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MitGas — Shockwave mini-tutorial
Published: 2007-06-18 21:28:06 +0000 UTC; Views: 14337; Favourites: 202; Downloads: 351
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Description
I got asked by a few guys how I pulled this off, so I made this short tutorial - it's pretty damn easy actually. I hope it's understandable and easy to follow.Related content
Comments: 43
weird... i never realized I posted here before ).o i must really like this image to be coming back to it after almost a year later XD
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Nice version of Shockwave! I love how you battle damaged/aged him! ^_^ I wish I could do that level of awesomeness...
I love the images, but I gotta be honest, its hard to see what text goes with what image.
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Sorry for it not being well-arranged, I did it in quite a hurry back in the day. 
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I think this is wonderful! I wonder if I can pupll it off in my own programs.... o.O i don't see why not though, thank you for making this!
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"pull" i meant to put PULL...
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This looks very useful. Thanks for making this.
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This is very usefull. I have wondered how to make my works look more realistic. And this will help me alot. Thanks for making this. Shockwave looks awesome in your design. But it would be very nice to see the whole body too
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Photoshop, didn't use anything but that for the TF heads I did.
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please could you tell me how to aply layers
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Wait.... what do you do with the two separate layers? 
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nope, I flattened the image and then made a copy of the flattened ikmage on a new layer. This copy is desaturated and then used the dodge tool so that it gets really "shiny". After that, I deleted the shiny layer mostly, only leaving a few spots of it visible so that the background image (the colorful shockwave head) is mostly visible but the the desaturated edges of the copy layer also, so that it looks as if the paint chipped off there.
then I played around with the layer options for the desaturated layer bits to see which one worked best. in the end, i copied the desaturated layer so that i had two and used one as overlay and the other as soft light or something, can't remember which overlay options I used but they're written down in the tutorial.
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Ooooooh, okay! I think I get it now! Thank you! I've been trying to get it to work for me.. but it just doesn't look nearly as good. Hopefully this will help.
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I've been trying to do good metal textures and failing, so I'm really glad you put this together for us, thanks! I'm going to give it a shot right now 
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Thank you very much - I hope this little tutorial will help you!
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Nice tutors, i will use it in my future works, thanks.
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You're more than welcome! I keep thinking this tutorial is so basic and noobish, everyone would know these things but alas you painters seem to use less of photoshop's many uses than us skinners.
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I often created texture for model in 3d max, but this method i can use for created game concepts for our texture-artists
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Wow that is freaking awesome!
So let me get one thing strait, you take a texture and put it on top, make it a bit transparant, then earase some parts?
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Pretty much - I use the textures as overlays. Most of them I like to use the overlay option soft light or overlay as those result in the best result most of the time IMHO. It's a quick way to add some detail and structure to it but just that - a very quick way. You'll never have half the control you'd have if you painted it yourself but it works well in making something quick to get an idea across (like these designs for example).
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wait tell me more about the overlays and stuff, Im confused
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Okay, let's start at the beginning:
Open a file or create one in photoshop. Unless you have the layers window closed, there should be one as soon as open Photoshop.
If you opened some picture or made a new file, you'll see one layer - usually (and logically)it's called "Background". Now go to Layer -> New -> Layer to create one. Alternatively you could also drag in some other picture into your open Photoshop file (use the Move tool; V).
Now that you have a second layer above your background, select your upper layer. At the layer menu (the one looking like your tools, not the drop-down one), there are several blending options - try em out, especially "Soft Light" and "Overlay".
In the Soundwave Movie Head Design, there's somewhere a pic in my replies of it without any textures added, you could use that as your background image and some random texture you like as the layer above it. Then you'll quickly see how the above layer affects the lower one.
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That helped better, thank you. I'd better expierement to understand it better. Ill go try now, thank Mit-Gas!
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This tutorial rocks so much!
thanks to this is was able to pull this off! [link]
thanks again and im looking forward to seeing more pics by you!
P.s your work over on Relic Forums is awesome too!
STV-1138
Steve
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Nice to know this tutorial is good for something ! Interesting take on Wheeljack by the way!
P.S.: Sooner or later the Lord of Change will be done and he's going to be my best skin I think.
