Artists' Discovery Thread [Share ideas and techniques here]

[Verene]

You're welcome!

Also, dafont.com is pretty awesome too.

[Smilin' Assassin]

ok, this is not a painting tool, but very useful for artists and art collectors alike ~


DropBox is virtual storage, verymuch like a flashdrive, but without the hassle of physically inserting your USB key
there are many programs like it, but this one's really nifty

You get 2 gig free, + 250meg extra whenever you refer someone (up to a limit)

Those who use multiple computers, it syncs across all of them very quickly

For me, as an art collector, DropBox's primary value is to store valuable printable files in the event my computer ever crashes.

It's also extremely handy for sharing files; each file has a public link if you want it to, so you can simpy send a friend a link to that, instead of uploading the file itself via email.
Many artists I've commissioned just send me the link to their own DropBox, no need to bother with megaupload. For large .tiff files which can be tens of meg, that is a handy thing indeed.
Of course, art is not the only thing you can share, documents contacts and music too .. just about anything~!
You can share across DropBoxes too, if your friend has one.

There are features I have yet to use, such as Revision History.
As I understand it, if you are storing a document or art you are working on, and accidentally save over it, you can call up an earlier version
Handy for PSD files when/if they corrupt.


this is the Shameless Plug part ~ you don't need to click on it

Ala's DropBox referral

You could instead google DropBox and download it that way, tho if you use Alacrity's referral you and I will both get a 250meg extra storage

Either way it's too useful, would recommend it to anyone with valuable files or who just wants convenient sharing options

[tasha]

I know this thread has gone a bit dead but seeing as this is the place for tips and technique discussion...

Hands. I hate them. They're awkward. Nearly every non reference picture I draw end up with no hands or weird looking hands. Usually they're tiny compared to the head or arm. There's a couple of examples on my DeviantArt( http://tashadarke.deviantart.com/ ), especially in the WIP section if you can get to that part. I can see my sketch book getting filled with drawings of hands over the next few days as I tend to go mental on something that I know I'm bad at. So I'm looking for tips of how to make drawing hands a little easier, especially in situations where the hand is gripping an item, or the fingers are splayed. Thanks.

[Verene]

I really hate drawing hands as well. They're so annoying and finicky and so easy to make look weird.

Try practicing drawing your own hand a lot? Don't even, like, photograph it and then sketch that pose. Just hold it in a specific way and sketch that as best you can. It does help a lot. Study how it looks when holding certain things in different ways and stuff.

(also, happy belated birthday!)

[BlueXIV]

Practice drawing them is probably the best advice I can give you. Also, hands are usually roughly the size of your face, so you can always use that as a measurement.

Not to pull a YSJ, but this might help you
http://www.scribd.com/doc/501782/And...Head-and-Hands

[tasha]

Thanks both loads Looks like I got a lot of reading and drawing to do.

@Verene: thanks!

[KageNoShi]

Originally Posted by Invertation

How long have you been practicing the arts? How intensively? What is your motivator?

From the first time I picked up a crayon to now. Not intensively at all. Boredom(points over to my avatar),depression,anger, but mainly boredom.

<)_)Crayola)_)

[Ravenhawk]

I hate hands too. I am no expert on this yet but there are two things that help me deal with them better:

1. Don't look at hands as one unit as it is composed of individual smaller parts. The palm, the thumb also the fleshy part that extends from thumb down to the wrist), fingers, plus the joints in each finger.

2. References - I use references for hand gestures. If I cant find one , I look at my own hand.

I found a really nice hand tutorial days ago but I lost it -_-"

[Rydia Merchan]

The best artist for drawing hands that most of us would relate too is comic book artist Marc Silvestri. He was mainly famous for drawing Marvel Comics "Wolverine" and the "Uncanny X-Men" during the late 1980's and through the 1990's. He was also a founder for Image with the rest of that outstanding art group (Jim Lee, Todd McFarlane, Erik Larsen and so on). His issues of the Uncanny X-Men had this awesome sketch book style with excellent anatomy, which made his art look more real than comic bookish. I had never seen such realism used before, and each issue he did, he drew amazing hands and fingers!

http://comics.imakinarium.net/autore...stri/3x3/3.jpg

http://www.coverbrowser.com/image/un...men/239-13.jpg

http://www.marcsilvestriart.com/

I learned a lot from his work.

