Real Time Video of painting

[thinsoldier]

When I was trying to learn 3d all the time-lapse/sped-up video tutorials in the world didn't help me. It's only when I found tutorials that were 3-8 hours long and covered every last vertex manipulation and tool setting used and explained the applications shortcomings and bugs and workarounds... only then did I start to understand how to do stuff.

All I can ever find for painting in photoshop are super-sped-up tutorals that don't cover:
the artists wacom setting preferences
specifics of their brush preferences (ie: opacity vs flow vs always using a solid brush)
And they're always soo damned fast that often you can't really see the brush strokes happening to help you figure out what they're doing right and what I'm doing wrong.

Does anyone know of a good video tutorial that is in real time and covers in depth the artists wacom & brush settings and why they prefer to have them set up that way? Whether they paint at full res or at a much bigger size and then shrink down? Etc... All the things that you'll never see or have explained to you in a video running at 8x normal speed.

[Jaycephus]

I agree. And some guys are charging... oops, maybe shouldn't diss any big dark painting tutorials on this site...

I think the best I've seen along that line is from idrawgirls.com. His stuff is only sped up about 200%, and that gives him the time to really talk about what he is doing. He does go into what brush and opacity he is working at, etc., includes a pdf version of the same tutorial as the video, and gives you all his PS brushes as well. He is also the absolute best value I've ever come across, giving you two to ten times the voice-over instruction as other tutorials that cost 2 to 8 times as much money. Check his free stuff on youtube to make sure you're OK with his style, etc.

P.S. Actually, MB tutorials are at least priced in the sane region, with some of them being extremely good values, and I haven't even gotten any whit brachna tuts yet. Those look like they might be really good. I know of one MB tut that is exactly as thinsoldier describes above, little to no instruction over a simple timelapse of a painting with the video resolution too low to see half of the settings used. Throwing away good money on something like that is just infuriating and has got to be a driver for piracy.

[ikken]

All I can ever find for painting in photoshop are super-sped-up tutorals that don't cover:
the artists wacom setting preferences
specifics of their brush preferences (ie: opacity vs flow vs always using a solid brush)
And they're always soo damned fast that often you can't really see the brush strokes happening to help you figure out what they're doing right and what I'm doing wrong.
Supposedly because those videos are intended to show techniques, not basics;
and for the most part, your preference in brushes, opacity settings and usage of layers is dependent on your art background, the media you were working with before going digital (simply because that's the way most concept-artists started)
if you have an idea of how diluted the acrylics or oils should be to get the right effect, you'll easily understand how much dynamics in opacity/flow setting you should have;
if you have an idea of how watercolour paper affects the image's texture, you'd easily catch up how bright/dull your texture overlay layers should be to look natural;
etc.etc.etc.
and your wacom tablet preferences are totally up to you; my concept-art teacher usually sets his intuos pen to a little bit more stiff settings; lots of users work with defaults, changing them ocassionally.
putting the brush strokes in right way depends on your observation skills and ability to transfer them into brushstrokes - get a brush and do some studies, a single DVD won't make much sense anyway.
Whether they paint at full res or at a much bigger size and then shrink down? Etc... All the things that you'll never see or have explained to you in a video running at 8x normal speed.
As a general rule - paint at 2x bigger size, zoomed out, with big solid brush strokes at first; then proceed to details with a finer brush, and then - reduce the filesize to the desired one and optionally, apply a sharpen filter (don't overuse it anyway).

and speaking of dvds - i'd suggest the DVD, produced by Barontieri for
http://www.thegnomonworkshop.com/dvds/thd01.html
it's covering a full production pipeline and was really helpful for me.

[thinsoldier]

He is also the absolute best value I've ever come across, giving you two to ten times the voice-over instruction as other tutorials that cost 2 to 8 times as much money. Check his free stuff on youtube to make sure you're OK with his style, etc.

P.S. Actually, MB tutorials are at least priced in the sane region, with some of them being extremely good values, and I haven't even gotten any whit brachna tuts yet.

Yes I'm going to set aside some time after Easter to work with the brachna videos. But truth is I probably do need more beginner level stuff. About the only thing I've done that was good enough to not throw in the trash was this http://thinsoldier.deviantart.com/art/Potemkin-cOlOr-attempt-40192611
The sad thing isn't that it still looks like crap. It's that it took me so embarrassingly long to do (and it's still miles away from being near finished) and was so frustratingly hard to do. I have little understanding of a good "photoshop workflow" and none of the videos I've gotten really help in that area due to the lack of instruction and speed of the video. You have no idea how long it took me to realize that on average, the artists in the videos I have select a new color (alt+click the canvas) like 500% more often than I used to. It wasn't until I use vlc to slow some of them down drastically that I could really count just how many times they pick a new color :(

http://images.thegnomonworkshop.com/img/screengrabs/thd01/thde.jpg
I've actually spent many hours trying to paint a version of the one in the top left of this image. It's just so frustrating that it takes me sooo long while never looking anywhere near as good as the original. Yet I could do one with paper&coloring pencil that while still not being as good as the original (or even looking anything like it), at least looks like something I don't feel like immediately trashing.

Jaycephus, could you suggest 1 of the 8 items idrawgirls.com has for sale that is most worth the money?