tttia

huge things didn't go over..or everyone is busy..sooooo..... futuristic is our next topic.

Lowgravity, that is about right :) the topic list is at the first page. We are on really huge stuff...elephants, buildings, that sort of thing. But I am still doing the topic before because it appealed to me more :) we are not slave drivers here. We throw out ideas for people to try and they can do any they want, or any other for that matter. Pixels, brushing, pencil on paper, anything is acceptable. The idea is just to get more art on the boards :) and to help people learn.

Please start posting your artwork soon. Deadline is March 10 at noon eastern. Post your works here: 4 of them, at least one from the last week or later. http://s9.invisionfree.com/Runescape_Ar ... howtopic=2

Please start posting your artwork soon. Deadline is March 10 at noon eastern. Post your works here: er sorry, that link didn't work...use the one at the top of the page.

hm, yeah I wondered about that too with the head thing...but I am going to try to get the hair first then see. I am not sure if it is really that way, or just the fact that the reference and the work itself are different sizes here, so hard to tell. Since the neck and head and hair are all seperate layers I can compress them seperately, or simply compress the whole thing height-wise when I am done if needed.

welcome back. And chicken stopped in kind of like your doing then left again a few days ago.

tried to fix the eye issue and got down to work on the shading. Firmed up the lips, the jaw line, nose, etc. Next are the eyes and all the highlights...then....the hair....that will be tough. Hair is a weak area for me. Hm, I think her left eye is still too far over...

Thanks, got ya now :)

Actually, it wouldn't hurt you to try right away! The only way to learn is to practice. Just my progress from the last time I did this portrait to my new update was huge. So start now!

This is a tutorial that details how to do a basic sketch of a face. Particularly it looks at one way that the program can do the job. First I started with a reference pic. I don't always do this, but if you want a lot of detail I strongly suggest it. Since my ultimate goal is to do photo-realism in fantasy and historical settings I want to get all of the details. So modern photos often provide a base for something that doesn't actually exist. Anyway, here is my reference. I take that portrait and put it in a window within photopaint (or painter or photoshop, whatever your tool of choice is. Or I suppose you could print it and tape it to the side of your monitor. This way I can look at it and my work side by side. Start with a big image...I use 2000x2000 just to be sure I have enough room. Then take the regular brush and trace the basic outline of the face. Some suggest starting with the eyes, or some other element, but for me, this is the most important. It sets the bounds of all other elements. And the slight nuances of the chin, forhead, neck etc. really give the different looks to faces. I try to do the whole head with one stroke to make it smoother. Put your brush on about 85 softness so that you don't get nasty hard lines. This part is fairly quick, but remember to LOOK AT THE REFERENCE MORE THAN YOUR WORK! You are recreating the original, you must look at it often. Once you have the basic outline fill in the area with the same color. Once this is done it is time to refine your quickly drawn outline. Now that you have a solid color image of the basic shape of the face take your eraser tool, with high softness and begin to refine. The great part about it is you don't have to work in lines, but shapes. Just keep crafting it until the shape matches. As you go ask yourself questions that help you to reproduce the lines better, such as: Is the original's chin more rounded or sharper than mine? (In this case, the original is more rounded and has less slope at the bottom end) "Is the jaw line longer or shorter?" (I had to increase the length of the jawline.) "Is the sweep of the side of the face sharp and angular or rounded and soft? Is mine like the original?" (Mine was close but needed a little more round feel.) As you answer these questions make adjustments with your eraser. If you go too far simply undo or paint it back with your brush. Once you have the face shape just perfect you can go on. The next step is to find the area where each of the facial elements will go. The first step is to open a new layer and start drawing with a black pen a ROUGH outline of what you want. As always refer to the original more than prescribing to set formulas. Don't THINK you know the face, just put what you see. In my example below you would think this is going to be a portrait of the elephant man. But it worked :) It doesn't have to LOOK good at all, just show you the placement. I eventually erased most of these marks and just left lines at the top, bottom etc to tell me where they went. In addition to the eyes, etc. be sure to draw any noticeable areas of shading or light variance. Draw in the rough placement of the lines by the mouth, the place where the highlights are on the brow, nose, etc. Now turn down your line drawing to very low opacity and go back to your original layer. It is here that you must decide whether to use dodge and burn or manual color selection for your skin tones. In this case I chose manual color selection. In fact, when looking at the tones on the face I would often use the color picker tool (eyedropper) and pick up color right from the reference pic. Then begin applying broad amounts of color to the areas to get your value pattern. At this point you will be convinced that this whole project IS NOT GOING TO WORK. Don't stress it, that is normal. Just smooth them in with the smudge tool. And it will start looking more human. Be sure not to turn the smudge so high that it breaks things into rough looking patches....keep it fairly small, even though it takes more time, and work it along the lines of color change and then slowly over into the various color patches. If you were not using a reference photo you would have to pick a light source to do this part as you would have to construct the shadows. Here it is further along in the process, with the simplified line overlay layer accentuated by this point the lines are quickly becoming unnecessary as you can tell from the reference where things will go. Remember to have your reference open at all times. Once you get the basic shading of the skin done, start a new layer. Then start to do the individual elements such as the lips, eybrows, eyes etc. It is here that I tend to use the dodge and burn tools since they make it easy to do fine gradations of color. But really either way works. Once you have the lips done for instance then you can merge the layers and blend it in with the smudge tool. Watch the shadows on the lips. The top lip is almost always smaller and darker. The bottom lip is more glossy and has more highlights because the rounded shape picks up the light...which often comes from the top at some angle. Give several shades to the bottom lip, darkest around the edges and the highlights in the middle. Then blend it in. When drawing your lips, etc. you might want to work by lines...or simply shapes again....you can draw the outline, fill it in, then re-work the shape as we did with the face. Again ask yourself if the curves, etc. match up. In the next pic the lips are done and I am in the middle of the nose...notice how I outline it ,but then you blend in the outline. The only points where you should see anything like an outline in the final is in those areas with VERY hard shadows...for instance, around the nostrils of the nose, especially on the right side away from the light. Even then it should be blended in. The rest of the nose is not an outline but again various shadows to give depth. Recreate them from the reference. Again BE SURE to work in a separate layer. If you don't you will kick yourself when you mess up and realize you don't have enough undo levels. And SAVE NEW VERSIONS OFTEN. That is why I could do this tutorial. I compulsively save versions, alternate versions, etc. to try things new. That way I can always go back. Next I added a neck using the same process as on the face....then started with the whites of the eyes. Here I used dodge and burn, starting with a light grey. I used the dodge highlights to make lighter areas and used the burn shadows for the edges, but not much in this case. Generally it is easier to burn than dodge...least for me...but if you start with white it doesn't really burn in photopaint...not sure about photoshop. Blend it in to give a round look. Now for the pupil, iris, etc....just put in a plain circle, grey, or brown, or whatever color you want. Then use dodge and burn around the edges until you get the look you want. Then smudge. I did this part some time ago, and looking at it again today I realized I had a lot of things wrong. So I redid the neck, cut the eyes and lips out and replaced/reworked them, made the whole head a bit shorter, etc. to make it more like the original. Then added the hair, border, etc. Here is the final image, I still plan to work on the hair strands etc. a bit, but I really like it. Good luck on yours! (I am planning to rework the color on this...needs work.....