[Woodelf Archer]

hey guys I wasnt sure where to post so forgive if this is wrong

I'm looking to get into digital art but its confusing where to start. I already have access to photoshop but im wondering if you can help me with a couple of things?

Im looking to buy a wacom tablet, maybe the bamboo but I might get the Intuos4 if the price can be justified?

Additionally are any programs other than photoshop useful or recommended?

Finally can you recommend any books or software that you use/used to get better at art? Particularly in drawing detailed anatomically correct humans and fantasy art?

I know the last post on here was a while ago but I hope you can help me? im literally itching to get started

thanks in advance, - Mark

[Perynne]

This is the right place. Even though there has been no activity for a while, this is the best place to pose questions for everyone to see.

Wacom Bamboo is the best tablet to start with. It's simple and not too expensive, and it's really great to use. Intuos is one of the best tablets out there, but it's expensive and geared more towards professional drawing (or at least drawing digital art a LOT). So if you're just starting out with digital art, Bamboo will be adequate (and you won't feel bad about it gathering dust if you end up taking a break from drawing).

Photoshop is the best to start out with. If you'd like to play around with different programs, other options are Paint Tool SAI, Open Canvas (a personal favourite of mine) and Corel Painter. Whereas Photoshop excels at almost everything, including photo manipulation, these other three programs are geared exclusively towards drawing and painting.

Anatomy is best learnt from drawing live models. Second best is getting artists' anatomy books or using photos for reference. I'm sorry that I can't really recommend any books, I've learnt most of my skills from either a bit of live model drawing, or using photos as reference. There are good stock-galleries in DeviantArt that have huge collections of different poses.

I recommend looking for tutorials at art websites, looking at a lot of different artists and what their methods are, and perhaps finding some videos online where an artist shows their painting process. Deviantart has a lot of tutorials and great artists, and Conceptart.org is the leading site to go to for concept artists' WIPs and talk about their works.
If you have enough money to dish out, you may even consider ordering ImagineFX, a magazine centered around digital art that provides a free cd with each issue, filled with brushes, textures and some tutorials.

[Tommy's]

*copy pastes Pery's post*

She pretty much sums it up. I use photoshop and photoshop only, because I'm used to it, and now I find other programs terrible to use

I got all the references, tutorials, brushes and stocks from deviantart.com. So have yourself a look there

[Ravenhawk]

What Tommy said about what Perynne said Just want to add a little more:

Im looking to buy a wacom tablet, maybe the bamboo but I might get the Intuos4 if the price can be justified?

I use the bamboo pen and touch and I am pretty satisfied with it. I heard that the higher end Wacom tablets are even better.

Additionally are any programs other than photoshop useful or recommended?

Photoshop is what I use as well. Never tried SAI and Corel Painter but I heard they are more geared towards painting/drawing purposes. PS is versatile enough to give you the best of both worlds - drawing + color correction/adjustments of your final image.

I also use Sketchbook Pro because I like the responsiveness of the pencil tool. It is also pretty lightweight and the controls are designed so that you wont have to use your keyboard while working on something. I use this for sketching and preliminary (grayscale) shading. I then import my work to Photoshop for detailed shading + coloring.

Finally can you recommend any books or software that you use/used to get better at art? Particularly in drawing detailed anatomically correct humans and fantasy art?

I can't remember any of them at the top of my head but just search in DeviantArt and Google and you'll find tons of resources.

[GeminiJuSa]

Personally I can say thar wacom in general is the best tablet to buy. I'm using a wacom pen, it doesn't get simpler (or cheaper) than that, and I must say I find it very nice with a smaller tablet rather than a big once (I used to own a trust tablet, with a drawing area as big as an A4 paper) pecause it helps you avoid needing to make bigger motions with your hand.

Also, wacom in general is the most advanced and easy to use tablet out there on the market. They are the biggest for a reason, no matter how much I loved my Trust tablet, the wacom is just so much easier to use and more responsive.

I also use photoshop, and I recommend it mostly because there are so many tutorials covering phtoshop, both in tablet and non tablet use. It also has plenty possibilities to mix your drawing with digital art that you mostly just need a mouse to create.

[Verene]

I also have a Wacom, and it's great. It's almost ten years old and still works well, too, which is also nice When I get around to replacing it, it'll definitely be with another Wacom.

