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J-Taurens — Tribute (step by step)
Published: 2012-07-07 17:44:51 +0000 UTC; Views: 1962; Favourites: 49; Downloads: 44
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I was asked by to tell how I draw this-specifically the line art part. Well it differs from work to work but I can try to explain.>I usually draw with digital pen a sketch.
Sometimes I use the pencil drawings I had but then I have to scan the image, level the colors(Ctrl+L) so pen lines get darker and background gets white. And after that I usually just over draw a digital sketch anyway.
>So I leave the sketch in 1 layer and the painting one I start on a layer on top. I usually only use 1-5layers, if I get more I merge them together. My motto is if you drew something once you'll be able to do it again. I don't use "undo" or "history" too much as well-takes up computer resources.
>And I just paint over and over the drawing on 1 or two layers.
I usually keep 3-5layers:
1st: the original sketch-to have a remainder of the original idea.
2nd: the painting itself
3rd: (sometimes the character is split from background-but I don't like separating them)
And the rest are some newer ideas or tests.
I happen to have base painting on layer 2, then a new sketch-with more detail on layer 3 and a second painting layer on layer 4.
That I do when I want to try out maybe a different thing-like face angle, etc but am not sure it will look good, so I paint it on a new layer and when I'm done I ether merge it (if its good), or delete, change if it doesn't look the way I want it to.
Hope that helps a little, this isn't really a tutorial so I can't help much, but if you have any questions feel free to ask and I'll try to explain.
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Comments: 22
this is going to haunt me for the rest of my.....dayzzzzz :S
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Simply beautiful!!
Finally I see someone who paints with soft colors!!
My God bro you have to make a tutorial because it is simply outstanding and also because the other tutorials I have checked don't explain too much or the colors are really shiny or just dark!
I never get why people like to color like that? I mean some artists colors hair really bland or they add a white effect so the hair can look shiny and "animeish".
But you really seem to understand the colors!!
Dude you simply rock!!!!!
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Thank you XD
I think I'm too green to teach anyone but I'll for sure make one when I'm good enough to teach others.
And I guess some artists just like to keep the "anime/manga"illustrative style so they use such canon technique. And thank you again for the praises ^^
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Awwwww come on dude...well I guess I will have to wait until you release the tutorial!!
And your welcome and keep uploading stuff!! Love your work
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oh,to es saucu par atveseļošanos kūri!
izskatās, ka DA virsotnes tev vairs nav tālu!
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DA virsotnēm? q __ q līdz tām man ir ļoti...ļoti...ļļļļoooooottttiiiii tālu, but painting is fun :3
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nu nez,man tāda nojausma...bet,sapņot tak arī var~
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hahaha dreaming wide awake XD
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Thank you very much for uplaoding this my friend! I was very impressed of the layer explanation, sorry i didnt replied inmediately, but i was analizing every bit of it. I am surprised that your coloring style its way too awesome that you dont need a very detailed lineart to make a cool job! It's like the colours bend so well that at the end, lineart is not a big problem and the colours became the lineart. You have gave a hope to me, because lineart was my biggest problem. Hehehe
I usually work with 20-30 layers, but wow! You only work with 3-5. Arent you afraid of failing something? Oh well, you are way too awesome that you dont need to be sure, you just paint and make your stuff, awesome nice stuff! I am gonna try that with my next drawing, by the way, what tablet do you use, still an intuos? It seems you use a Cyntiq, if not then you are SUPER AWESOME!!!
Oh! I got a question! Didn't you had problems making the background? I mean.. with the stained glass of lots of colors? Those lines specially! Did you used a ruler or was everything done by hand? Did you do the same with the floor? Oh i thought the thing in wich the character was going to be standed was a tablet lol. Was it your tablet?
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Glad to hear it helped you a bit.
I also had a problem with lineart, when I just got into digital art I read tutorial after tutorial showing how to draw lineart and then color it and it never felt natural for me. Then I found some great digital artists that paint digitally as if they did in real life with oils,etc.
You have no fixes and retouches, paint as if you had a brush. I still use a lot of photoshop options, but now at least I know that I don't need some "special"brushes or 100layers.
I don't fear making mistakes, the more I make the more I learn and I think that people shouldn't be afraid of taking risks, especially in art.
As for strait lines I draw them with hand, most of the time I rotate my canvas to a angle that would allow me to draw strait lines better, but somtimes I make strait lines with photoshop commands~ depends on what specifically I do.
My tablet is: Wacom Intuos4 Medium,
a cintiq cost too much for my budget.
Oh also- the flor I made by making a 1white, 1black squares, then multiplying them until they get the right form, then transforming that image in perspective so it would fit my original sketch and after that-blend it in and paint over.
----
And at first I thought that my caracter would be standing on my intuos tablet, but while I painted I changed my mind, that's one thing that I love about painting instead of drawing. You don't have to redraw the main drawing if you want to change anything-you just paint things however and change them by painting whatever ^^
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Yes my friend! You helped me a lot abd you even gave me hopes. I will tell you a secret, i was pretty dissapointed about myself when i tried the tablet, i failed at lineart specially and painting was worse. But when i saw the last drawing of yours and saw it, i saw a hope on the way i do things. Even you motivated me to finish a drawing i did yesterday. Wich is not the big deal, but i am proud of it.
Anyways, you know what i have noticed? That painting in 1 single layer is like... painting on a real oil! And even easier. I saw your brushes and i asumme they are the ones that comes with photoshop right? I admire that about you, you are so good you dont need "special brushes" to make your work. I like that positivism you have. Even i will try with that.
