venomai

"FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT" lmfao.. :lol: nice sig! :P

Aw, you only included my crappy abstract? And you didn't even put it in the abstract category? :P Heh.. I wouldn't mind seeing something like Venomai (Newb Digital Painter) and a link to one of my paintings, rather than my old abstract junk. :D

Nevermind about that. Just humouring myself. :-w Here we go. This one's is a little more appropriate for the maturity level in these forums... heh.. no harm meant. just havin' fun..

Err.. showing up as squares for me. You mean 190x77 i guess? I might give it a shot :)

Not a bad start :) You might want to start adding more details (such as reflections) to it though. Hah, don't underestimate the power of vector meshes/gradients. http://www.deviantart.com/view/21875092/ Everyone just has to start somewhere. :)

Heh sorry, couldn't resist. :lol: Other than the issue of it not being true sprite/pixel art, I think it's great. Thanks Mediumwell! :)

Quick thing I sketched in photoshop for CGTalk's daily sketch. Sorry for the lack of colours and the wonky perspective, heh. :) Used a ref. Must.. practice.. more.. :wall:

Keep in mind that P2P file sharing is perfectly legal in many countries. Correct me if I'm wrong, but Canada, for example, has legalized P2P file downloading. Uploading isn't legal at the moment, but that can be avoided by turning of the "file sharing" options in your handy P2P tool. Heh.. I've never heard a sig maker that has actually bought their copy of Photoshop. :P Of course, professional designers and digital painters is another matter... ;) But anyways, keep in mind that PS7 can be bought for under $100 CAD... Probably even cheaper online (like e-bay)

Depends, really. For regular sigs and stuff, 7 will do fine. It's also much cheaper than cs/cs2. For digital paintings, illustrations, etc. you should probably look into CS or CS2. I use photoshop 7. I find it suitable for my digital paintings, designs, and post-editing, but there are moments when I wish I had CS or CS2. Mainly just that most art/painting brush packs released these days won't work with 7. Same goes for abstract grunge brushes, if you lean that way. There's also the problem with sets, I really love the ability to put sets inside of sets with CS/CS2. Keeps paintings much more organised when you work with lots of layers. :D If price isn't a problem, go for CS or CS2. If you're looking for something less expensive, ps7 works fine.

Hah, still waiting to see this painting of yours, lol. :mrgreen: Good work, nice and clean. The aliasing on the right looks a bit strange, did you enlarge the shapes there or something? PF rules 8-) :-w

Hey there! Great work on the sig, it's a good start, but you need to work on a few things. Personally, I don't think the tutorial you used was a very good thing to learn on. ;) Try to avoid scanline textures overtop space scenes or surreal scenes. They tend to make the piece look less professional and less artistic. The starfield is blurry and doesn't look at all like a starfield! In art, you don't need to be exact, but when you're going to make a scene like this you need to make things proportionate and somewhat realistic. ;) Take a look at some starfield photos and then compare them to yours to see what I mean. You need less big blurry dots, and more sharp pixels, dust, debris, rocks, color variations, etc. This tutorial explains how to make a very nice starfield only in photoshop: http://gallery.artofgregmartin.com/tuts ... field.html And then there's the planet.. it's too flat, plain, boring. Needs textures and depth! Again, look at some references: Here's another tutorial (by the same author) which can get you great results for your own planets in photoshop: http://gallery.artofgregmartin.com/tuts ... lanet.html PS: As for transparency, that image will be tricky. For big, colourful images that have soft edges, you need to save as a 24-bit PNG. Most browsers won't display the transparency with 24-bit PNGs, just a gray background instead. To make this transparent, cut out the background so Photoshop's checkered background can be seen wherever you want the transparency to be. Then go File > Save for Web and choose the "PNG-24" as the image type. Make sure "Transparency" is checked. Here's how to cut out the background: http://www.bluesfear.com/tutorials/extract.php

Very cool idea with the whole makepovertyhistory thing. :D But it looks amateur and unnatural for a couple reasons: 1. There is no background. You've already googled two sprite images, why not a third? :lol: hehe 2. The health bars and text are too plain and boring. It's rare to see weak HUD graphics in games (except Runsecape, of course.. but that's beside the point). From an artistic point of view -- it's creative, but not enough effort was put into it.

