Digital Figure Painting with James Kei

[MassiveDVD]

As usual, we love to hear your feedback! :)

Purchase here: http://store.payloadz.com/go?id=119799
Trailer here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBdNykncECU

"I was a bit shocked when James Kei stopped working with traditional materials. It’s not because I have some bias towards traditional, but because the guy was really good at it.

The entertainment industry has been walking away from traditional materials for a decade now, but it’s still not a common thing to see someone do life painting from an actual model. That is, of course, unless you’re in Kei’s class. And now you can be! :)

In this demonstration, recorded from a one and a half hour life painting session, Kei covers all the basics to his approach. If you want to get started with digital life painting, there is no better place to start. (And that’s not just marketing talk… I looked around.)

p.s. All you traditional folks can probably pick up a thing or two as well."

[James Kei]

Hey all,

Thanks for purchasing, and please feel free to ask technical questions in this thread.
I will be more than happy to answer them the best I can.

[curt]

Purchased and downloading now.

I'll edit this post once I've finished watching to give a quick review :)

In the meantime, I have a few questions about your setup.

Do you use a laptop + Wacom to do life studies, or do you have a Tablet PC? I feel it would be quite a hindrance to students if they used giant laptops and their Wacom tablets to do life drawing sessions.

I'd love to possibly see pictures of your setup, unless you explain your setup in the video :)

Edit: Hahaha sorry, within the first 20 seconds of the video it answered my questions. Thanks though!

Edit2: Just finished watching! This video was wonderful, it was great to finally see a life drawing based digitally and my program of choice being utilized. Fantastic first video, and I hope to purchase more from you, even if I do become a poor college student soon :P

[Mark Bot]

sweet vid james. answered lots of overall questions, which was really great.
also, the audio on this one was a lot better than some of the past. I think you got a little faint at one point, but it was no big deal.

maybe it'd be nice to hear your thoughts on what makes a good convincing figure. e.g. what features to focus on and make sure you really hit them to make a person look like a person and not some lifeless mass of peachy tones.

[Victor B]

I am going to purchase this, thanks to all involved!

[stoph]

precisely what i needed! many thanks, Mr Kei, i have a piece in mind i hope to put your teachings to good use in

[Rabbi Satan]

Many thanks to MassiveDVD and Mr. Kei for producing this - it's something that I've been looking and searching for for a long time.

One question though Mr. Kei if you could find the time to answer for me - I take it you're using both shape dynamics to control brush size, as well as other dynamics to control opacity? I'm not so used to using both of those settings yet, but other than the age old golden rule in art of "Practice! Practice! And more Practice!", how can I get better or more used to using those two settings? Should I toggle the wacom tablet's soft/hard pressure sensitivity and land on the most optimal one for me? My hand pressure is quite uneven, it's not so soft, and not so hard at the same time.

Many thanks, I shall put your video to good use :)

[James Kei]

Purchased and downloading now.


Do you use a laptop + Wacom to do life studies, or do you have a Tablet PC? I feel it would be quite a hindrance to students if they used giant laptops and their Wacom tablets to do life drawing sessions.

I'd love to possibly see pictures of your setup, unless you explain your setup in the video :)

]

I use a 8 by 10 Wacom tablet and a small yet powerful 13" laptop. This setup is nice and portable, but I can get down into the details and work on finished illustrations.
I'm not to big on the tablet PC's, because I don't like the lag or that my hand gets in the way of the image.

[James Kei]

maybe it'd be nice to hear your thoughts on what makes a good convincing figure. e.g. what features to focus on and make sure you really hit them to make a person look like a person and not some lifeless mass of peachy tones.

That's the universal question. I think the key issues are likeness, and flesh tone meaning the transparent/reflective properties of skin. Otherwise you end up with a figure that looks like it's made out of clay. which is really opaque and would look very un-convincing.
Proportion is a big one too. Yes, everyone is born with a different body (buy the book "naked new york", and you'll see what I mean), but if you push those proportions even a little bit to far, it looks off. Of course, This applies to realism, and not for something that is stylized.

[James Kei]

Many thanks to MassiveDVD and Mr. Kei for producing this - it's something that I've been looking and searching for for a long time.

One question though Mr. Kei if you could find the time to answer for me - I take it you're using both shape dynamics to control brush size, as well as other dynamics to control opacity? I'm not so used to using both of those settings yet, but other than the age old golden rule in art of "Practice! Practice! And more Practice!", how can I get better or more used to using those two settings? Should I toggle the wacom tablet's soft/hard pressure sensitivity and land on the most optimal one for me? My hand pressure is quite uneven, it's not so soft, and not so hard at the same time.

Many thanks, I shall put your video to good use :)

You are correct! I also set the flow jitter to pen pressure.

Try using a textured brush with only the flow jitter turned to pen pressure, and turn off opacity jitter.
You can also try adjusting the flow at brush at tool bar at the top. Experiment, and see what works out for you.
Some people are just naturally heavy-handed. Thankfully, Photoshop has many ways to adjust the brush-play.

And yes, practice practice practice.

