Polygons and whatnot (mostly polygons)

[HondaFoo]

I manually choose each color myself, but sometimes when I want gradients I just press really lightly with my tablet and gradually press harder as I go along. I have a very heavy-handed rendering style though, so oftentimes when you see streaks those are actually seperate brush strokes, radiating out from one point. I'm all about them color fields

More about picking colors:

It's really important to choose your colors for mid, light and dark tones rather than being like "here's my skin color, and now shadows will be skin color + black, and highlights will be skin color + white," which is a mistake that everyone ever has done. Depending on the lighting condition, as the surface of an object moves from light to dark there can be a huge range of colors for something that is seemingly one hue. For skin it's even trickier, because you take into consideration blushing, different surface smoothness, and of course, skin's natural translucency.

As a general rule of thumb, as you go darker with skin, make your hue more red. So on the gradient box thing in Photoshop for example, not only would you move the color down-right towards black, you would also shift the overall color more towards red. Of course, different environments can change this drastically — if someone is outside their shadows would be more blue or green, for example.

Really, if you guys have any questions or anything feel free to ask away, I feel weird for randomly dumping my art in here and flying away again

 

[Darkshadow7827]

I try to do everything on one layer. If I try something drastic I'll make a new layer for comparison but it eventually gets flattened down as well

What does flattened down mean.? I don get how something gets flat artistic/color wise.

One layer?
Honda you crazy Foo

What do you use to produce highlights and shadows like that, I can't imagine you use the burn/dodge tool, because that tends to make things look flat.

What does the dodge tool do? I've played around with burn which makes things look like they got a lighter put under it haha. I can't figure out dodge though. Also, I don't know when to properly use them.

I manually choose each color myself, but sometimes when I want gradients I just press really lightly with my tablet and gradually press harder as I go along. I have a very heavy-handed rendering style though, so oftentimes when you see streaks those are actually seperate brush strokes, radiating out from one point. I'm all about them color fields

More about picking colors:

It's really important to choose your colors for mid, light and dark tones rather than being like "here's my skin color, and now shadows will be skin color + black, and highlights will be skin color + white,"

*Raises my hand*. Yup, done that and been doing it >.>

As a general rule of thumb, as you go darker with skin, make your hue more red. So on the gradient box thing in Photoshop for example, not only would you move the color down-right towards black, you would also shift the overall color more towards red. Of course, different environments can change this drastically — if someone is outside their shadows would be more blue or green, for example.

Ah interesting. Didn't know about the darker red or dark blue/green thing. Makes sense. I learned something new today :D

 

[Geist]

@Honda, do you have a rough estimate of how long that took you?

I manually choose each color myself, but sometimes when I want gradients I just press really lightly with my tablet and gradually press harder as I go along. I have a very heavy-handed rendering style though, so oftentimes when you see streaks those are actually seperate brush strokes, radiating out from one point. I'm all about them color fields

More about picking colors:

It's really important to choose your colors for mid, light and dark tones rather than being like "here's my skin color, and now shadows will be skin color + black, and highlights will be skin color + white," which is a mistake that everyone ever has done. Depending on the lighting condition, as the surface of an object moves from light to dark there can be a huge range of colors for something that is seemingly one hue. For skin it's even trickier, because you take into consideration blushing, different surface smoothness, and of course, skin's natural translucency.

As a general rule of thumb, as you go darker with skin, make your hue more red. So on the gradient box thing in Photoshop for example, not only would you move the color down-right towards black, you would also shift the overall color more towards red. Of course, different environments can change this drastically — if someone is outside their shadows would be more blue or green, for example.

Really, if you guys have any questions or anything feel free to ask away, I feel weird for randomly dumping my art in here and flying away again

Thanks, color right now is probably my weak point, so advice like this is good. I mean I'm not horrible at it, but it's something I've never been satisfied with, especially because I pride myself in technical accuracy, and not to mention I'm going into character design. Color is kind of important

What does flattened down mean.? I don get how something gets flat artistic/color wise.

