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Tutorial - Common Digital Painting Mistakes
Published: 2012-06-07 04:07:53 +0000 UTC; Views: 231569; Favourites: 12210; Downloads: 4631
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Description
A guide to common digital painting mistakes that I've either seen or done myself...hopefully it helps
UPDATE
If you have questions please visit my journal for a list of FAQ first, you might find them answered there.
[link]
Otherwise, ask away!
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Comments: 759
Got it! Thanks.
/I've tried this - blending comes out much better now.
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Just drop it. when you have done your first iteration of blending, drop it. No matter how "wrong" it looks, just don't touch it.
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Simple as that?
Okay, i will. Thanks!
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In the beginning you will underblend, and things look a little off the place, but after doing it a few times your eyes start to 'see' the right amount of blending.
I'm myself still doing a little overblending, but I'm slowly growing out of it
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Once again, thanks for explanation. )
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Fantastic! Thank you so much for creating this tutorial. I will be using it as a guide when I'm finally able to get back into the creative zone and I will also be showing it to others.
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I'm just starting to learn how to draw digitally and this guide was very helpful.
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it really depends on how complex the painting is. Try to have a good idea of what direction you're going before you start so you can plan accordingly since it's really hard to change after you've begun. A lot of my pieces are in the thousands of pixels for both width and height...like 4,000 by 5,000px. A good rule I use is I pick the most detailed part of my painting and then see what it looks like at 100%. If it fills in the whole window, then the document size is big enough.
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Oh, thank you so much. 
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This is excellent, thank you so much!
I mainly suffer from points 5 & 6 (no reflected light & monochromatic colours), I've been trying to apply reflected lights into my recent works though, i would be forever grateful if you could go into more detail about it.
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Yeah... I think I've definitely done some of those XDD
Now I know not to :3
Thank you so much, I found it so helpful!
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omg I do all the bad things!!! >< Maybe that is why I love my traditional work more than my digital haha!! I will surely save this and use it. Thank you soo much!!
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Thank you so much for this, it's really helpful. You should do more tutorials!
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Wow this was quite the eye opener! I'm guilty of using everyone of the mistakes in the Laziness category and quite a bit in the other categories as well. The thing that will be the most difficult for me to change is using the smudge tool since I use it (and similar tools in other software) in nearly all of my pieces. I will definitely try to break that habit! Thank you so much for this extremely helpful tutorial!
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read it losly for now, seems really good
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I almost never use reflective light in my digital art. The object the light is reflecting from has to be very close to the subject to be seen unless it's lit. A person sitting next to a lit pool at night will have some of the blue reflected on their skin, a person standing on the grass during the day won't have the green reflected.
But then, you mess with all kinds of stuff in art. In real life, shadows aren't purple either: they're darker and less saturated colors of the surface they're on. But they LOOK better purple in art.
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THANK YOU.
this makes so much more sense!!
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I have went through some of the problems, but I guess I still have some unfinished job to do!
thank you :'D
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I'm not into digital art now much because I'm more into traditional, but your tutorial has been an eye opener for me. Shading and mixing colors are really a problem to artists, and I want to thank you for making this tutorial.
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My main problem is that most of the lines I draw by hand with the tablet looks way too shaky to my eyes. If you've read Tom Preston's SYAC series, you'd probably know what I mean (if not, ask me and I'll send you a link). Is that always a common drawback, or is it possible to be able to draw smooth, uncrookety lines every time in Photoshop?
That's one question I have in my head so far; I am pretty sure I have more, but I can only think of the aforementioned one right now.
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Shaky lines are another really common problem (wow I should have included that one haha) There's two way to fix them:
1. Use the pen tool. It creates really smooth lines because its based on math not human hand-eye coordination. Most cartoonists and illustrators use it for vector images. Sadly I don't have a tutorial on this but there's a lot online
2. If you want to draw lineart by hand, make sure you're working with a large document size. Most of the lineart that you see is REALLY zoomed out. (think of like a shrinky dink - mistakes disappear when you put it in the oven haha) If you look at even the best lineart zoomed it, it's far from perfect.
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I've more or less swore off pen tools for non-logo-related projects since it takes way too much time to lay out 
I do work at 300dpi -- all the time. But no matter how I go about it, it always look shaky to me, especially when I DO draw zoomed-in. Does the brain -- other than mine -- really overlook such problems like that when it's zoomed-out?
There's also the problem of controlling the thickness/thinness of the lines, which I'm not sure whether it's the drawing software, the tablet driver's default setting, or my hand pressure that act like as if my life depends on it
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I feel you...the pen tool can be very time consuming!
