Blending techniques help

[corel]

I'm not sure if this is the right place to post it but here it goes:
I have an Intuos4 M tablet and whenever i want to, lets say, shade objects (like a ball or an egg-shaped object etc.) - i have a real problem getting it to look smooth. What i do is i set the opacity to pen pressure and then start to paint the shading from dark to light, but i have this problem that the shading doesn't look smooth, it looks like a lot of lines with different opacity settings were applied.(i added some quick example to show what i mean..)

I wanted to ask another question: how can i do that when i draw something with a brush at low opacity and then i draw over it(or draw something that has some congruent parts on top of the first drawing) with the same opacity - i don't want the strokes to "add" on each other,resulting in darker tones. What if i want it to be on the same level?(lets say i'm painting with black at 30% opacity..)

Corel.

[dusty imp]

I wanted to ask another question: how can i do that when i draw something with a brush at low opacity and then i draw over it(or draw something that has some congruent parts on top of the first drawing) with the same opacity - i don't want the strokes to "add" on each other,resulting in darker tones. What if i want it to be on the same level?(lets say i'm painting with black at 30% opacity..)

Corel.


Use darken mode for the brush instead of normal. As for your other question you could try lowering the brush hardness in the brush window dialog (F5).
This is all assuming you are using photoshop, otherwise disregard.

edit;
Duh, this is the photoshop forum section. I think I need some fresh air...
As a general rule there is always more than one way to achieve the same result in photoshop, so these are just some of the things you can try. Experiment, it's fun!

[jfrancis]

http://www.digitalartform.com/archives/images/sketchBookPro.jpg
http://www.digitalartform.com/archives/2005/08/alias_sketchboo.html

http://www.digitalartform.com/archives/images/hardBrushTechnique.jpg
http://www.digitalartform.com/archives/2005/04/painting_with_p.html
http://www.digitalartform.com/archives/images/hardBrushSettings.jpg

This is basically what I do. It sounds like you are doing it the same way. I'm not sure what you are doing differently...

[jfrancis]

I re-eyedropper a fair amount while blending

[XanaChama]

I had the same problem as you for the longest time. It really is patience, an observed light touch (going lighter as you need to), and lots of eyedropper tool and you have to completely render it (you're putting colors in between to make a smooth transition). I set my bottom click button on my pen to Alt (dropper), and my top click button to right click (pulls up a quick brush modifier). I rarely use opacity/flow settings other than 100%/100% now that I just rely completely on the tablet pressure sensitivity. If you want a smoother brush, try moving the hardness softness lighter down a bit and see what that does. It helps too if you set the spacing in your brush to around 10% (13% is good too), it looks a little better I think, but it also eats more CPU. If you use your right click, you can change hardness as well as brush size on the fly.

Check out this thread: http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=47859
And the tutorials in the gallery section from here, has a smooth blending tutorial: http://www.furiae.com/index.php

[corel]

I had the same problem as you for the longest time. It really is patience, an observed light touch (going lighter as you need to), and lots of eyedropper tool and you have to completely render it (you're putting colors in between to make a smooth transition). I set my bottom click button on my pen to Alt (dropper), and my top click button to right click (pulls up a quick brush modifier). I rarely use opacity/flow settings other than 100%/100% now that I just rely completely on the tablet pressure sensitivity. If you want a smoother brush, try moving the hardness softness lighter down a bit and see what that does. It helps too if you set the spacing in your brush to around 10% (13% is good too), it looks a little better I think, but it also eats more CPU. If you use your right click, you can change hardness as well as brush size on the fly.

Check out this thread: http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=47859
And the tutorials in the gallery section from here, has a smooth blending tutorial: http://www.furiae.com/index.php

Thanks for the link!
I thought you blend more with the same color just different opacities (by setting it to pen pressure..)

[XanaChama]

Thanks for the link!
I thought you blend more with the same color just different opacities (by setting it to pen pressure..)

Kinda, but you use dropper tool when you're 'blending' and you are putting transition colors in between. You have to help it along and build it. It's more rendering than anything. Try it in grayscale and use a bigger brush with a light touch and just fill a document.

[Mihail]

You could also try the smudge tool with some scattering. You can create variety of edges by changing its size and direction of the strokes
697370

[XanaChama]

Yeah that 'spackled' smudge brush thing was on the site I provided. I think I might give it a try someday. Seems good for different things and I was thinking it might be good for stained glass, etc.

[Iridyse]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wPaM_L7UHs might help

[corel]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wPaM_L7UHs might help

OMG this is a l-o-n-g process, and its just blending those 3 colors, i dont want to think about all those skin tones etc. :x

Corel.

[Iridyse]

Actually it's much faster when you have hues/values that are much closer to each other. I don't think you'd ever be blending such extreme colors together.

[ehaft]

If I were shading a ball i'd possibly use a really large soft edged round brush with pressure set to opacity. Make a new layer, start shading without worrying about "staying in the lines", and then erase the excess.

[Brashen]

People these days want everything on a silver platter....try experimenting a bit...it wont kill you.

[corel]

People these days want everything on a silver platter....try experimenting a bit...it wont kill you.

Well, i'm experimenting as you can see in my image.
And if youre already talking about these days, so in these days, we have the option of internet and of getting help from experienced artists.

Corel.

[XanaChama]

People these days want everything on a silver platter....try experimenting a bit...it wont kill you.

It took me a year and half to get rendering down (when I tried and tried again based on threads here/lots of googling/etc). So I understand how him/her feels... I'm glad to be able to make it easier on them than it was on me! Though I would definitely say patience is key here... it just kinda snapped into place for me eventually.

[corel]

It took me a year and half to get rendering down (when I tried and tried again based on threads here/lots of googling/etc). So I understand how him/her feels... I'm glad to be able to make it easier on them than it was on me! Though I would definitely say patience is key here... it just kinda snapped into place for me eventually.

Thanks for your warm words...love ya! :)

Corel.

[AChipps]

I don't see anyone saying anything about the Gradient Tool. If you select that area use the Gradient tool, and change it to Radial Gradient. If you just want smooth use a large soft brush that covers that whole area and reduce the sizes as you work towards the edges to make it look round.

[corel]

Ok, I have taken all your advices and tried to apply them with simple ball rendering. It actually came out as an uneven surface kind of ball, but all that matters is the blending. I have laid the colors first and then just went over the intersecting areas with a speckled brush with opacity set to pen pressure. Then smoothed it out with the smudge tool using the same speckled brush.
I have added a shadow layer later when i've finished the color blending, but i've included here the version without the shadow as well so you'll be able to judge my blending better...

Corel.

[Mihail]

I would suggest using bigger brushes. Also be more careful with how you paint light and shadow. Maybe it should look more like this.
701483

[corel]

I would suggest using bigger brushes. Also be more careful with how you paint light and shadow. Maybe it should look more like this.
701483

Well yours certainly looks better! mine looks more like a skin-ball or something like that..
Also i see you've painted with color only, i mean, what i did was to first put down the colors and then add the shadows(multiply brush mode) with black.Maybe its a wrong approach...
Also forgot about the reflected light thing.

[plundh]

I don't understand why some people try blending smoothly with a completely hard brush. It seems pointlessly inefficient. Pick the right tool for the job.

[jfrancis]

I don't understand why some people try blending smoothly with a completely hard brush. It seems pointlessly inefficient. Pick the right tool for the job.

Because smoothness often isn't the goal.