wide in shape? placement? You mean actual width or height? Everything is in a seperate layer so fixable :) (except the nose...I accidentally merged it). Thanks for the feedback :)

I posted this earlier as an early stages wip. It has its flaws, but overall I like it. Glad to be done though. My next project will probably be something less taxing, something with no definite reference, and hopefully a larger scene. (reference)

I haven't been able to post much lately, being busy at work, and trying to do an art project that didn't work out. So I figured I would put up some progress shots on this portrait which is my current project. For now I am going for just the locations of the various parts, tones, etc. and overall shape before refining. The hair is just a scribble to help frame the face. (reference)

Since Grin left this option open for our little competition I made a board for rs artists. Nothing big. I don't know if it will last or not. If it doesn't we just close it down. Invision makes that easy enough. This should cut down on unwanted guests at this board who had an interest in the contest. http://s9.invisionfree.com/Runescape_Ar ... hp?act=idx

Here is the new site for the competition. A basic invision free board. Register and we can get started: http://s9.invisionfree.com/Runescape_Ar ... hp?act=idx

Oh man, at least Nad didn't quote that. There has to be a translation issue there....just has to be. Anyway, Ryan, sorry to see ya go. BUt I understand that it is possible to spend too much time at something like this. Do what you need to for your real life, and if you can find a balance return then . Good luck to you.

go to the download link again. Select save to disk. Then just see where you put it in the file structure. Cancel the download and go find it :) While we might resent premade models there is nothing illegal about them. They are not a copyright violation. If you hate 3d models you should hate terragen and bryce even more (yes I know you can do some modeling with bryce, but its primary use is prefab landscapes)

one would think they could at least remove the banned message. Wb

fire, ixna on the ommentsca ....I think we got this worked out. And grin...er sorry, next time I will just call the rangers. Guess I like to talk too much too!

Technically Nad was in the end of the DAG, not the smg though. He got in under the apprentice rules right before the transition to a more social board.

Alex , you are far too willing to brag for your own good. as I said on rsc though this is one work by you I actually like.

yes, well you were around in that era. How can we not include you? But if I were to say that Keiphus, wyrmy and some people from mars were there....wouldn't that make you distinct from the people from mars? I should think so. But the point is you are one of the few sources left that can talk about that era. Let's plug it in directly to the quote... Check with Keiphus, GSW and some martians who no longer show up... yup, quite distinct.

oops...sorry, should have posted in the new thread in market. Close please.

ah yes, the huang can sell prints of smilies, why not emulate? Spurred on by the glass orb tutorial of course. And wyrmy, if you read the sentance fully I am calling those who didn't stay around lame. In fact, I purposely excepted you. Others simply kept ahead of the game. In fact I agree with ryan. The current level is far above any of those earlier eras. And new people now days have a steep hill to climb to become even decent.

Rather handy :) Thanks to the admins for making this happen.