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I Am The Shinxe, koo koo (pi)kachu!
- Thread starter Shinxe
- Start date
Aaaand here we go!
I did some last-minute Blaziken art for Bojangles on Smog16, for the Featured Ubers article. I last drew Blaziken in like 2005 and it was really static and chunky and awful, so I will try and find that on my old hard drive when I visit the ol' parental home. For laughs, I think you will laugh.
FULL SIZE: http://img35.imageshack.us/img35/140/blazikenr.jpg
I looked at the rest of your artwork and holy magikarps zubat man! I have seen your tutorials, but I was wondering, do you use a tablet? I'm trying to draw my pokemon more anatomically correct, and I am using photoshop for the MAC. I don't own a tablet though and I'm thinking of getting one. Does it make the shading and colouring easier?
Heck yeah, I've used a tablet for all my digital art since forever. I literally find it impossible to draw with a mouse unless I want people to think I'm a senior in elementary school instead of college. I used to know a kid that only used a touchpad for large pixel/sprite scenes though because it's easier to be *precise* (tablets, because it's not the immediate pencil-to-paper-IRL thing, DO have just a tiny bit of delay which makes pixel stuff infuriating).
I guess technically it's a matter of personal preference, but the truth is only a tablet allows you pressure sensitivity, easy erasing (just flip it over like a real pencil!), and sense in my otherwise chaotic existence. If you're serious about digital art, I definitely suggest you get a tablet (doesn't have to be a Wacom Intuos, a cheaper model is a great introduction).
Errrr, I've gotten decently fast, I suppose, since I have to rush basically everything for school. Blaziken there took a couple of hours... maybe? I split everything I do up over a couple days, and that piece was by no means a several-day affair; I worked sparingly on it up until I finally finished it in an hour or so.
Sorry, I have no way of easily timing my work! I'm just used to having a week, MAYBE two for a finished piece, for three or four classes every week.For a couple of hours shinxe, that Blaziken is sick as Fuck. I swear you've got more talent in one finger, than I have now or will have ever in my entire body. I hope you feel superior to us all because you certainly are.
LOL any compliment that mentions my artistic colon is pretty rad, thank you GlassAbsol!
Also, progress pics, to show how this went from 'ehhh' to 'HEY' right after I added the texture. I'm starting to like textures when I'm on a deadline...
FULL HUGE SIZE: http://img21.imageshack.us/img21/9421/blazikentutorial.jpg
Quick question since I have no idea how to do this, even once I get the tablet. How do you do the shading? I mean, I know that you make a different layer for each colour, but do you use a brush? If so, what about size, transparency and all of that stuff? I really admire your work, so sorry if what I'm asking is causing you a hassle, but I really would like to know for once I get a tablet.
Sæglópur: sometimes when I concentrate really hard on making art, I drool on myself.
elDino: I'm so glad, thank you!
icepick: YOU BETTER DRAW >:|
Master Win: I will probably be long-winded, so! Firstly I *do* like gyarados, buuuut I have commissions I should be working on and also my senior year of Illustration coming up, so I won't be doing requests.
As for your art-related questions, I will do my best to answer you even though quite frankly I don't exactly get what you're asking- I think it's a case of the following: I've been doing this for a really long time, so it's hard for me to describe a part of the process I don't even think about doing.
'Shading' isn't a step I use anymore, in the sense of most digital art tutorials. I don't go through and put a cellshaded layer on anything-- 'Painting' would be a more accurate term for the process I use, which is layering, layering, rubbing away, painting opaque, glazing, layering more... bringing the lights back out, and so on. I don't put down new colors on new layers in the traditional sense. Like, Blaziken's yellow bits are not on a different layer from his red bits-- this is how I painted years ago but when I took traditional painting classes, I stopped doing this for a more painterly look rather than hard-edged animation-inspired stuff.
I only use new layers to achieve two things: 1. If I fuck up a big change I am making, I can just delete the layer or edit it without worrying about the underpainting, and 2. Putting on new effects to the overall image. For instance, 'Glazing' requires a new layer always, but then I will just making a 'Normal' layer over that and paint anything I want. I won't touch on glazing right now since I have a tutorial a couple pages back (the Reshiram painting).
When I have put down a glaze to determine: color change, shadows, lights, emphasis, whatever, and rubbed it away, I will then paint over that on a new layer with an opaque brush, specifically to make brush strokes and get PRECISE. I use whatever brush I want... it's, er, just whatever I feel like that day. This brushset is one of the first ones I got, and I still use it frequently: http://adonihs.deviantart.com/art/My-Brush-Pack-118954791
The soft round he has that tapers AND goes less opaque is one of my favs for small detailing. The less pressure, the lighter it is *and* the thinner it is. Feels good, man.
I use whatever opacity the situation calls for-- really subtle painting should be done with a lower opacity. BETTER than the opacity, though, is the 'flow'. Feels more realistic for me; I keep it around 60% most times. Size also depends on what brush shape I'm using and what I'm trying to paint; I have hundreds of brushes now that I just use at random, practically. A lot of them are meant for speedpainting but are great for other stuff too.
So I'm sorry if I'm not understanding what you're asking me, but a lot of what I do is not systematic in the least-- I've been getting looser and faster, just because it's easier to paint freely than fill things in one layer at a time.
My biggest technique is that I will constantly merge the entire image, getting rid of layers, save it under a changed filename (BLAZIKEN1.psd, BLAZIKEN2.psd), make a new layer and paint directly on top of the old image. I hate clutter. I hate having 108 layers, especially because I DON'T do digital collage, I don't do cellshading, etc. I paint more haphazardly these days than I ever have in my life, so it's hard to explain the process. Hope it helps though!Alright, here's what I meant to say, seeing as my question was a bit jumbled up.
Let's use step two in your blaziken's drawing as my example. You start off with the base colours, red, yellow, blue, and a beige colour. But even then you still have some shading in it. How do you do that? Do you just fill in the first layer with the paint bucket, then when you make a second layer, you use a brush and a darker variant of that colour?
Oh, no, that's just a square brush using 100% opacity. That's what I mean by 'pressure sensitivity' on a tablet; the harder I press, the more opaque that bright color is. The 'shading' on the initial colors is just me not pressing as hard where I want it to be darker/less saturated.
Edit: That's another reason I made the BG a darker, desaturated green color. It'll counteract the bright reds by dint of being a complimentary color, and is dark so when I paint over it, it'll affect the colors on top and be darker where I let it show through.
alright alright this is getting silly, take it to pms
and yeah rockin blaziken shinxe, always a talent ;)
i look forward to more of your uber drawings!
Whoa!
I'm getting back into Pokemon again after a long and busy hiatus. That reminded me of Smogon (which I use while I 'casually' play a game, 'just to check' that I give my PKMN some 'pretty okay' movesets, all the while telling myself that I'm really 'playing it to just have fun this time'), which in turn reminded me of Smeargle's Studio.
Things that happened:
I graduated college.
I was promptly hired on as a digital painter by a local studio.
Life.
As I play Heartgold (belatedly), though, I think we will find I draw more Pokemon and I hope you will all enjoy it as I do!
You can find non-PKMN art at my portfolio site and FurAffinity (where I post commission openings):
http://chinarockett.com/
http://www.furaffinity.net/user/kittiara/Users Who Are Viewing This Thread (Users: 1, Guests: 0)
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