Lesson 2 - LIght and Shadow - Revisited

Haven't had much time for studying digital painting, but finally we are here :)

trying on some basic ligthing, back in the game, feeling like a n00b.

Lesson 2 - Light and Shadow
light and shadow render basics

lighting planes

actually did these "value planes" a while a go, really liked the rough clean brushstrokes.

painting the planes in directly, cutting the edges with the eraser, or was it a white brush with 100% opacity and hardness.

Form within Shape render variance

here I did the shape challenge from lesson 2. changing up the forms to make for some interesting lit angles. challenging but fun. really should do a thousand of these + study some material differences as well. 

Holyshitasaurus lit from different angles

a lit character / creature design from different angles. slightly more complex form with cast shadows as well. Don't really know if I am satisfied with it, not really happy with the brushstrokes here, don't know what happened, I suppose it's just been a while since I had some time to do digital painting. + I should have put more effort into simplifying the form planes.

Holyshitasaurus. Really looking forward to Jurrassic Park 4 I guess ;)

bare with me and stay tuned for lesson 3 somewhere in the future gap between all other daily do's.

cheers :D

Lesson 1 - Basic Tools - Revisited

Revisiting :D

So I decided to revisit this digital painting class,

 to refresh the various techniques and practises and see how I have improved.

Feel free to comment your thoughts :)

lesson 1 - basic tools

Sketching in photoshop

Rough Rhino Rock

did a value sketch on this one, blocking in shapes and added a bit of rock texture and random birds.

thought the focal point was a little to much to the left, so I added a tree in the middle :P

the foreground elements were added for depth and line contrast.

I also wanted to keep it to just the one brush, this is a square brush in use.

Hunter

A more realistic approach, wanted to capture human likeness and proportions, instead of leaning towards cartoony stuff all of the time :P

Played around with the brush roughness, which gives a lot to the gritty, dark mysterious character.

Wandering Warrior

wanted to add this one to the bunch, again sticking to the one square brush.
keeping it rough around the edges :)

Riot Rat Rumble!

Tried to stay extremely loose and sketchy here... quick, rough and fun, minimal value.

Trekk Master

loose fast rough... square brush'n, more contrast and darker heavier lines.

Mr. Strongo and Ninja Leaper (oh the randomness)

Monster Quickies ... :)

different approaches.

For sketching digitally I have different approaches such as scribbling to quickly catch an idea (ninja leaper / Riot Rat), and blocking in a silhouette and putting in lighter values (Mr.Strongo / Hunter / Wandering Warrior)

I like to keep the "hand-drawn" look (pencil&paper 'ish) roughness...

Stay tuned for more :)

Final Comments

Your Final Course Score: A

Effort: Excellent

Technical: Good

Creative: Excellent

me happy :)

+ diploma

from pencil and paper to digital painting this was truly an awesome kickstarter course ! 

for me a true stepping stone, to polish my work :)

Photoshop has officially become a well known playground for me now, as well as getting used to my wacom tablet, in such a way that it now feels kinda natural to sketch with as well :)

I can truly recommend this, it is very thorough and you get a lot of professional tips and tricks to take with you :)

until next time ;)

Lesson 8

Combination

final assignment DONE :)

this was fun

trying out all the tips and tricks.

playing around with different unusual layer blend modes as well.

I could have gone on for ever with this one, but you've got to stop somewhere... besides deadline is on friday, and I have never been this close to a schoolism deadline :) hehe

the initial idea was having a strong contrast in character moods, as well as size relations and apperance.

I wanted a sense of incongruity in the contrast, to spin of some fun ;)

Personally I think I have made quite some progress, considering my experience with digital painting :)

ENJOY

Amphibian BFF (final piece)

Lights /character texture + more clean up

Color/shading + clean up (WIP 02)

Initial Sketch (WIP 01)

Lesson 7

Background, Scene and Mood

This was a difficult task

Creating the character was easy enough, but when it came to adding tons of layers, my old faithful Macbook Pro 17" couldn't keep up :/

so I struggled for a week or two, making my strokes as carefully as possible because of lag.

Now, as deadline is approaching, I decided to spend some money on a new computer, 

a new Macbook Pro with 15" retina display :D and I am loving it !!! :D

finished the rest in two days :) that is fast, considering that I have kids :)

kept it pretty rough, to speed things up. One could always go back and refine things.

Ramboman

so yes, very original... :P not Rambo ... Ramboman!

Ramboman with touch!

 I like the effect here.

Ramboman Jungle Approach - Rough

Ramboman Snow Encounter - Rough

Ramboman Dessert Wander - Rough

These next thumbnails where just to try out a quicker compositional approach

they are a bit more energetic

Ramboman Lost Village Night - Rough Thumb

Ramboman Gladiator - Rough

Ramboman Mountain Climbing - Rough

Lesson 6

Custom Brushes

This was a fun process, but it took some time playing around with custom brushes ! :)

Simple Shape Brushes

Smudge tool "Brushes"

Leaves/Grass/Bushes Stamp Brushes

Cloud Stamp Brushes

Fire Stamp Brushes

Skin/Furr Stamp Brushes

Crowd Stamp Brushes

Stamp Brush Compilation :)

Toucan (rough)

And this is just the beginning... I've got a lot more custom brushes stashed up in the presets :)

Lesson 5

Color Mixing and Painting

really nice method of digital painting.
mixing paint just as you would when you do a traditional painting.
it gives it a more authentic and realistic look.

Streetfighter SpiderMonkey

I still tend to go to far with the clean up (mixing and smoothening).. a couple of times I went a step back, because the roughness looked better :)