Su_Lin

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Eww yer trans-toon gender dating... that's just sick!

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Gender is an illusion. Internet gender doubly-so.

Side note-- Star Wars: Empire at War was the game Petrograph did just before Universe at War: Earth Assault. So if you like UaW, you may very well like EaW as well, though honestly I would no longer play EaW without the Forces of Corruption Expansion. I loved EaW the second I picked it up, but the expansion's tweaks and fixes and enhancements just make the thing SO much nicer.

But if you're a SW fan and like RTS games at ALL, I'd say EaW is a must-have. Space is still more fun than ground battles, but space is *so* good. And it's a lovely, mod-able game with a lot of community support. I'm working on a Wing Commander shipset for it as I get time, right now.

I kind of miss my SFC3 era. It was a lot of fun, and I was part of an awesome Dynaverse community. I miss being on the Romulan Star Empire Strategic Corps. XD

GH3 is snazzy, but my 360 time is all being devoured utterly by Assassin's Creed, m'self. Love love love that game, and I need to finish it before Mass Effect arrives in the mail in a day or two.

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I believe the Dart is a goyle... though I could be wrong, isn't Hilory unisexual in British parts of the world? Btw I love the Stan Lee line drop!

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Correct on both counts: Dart's player has a squooshy chest and curves a sports car might not handle, and Hilory/Hilary/etc is unisex in at least the UK. See: Lara Croft's butler. XD

That said, Dart and I are both generally inclined to accept our character's genders as our own for "hey, you there!" purposes regardless, as it's just so much easier that way most of the time.

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I tried Flash once, it was fun, had no clue what I was doing, but some friend had sent me the program, and I drew a little in it. I do remember enjoying it. The way you work is pretty much the way I work... I do a lot of corrections in Photoshop as a I color, so erase wherever I've overdrawn sharp edges, or hey that stroke is too long, and shouldn't have gone over her face.

Do you own Illustrator? Cause I could hook you up with some nice brushes... COME TO THE DARK SIDE! YOU DON'T KNOW THE POWER... ahem, uh nevermind... I see from your website, yer more of a trekkie, uh trekker? Whoops my bad...

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I do! CS2, in fact. But I prefer to use it for vector and high-contrast work and leave my drawing/painting to the raster programs. It's totally invaluable for 3D texture work, though. especially things like panel lines on vehicles and livery and things. I've experimented with drawing in it the way you do(more or less), but I can work so much faster in a raster program to get that kind of style that it's just not worth the switch.

I did do an awesome piece of fanart of Vanessa from Capcom's Product Number 03 in illustrator for a class(though, I don't think I finished it), but that's a lot different and got into gradient meshes and all sorts of stuff.

ps: WAY bigger SW fan. My portfolio just doesn't reflect it, as I was a member of a Starfleet Command 3 modding team back in the day. But i call your attention to Yoda and Luke and a host of Lightsabers in the gallery, as well as the collection of Empire at War projects in the Game Mods section.

Mmmkay. That's what I'd suggest, anyway.

I get a lot of people asking me how I manage to get my inks clean and smooth in PS and Painter, and it's basically just that (digitally), I work at enormous resolutions(usually around 300dpi or so, so most commonly 6000x4800 for my 20" x 16" stuff) and keep my strokes short for better control, and clean up the lines with an eraser tool if they're a little wibbly as a result. It all cleans up pretty well once it gets down to viewing size/distance, though it does take a fair amount of time and patience to get through.

You might want to experiment with Flash sometime. It's geared towards painting, but uses a vector format, so it smooths things out nicely like illustrator does, but it's a little more suited for tablet drawing(though complicated opacity and such isn't quite so easy to deal with). I know Dart's been using it pretty regularly of late for inking and things. That might not work for you as well as your illustrator workflow is, though.

Nah, I'm fine and I've got a thick skin anyway-- professional artists have to develop some armor. I just wanted to clarify that I'm not trying to push you to work in a particular fashion.

I think the purple layer idea was Sayterra's, but I totally second it-- it's similar to the way I work, actually.

Friend, watch, same difference, I believe. So that's all good and gravy.

Okie. Ultimately, it's down to what works for ya, so you can toss my advice on its ear if it's not what you're looking for. I've gotten better steadily by having people constantly opine on my work habits, so I just pay that help forward. As always, part of the whole thing is deciding what to adopt and what to toss, and I'm not going to feel bad if what I do isn't gonna work for you personally or anything.

Intuos3, Plas. Any size'll do, but I'd WAY recommend it for anyone that has any real need for a tablet.

Hmm. Well, that does change things, LJ. There are a set of exercises you can do that will help develop a steady tablet hand, but usually ongoing use takes care of that.

Do you tend to draw in short, overlapping strokes, or do you just set pen to page so to speak, and draw a whole line in one go? That might contribute, depending.