Photoshop term - just the compression of layers that 'flattens' the image. Personally I adore layers and everything about them, but some people prefer the simplicity, or the more traditional feeling if having just a single layer to work with.

What does the dodge tool do? I've played around with burn which makes things look like they got a lighter put under it haha. I can't figure out dodge though. Also, I don't know when to properly use them.

Burn darkens values and dodge lightens them. There's also options that you can play with if you're darkening values in shadows, midtones or highlights. But it's really basic and it's mostly used for photomanipulations rather than digital paintings. It tends to make things look flat if it's overused because it only uses a single hue.

Ah interesting. Didn't know about the darker red or dark blue/green thing. Makes sense. I learned something new today :D

I'd say it's a good general rule of thumb, but lighting is crazy stuff and does really wacky things with colors depending on texture, material, light color, back-lighting, intensity, contrast, reflectivity, specularity, color ambiance, atmospheric perspective, translucency, the list goes on and on and on.

 

[ZIO]

Really, if you guys have any questions or anything feel free to ask away

How does one "honda?"

 

[neous]

globie,

this is what im talking about

when geist and others talk and i have no idea wtf they are saying.

even after explanation, i still dont know, really.

specularity and atmospheric perspective huh? YA DONT SAY.

 

[Geist]

I was going for technical jargon to emphasize how scary lighting is.

Specularity is kind of like reflectivity, but it moreso in relation to how colors react to those reflective surfaces. Clear water still won't reflect colors of its surroundings perfectly, the colors will be slightly washed out. Same with a mirror, but it's so small it's barely noticeable.
Now take colored crome, which is just as reflective as regular chrome, but everything it reflects is blue/ red/ whatever. This is because it has low specularity.

Translucency is how light spreads through an object that's either thin or not dense enough to block light. For example, looking at the bottom of leaves with the sun shining through them will not completely block out the light, but objects behind it obviously will not be visible. BG objects will influence this color change, and shadows will be visible through the material as well.
2nd example, shining a flashlight through your hand from behind.

Atmospheric perspective/depth is how the particles in an atmosphere will catch and refract light, spreading it around. Basically in layman's terms, the further away something is, the more its color/contrast/value will be washed out with the color of the atmosphere and the surrounding light. eg Mountains further in the distance will have less contrast and be more blue and stuff.

Color ambience is more or less a color that persists across everything either from the atmosphere, reflected colors, colored light, whatever. The point is that it'll give everything a tint of whatever color, slightly or drastically. A good example is underwater having a strong blue ambient color, and sunset having a strong violet/orange ambient color.

those are the more complex things I listed I guess. If you want to know what anything else is just ask
Jk, just google it.

 

[Chronodiver Lokii]

Hondaaaaaa!! -ragequits life-
Just kidding though. Looks sweeet. You are seriously too good at this xD

And I might be offline for a whiiillleeee. Smashboards doesn't want to load on my dorm interwebs for some odd reason.
If anyone needs me, I'm on Skype a lot now (as Neous and Global know thisss). Muh SN is Little.Miss.Lokii.

http://littlemisslokii.wordpress.com/
Also, updates! Scanner finally decided to work, so I can scan my sketchbooks from August to now!!

 

[Crimson King]

After discussion in the Senate about the purpose, use (and abuse) of social threads and the negative effect of creating one big thread vs activity in multiple threads, we have decide to close this social thread indefinably. We ask that if you wish to comment on this, please do so in Forum Support, and not by making a thread about it in this room.

 

[Xiivi]

We've decided that this General/Social is indeed valuable to the Artwork Emporium community and have decided to let it be reopened.

Thank you for your patience on this issue.

 

[ZIO]

I appreciate this alot, Xiivi.

I will help in making sure that this thread does not suffer from spam and invaluable posting.

All we need is some guidelines as to how you would prefer this thread be handled. Thanks.