Another one saying that Photoshop is great - I've been using it for almost ten years, and it's my default program for everything, painting included. I have OpenCanvas, I have Paint Tool SAI, I have Painter...and I never use them. Definitely prefer Photoshop.

(and drawing is only a tiny bit of what you can do with Photoshop; I'm primarily a photomanipulator, so yeah.)

[Thistle Xandra]

Oh, I guess thing one thing I want to add is that there are two versions of Photoshop, which took me my surprise. There's Photoshop Elements (what I have) and Photoshop CS5 (which is a way more expensive). It throws me off sometimes when I find a tutorial that uses the CS5 tools, and then I go all sad panda

I got my bamboo tablet a few weeks ago off of amazon. I think it's the medium size one, but it was listed as $199 (comes out cheaper when you put it in your shopping cart), and the reason I went for it was because it came with Photoshop Elements. I think the cheaper version came with just Corel Paint. I couldn't personally justify buying anything more expensive since I knew it would be a while until I get the skill level to even make use of the more expensive ones. I think the more expensive ones *might* come with the CS5, but I'd double-check that :/

[Woodelf Archer]

wow thanks for the huge, and really fast response! There was so much solid information on here, it took me days to get through and research everything =D

I know I'm gunna stick to photoshop, and pick up an issue of ImagineFX, I'm not decided on which tablet yet as A6 just in my mind seems too small...? I draw at A4-A5 comfortably, but maybe im not understanding how it works.

anyway huge thankyou to everyone who helped me =D hopefully ill doing some masterpieces in the near future ^^ and hopefully enter wintersday workshop if I get the hang of things =D!!!

- Mark

[Perynne]

Originally Posted by Woodelf Archer

I know I'm gunna stick to photoshop, and pick up an issue of ImagineFX, I'm not decided on which tablet yet as A6 just in my mind seems too small...? I draw at A4-A5 comfortably, but maybe im not understanding how it works.

Tablet sizes really can't be compared to paper, since drawing on the computer you will always have the "paper" (or canvas, as they call it in Photoshop) zoomed in or zoomed out. It will rarely ever be the same size on the screen as the finished product.
Technically what a tablet does is duplicate the screen area onto the tablet itself, so that the upper left corner of the tablet equals the upper left corner of the computer screen, lower right corner equals the lower right corner of the screen, etc. So when you have your canvas on the middle of the screen, you will be using the middle of the tablet mostly for drawing.

With a smaller tablet you will be making smaller motions, but otherwise it won't make a difference to what you're drawing. Larger tablets allow you to make larger movements with your hand, and perhaps that's more comfortable on the long run, but if it's your first time with a tablet I'd suggest trying a smaller one since the large ones can be very expensive.

So yeah, size of tablet has nothing to do with the size that you actually draw in. It just gives you a smaller area to move your hand around in, but you should get used to it fairly quickly because it's not that different from drawing on normal paper. All you'll be doing is doing the drawing small bits at a time - like doing an A4-sized drawing by taping together A6-sized pieces of paper where you've already drawn parts of the character. Even with a bigger tablet, chances are you'd still be working on the drawing one small part at a time, zoomed in.

Then again, if you do have the money and don't mind taking the risk that digital drawing is not for you, you could go for a larger tablet.

[Tommy's]

Picking the size is really a matter of how you prefer to draw and has nothing to do with the size you like to draw in. I draw in A3 and in A100001010 on the same laptop. Thats why I disagree on this one (or at least the way I interpreted her text) with Pery. Don't go for a larger tablet because you can miss it.

Larger isn't always better. My advice is to look at the way you prefer to draw. Do you draw out of your shoulder or out of your wrist? I for one prefer to draw out of my wrist. Therefor I prefer to make small strokes rather then long ones. The smaller the range of my tablet is, the less long I need to make my strokes to cover my drawing. What I'm trying to say is, that in my opinion if you prefer to draw with your complete arm (so out of your shoulder) you would like to get a bigger tablet (lets say if you are buying a Wacom Intuos4, one of the size L) and if you prefer to draw out of your wrist then I could advice one of the size of M or maybe even S. Just see what you prefer. Perhabs you can visit some shop, and see what works best for you. Or perhabs you know some friends with a tablet that you could try out, see what fits your habit of drawing best.

[Chicken of the Seas]

Random question, but how are you guys making those signature stamp things?