Thanks for explaining that question i had with the lines, same with the floor with squares, (even with this digital painting i have noticed with your works that you can change things in no-time! I always wondered how artists did them. By the way, wich was the most difficult part of this drawing? Oh! And how many time did you spend doing this? (: Since the size of the canvas was pretty big i suppose you took like 30 hours for sure!
Nice tablet the one you have! I have a Bamboo Create. But i am sure in the future we both be able to get a Cyntiq! We will work harder of course!
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Glad to hear that your not giving up. When I started digital painting I couldn't even understand how other artists could make such art and felt very discouraged by my own work. You can look back at the very first drawing I have in my gallery, I keep all of them there to remind me how much have I grown and learned in the time I spend working on my skills.
Yes, painting on one layer is basically like oil painting-you don't have much options there but still have a lot of freedom and so i try to work similarly in digital as well. I use the standard brushes, I think I have few I had found on some forums, but I don't use them much. I know that lot of great concept artists use there own specific brushes for the sake of saving time while painting but I don't feel the need for them. I'm sure I might make my own brushes but only when I feel that I need them. Having a newer program or bunch of someone else brushes wont make my art any better.
The most difficult part was probably the background. I had a clear idea on what I wanted the character to look like but when it came to background I had hard time visualizing it the way I wanted it to look like. I guess biggest problem about it was that there was a lot of light and I had to think about how the light would look through the stained glass as I didn't have any references for that myself.
Time spent.. probably more then30h. I started to paint it while I was still ill and had to take many breaks so the time spent on it got spread quite a lot.
And yes I love my Intuos4. Bamboo ones are good too, I thought about buying that one first but as I have had 2 different tablets in my life already I thought that I should just gather my money up and just buy the intuos because i'll use it for quite some time. ~ Cyntiq is so dreamy, really would love to have the 24hd one but by the time I have enough money for it I'm sure there will be 1 or 2 more newer versions XD
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Ha ha! That's the ironic part of technology, when you have enought money to buy the thing you like, suddenly there are like 2 newer versions with more features, like Photoshop and teh adobe suite. Last year they came up with CS5 and this year they got CS6. So its not too convinient. With tablets i am sure they will come out with something new when i get money to get an intuos. And why Intuos? Is pressure that necessary? I hear there is a wheel button in wich you can change your brush size, right? What are the other buttons that the intuos has? D:
I will not give up, probably i am not so good like you or many digital artists but someday i am sure i will be super awesome and i will do cool drawings! I will finish a drawing i have been doing, i linked it to you on another reply. But when i finish it, i am gonna try making something else, probably i will watch some tutorials. I am getting exited about this! Did you watched a lot of tutorials before getting so good? I mean, did you learned everything by experimenting, or tutorials and youtube videos have something to do with it? 
Oh yeah, background with one layer and making shadows must be a hard work! Specially because you didnt had any references or anything like that! You had to improvize and you did something pretty good at the end of course! And i like your way of thinking, i mean. you only use the brushes sthat come with the program, not using any special brushes, but i wonder how this artists made their own brushes at the end, experimenting and more. By the way, havent you thought opf using textures over the clothes of your characters to give them a realistic look? Or using textures on some areas of your drawings?
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Tehnology, its amazing and yet annoying that it upgrades this fast. It gets better and better that's for sure, but its just hard keeping up with things.
Intuos- it in general is a professional series. It's made for professional use and thus the quality is better, and 2x the pressure comes in handy. Yes there is the scroll wheel. Its set on brush size, canvas rotation, layer changing and zooming in and out so it comes handy, there are also 8 customizable buttons, and one of them can be made a web-kind-of thingy that has other customizations so basically you could work in programs like photoshop without ever using keyboard.
Tutorials- I did learn from all sorts of tutorials when I first started the digital painting, but all the basics like drawings, oil paintings, values, shadows, etc, etc, etc I learned in art high school and in the art school before that one.
As for favorit DA artists, there are too many great ones, same as with artists in general so I don't have tops. Too hard to decide.
I sometimes use textures, but a little, don't want to make it feel like they are forced into the work. And as for textures to make things more realistic. Maybe, it really depends what I'll do in future and how ill my painting skills develop in the future.
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The part of keeping up with the updates is probably the most annoying thing of technology! For example, 2 years ago i got Adobe CS5 edition, but last year CS6 edition came out! I was like... wow! Only 1 year and they got another version! Same with games like Call of Duty, lol.
Wow! With 8 customizable buttons and lots of options and spinning wheels you sure doesnt need the keyboard at all! when working with that Intuos tablet! Because its like you got the complete set in there! Wich is pretty great and pretty usefull i can say in fact dude! The only thing i wasnt able to do with my tablet is to program one button to do the (control + Z) thinguie! 
I didnt know you were in art school before! I thought you were only on University! So you have been in art since you were a school-kid! That explains why you are so good or why you have some "technique" wich is pretty difficult to find in here! And why you talk too mature when it comes with art! I liked when you said about how your painting skills will develop in the future!
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School gives me knowledge and practice gives me skill.
And yes, working on intuos after other tablets is like sailing on a ship instead of a paddle boat.
And technologies do advance quite quick..annoyingly quick... it really is a one year cycle for a totally new version of a program or product and while that gives no reason to buy the newest version it still has the upgraded technology.
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Thanks for sharing the process and seems quite similar to my process. I like how you switched her leg stance at the beginning then switched it back towards the end.
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yes, as I progressed I realized that I liked how they looked on the first sketch better, thankfully I had left that sketch unharmed so kept working on that pose.
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