City of Heroes: Live Forum Archive

Guides and Resources to Screenshots & Fan Art

Bayani

By Bayani,
Posted on: 2009-02-10 21:56 in Multi-Media Fan Creations

 

Posted

Greetings Everyone,

Are you looking for Graphics applications or just need some information on using them?
Looking for a place to put your images, how to put them in a post, or tips on taking them in the first place?

Well, instead of scouring the forums for the information, I have pulled together that kind if information, many from the good folks here in the S&FC forums, some from the web.

What you will find here:

Here are a couple of tips for issues I've seen pop up in the forums.
**Revamped to redirect you down to the appropriate post. Thank you, Thors_Assassin for steps on doing that.**

Folks, please feel free to post any other information you feel would be helpful to artists and collectors of all calibre.

Thanks,

~Red Valkyrja

 

Posted

Graphics Applications

Here are some of the more commonly used graphics applications that I have seen mentioned here in the forums, and in many of the artists own websites.

PhotoShop - A list of tutorials and information I've gathered from out native artists and on the web.
GIMP - Some tutorials I've located on GIMP.
Illustrator - Not much here yet, but it's a start.
Painter - Publishers website.


There are countless others, but these are the ones I have heard mentioned of most.

If any of you know of artists 'tutes' and 'Tips & Tricks' that I've not already listed below, and you think would be of help to the folks here, please list it. (Check with the owner for permission.)

I'll do my best to keep things organized by application.

My thanks,

~Red Valkyrja

 

Posted

PhotoShop

As a start for resources, I've been scouring the art forums and web came across a couple of guides and tutorials.

These Tutorial and Hints, Tips & Tricks were created using various versions of PhotoShop.


Amanda's Lineart Tutorial - PhotoShop 7

Amanda's Cell Shading Tutorial - PhotoShop 7

Colouring Line Art Tutorial by John Becaro

Colouring Tutorial by SplashColors - An amusing and quite hilarious take on coloring a pencil sketch.

Digital Painting Tutorial by Dianae - In depth, 3-parter, with video. All with with an English and a French version.

Create Anime Artwork - Created by NiegeBlanc and featured on PhotoShop's website.

Flaming Photo manipulation by Jayan Saputra

PhotoShop Elements

Warface Tutorial - Thanks to LadyJudgement for posting it.

Digital Inking, Colouring, and Shading - Also Thanks to LadyJudgement.

 

Posted

I posted these links in another thread, but I think they belong here too.

www.cgsociety.org - They have great forums. I especially like the anatomy section, but watch for artistic nudity.

www.conceptart.org - Similar to CGSociety. They have awesome sketchbook threads by amazing artists.

http://forums.sijun.com/viewtopic.php?t=29807 - The most awesome speedpainting thread ever! If you need inspiration, you will find it here.

http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=...mp;view=videos - Bobby Chiu's digital painting videos.

http://itchstudios.com/psg/art_tut.htm - A great general art lesson. I love the illustrations.

http://www.chrisbeatrice.com/a_tutorials.htm - Walk-through tutorials on great paintings.

http://www.itchy-animation.co.uk/tutorials.html - Nice tutorials on light and other things.

http://homepage.mac.com/pixlart/painter.htm - The most comprehensive guide to Corel Painter I have been able to find.

My Web Site and Portfolio
My DeviantArt Gallery

 

Posted

Free/Trial Programs

Besides GIMP, there is also

SAI - 31 day free trial period. About $56-60 for the license after the trial period.

ArtRage - 2.5 Starter Edition is free, the 2.5 & 3 Full Edition versions are $20-$80. Win & Mac

Paint.net - Free program with tonnes of features and a rather large user community.

Sculptris - Free program by the makers of ZBrush, from the little I've played with it, it seems to be a pretty robust program.

Thanks goes to LadyJudgement for pointing me to these.

 

Posted

Not sure if this will help anyone, but B.A.S on DA was looking for some help, and I came up with this chart... he said it did helped him, and so the retired art teacher in me just wanted to share it...