 

[Geist]

Oh awesome, I'll have to start uploading stuff again now lol

Thanks a lot Xiivi and other admins

 

[Chronodiver Lokii]

Jdknfjdkfkyndjffjd

I love everything forever

Time to draw soooo much

 

[deepseadiva]

[COLLAPSE="Recent happenings:"]

[/COLLAPSE]

 

[Darkshadow7827]

We've decided that this General/Social is indeed valuable to the Artwork Emporium community and have decided to let it be reopened.

Thank you for your patience on this issue.

No, thank you for taking the time to straighten things out. Admins are admins and you guys are doing your job greatly. I'll make sure not to spam and post more art.

Hello AE friends. I missed you all so much. I got 2 WIP doodles that I'll post up when I finish.

 

[neous]

all dedicated to tiger. just because.

misc dewdles

Spoiler

RED MARKER

Spoiler

pixel stuff

Spoiler

 

[Chronodiver Lokii]

Admins the best <3 thanks guys

 

[neous]

pixel addendum

 

[choknater]

i am glad this was reopened and that i didn't unsubscribe

 

[Geist]

Sup Chok, long time no see.
You should join us on skype at the AE chat for righteous shinaniganssssss

 

[choknater]

could you add me somehow? i wanna be a part of it

 

[Serris]

I'm arting again.

 

[Exceladon City]

So if at all possible, could I enlist the services of a skilled sig artist to make a sig for me?

Here's your subject [COLLAPSE="This guy"]

[/COLLAPSE]

 

[deepseadiva]

What kind of signature were you thinking Ex?

 

[Exceladon City]

I want something Sin City-esque.

Surprise me.

 

[Serris]

Does the hair coloring look bad, or am I just paranoid?

 

[ZIO]

The hair feels a little bland. Too gray. Not enough values.

Don't be afraid to experiment with variations of one color, or hell, get creative and try a multitude of colors. Also - what is the size of the image, god lord tell me you aren't working on it at that size.

What were you trying to aim for?

 

[Geist]

Does the hair coloring look bad, or am I just paranoid?

You're colouring it too blocky. Also there are more extreme highlights to hair than what you have.
Instead, go with the flow of the hair with your brush strokes, first with a darker layer (it'll be slightly bluer) and then midtones, and highlights last. Highlights may or may not be pure white, but they run perpendicular to the flow of the hair.

 

[deepseadiva]

So I made a thing

 

[Exceladon City]

So I made a thing

That sir, is indeed a surprise. I hope people with epilepsy don't look at my sig, I'll feel bad. lol

 

[global-wolf]

Oh my gosh, I unsubscribe for a little bit and this happens... I'm so glad the AE social is open again. I dedicate my 2000th post to it <3

 

[Chronodiver Lokii]

Awwww <3
Hi Globie!

 

[global-wolf]

Hey Lokii!! <3 I haven't seen you in forever! Or the other AE peeps either... hello everybody. :D

 

[Chronodiver Lokii]

COME BACK TO ME, MY LOVE <3
Bahahaha

Gawwwwd. I need to start my psych project. It's gonna be one giant digital painting that links together after each week of class

 

[choknater]

global did you draw your own avatar?

 

[global-wolf]

<333

That sounds like a cool project, is it like a chain? You should post it!

And yep Chok. :D I should probably change it though lol.

 

[choknater]

haha i like it!

 

[Serris]

I corrected the hair to make it look more auburn. I also laid down early coloring on the rest of her uniform. There is nothing I hate more than coloring.

 

[ZIO]

As do I.

'Tis why I never finished my Akuma picture.

 

[Geist]

Aw Zio
Color claims yet another victim.

On a related topic I'm waiting for this book in the mail http://www.amazon.ca/Color-Light-Guide-Realist-Painter/dp/0740797719
it's the bible of color/light theory for painting. If you can find it at your book store or library I highly reccommend picking it up.

 

[Lore]

The social thread is reopened? Cool! Too bad it wasn't here when I was feeling inspired enough to make some new tags; I could have been encouraged into doing it, but I didn't.

I've moved on to music now, which is cool.