There's a couple problems that can be hurting your hand-drawn lines.
- even if you are drawing at 300dpi if your document size is 1000px by 1000px, you'll have more trouble getting a smooth line than a 5000px document.
- another thing that might help is to draw your sketches by hand first, scan them in, and trace your lines in black on a new layer to get your lineart (if you don't do this already. I always find it easier to get smooth lines tracing traditional work than trying to sketch on the computer)
your brain might also be a little overcritical of your lines...I looked at your work and they look pretty smooth to me! In terms of pen pressure it's best to just thicken your lines gradually just like you would on paper. use a thin brush and build up thickness that way.
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So I should probably just draw it at not 200 or 300 percent zoom? That just feels so vulnerable
Actually, I do sketch by traditional methods firsthand; it always worked for me. It's just that the difference between scanned traditional inks and digitally inked lines has a huge difference in the final product, I.E. less jaggedy and pixely.
It seems that most of the techniques you suggested are essentially what I've been doing all this time. Yes, it does work for me, but I still find it rather frustrating... Probably because I AM too critical over them
Thanks for the info
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Oh, and I've heard PaintTool SAI has a sort of auto-smoothing thing on lines, so that might be better if you're doing lineart.
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I was afraid of that TT_TT I did a trial of SAI and noticed how smooth the lines were. Unfortunately, I've worked with Photoshop for too long that I'm not used to SAI overall -- I think their shortcut keys are a bit different from each other's program...
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Well you've gotta change some kind of habit in order to get smooth lines.
Oh it just occurred to me that you could get French Curves, rulers, ellipse templates, etc. and use them on the tablet. Might help? (I'm not sure what that would be like if it's not a screen tablet though, maybe it would be hard to predict what the line is like. I'm not super experienced with normal tablets so not sure.)
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Well, how much does SAI cost nowadays (I thought it was free, but I found out it now has a price tag), and how well does it communicates with PSD files?
Oh, yeah, blindly drawing curves with a French curve ruler 
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I haven't used it so I'm afraid I don't know about compatibility with PSD. As far as I'm aware, it's pretty cheap compared to other applications.
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I've also been looking for answers to this problem. The things that have been most helpful to me so far are:
1. Try to move with the shoulder/elbow, not wrist/fingers. (Here's the best guide I've found for how to hold the pencil properly . More relevant for pencils, but also describes the grip for the tablet pen.)
2. Move fast.
3. For lineart, ctrl-Z the hell out of it. Just keep hitting undo until the line is nice and clean. (Example and discussion at 10:15 here .)
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I tried the 'epn grip' position -- it felt way too weird for me! Is that normal? And would that be a better grip for the tablet pen? I don't actually have a very big tablet, and it's not really small, either (roughly about 8 by 10 inches).
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Yeah it's taking me a while to get used to it too. The key thing is practicing moving with your arm/elbow rather than your hand/fingers. So what I did was practice that with my normal grip, and then I found that the grips listed on that page actually made it easier. But they'll definitely make it harder if you're still trying to draw with the same movements you'd use for writing.
All three tips kinda go hand-in-hand, but if you can get semi-accurate speed without using the artist-type grip then it's probably fine. And there's always Undo if you're not accurate enough.
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This tutorial is very helpful:
:thumb28278420:
Don't zoom in past 100% but make the canvas big enough so you would shrink the image down to display it normally.
Hopefully that tutorial will explain it better!
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Erm, the thumb command doesn't work with comments
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Oops..fail haha
here it is:
[link]
It's by kuridoki
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Yeah I just thought it helped to show the different line thicknesses and the messy close up versus the neat far away view.
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Did you take classes for this sort of thing, or did you have to figure it out on your own?
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No I actually have never taken a class on anything digital. I learned everything online! There's a lot of great resources here and then good old trial and error never fails. I found the best way to learn was just by doing, or by studying traditional art. I took AP in high school for like 3 years (my school let you take it multiple times haha) and that's really been my only formal art training. I'm 19 now and just starting my art major.
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Might you be able to point me towards a good online reference? I've been trying to improve my digital techniques a lot lately, but I'm not sure where to look, as all my searches thus far have been less than satisfying.
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Sure!
this is one of my favorite tutorials:
[link]
also i follow this artist's work and she posts video walkthroughs on her work:
[link]
and this...
[link]
she works in SAI but I still find it helpful to look at her work and she has videos too I think
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what I'm i supposed to blend with then?
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Try using your default brush at a low opacity to create a gradient. It takes a little longer than smudging, but the results look so much better
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What do you mean? You can blend easily with the tools, you just have to know which to not use :")
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it says not to use the smudge tool....or am i wrong?
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