I will be making him a female one when he's ready. And also like I told him tonight, these shapes are meant only as a guideline, to be drawn lightly, and then with a bold darker line, to be drawn over them to show real details.

Well good luck to anyone using it.

LJ

 

Posted

Online Art Portfolio and Image Hosting websites.

DeviantArt - Commonly referred to as DA in the forums, and the most commonly used Art Porfolio. Free, $.

Artician - A newcomer to the Online Art Community scene. Free, $.

SheezyArt - Artist Community/Portfolio. Free.

Heromorph - Fan art site, image hosting.

Photobucket- Image hosting website, allows for free hosting of images, some editing capabilities. Free, $

Imageshack - Image hosting website, allows for free hosting of images, some editing capabilities. Free, $.

Flickr - Image hosting website, allows for free hosting of images, some editing capabilities. Free.

uppix - Image hosting website, offers short url's. Free.

Necrotania: Story Writing Community - Provided by our own Calash

Free - Offers free hosting.
$ - Offers and upgraded subscription, which generally provides more tools/customization, removes ads, etc.

 

Posted

Online Artist Communities

Communities and forums for artists.

Sculptris - Forums for Sculptris within the ZBrush community.

CGSociety - A leading online provider of information on everything to do with digital art, computer graphics, animation and digital visual effects.*

ConceptArt - A web community of artists with the goal of helping each other learn about art, provide the best place to showcase work, further our art educations, and to meet other artists from around the world.*


* Thank you Lousy_Day for providing these links.

 

Posted

Did not want to start a new thread for this, but if this is the wrong place to post let me know and we can get this post deleted.


If you are looking for a place to host images I would like to offer up my site as a possibility. While it is a writing based site I do allow image posting via the vBulletin user album. I have plenty of space and bandwidth and recently setup a field that will give you the BBCode to show the thumbnail and link to the full image. It gives you the code to do the following with one click.



Thumbnails are max 250x250 right now while I work out the best size. Full size image is max 1600x1200 for the upgraded users (see below). The script will size down the images as needed.


If you do decide to join, shoot me a PM after your account is created and I will upgrade it so you can have larger images posted.


http://www.necrotania.com

 

Posted

Tutorials, Tips, and Hints

Kudos to our resident artists for creating some great tutorials and tip on... well, pretty much everything. Basically a collection of 'tutes' and 'tips & hints', many from locals and in a verity of mediums.

Basic Pose Construction - Simple sketch showing the creation of a rough pencil draft from an image/figure. LadyJudgement

Basic Faces Tutorial - Short and simple 6-Step tutorial from rough pencil draft to finished product. Juggertha

Facial Shading - A sample sheet showing how shadows fall an the face depending on the angle of lighting. Juggertha

Digital Drawing Tutorial - From Sketch to Finish Lines. Juggertha

Digital Colouring Tutorial - Here Juggertha explains the process starting with you line sketch to coloring and shading of your image. Juggertha

Makin' Faces - Sample sheet of facial expressions. Juggertha

Male Torso Drawings - Sample sheet of male torso poses. Juggertha

Female Torso Drawings - Sample sheet of female torso poses. Juggertha

Break-away Tutorial by stinky666 - WOW! Creating a fractured, crumbled look to an image. Amazing job. PaintShop Pro

Sculptris Primer Videos - on Vimeo by 3dioot. Eight part series ranging from program layout and tools to detailed work.

Digital Painting Video Blog with Bobby Chiu - Chiu's video blog containing drawing videos, interviews, and tips and hints.*

PSG Art Tutorial - A very comprehensive tutorial on basic concepts, like lighting, textures, shadows and more.*

Itchy Animations Tutorials - Guides on basic concepts, and digital painting.*

Corel Painter Tutorials - John Derry Tutorial Series containing 30+ .pdf's.*

* Thank you Lousy_Day for providing these links.

