The_PMD

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Long time drawer, first time Photoshoper.

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Convert it to a JPG file and up the compression on it if you have to.

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Excuse my ignorance. How would I go about doing this?

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Do "Save As" instead of "Save." When you select the .jpg as an option, it will give you a quality slider. Turn it down if you need to.

But I'm amazed that you would need to. Was the first one you saved that got autosized a .jpg? Jpg compression is pretty efficient. Even on the highest quality setting, it should result in a file size that should be small enough. Make sure you're actually saving it as a jpeg. (There's a file format drop-down at the bottom of the Save As menu.)

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I think there's a little too much lightning, and the lightning is too evenly sized, and too evenly distributed. As a result, the effect looks evenly powered and doesn't have a strong focus.

You could add interest to the bolts if you had a couple thick arcs, several smaller arcs, and dozens of tiny tributaries. Then, make sure the thick arcs are in key spots where you want to imply power... like where his hand is gripping the staff. That way, you could control where the energy of the image is a little tighter.

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Whoo hoo! Leave it to Doug to drop a comment that I probably NEVER would've thought of on my own! Thanks Doug!

Everyone else too. There will be a new version posted with a new background, and with more dynamic lightning, and with a better texture on the cape, and with better lighting on the left bicep (nice catch!) and with a better Staff and whatever other good comments I get from now til then in about a week!

Thanks for all the comments everyone. I've got some good stuff here to help perfect it for the final final version.

And, no, Sarrate, you didn't have to tell me which ones are jacked up, but I appreciate the effort That staff is bugging the Hell out of me. I think I might just render the damn thing in Maya to fix the perspective. I was wondering how obvious it was to the general public.

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I don't think the cloudy background does the pic justice. May want to consider other options.

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The clouds has been my conception since the beginning, so I'm having a mental block in terms of what else it could be. Any specific suggestions? (Complicated background wasn't part of the commission, so it's not gonna be, say, a cityscape.) Should it be more specific storm clouds, like with lightning or something?

The glacial artist stirs!
Here's the digital paint commission I've been working on for TA. It's pretty much done, but there are still some parts I'm not entirely happy with, so comments and critiques are very welcome.

http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/38918263/

Try "Export As Image"

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As wacom's go, if your really interested in picking one up, I'd say hunt ebay, you might find a bargain. A lot of the older discontinued models are going for fairly cheap, how ever, if your going for an older tablet that's not a usb, make sure you find out if it's compatible with your system. If you happen to be using an older mac, or have a adb to usb converter, then you can get a real nice 6"x8" tablet for a no more then a touch over 30 with shipping. Hell, if you want something like that, I can hook you up with a nice Intuos II 6x8 for under 20! I hate having to learn the difference between mac and pc... damned mac's! *shakes fist at macs*

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The big caution to buying a Wacom tablet on eBay is to MAKE SURE THE STYLUS (pen) IS INCLUDED. Many of them on there don't have the stylus. So you think to yourself "I bet I can just get a new stylus on Wacom.com!" And you go to Wacom.com and realize quickly that the PEN is the expensive part of the tablet, not the tablet itself. And your handy little bargain is doubled in price, if not more.

(No, this never happened to me. Luckily I checked the price of new pens BEFORE bidding. I'm just saying be careful.)

ArtRage is good and free

http://www.ambientdesign.com/artrage.html

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I was bored so I decided to try something out.

I took my favorite screen shot and have been drawing over it in photoshop. It's really detailed and is taking ages and was just wondering what everyone thinks so far.
Original of Farwielder at Portal corp
What I've got so far.

So what do ya think should I keep going with it? Maybe once I finish this one I'll open myself up for (am I actually gonna say this) screenshot submissions.

We'll see.

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Trying not to be rude, but I don't see the point of this. What is the final piece going to look like? What are you going to do that will make it unique?

I'm just not seeing the value in this as either an exercise or in the potential final product.

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I just need practice using photoshop to draw and colour things. I figured this would be a decent way to go about getting some practice in. I don't have a scanner atm to scan anything I've drawn in or I'd use that.

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Oh. okay, so you're going to color it comic-style. That might look cool.

