venomai

#2 - Hmm, no offense, but if thats the goal of every grunge sig I think you should learn some different styles. #3 - I meant more like this, to bring out some of the colours (which aren't bad) #4 - Here is an example out of an old tutorial of mine: You'll also see this term (and the term aliased) used in more advanced pixel/sprite art, and even digital airbrushings.

Hmm yea. Thats almost like pointing out a rip in every one of those topics. Oh... wait... It is???? =D Looks like one of those pixel stretch backgrounds, with some tacky fonts, and blurred pixel fonts (set anti-aliasing to none for best results with pixel/bitmap fonts..) and an inset border. If you changed the contrast on the background it might look nicer, but right now it looks messy and sloppy. The bottom right corner is my favourite part.

Actually, there is no such thing as the "Loudmouth Apple". It was the concept I had created for the weekly event. :) I guess it was somewhat believable? :lol: lol i knew that :roll: its just that it looks so professional looks like something from a textbook because of the text and picture Hehe, thanks. I put a little warning in the first post just incase anybody else misreads this... :lol:

I was planning on reading it tonight. And this really poorly done MS paint drawing just spoiled it for me. :x Dang. Please learn to use the brush/pencil tool. Those circular feet are not cool.

http://www.epilogue.net/art/tech/pat_landscape/ Might be helpful... I sometimes draw something and then scan it in. If you are drawing cartoons or manga, most people prefer using inks after (or instead of) the pencil sketch. Although lately I've been drawing it right from photoshop, and I rarely ever use the outlines (its hard to get photorealism if you outline everything) so it works out and saves me a lot of time. If you reset your brushes, there should be a very good selection of grungey texture ones. The spatter ones are nice, and the charcol ones are also good. You can also find nice textures (rocky/etc.) off of google and load them as brushes to give them a gritty look.

Actually, there is no such thing as the "Loudmouth Apple". It was the concept I had created for the weekly event. :) I guess it was somewhat believable? :lol:

I was gonna make it mechanical and all (like in the movie "Terminator", where his skin is ripped off and the metal can be seen) but it looked a lot like a mouth. Added eyes.. and out came the loudmouth apple :D

Brush tool in PS7, defaults of course. Using my tablet :o NOTE: Its a made up concept... Was for a weekly practice on another site. Around 2 hours for the entire thing, pretty roughly done, but I didn't expect much as I'm still learning. Any advice would be appreciated.

The poem looks dwarfed beside the 3D. Hard to divert my eyes from the 3D just to read the writing. And, not to mention, that its hard to actually read the writing. Not sure if you see my meaning, but the poem isn't seeming to add much onto the piece with that 3D next to it. Anyways, great piece, none the less.

Ooh, really can't wait. Would be nice to see more traditional media here :) But no point in posting a 'critique/rate' thread if there are no images to show.. :(

His arms, bracelets, and gloves are all different. :? Otherwise, very nice progress! :D Love the shading on his left hand.

From personal experience, I've been finding it MUCH easier to make a satisfying pixel rather than a satisfying painting, even if it takes twice as long. And usually, its the digital painting that requires a lot more time and effort. Don't think that the professional cg painters chose to do digital paintings over pixels because "they are not worthy of doing something as difficult as pixels". Pixels can sometimes (not very often) take hours of extra time because you use a small 1px brush and have to manually anti-alias etc., but they both require the same amount of talent. Personally, I prefer a well-made digital painting to a well-made pixel. And I'd much prefer to learn to make a well-made digital painting rather than a well-made pixel, for the fact that a lot most others will agree with me that digital paintings look better than pixels. I may try to paint this piece using your lines if you don't mind (of course, it will be for practice, and i'll only post it here). You're making great progerss on the colours :) PS: Growing your own as opposed to buying it? :roll: What kind of digital painting have you been doing?

Ok, I've been designing my new online portfolio. So far so good, but when it comes to the 'articles' section, I'm having some trouble. What I want is something like in this preview: In the preview, the two titles are aligned. But in my website (see below) neither of the two tables line up like I want them to, unless they both have the exact same amount of characters in each table. How can I get them to line up, like in the preview, even if they have different content in each? http://venomai.myexh.com/articles.html Don't mind the messy coding or the 3rd table, I'll be cleaning it up soon. :) And I left the borders on just to show you how I was making it. Also, if there is a better way to construct this, please let me know. I'm new to web development and webdesign, and want to keep it basic. I've been coding it in Notepad, and i sliced it in ps7.

Hehe, I know what a tablet is (Graphire here). What I'm saying, is that its hard to picture what you've done in our minds because its so messy, even though I'm sure you know what it should be looking like. Sketching with different colours or different shades would help distinguish the differences, and that would at least help us when it comes to critiques/advice (assuming thats what you posted it for...?). And yes, I use different dark and light strokes to distinguish between shapes in my pencil drawings. The whole thing doesn't really matter though, I was just saying it would be easier to tell (for us) what's going on if you used different colours/etc. But since this is just you brainstorming, you don't need to... PS: The pants must be pretty tight... Unless those are just scratches from the trees behind him (in which case.. I wouldn't be saying this if they were easily distinguishable)

Hm.. I was thinking brushing because the symbols in the background looked a lot like they could have been made by the default soft brushes. Unless he blurred them or used styles or something. :? But the lasso/fills would explain the sharpness in some areas... In any case... Doesn't look vector.