 

Posted

Online Art Workshops

Schoolism - Imaginism School of Art, An wide variety of coursed presented by major industry artists.

CGWorkshops - CGSociety Workshops available for a wide range of subjects such as Photo Realism, Monsters, Matte Painting, and more.*

Massive Black DVD - MassiveDVD is a collaboration between the uber-talented folks at Massive Black Inc. and the world famous Conceptart.org community. Their goal is to serve the soon-to-be even more talented artists, by providing the best training videos possible from some of the greatest working artists today.

* Thank you Lousy_Day for providing the link.

 

Posted

Tools of the Trade

(Eventually) Below you will find peripherals, hardware, and the tools many artists use in the creation of their works. I'll break it down physical and digital mediums and will likely split them into two separate posts. Person preference for artists has a lot to do with the items listed, so before investing in anything I would definitely ask questions and do some research.

Digital Peripherals

Tablets
Wacom - The leader in tablets with a wide range of products, varying in price and functionality from $70 to $2k+

Pens/Mice

Printers

Physical Mediums

Pencils/Markers/Charcoal

Paints

Paper/Boards/Film

 

Posted

Guides and Resources for Collecting Character Art

Here you will find information on commissioning original art, the why's wherefore's and whatnot's, as well as where you can find artists.

Collecting Original Character Art - Bayani, an exceptional guide on the ins and outs of the commission process.

The Network - A Resource (revamped) - Thor's Assassin, a rather sizable index of commissionable artists that TA has thrown together. Also available on his DA page.

 

Posted

Tips on taking screenshots

Okay, I've seen quite a few posts where people are having issues with taking screenshots, particularly within the costume creator. ParakonWiki does have an extensive write up on taking screenshots.

Vista* and Win7* users.

Vista and Win7 have a screen capture app called Snipping Tool, You will find it in the Accessories folder. It allws you to capture free-form, rectangles, windows, and full-screen.
*Vista/Win7 Home Premium, Business, Ultimate, and Enterprise.

Now, on occasion I have come across users that have the 'blank-screen' issue when trying to use 'prnt-scrn' in the Costume Creator. (I know I did until I was pointed towards the Snipping Tool.) I have a work-around that I have yet to see fail for anyone that tries it.

Blank screenshot workaround.

1. Bring up whatever art program you are going to use (MSPaint, GIMP, etc.) I recommend one that is less of a resource hog for these initial screenies.
2. Move said program so that only a small portion of it is visible like the Title bar down at the bottom of your screen. Be sure leave it in the foreground (on top of CoX.)
3. Hit PrintScreen.
4. Move your art app back into view.
5. Paste.

I would actually have two instances of MSPaint running, that way I could select a part of the full screen image, and paste in into the second window gathering a little collection of cropped screenies.

I hope this helps.

~Red

 

Posted

So you want a larger thumbnail

A tip on posting larger thumbnails, without posting the full-sized image. Some of the folks here host their images on their own web pages and are able to dictate the size of their thumbnails. But most of us just use what's available for free out there on the net.

I took this from how Photobucket creates thumbnail links, but I wanted to post a larger image.

And if people want to post a large number of images in a single post, going to a thumbnail route would be kinder on some peoples computers.

I cheat with mine, because if I use Photobucket's thumbnail option you end up with:


A dinky little image that no one can see much on, though it is clickable to a larger image. But even then, Photobucket, like Flickr, puts a max limit on the images. (It shrunk the one above to down to 1024x717.)

So I've been putting images on imageshack and then alter the thumbnail link. Flickr offers links for multiple sizes to post so I grab the link for the medium sized image and place that url in the image tags, while the image itself links to the full image on imageshack.

The thumbnail link goes like this:

[IMG]http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2617/3885857175_8f885ec893.jpg[/IMG]

so:
[IMG]insert url to your chosen 'thumbnail' image[/IMG


So now you have a decent size thumbnail, that is clickable to the full-sized image:



I'm sure there's an easier way to do it, but this is what I've been able to come up with on my own.