If you're treating this like inking, you should watch your line weights. Right now you're pretty much using the same width line for all lines. Lines that are closer should be thicker, and curves (when you get to the pipes, for instance) should have varying line weights to reveal their 3 dimensional qualities.

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I was bored so I decided to try something out.

I took my favorite screen shot and have been drawing over it in photoshop. It's really detailed and is taking ages and was just wondering what everyone thinks so far.
Original of Farwielder at Portal corp
What I've got so far.

So what do ya think should I keep going with it? Maybe once I finish this one I'll open myself up for (am I actually gonna say this) screenshot submissions.

We'll see.

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Trying not to be rude, but I don't see the point of this. What is the final piece going to look like? What are you going to do that will make it unique?

I'm just not seeing the value in this as either an exercise or in the potential final product.

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I'd say converting it to a .PNG or .GIF would probably be better, actually. .JPGs lose clarity, but the above two formats typically -don't-. The .PNG format is actually designed (mostly) for web-hosting, and while the .GIF format is limited in color size (256, I think. Something like that), it's a loss-less format.

S'what I learned in my web-dev class.

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Gif may be lossless, but it's only 8-bit (256 colors). You mentioned that, but don't seem to realize the implications. If you're saving something that has very few colors (like a flat shaded drawing with limted anti-aliasing) then GIF will work fine. But if it's a photo, detailed drawing or screenshot, the color reduction will be worse to the quality of the picture than .jpg. PNGs are bigger than jpgs, sometimes 5-10 times according to Wikipedia. I mean, if we wanted perfect lossless compression, we could all just put our pictures up as TGAs or TIFs, but the huge file size precludes that.

For complicated images that you post to the web, jpgs are your best bet. If you plan on doing something else with them, make sure to keep a lossless (high color) copy. "Web graphics" and pictures you make for people to download are entirely different things.

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I made a wallpaper featuring my 5 heroes and their 5 villian (Praetorian) counterparts, and I wanted to show you all, but it's over 6 megs, and Photobucket crunches it down to itty bitty size. Any suggestions?

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Crunch it down yourself first. There's no earthly reason that a .jpg should be 6 megs. Go back into your image editing program and either make it smaller or recompress it. What are the pixel dimensions and file format?

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Yeah I suppose I will have to give that some thought. Being she is a mutant I will have to figure out what caused her to mutate into her current form. Was she a veterinarian? Did she drink from the cat dish? Could go anywhere with this.

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Actually, that would be Science origin. Mutant origin is "I was born with my powers and they manifested themselves when..."

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P.S. When are going to draw you next toon?

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TA should be done this week (the perspective on the details of the Nemesis Staff is kicking my butt a little) and then we'll see if anyone PMs me with a request. No I don't work for free

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Well people here is my first contribution to the art forum. This my interpetation of the only and only Juggertha!!!!!

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This is pretty good. Of course, it reinforces my belief that the Lazzarrus one was traced (and this one obviously is not) but I'm gonna let it drop now

The things I think are working really well are the overall pose, the shadows on the chest and arms, and the head.

I think there are a lot of details in the arms that don't make a lot of sense. Don't feel like you have to just fill up the drawing with lines. If they're not describing a major muscle group, don't bother with them. A lot of the muscle lines on the arms don't seem like they're in the right places.

On a technical note, I think you need a better eraser. There's a lot of smudging that looks unintentional. If you get a nice hard plastic eraser like this http://www.dickblick.com/zz215/00/ then you can clean that up better and just leave the lines that you want.

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The fact that I drew something freehand and it look so much like I traced it is something I will take as a compliment.

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Well, however you want to take it.

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of whatever it is that you think I traced.

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I have no idea what you traced. But when someone produces artwork with a good silhouette and less adept interior details, I see "trace." If you didn't trace it then you need to work more with establishing basic 3 dimensional shapes before getting to details.

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But as you do notice right now I am still working out issues with proportion. Maybe that what you mean?

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Your problems are more with perspective than proportions. The proportions are fine, especially on the silhouette. The problems happen with the perspective of how the details fit onto the body. The linework needs some attention as well, but that should be secondary. When you're erasing (or painting in the background, however you did it) in Photoshop, you might want to turn the hardness down on the brush so you don't get that abrupt "Photoshop brush" transition from soft grays to hard white.

