Some Digital Art Questions (3)

[chris_0076]

So some of you may have scene the candle picture that I made about 1-2 weeks back. It was my first real attempt at Digital Art. So over the past... oh .... I don't know maybe week and a half I have been looking all around for just general Digital/Canvas Art Tutorials and I have found them to be very helpful. So about 4 days ago I was browsing deviantART and I became inspired to do a Landscape picture, and in this picture it would have the usual trees, sun, water, ect.

 

 

 

After outlining everything roughly (which was a big pain just getting my ideas down) i worked on the finer details on the front section, which includes a cliff with a tree at its top, along with a tiny patch of grass and after I had done that I looked up many tutorials of how to paint grass and they helped a lot... but at the distance/ size of my picture they look like grass that would come from a pixel art picture, of which is not what I want.

 

 

 

So after toying with the grass for a little while I decided to change directions and work on the tree, Of which yet again I found a very good tutorial for making them... but to my dismay the ways that I have scene to make realistic looking leaves do not look that real... After messing around with it for a while I decided that I might as well head back to working on the grass.

 

 

 

Then the idea dawned on me. Why not just double the resolution to be able to do finer details I saved and doubled the resolution. So now I had a picture that looked the exact same but was about twice as big.. but yet still with the same coloring, or very close to it, but the problem was it was blurry. So then I tried some different things to get it back being less blurry but certain parts did not look right so I undid it saved it as a test and called it a night. And now I'm here

 

 

 

 

 

If you did not want to read the story here are my questions:

 

 

 

1. How do I make grass seam less pixelated? By turning up the resolution? or by Blurring it?

 

 

 

2. How do I come about getting realistic leaves on a tree?

 

 

 

3. If I double the resolution... or come very close to that what is the best way to make up for some lost quality? Sharpen it?

 

 

 

 

 

And I think that is about it for right now.

 

 

 

Also if you need to know I am using Gimp (not that you need to know that to help me)

 

 

 

Thanks for any and all help,

 

 

 

Chris_0076

 

"Teh N00b Ar7!57"

[Unoalexi]

Hmm..

 

 

 

1.First off, have you tried anti-aliasing the grass blades? Bluring would kill your details..

 

 

 

2.I suggest you look at the trees in real life(like, in your yard or on a hike or something like that.) When I say look, really look. Observe everything about this tree; it's leaves, it's branches. You might even try sketching a few of them.. It doesn't have to be totally perfect. Then, when your on your computer again, picture these trees in your mind or look at your sketches. You could even google pictures of trees and look at them, though I suggest you observe real trees in nature first.

 

 

 

3. Not really sure about this question.. I don't usually fiddle around with the resolution of my pictures..

[chris_0076]

Thanks Unoalexi.

 

 

 

I have tried some different things on the grass and it doesn't so to terribly bad anymore.

 

 

 

And about the looking at the trees...ya I guess I should have done a winter scene because all the leaves are gone off the trees where I am... but I have looked at my trees from Google and am starting to get a good idea of what it should look like.

 

 

 

Thanks again.

 

 

 

Chris_0076

[venomai]

Don't rely so much on tutorials for every aspect of your art.

 

 

 

1. How do I make grass seam less pixelated? By turning up the resolution? or by Blurring it?

 

If an image is very pixelated then it's most likely too damaged to work with. I'd say repaint. :?

 

 

 

2. How do I come about getting realistic leaves on a tree?

 

Depends on what you mean by "realistic". If you want hyper-realism, you'll want to work at a huge resolution so you can add every detail. If you just mean something that looks like trees, even if it means impressionism, then it truly depends on your own style.

 

 

 

Take a look at other artists to see how they adapt their style to paint vegetation realistically.

 

http://saimain.deviantart.com/art/Forsaken-44543434

 

http://azhrarn.deviantart.com/art/Summe ... et-6857947

 

http://mactinz.deviantart.com/art/What-s-That-70955868

 

http://sleepar.deviantart.com/art/Girl- ... t-50145611

 

 

 

Most artists tend to draw leaves as dashes and blobs of colour. For a beginner, I wouldn't recommend painting & detailing each individual leaf. Before you go on to that you should master the more important concepts of digital painting.

 

 

 

You should also look into texturing and texture brushes. They can be of big help when you're painting vegetation. The article here has a few good links to textures...

 

http://news.deviantart.com/article/35241/

 

 

 

3. If I double the resolution... or come very close to that what is the best way to make up for some lost quality? Sharpen it?

 

Yea, but it won't do much. Also, the quality will go back to (almost) normal when you shrink it back to the original state.

 

 

 

I'd just choose one resolution and stick with it until the end. The problem with increasing the size midstream is that everything you paint thereafter will appear sharper/different than the stuff underneath it.

[chris_0076]

Wow thanks venomai that answer helped a lot. Like I said in my earlier post I think i might have fixed the grass, and from the looks of my picture as a whole my style is leaning towards more of an impressionist style rather than realistic, but I don't know my candle that I made started off the same way and then I refined it to seem sort of realistic.

 

 

 

About the tutorials thing it was more of to find my place to start...becuase I know I used to be real bad about following them WFW and getting the same thing the original artist had... but it did not look as good. But hopefully by Christmas I will have worked my way fully into my own style. "All I want for Christmas..." :lol:

 

 

 

Most artists tend to draw leaves as dashes and blobs of colour. For a beginner, I wouldn't recommend painting & detailing each individual leaf. Before you go on to that you should master the more important concepts of digital painting.

 

 

 

Ya I have noticed that that is how everyone does it... I just could never get it to look right... I think more due to my impatience than not knowing how to do it.

 

 

 

And the resolution thing I have scrapped the idea because one it looks bad with out a lot of going back and fixing everything and two it slows down my computer considerably...

 

 

 

And about getting more brushes I think I'm going to see how much farther I can get it with just one brush... although I am sure I could do the entire thing with it.

 

 

 

 

 

EDIT: Now that I have looked my picture over (quite a lot actually) I have decided to change the perspective of the cliff in the from and bring it in closer of which will allow me to redo the tree and the grass.

 

 

 

Thanks for the information,

 

Chris_0076