HOME | DD

mandydax In reply to Birdco [2012-02-19 14:58:58 +0000 UTC]

Thanks, man. When I did [link] I thought I was going to have to adjust all my colors, but then I figured it out, and that was such a relief. (Also, I figured out how to make the starscape easily.)

👍: 0 ⏩: 1

Birdco In reply to mandydax [2012-02-19 15:22:54 +0000 UTC]

Star Scapes are my favorite background to make. This one is one of my favorites [link]

My starfields tend to run 8 layers or so. If you ever need me to make you one, don't hesitate to ask (when I have my computer back, that is)

👍: 0 ⏩: 1

mandydax In reply to Birdco [2012-02-19 23:23:30 +0000 UTC]

It was really easy. I just made 5 different sizes and opacities, cloned them a bunch based on how "bright" they were and then used the Align and Distribute dialog to randomly place them within a square. I was amazed at how good it looked.

Yours is so pretty. I like those dark areas, too. Like nebulae.

👍: 0 ⏩: 1

Birdco In reply to mandydax [2012-02-19 23:53:08 +0000 UTC]

How I layer the sky

Base color layer (I manually do the gradient... Havent figured out how to make SAI do that for me)

Deep sky stars: White, very small brush

Luminous Gas layer: Pink, Airbrush sing very low density... This allows some Deep sky stars to "shine through" gas

Mid field stars: Various colors set at low value, low saturation (almost white) slightly larger brish size

Dust layer: Black, low density Covers up deep sky stars, and dims mid field stars

Near field stars: basically same color set up as mid field, but I bump the saturation up a little bit. larger brush size

This creates a sense of depth in the star field

👍: 0 ⏩: 1

mandydax In reply to Birdco [2012-02-20 11:08:55 +0000 UTC]

Well, it's very pretty.

Layers, layers, layers.

It's like a Brony Drawfriend's theme song.

👍: 0 ⏩: 1

Birdco In reply to mandydax [2012-02-20 11:36:07 +0000 UTC]

Yes... One of my friends, Sliverlynx, is the queen of layers. This picture [link] was in the range of 130 or so... It was funny watching that livestream, the stream would cut out every time a major imaging task occurred, because her computer was struggling so much.

My Library exterior background was 90 until I did a little compressing. That one made my CPU fan start running at high speed, and was maxing out 3 of my 4 processors when I was doing an image manipulation.

It's the hardest thing to convince new vexel artists of, though. They think more layers is more work, when it really isn't that bad... and the added control over the image from the larger number of layers far exceeds extra work needed to keep track of those layers.

Vector is a little different, but for you, more objects means more control, so it is a similar concept.

👍: 0 ⏩: 1

mandydax In reply to Birdco [2012-02-20 11:45:50 +0000 UTC]

Definitely. After I drew Derpy with all those layers, I felt better about being able to edit it, and having the wing and body in different layers made putting on the CM a breeze.

👍: 0 ⏩: 0