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Not to re-rail from the derailment, but I really hate it when artists say 'oh it's fast and loose' but it's like this AMAZING creation!! Sheesh! :P

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Well, come on...it IS fast and loose.

Of course, that's one of its virtues, not faults.

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ok people this is what I did so far. I am having the hardest time drawing the thing across his chest but I will have by tomorrow sometime First try So what do you think.

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Looks like a trace to me. The way the right side of his chest looks it looks like you traced someone who had drawn a prominent pectoral muscle, but didn't understand exactly what they were doing with it, so it ends up looking like a female breast.

But, hey, if you want art of Lazzarus so badly, that's a lot better way to go about it than begging every day.

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The solution is not to trace.

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ok people this is what I did so far. I am having the hardest time drawing the thing across his chest but I will have by tomorrow sometime First try So what do you think.

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Looks like a trace to me. The way the right side of his chest looks it looks like you traced someone who had drawn a prominent pectoral muscle, but didn't understand exactly what they were doing with it, so it ends up looking like a female breast.

But, hey, if you want art of Lazzarus so badly, that's a lot better way to go about it than begging every day.

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Oh forgot to mention I pm'd Cuppa this thread and my piece. She sent back this very gracious reply for all of us:

" Holy moly! That is awesome! *does the not-worthy bow*

Geez you guys - *sniff* yall are so sweet and the art is so good and *whaaaaa*

Thanks so much hun - really amazing! "

CJ

Is anyone going to her party on Test?

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I am I'll be there with Spade. Anyone no where it starts out? Zone/Neighborhood ect.

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Pocket D

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Ok, Well I thought I'd set this up for those of you who can actually use the computer to color, what with your tablets and bitten up stylus'(stylusi?).

Cause without the fill bucket I obviously can't.

-CJ

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You shouldn't need a stylus for flatting.

Put a new layer under the lineart, set the lineart layer to Multiply. Then use the polygonal lasso tool on the underneath layer to make the flat shapes and fill them with color. With the polygonal lasso tool, it's pretty easy. Just takes a wee bit of patience.


Oh, and I'm working on a Cuppa piece too.

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Burn, Dodge, and Smear... the enemies...the mortal foes of all photoshop artists. Really. Truly.

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IMO the Smudge tool is fine if it's not overused. There are better ways to blend colors (using the Healing Brush with Pattern, and having the pattern be a white square is a good one) But sometimes you wanna push all the pixels over. Lightly. With much control.


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I promise I'll add some full length explanation tomorrow that will make PMD's head spin... Or well, at least he'll pat me on the head and say something akin to "Silly Say...tricks are for kids..."

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I'm hoping at least some of it will turn on the little light bulb over my head. I've come to expect to get inspiration and knowledge from your posts. And sass. Can't forget the sass.

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1. how do I creat layers that will allow me to burn, dodge, apply effects over the color layer so I can see the color with and without effect, and basically toggle them off and on?

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You can just make another layer on top of the colors. As far as dodge and burn go, stop using them Overusing dodge and burn can really be detrimental to your pieces, as they suck the color out of your shadows and highlights. I recommend just painting a shadow layer and a highlight layer. Reduce the opacity and voila, it's incorporated into the piece. You can also use an adjustment layer, but start off with just regular layers.


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2. How would you add a metal or chorm effect to a color or layer to creat a metal look only to a certian item.

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Use the lasso tool (or the magic wand, if you're working off flats) to create a selection of the item. Make a new layer, fill the selection with a new color, and go to town. Use the chrome filter, etc.

This also works if you want to do things like a glow around an object and you want to keep it on a separate layer...use the selection with a new layerd and apply the glow without filling in the selection.

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3. What is the best way to apply tectures etc?

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Well, you can either just make a new layer, fill it with texture, and then use layer styles and opacity levels to have it blend with the flats. Or you can use the pattern overlay layer style.

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"Patience and perseverance are the tools needed to reach the summit, but powers of pure darkity darkness are needed to hold on to it"

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OMG! I'm wiping the tears away from that one!! That HAS to be made into a poster!

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Actually, I think that's the caption to the TA piece...

Yeah, that's a drastic improvement. The new composition is excellent.