You're not the only one, I finally got around to bothering to set up my dA account as well. So, welcome for us both.

If you haven't already, there's a community of various of us here on the boards ripe for the joining, and I'm sure an awful lot of us are happy to help you get back into drawing.

A really handy way to get around the "line shakes" is to work on a larger canvas-- two to three times the size you intend to use in the final, and then scale down at the end. The scale-down makes the little bobbles much less noticable perceptually. What looks a bit shaky at 2000x2000 looks much cleaner shrunken down to 1000x1000. This is why I mentioned it in the other thread.

On a side note, if the graphire's anything like the Intuous, it's beyond easy to swap the nibs. I just gently grab the old nib with a fingernail trimmer(better grip than a tweezer, especially if the nib's old, but use a tweezer if you're not tossing out the old nib, since the clippers will damage it a little) and give a tug, then push the new nib in with my finger.

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Hmm don't worry about the nibs. One thing you can do if you're trying for a different surface feel, you can tape a piece of paper over the tablet and draw on that. It'll give you a less slick surface, some of my friends swear by it. I didn't like how it felt though

I've not seen that book #_# However, the one thing that did help me understanding Painter was any/all Gnomon DVDs on the subject. I'm spoiled since our library has them all, but I can point out a few that might interest you if you like

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I second Gnomon. They rock hardcore. I've got a set myself.

Another *great* resource if you can afford it(and if you can find it, though the do online subscriptions) is a UK magazine called ImagineFX, which is for digital fantasy/SciFi artists. They focus primarily on Painter and Photoshop and have a wealth of people that do simply amazing things with both. I've got a sub(which is about to run out unless I can find money to renew T_T) and the breadth of topics and help has been just awesome.

To be honest, I think Illustrator is the worst of the programs to be using for what you're doing. It's really intended for vector work, and while you *can* do brushstrokes with it, that's really not what it's best at, and it's going to take a lot longer(in general) to achieve the same effect. Painter's probably the best choice for simulating marker, as it's what it's designed to do... and while it can take some serious setup if you really want to customize... to be honest, I find most of the stock brushes more than adequate with minor changes. Photoshop *can* be made to simulate marker(and a lot of other stuff, actually), but it requires a lot of brush-twiddling, comparatively.

It's not a bad style, but I don't think it's quite "prime-time ready", yet. I think the thing that sticks out most in my mind is that you need to work a larger canvas, and take advantage of the opacity to build up more tonal variation by layering the strokes(and colors) further. As it stands, it's still looking very flat, and while simplicity is often a virtue in these loose-looking styles, I don't think it's quite working in this case and would benefit from a little more complexity.

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If you could get away with it, a few wargs playing poker would be the greatest thing on the face of the planet. But you'd probably get in trouble for that, so maybe just as a warm-up sketch. XD

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Looking at some of the stuff up there... you might be able to get away with it. And I second the motion that it'd be an awesome picture regardless. XD

Thanks, both of you. Fortunately, the spider came out really well. The person who commissioned it has been possibly the best commission client I've had yet-- and that's saying something, since I've had some VERY excellent clientele in the past. Bashel was just supremely fabulous to do work for, though-- especially with the bill I had hanging over my head.

Well, finally. An update. As some of you are aware, I've been hard at work on a large commission to pay a looming bill, but it's done, complete, and everything's fantastic( leaving aside having had more fun uses for the money than loan bills, of course. T_T ).

For those curious, the comission is here , and it's not a CoX piece this time, but instead a LotRO player's Monster Play spider. Still, it was a lot of fun to do something different, and I finally got to really stretch myself a bit on some digital oil painting.

Enough of that, I'm sure you all would be much more interested in something CoX-related. So, onwards-- to relax after finishing that long, long piece of work, I finished up the Vanguard piece.

So, here's Su-Lin as a Vanguard Poster Girl. I'll probably submit this one to the fanzine or the City Scoop later.

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God...looks like we got another aspiring art....

I have to say, though...Su Lin nailed it, perfectly.

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I have no problems with the connoisseurs. they keep food on my table.

Speaking of, I'm glad you liked the summary. It's nice to know all that tasty, tasty debt to get through school got me somewhere. XD

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What a gig! Well played, geek.

You could probably do a REALLY nice, moodalicious shot of Frodo with a suddenly-glowing Sting halfway out of its sheath. Do some lighting and perspective (angle the shot up towards his face from below?) work to keep your skills sharp AND have fun at the same time.

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Mmm. Maybe just grayscale with a nice, vibrant blue for the highlights from the glow. That'd be slick.

On a side note, Sayterra, looking at the blanks you'll be working with, I vote for good ol' pencil with white-pencil highlights. Paper like that is just begging for it.

