media like Painter ( hence the name i guess , photoshop was created as a photo-manipulating tool [ am I wrong ? ]) ...
and you are right that dogde/burn can ruin a picture if it�s not used well ... that�s exactly why i asked spooge demon for a photoshop mov . to show us how he works with these tools =) . I didn�t intend to start an Anti-Painter campaign here ... don�t get me wrong .

acryl http://members.xoom.com/pointnpixel

[spooge demon]

Hmmm... I really don't use the dodge and burn tools. I did when they first came out in PS, and did not find much use for them. I sometimes use a paintbrush set to color dodge, but pretty sparingly.

The bridge mov was done in painter on a mac, and made into a QT mov. Are people having trouble playing it on PC's without QT? QT does suck, what format should I put it into?

Any ideas on how to capture a movie from photoshop? I thought maybe taking a screen shot every few minutes?

I found that painter with it 200 interactive variables was difficult to use precisely. I know if I worked with it more I would find it easier to control.

[Acryl]

Hmmm ... if you want to make an animation in photoshop like the one you did with painter the only solution ( as far as i can see ) is to save the worksteps every now and then . After that you put it together in Premiere or any other video editing soft ...
Can�t see any other solution now .

About the dogde / burn .. i refered to the Angle picture you did .. don�t remember the exact title .. and the shiny parts that were on the armor and the sword ..
so you did these with a colored brush set to dodge ?

You switched to painter completely now or will still be doing photoshopping ?

acryl http://members.xoom.com/pointnpixel

[Loki]

Getting s movie out of PS is nearly impossible. What I usually do, when I anticipate a step by step demonstration, is I save often and also before I merge some inportant layers. After merging I start a new file. I usually end up with 5-8 files. After the painting is finished, I browse through all of them and save out the most interesting steps. It's not a movie of course, but the best solution I could come up with.

[Muzman]

I had the same problem with QT and the codec.
infact I don't think I've ever got QT to work properly (always comes up with this DDHelp error), plus nowdays it's all Webtv and ugly lookin'. anyways, f you could do an AVI of it that should be fine.
Oh, and taking a bezillion screen caps and making an animation from it would be a total bitch! However, if you're willing to do it I'll be waiting to download it with all the rest. (makes me wonder if there's not some small applet that someone wrote, or could write quite quickly, which takes a screen cap at a given interval. At least then you wouldn't have to think about that side of it while you're working. And then there's bound to be some software that can batch process a list of frames.)

[rudebwoi]

there are several programs to take screenshots at set intervals for the PC, but i'm not sure about Macs. If there are, this would be the easiest way to make a movie of your paintings with photoshop.

Also, I got the bridge.mov to work fine with quicktime player 4. No problems at all.

`rude

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"Kissin don't last, cookery do."