[Heat]

awesome work

excellent job the transfer was like 2 mins. coming from the 56k era i still watch the 1100+k download a second and giggle at the 3k of yesteryear

[john_d]

Awesome video James! I just want to make a suggestion though, in general: It's really great seeing amazing artists doing what they do, but it would be great to see some more things about fundamentals. I know Manley has the color video in the works, but it would be really helpful to hear more about the placement of values and other things that advanced artists take for granted. Sometimes, even though I'm watching it happen before my eyes, I don't get how the artist decided to do something, therefore I don't understand how to do it myself.
Keep up the good work, MB!

-JD

[James Kei]

Awesome video James! I just want to make a suggestion though, in general: It's really great seeing amazing artists doing what they do, but it would be great to see some more things about fundamentals. I know Manley has the color video in the works, but it would be really helpful to hear more about the placement of values and other things that advanced artists take for granted. Sometimes, even though I'm watching it happen before my eyes, I don't get how the artist decided to do something, therefore I don't understand how to do it myself.
Keep up the good work, MB!

-JD

I totally agree.
You're in luck, as I happen to be planning my next download on some of the more basic foundations of painting.

Stay tunned!

[mechis]

I totally agree.
You're in luck, as I happen to be planning my next download on some of the more basic foundations of painting.

Stay tunned!

Excellent... I'll be looking forward to that download. Thanks James!
~Mechis

[Ashrumm]

Hey James,

I just finished viewing your video and I learned plenty along the way and was inspired at the same time. It was good hear your tips on staying zoomed out as difficult as this it is key at staying in control of the entire piece. Although you didn't talk all the way through your demo, which i thought was fine. Everything you said was of great value in my opinion and thats what really matters. Pretty amazing you were able to capture her likeness without zooming in. Can you see you or anyone else from MB doing any portrait work in the future?

Good work man can't wait to hear more of you words of wisdom and view your future lessons.

[ManaBurn]

I really liked how on layer 13 James uses the overlay and the whole thing just starts to pop. I enjoyed watching this one alot and hope you do more. Thank you James.

[kelly x]

Hi James and We bought it, Thank you so much for the value lesson, you do the most amazing skin I have seen on the forum thus far... I'm optical and this was very useful to help see form and the issue of working at a distance,big help for getting the proportions right and getting the dynamic light and the more subtle light from the heater... I give you a personal 5* and the lesson -- priceless!! I would also buy a long pose lesson from you!! Thanks so much, Kelly X

[Jacob Kobryn]

I watched this yesterday... Thank you. It gave me huge insight into how to go about life drawing as well as digital methods. I can see what Coro was talking about with simplification.
How would you take something like you just did and make it look like the ones that you posted in the finally finished thread?
Also how would you go about drawing quick poses like 30 sec. to 20 mins?

[aaro_n]

this may come off newbish, but hey i am newb to photoshop! I'm just wondering how you set the background interface color in photoshop to black, thanks really enjoyed this digital download

[ManaBurn]

this may come off newbish, but hey i am newb to photoshop! I'm just wondering how you set the background interface color in photoshop to black, thanks really enjoyed this digital download

I'm going to take a guess and assume you mean the area around the window your actualy working/painting in. By hitting F on th ekey board you'll get diffrent screen working options. Change that area around the work area by right clicking outside of the work area. You should see options like white, black, or custom color. Let me know if that's what you were aiming for?

[johanflod]

I have bought this one and I totally like it and it gives a lot of inspiration. I picked up some things that I could use straight away in other type of painting as well. keep up the good work !!

[zenmaster]

Purchased and I'll be doing some long pose figure drawing definitely soon.

Thanks James. Peace.

[andreasrocha]

Just purchased it and saw it. Great tutorial. Thanks!

[glikster]

I just purchased and watched this and it did two things:
1) Impressed with me with the ease and technical quality of the purchase and download process.
2) Blew me away! Completely re-inspired me to take time to work on drawing and painting! (ok, so that's more than two... so sue me)

I will definitely be purchasing more of these!

I forgot to ask: The recording was sped up about 1.5 times, right? Just curious. Also, James, you have any particular consideration when to move to a new layer?
Thanks!

[Animation Idiot]

I believe this is exactly what I've been looking for lately. I will be buying this pretty soon.

[Giacomo]

James is a talented painter. However, I bought the video hoping for some Photoshop-specific advice in terms of brush settings, building up form etc., though, and there's not much of that here. What you get is basically a one-hour painting demo with random voiced-over comments (Thanks for being the millionth person to recommend studying Andrew Loomis, James).

There are some helpful bits—it's good to see how one can work more transparently in Photoshop than in oil—but overall it feels a bit thin for fifteen bucks. I'd really like to see a very intro-level video that covers in detail the nuts and bolts of rendering the form with tablet and Photoshop—the emphasis here is on the "figure painting," rather than the "digital."

[Hive_minD]

ehm, I must disagree here a little. James shows us how he would go about it, painting a female figure. No he doesn't explain how the body is built in such a way as Loomis, but I believe that that wasn't the point either. It doesn't say it was going to "cover in detail the nuts and bolts of rendering the form with tablet and PS"
So, without trying to offend you, I think you jumped to some conclusions and got your hope to high up. I can therefor understand your let down, but I would not say it is too thin for fifteen bucks.

I guess thats just me