Awesome, Sayterra!

I just finished a commission for a LotRO player, myself-- I can tell you that giant spiders eating hobbits are supremely fun to do and it comes highly recommended.

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Good gouge! That should be stickyed somewhere!

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A sticky would probably be a bit more tacit approval of commissions than the Mods want to deal with(sort of like how we don't post rates on the boards). I've been meaning to write a short FAQ for my own website on the subject, though.

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Anytime!

It comes in handy having an artist who had required classes in copyright law in the house.

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...who then pokes in and gives the much more long-winded version.

I'm going to transcribe a handy-dandy page from my Business Practices in Visual Communication class that covers exactly this topic, as it should basically explain what's up with this in relation to copyright law.

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...For example, many (most?) clients assume that if they pay an artist or designer to do some work for them, they get to keep the original work or use the work however they see fit. After all, they paid for it, right? the answer to this question lies in the fact that art and design are considered service industries, not manufacturing or retail. That means that your client is paying for the service you provide, not the products that are created as a part of this service (e.g., original artwork, sketches, source files, computer templates, etc.). Incidentally, creative fields are defined as service industries by the government, and have been this way for a long time.

Your client is actually paying for usage, which essentially amounts to a license. The extent of their usage needs to be negotiated. the starting point, and what they are paying for by default, is typically called one-time usage, and is usually restircted to a geographical area (such as North America) and limited to a specific time period (such as one year). From that point, additional uses ay be negotiated and paid for by the client, all the way up to a rights buyout, where the client pays for and owns the copyright.

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This is mostly in relation to corporate-type work, BUT it applies to individual commissions. The difference is that with individual commissions, the specific usage being paid for is implied to be a little different than the one-use limited non-exculsive. Usually private commissions imply a lifetime personal-use non-exclusive usage agreement-- That is, you're free to use and display the work for personal, non-commercial(ie, you're not making any money from it) venues like your wall at home, personal web gallery collection, etcetera. You'd probably also be covered if you wanted to put it on a T-shirt or coffee mug for your own personal use. It's assumed that this will not lapse in a given timeframe for commission work, and it's generally held to be non-exclusive-- IE: the artist can display/repurpose/etcetera the artwork as they see fit.

However, it's worth noting that legally, US copyright law protects the creator by default. Art and design rights that are not an explicit part of the service paid for default to the artist. And you can expect to pay a premium if you want to buy bonus rights away from the artist. This gets a touch murky with fanart, though. The copyrights on the artwork stay with the artist by default, but the copyright on the content is still owned by the owner of the subject of the fanart. In this case, you pay the artist for time and skill and the service of a specific piece of fanart being produced, but NOT for the characters, setting, etcetera contained within the artwork. It's a fine distinction, and potentially a problematic one. Fortunately, most companies also realize that fanart serves to strengthen their fanbase and ultimately their revenue, and only go after the people that don't credit them properly.

What it really boils down to, is anything not explicitly covered, you don't have a right to. That includes reproduction, derivative work(changing a couple little things), re-sale(big no-no!) and so on. When in doubt, ask the artist. This is all why, for instance, when I offer coloring services, I require written permission from the original artist before I'll do any re-inking or coloration. Because the person asking me to add the color almost always doesn't own the rights for alteration, and I *certainly* don't.

EDIT: One other thing occurred to me-- buying a print is essentially the same. Buying the print gives you a specific usage right, and nothing else unless specifically conferred. You can't reproduce the print, re-sell it, show it to people for money, and so on. The only real difference is that with a commission, you have some say over the finished artwork, and you usually get a bit more out of it, rights-wise.

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Don't worry... I'm still around too.

Us ghosts are just quiet.

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The dead never change...

...development teams. :3

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congratsy! that ding looks really sparkly.... mine dont look like that

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Little known fact: The Ding VFX get more elaborate as your level gets larger. The 50 ding is pretty freakin' impressive.

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Looking like a good start on learning the thing, Shia. Flash is a great tool and you can turn out some amazing stuff once you get into it a ways, especially once you start getting into things like using movie clips as objets and moving 'em around.

Lately, I haven't really done much "flash style" animation with flash myself-- I've been more using it like a traditional animator's table and doing frame-by-frame. But flash is what I did my avatar in, and I find it *really* nice for quick pencil tests and the like when I'm planning out a sequence for 3D work or something. Flash pretty much owns.

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Thats a cool idea, using it like imageready works and not messing with fifty different little animation tracks in that timeline.. hmm.. Maybe I'll give that a try for practice.

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Sometimes it's nice to just go it oldschool with new-school tools, even if it's not terrifically efficient.

I mean, just having access to separate layers that can me animated separately is worth the price of admission. Lets you do panning backgrounds really easily and stuff, like traditional cells do.