Henri

ooh, i like that. The aged sepia look and glowing tech eyes really make this a piece to look at. It kind of says, look more closely, there's more than there first appears. Clever stuff

I think this is going to be great, can't wait to see it completed. Good work so far Lexx

wow! wish i'd met her when she was alive...

Brilliant! better than mine

Hi again. Looks great

k, i've got a couple of examples here for you to show what i mean about colouring with 3 colours (the flat (red), and a shade lighter and darker). The first thing to think about is always, where is your light coming from. One light source is easiest, and the nice thing is, you get to choose where it is (Hence why the fire sketch is very hard, the fire is throwing light from every angle, yikes!!)






The reason i'm on about cylinders and balls, is that most parts of the human body (infact all objects) can be devolved into cylinders and balls, erm, and cubes.

Here's a VERY quick sketch of a figure I've copied from 'how to draw the marvel way' (which is a very useful book by the way ).



See how they make the figure up from cylinders, cubes, and the head would be a ball. If you can visualise any sketch you want to colour as these objects, and you have your light source in mind, you can then colour each area using the method shown in the cylinder and ball diagrams above.

This is as I understand it, I'm not a trained artist or a teacher by any means so please do look at other examples and stuff too. I hope this can be of some use to you tho. Good luck and ask anytime.

cheers H.

Don't lose hope, 2 days is too soon for anyone to grasp the concept of how to colour plus the functionality of unfamiliar image software. Any colourist will probably tell you they are still learning things everyday, however long they've been at it. I'm just going to eat dinner too but i'll do a few examples later and post them up for you.

Chicken pie for me, what you having?

No, think of a new layer as a piece of tracing paper over your picture. When you draw on the tracing paper, although you can see it along with the original picture, it's actually on a separate sheet, so you wouldn't be able to blend the colours together as they're all on different sheets. Layers are best used for different stages of the colouring. So for eg: you'd have the original sketch on the bottom layer, then a new layer to colour all the fire, a new layer to colour the clothing, a new layer to add some little details like the belt buckle, chest emblem, etc.

The usefulness of this is like, if you've done a fantastic job on colouring the chest but you then **** up the chest detail and ruin some of the chest colouring and blending, instead of having to try and repair the damage, you just clear the chest detail layer and start again. The chest colouring layer underneath will be untouched.

I don't use layers enough yet, but i'm sure glad when i have used a new layer and then make a mess of something

edit: oops, i've been hit with the badword police, lol, ok, read that as 'mess up'. Although how you'd decribe a male hen, i don't know...

matches?

sorry, heh, i've just left a few comments on your other post.

Fire is a very hard first colouring project, but maybe you're like me, why make it easy for myself, lol

You've got the idea right though, the whiter shade at the base of the flames. Try adding a more orangey yellow to the tips of the tongues of flame. On clothing/skin etc, I began by using 3 colours for each area to start with, a middle base colour, and a fairly strong shade either side for shadows and highlights. Then as you get used to blending colours together, you can introduce more shades in between. Practice on simple shapes like balls and cylinders, etc.

I'm still learning myself so please don't take this as 'the official method of colouring' or anything, it's just my experience so far

Hope it helps, H.

Quote:
Originally Posted by ChristopherRobin
If you got any good tips you've picked up for GIMP by all means add those to the thread as well, not everyone has PhotoShop.

I'd be interested to know how you did those convincing ice cubes when you
colored Lady Cyrsei's gift art of the Sub Zero Man.

Sure, altho there was no in-house effects used to make those, i just manually coloured them. Basically i saw that ice (and glass i guess, any transparent material) seems to reverse the normal rules of reflecting light. A solid cube would be lightest on the face towards the light, darker on the far face, whereas transparent shapes seem the opposite.

I decided i could see 3 colours in an ice cube when placed infront of a blue background (as i knew i was going to colour the background blue in the piece). They were blues, greens and greys.



I'm sure there's other methods to acheive this result, but this works for me atm. Remember your colour of background will effect the colours you use, as you're essentially seeing the background defracted through the ice. Hope it helps.

cheers H.

Haha. It was a pre-edit cheers, ie:

Cool (heh) piece Henri, I dig the Oakley engraving.

Cheers CR

altho... "cheers CR I've read over your thoughts for the contest extensively and by jove I think you've hit upon a winner!
Jolly good show my man and God Save the Queen harrumpf! is totally how one speaks in olde Englandia, wotto!

heh

Grats on the win CR, well deserved

Cheers CR

Ok, opening myself up for some ridicule, but wth New Years Eve 2010 fancy dress party.

Heh, got this finished early so i could try post first for the early bird points, but i see now any submitted before the 10th get the points. I think that's a lot fairer tbh, as timezones, work schedules, etc would all dictate when you get to log on the forum and submit, giving an unfair advantage. Equality ftw k, here's getting the ball rolling

'On Ice', featuring The Sub Zero Man and his arch nemisis, The Retro Racer.



hope you like.

How dyou actually get eliminated if it's not points based? I've got some good jokes if that helps...

Hmm, the ethics of suggesting my character when i'm fully intending to use him for my entry too...

ahhh wth, it'll sure make it interesting (plus i'll get a CR sketch if you choose him )

Sub Zero Man.

Oooh... not wanting to sound bigheaded, but that looks really good. The way you've captured it and set the scene is excellent! Uh oh, my altitus sense is tingling...