blending, smoothing, and foaming at the mouth with frustration

[thecosmicgoose]

hola, new forumite here, so be gentle.

i understand the basic idea behind blending colors in photoshop painting, taking a low opacity brush and mixing in a little of this color with that. then color picking like a mad man.

but there is one thing i just cannot seem to wrap my brain around. and thats using the above process to achieve a really smooth blend. i almost always wind up with a little splotchiness somewhere in my blends.

now, i do use a hard edged brush for this, as its the most common tool found in tutorials. and i've gotten the impression that softer edged brushes are the devil. i have been able to puzzle out that you cant really resample with a soft brush the way you can with a hard. again, splotchiness.

so, any help?

[Maidith]

You'll find this helpful: http://www.furiae.com/images/blending-thoughts.jpg

[XanaChama]

Use dropper a lot to introduce colors in between and a light, studied touch (some don't even use opacity settings). It doesn't help if you don't fully understand color theory yet and are trying to achieve blends from either two different colors or strong values. Start with grey scale until you master the tool or at least use a simple palette, and remember--patience!

View these threads:
http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=47859&highlight=digital+painting (blending)
http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=107217 (planes, edges)

Good luck

[RyerOrdStar]

Hey does anyone remember the link for that tutorial on how to make a blender out of the healing brush? It was posted in a thread recently and I can't remember where :(

[XanaChama]

You create a 256 X 256 image (size really isn't important...) with a white background, pure white, and then save it as a pattern. And you use that pattern with the healing brush. That's how I remember it.

[thecosmicgoose]

Use dropper a lot to introduce colors in between and a light, studied touch (some don't even use opacity settings). It doesn't help if you don't fully understand color theory yet and are trying to achieve blends from either two different colors or strong values. Start with grey scale until you master the tool or at least use a simple palette, and remember--patience!

View these threads:
http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=47859&highlight=digital+painting (blending)
http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=107217 (planes, edges)

Good luck

the Bumskee tut doesn't seem to be displaying any images. at least not in the first post where i assume the main tut is supposed to be.

the planes and edges tut is pure gold though. much thanks.

[XanaChama]

the Bumskee tut doesn't seem to be displaying any images. at least not in the first post where i assume the main tut is supposed to be.

the planes and edges tut is pure gold though. much thanks.

Yeah, you have to read through the thread a little, they talk more in debt about blending. Good luck~

[CCThrom]

You may be thinking of Bluefooted's "digital watercolor" tutorial... she uses the healing brush in that.

http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=46462

[B-nine]

it's not what you want to hear but I'll say it anyways...

Don't worry about perfect gradations. You shouldn't concern yourself so much in the rendering process that you're worried about a little splotchiness in your blending. If I could have let go of being so meticulous about every little thing being blended just perfectly in my eyes I could have progressed a lot faster. I still have problems letting go of being so caught up in the rendering aspect, so if you can convince yourself to not go down the same path I think you'd be better off for it.

[Aaron Death]

B-nine is right. No need to blend until the last vestige of brushstroke is gone. Look up El Coro's oil painting if you want. His brushstrokes are so expressive.

[PsiBug]

You might want to post an example of the problem you've been having and ask for piece-specific feedback.

[Strela]

If you want near-perfect blending in a few strokes, use a large airbrush over a mask. Mask the entire area of color that you want to blend in-- I usually just use the lasso. Choose an airbrush that will fit over the appropriate shadow area, and a darker and more saturated version of the current color (if you are trying for shadows). Choose some opacity level-- 20% is probably good. Spray over the area you want shadowed.

Another way is with the smudge tool and a noise brush, once you have some of the shadow color laid down. Pull up fingers of the shadow color, then run across them all with the smudge brush until you are getting the result you want. Again, a 20% opacity with that method is probably good. This method is close to oil paint, sort of.

If there's a "problem" with these methods, it's that they are too perfect. The airbrushing way in particular gives an amazingly smooth finish with unnatural perfection. After you have been doing this for a while you will start seeing substandard digital painting and realizing what a muddy look it can have-- roleplaying game books are a perfect example, you see it all the time in those and it looks awful. That's one reason people go to great lengths to have a traditionalistic approach.