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But Bumblebee is covered in rust-spots prior to his flashy new upgrade in the movie...!
Anyway, may I just say that this is a TERRIFIC tutorial, deftly revealing just how "simple" it is to create AMAZINGLY realistic mechanical artwork. Your Shockwave design is a SUMPTUOUS joy to behold (please excuse the exorbitant utility of uppercase text in this response, but I can BARELY contain my sheer enthusiasm for your work...!), and now we've been made aware of how you managed the impressive feat. This is definitely going straight to my personal archive, for future reference. I'm probably reviewing the finished piece here more than this particular presentation itself, but the tactile sensibility of your creation is quite enchanting, with a real "battle hardened" finish to the quasi-metallic surfacing. The depth of complexity exhibited by the image almost gives the impression that this is an actual 3D CGI model you're displaying in here... but then again, I guess the same rendering processes are essentially employed in both cases, now that I pause to consider it. This is a wonderful revision of the classic character, and would make for an intelligent progressive evolution of the aesthetic engineering of the Cybertronian cast as they further adapt themselves to life on our world (in future sequels). In all sincerety, I am in absolute AWE of your astounding talent, sir - you are, without doubt, someone deserving of FAR greater attention, in my humble opinion. Keep up the MAGNIFICENT work, mate!
And if I'm not mistaken, Shockwave actually features in the official Activision video game...
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Thank you, just thank you for such a long and in-depth reply consisting of more praise than this actually deserves.
I did a lot of skins (textures) for 3d models in my life and painted these heads using similar techniques to how I skin models - hence they may look kinda "3D" to you.
On the other hand, yesterday a guy said that he didn't like the look of my Soundwave too much because it felt too flat without the strong protrusions the movie designs sport. That's life, eh?
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Meh - each to their own, as it is often said...
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Im not sure if you're aware, but Transformers don't like rust. They view it as a plague and their body is protected against it. If they indeed have it, they are diseased. HOWEVER, I really like what you did with this.
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The brown spot is actually meant to be from a blaster shot, a hommage to the drone artwork from the Swindle toy in the new movie line.
And TFs only have a huge fear of cosmic rust - they don't rust.
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Nice tut.
Also nice Shockwave. The fact that so many TF fansites took your Soundy and Shocky for actual movie concepts says a lot. XD
Keep it up.
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I only know of TFormers but because Ra88 and I joked about submitting it and then it got submitted (not by us though) I don't wanna go there cause else they might rip my head off.
I've seen though that like 90% of the people could live with these designs - my goal was to prove Bay "wrong" and show that you can make these guys recognizable and still in the Bay-style and that people would accept these. Yeah, I sound like a pompous ass right now, I know. And that's good.
That said, I like some of the designs done for the new movie (I love Bonecrusher) but would've hoped for a few more visual cues - cause the non-geeks that don't watch don't give a damn anyways and the fans would be happy.
I hope the tutorial will help you guys a bit all in all, it's the first time I ever did one and I typed it hastily (hence I dropped a few words and there's a typo).
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I love Bonecrusher too (and he probably hates that). Matter of fact I like Not!Soundwave (Blackout) and Barricade as well.
I'm even fine with Ratchet the flourescent green St Bernard and Bull-With-A-Cowboyhat Ironhide. 0_0 (They where recolors of eachother before so its only fitting they get their own personalization sometime.)
Prime is just love.
Anyway. I don't think you've proven Bay wrong or right. Soundwave and Shockwave are two TFs with looks wich really fits the movie style and much like Prime are so tight you don't need to fix what isn't broken.
They are just really, really awesome concepts of how they would look like.
Anyone can see that.
Yeah, the tutorial is helpfull. Will try it out on my next peice, inspired by a recently leaked script based on anouther 80's (or 70's if you live in Japan) property.
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Very useful. Favourited. Hopefully I can produce something that incredible!
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Please don't ever get rid of this man, this is a great lil tutorial, I did something similar to this with photoshop cs in school but It was purely messing around so I didn't pay attention to how I did it and well needless to say, I forgot what I did so I couldn't duplicate it, but this tutorial really helps please keep it in your gallery as long as you can so I can always go back to it in the future, thanks man...
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Jesus titty fucking christ.
That's taught me so much!
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