hah sorry about that. fixed

Firstly, if you don't plan on digitally painting/drawing, a tablet is a rip-off. But if you do wish to paint/draw, a tablet is a must. Heh, easy to say for cell-shading, pixeling, and vectoring, but if you ever start to paint digitally you'll really get nowhere with a mouse. Next, the Intuos is a great choice, and the 4x5 is imo the best. I'm currently using a Intuos3 6x8, and before that I used a very old Graphire1. Buying a tablet won't improve your skill, that has to be achieved through practice. But a tablet will make things a lot easier to work with, and much more natural, which will help you when you practice. Within days of digital painting with a tablet your mouse will become obsolete and completley useless. :) -Are Wacom tablets good quality? Yes, probably one of the best companies for Tablets. -Does the surface scratch easily? Rarely on my Intuos, if ever. I haven't noticed a single scratch yet, and I don't think there will be any for a long time. The nibs to the pens can sometimes get sharp if you don't take care of them properly, but the Intuos should come with extra nibs. My old tablet (Graphire 1) scratched a bit, but even with the scratches it was hard to notice any difference (unless it was a huge scratch). I'm sure they've fixed the Graphires to make them more scratch-resistant. Chances are you won't ever need to spend any money replacing your covers, unless you hack at them with your pen or something. -Is there a whole lot of drag to it? Do you mean the pen snagging or slowing down when you draw? No, none of that. My intuos glides smoothly and it's very comfortable. The old graphire wasn't as nice, but as I've said, I think they've improved the Graphires since then. -Does size really matter to it? To tell you the truth, no. You can get away with smaller sizes and you'll hardly notice a difference. The only real difference is a slight speed change, which just takes a bit of getting used to.

quick thing...

I added a few things to Godslayer's version. A paintover of a paintover! Hope neither of you mind. Had some fun, it's very difficult to use so few colours! :D You left a lot of room for improvement. Below are some of the fixes which I think would be useful to note for future reference. - I changed contrast, value and hues. That bright, garish yellow needed to go. The darkest colour (purple) needed to be a bit darker and stronger to catch the user's eye. - I added a red colour for the lighthouse and made it smaller to illustrate that it was far away. The original looked more like a (rudely shaped) sky-scraper. :lol: hehe - I tried to fix the perspective a bit, and changed the cliff to introduce a bit of movement. - Cropped top off to avoid empty space. Wasn't much off a problem on the original, though. - I added the yellowish colours in the waves to try and show the sun's reflections on the water (an attempt at adding realism). - I added a very subtle shadow for the lighthouse. Very tough with so few colours. - The piece was too straight and uniform. It needed to loosen up. Roughen up edges. Avoid straight lines in landscape pieces, unless they are small and hard to notice. - Added depth and texture to the sky and water with the colours. Changed the horizon to make it a bit less uniform. In real life the horizon would be almost perfectly horizontal (like yours), but that doesn't always work well in a painting/pixel (see above). The thing is, art has no boundaries... :-$ - I used more colours in the clouds to add depth and interest. Also made them whispy, softer/rounder, and more "random". - Now that I look at it, I've made mine too busy in places. *sigh* Ah well, I think you get the point. ;) Good luck. Keep workin' at it. :) Heh, no prob.

You have a great style and potential for some very cool pieces, but you shouldn't rely so much on stocks. Or, if you must use stocks, look into something like Matte Painting. Photomanips that require such miniscule amounts of editing won't get you very far! You should also try to change up your pieces a bit, and try to avoid a repetitive gallery. This one is nice, but it looks a lot like the rest of your work.

Cool. I like the shading... but I think Jab had some good ideas that you kinda removed (ie: the grunge on the throne. it's too clean and unnatural in your edit). Great work. Keep it up. Nice to see cooperative efforts between artists like this :D

Too bad it's so bright that I can't see it!! Hah... But even with the contrast bumped up, I don't really see much of a resemblance. :-k Can you illustrate? If there are so many replies that find it too bright, then there's something wrong with your monitor's contrast. ;) As to the fixed version by godslayer, looks good, but it's very bland. There are lots of things you can do with a small amount of colours if you wish to add depth, texture and realism. The cliff's perspective also needs a lot of work.

Thanks for the comments guys! Thanks! The original was a bit larger. [link] Usually when I paint lines I use a size 3 brush. I follow three basic steps to keep things clean and quick: sketch, clean up, and post-edit. 1. Sketch the lines roughly. 2. Clean up quickly with eraser & brush. Zoom if needed... 3. After you're done: shrink, sharpen, constrast, what have you... All of my post-editing is done on a separate document. Go Image > Duplicate or press the "Duplicate State" button on your history window to keep things separate. :) If it was a serious speed painting, I probably would have stopped somewhere between step 1 and 2. Really? This is odd.. I have to go fast to keep my lines straight and smooth, heh :P What do your lines look like when you go fast? It might be something to do with your tablet...

"The White Mill" Sketch for CGTalk daily sketch group. -- Photoshop 7, default brushes. Sort of used a ref, but only for the structure of a basic windmill. [link] Added snow to the roof. Not sure if it's any better... :?

I love the idea so far. Looks like it could turn out really well! Great pixeling, keep it up! :D

Completely agree. :) It's very cool... Could do with a tad more constrast, but that might just be my monitor.

nice one so far random. You have some real talent when it comes to anatomy and perspective! Here's a little sketch in PS for fun. supposed to be a helmet and shoulder pads :?

Article on lenses http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutori ... lenses.htm The Rebel XT is great. Another good choice is the Nikon D50. The entire kit (including a standard zoom lense) costs between $500-650 CAD, but it might not be equally as good as the Rebel.