The anatomy looks wrong, and he must be waring an extremely baggy jumpsuit for his torso to look like that. :? A few of those curving issues, and the horns look kinda like floppy bunny ears. Its pretty nice though, looks cartoony.

At what? Drawing??? Not a bad sketch. But if you're going to post it, you should seperate some parts with opacities, and even colours. I'm sure you know what its looking like, but to most of us, its a lot more difficult to see, and looks like a mess. Brush tool would probably give you better sketches, as well.... PS: Ugh, please don't tell me you forgot to draw his pants on. :?

Yes, good linework. The left hand and the feet look a little big, but hard to notice :) Can't wait for final version. Hope he has a matching suit of armor.. :lol:

Well, it isn't really vectoring, but whatever you're doing is looking nice so far. You'd probably have much more exact results if you vectored, but the brushing seems to be working ok. The girl on the right looks a little bit larger than in the reference. And a lot of it seems blurred, or too soft, while other places look too sharp (the feet of the girl on the right). Hope you use a harder brush if you continue brushing it.

There isn't a cast shadow of the sun, because it is the main light source. So basically, the sun doesn't cast shadows, rather it casts light on objects that cast shadows. The lamp ontop of the mountain, though, since its an object, could very well be casting shadows. And keep in mind, it too can cast light on other objects! So yea, basically what you stated in your first post was "the sun shouldn't be casting shadows". Since it was a little confusing, I read it as "there should be no cast shadow of a sun in the image" and responded based on that. And as you can imagine, your new reply has just gotten me more confused. PS: I'm not sure if I've got my terminology down, this whole subject on cast shadows is really difficult to follow!! ;)

"WOAH 2 MUCH WORDSES FOOR ME BRAIN CAN HANDLE>!>!>!?!!?!1!asdf!!11!" lol... The bad thing is, the OP probably won't even bother reading our replies. :( Especially after you guys have summed it up in 1 to 2 simple words. :) But hey, it was a pretty complicated question!!!! :x What do you expect from me...

Huh? I don't see any sun cast shadows... The terrain looks a little untextured once it gets to the top (hope you finish it in the final), and the massive shadow is a little overwhelming. Otherwise, I think it looks great for a start. I hope you finish this one! :lol:

Wow, just amazing. I don't know if I like how you used such small brushes on his face and then blurred them, doesn't make it look much like skin. Whatever you did on the clothes look great though, and I love the lighting. I really can't wait to see the final piece!! PS: I've recently gotten into Digital Painting. :D Still learning though, and nowhere near as good as you yet. ^.^ should give you an idea lol..

Some 1-2px shadows on the left side of his clothes (very subtle) would help show that they are wrapping around his body. The seem to end kinda abruptly right now. And I think the hand needs a little more work (shading wise). Your chest is nearly reaching Arnold's buffness. I don't want to jump to conclusions or anything, but it seems a tad exaggerated... :? If you really are that buff *cough* I think you should buffen up his legs and arms aswell (unless he only works out his breasts, which kinda seems odd). feels kinda strange to be talking about the proportions of your breasts... Anyways, I think its great overall, except the breastbone issues. Awesome job on the clothing folds and attention to detail, but I think you should start softening/colouring/removing those black outlines. "Marks Pixel Guide" had a pretty good little thing on how to do get some nice selective outlines on pixels. There are other tutorials that you can find off of quick googles.

Sigs? Its all just a marketing ploy ;) Do a super fantastic sig (ie: pixel with a harsh amount of detail and realisticness) and then have a link under your sig to your sig shop. Your chances of getting a good number of views would be much higher with that sig rather than a stick figure drawing. And some people like these pixels because it can artistically show their emotions or feelings (or thoughts towards runescape, and their character) towards whatever they choose. And as a bonus to the sig sellers, if it is nice other people will notice it, see "Sig made by ___" and want to buy a sig from him/her! Other signatures are miniature banner-like designs that give links to certain websites, larger sized designs, portfolios, threads on the forums, etc... And another reason would be that a lot of us are proud of the effort we put into our latest piece of art, and want the community to see that 'this person is dedicated to art'. But my reasons? Well, I just follow along with what everyone else does, and then forget to change it once it gets outdated. :) Which reminds me... PS: Post count isn't that great, I agree, but its a quick way (obviously not always true, but to an extent it works) to see how active a user is, or how much he/she likes browsing the forums. Plus, in signature competitions, when somebody is looking to buy something for a large amount of runescape gold, its a little easier to trust somebody with 30,000 posts (for example) rather than somebody with 1 post.