Tutorial Video blog, focuses on the basics

[matt kohr]

http://mattkohr.squarespace.com/storage/ca/mKohr_howTo.jpg

UPDATE: the blog is now live, tell your friends! http://www.ctrlpaint.com



I'm working on a blog aimed at in-training digital painters. Do you know how to run photoshop but have no idea how to make it paint? The blog is going to give all sorts of free tips I wish I had years ago. In the meantime, I NEED YOUR HELP!

What are you having trouble with? As I make this instructional material, I'd love to get input from you guys -- so it can be as helpful as possible. So please respond with any and all questions you have about digital painting! here's an example:

example: "What is a 'mask'? They seem confusing and I avoid them."



Any feedback would be wonderful. If you're not interested in responding publicly feel to shoot me an email: mattkohrart (at) gmail (dot) com

Thanks, guys!







___

[Icecold]

I think that a good question will be, when it's best to switch to color, while starting from black and white sketch/painting.
Which coloring techniques do you use/preffer.

Video highly apreciated.

Crowd: Matt! Matt! Matt! Matt! : ]

[Tawnos]

Dude, this is EXACTLY what I need.

I basically need the very basics of digital painting. When to use a soft brush, when to use a hard brush.
What do you guys do when you start off with lines and block in values later, how to block in values, which kind of brushes and why, how to start off with silluettes, how to start off with a value study.... all this kind of stuff.

I know photoshop quite good, but so far I've only used it as a manipulative tool, rather than a start-off-from-scratch-painting device. I've bough several massive black videos so far, but they are all very speed up, so experianced ppl can seem to understand what the artists are doing, but for ppl like me, who have no clue how to use photoshop as a canvas, I can't follow.

If you're about to make such a tutorial-video, I would be very very very thankful.
I'm even willing to pay if you can provide such stuff!

Man, thats so great! :D :asskisser:

[Pan2]

Hi Matt!

I greatly enjoy your sketchbook thread, and I think a digital painting blog would be a great idea!

Personally, my biggest issue is economy of stroke, and putting efficiency behind your hand motions. I, and many of my classmates, tend to whittle away at a painting with hundreds and hundreds of superfluous brush strokes while trying to get gradients to come out, and we end up with very flat, fake looking paintings.

It's been really hard for me to find instructional material for this problem specifically, and I would love to see your advice on it!

[android411]

Hi Matt,

thanks so much for taking the time. I really like your work and would like to know how you create mood and lighting in photoshop. Are you using custom brushes or special layer modes to accomplish it? Do you jump into 3D too?

thanks in advance

[matt kohr]

Hey Everyone,

I've read over these questions as well as those submitted on my sketchbook thread. They are all GREAT questions! I'll be working them all into the blog material I'm creating. Over the next month or so as I finish up the blog, feel free to keep submitting questions -- I'm going to be making a lot of free videos and downloads, so let me know!

thanks!

[b-dawg]

The information about masks will be extremely useful. Also I have a personal question: how to create chromatic aberrations in Photoshop? I didn't google for english versions of this tutorial because I'm russian - i googled for russian versions and i didn't find any that would have helped. Thank you in advance!

[Hav0cc]

What im strugling with alot is what pan 2 described as well. What Im also finding a real big trouble, is defning materials.

For example, when a part of armor shows up as prehaps, a metal plate mounted on skin, or just a simple piece of leather cloth. How can define different types of material? (And I kind of mean all types of different thing, from organic, to hard surface. not only the 2 things I just gave as example haha.)

Colour blending and Lightsource/Shading also is hard one for me.

just someone else earlier reffered, when to use what type of brush, etc etc.
Im starting to get my ass around photoshop more as a canvas, but I still need alot of the basic stuff still as well..

[kingkostas]

thnx for sharing knowledge with others mate!!!Keep it up!!!i will be visiting

[Icecold]

Hmm maybe a detailed explanation about value, it's relationship, and what works well with what. That would be both extremely cool and useful.

[joryharrismsu]

Hey Matt your work is awesome! I have been drawing for years and just getting into the whole digital art thing. Was wondering if you could make a tutorial of start to finish of a drawing/painting. Like what paper settings you use, what brushes you draw with, filling in color, shadows and layers. Even paper size and dpi you use. I kind of need a feel for everything. I need to take a class in it i know...lol. But any help you could give would be appreciated. Thanks for your time. Keep up the good work!

[BAN_KAI]

like the other mentioned , when to use what brush, maybe "Brush customisation" Info not how its done , also how to practice making backgrounds, just the simple ones, nothing on them just texture and stuff, that looks Painted ,,, also i so want to start a different style like this http://attachments.conceptart.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=1095596&stc=1&d=1288965729,,, but i cant decide where to start,( when i do it , it looks like crap cause i want it to look good from the start) it looks so awesome.

[aguilas990]

Thanks, this looks great! My question would be, how to make forms appear more solid. I tend to run into the problem of having things look blurry and washed out when working digitally.

[Kaikikuro]

Hey there, that's really kind of you to do this kind of thing for everyone!

My main problem is getting the right feel of colors when it comes to referencing from a photo.

I can do this easily with colored pencils and can easily blend and pick the colors I need. But when it comes to colors I spend a great deal of time randomly mixing colors until something happens to look right, and I would really like to improve on picking, choosing, and blending my colors.

[Dcritelli]

....Personally, my biggest issue is economy of stroke, and putting efficiency behind your hand motions. I, and many of my classmates, tend to whittle away at a painting with hundreds and hundreds of superfluous brush strokes while trying to get gradients to come out, and we end up with very flat, fake looking paintings.....


I have this same problem. An in depth tutorial on getting value right digitally would be awesome.

Also, maybe some generalized tutorials. For instance, studies are clearly the best way to get experience and an understanding of figures, light, color, etc. But what are the most valuable studies to do? How do you keep yourself motivated to do some of the less interesting types of studies? What's a good way to learn anatomy and figure drawing if you don't have access to real life models? Stuff like that.

[Esgarblackpoxs]

Hey Matt, thanks for making this. It should prove extremely helpful to such a newbie as myself. Something I'd like to see (though I suppose it's closer to art in general than digital art specifically) is using brushes and broad strokes to create the base for a character (blocking them in) or vehicle/environment, or whatever. I see this quite a bit in digital painting demos, particularly when an artist isn't working from lineart and I'm very interested in how to use brushes to create the basic shape of whatever it is you're painting. Look forward to seeing the blog all finished!

[vineris]

How do you use texture brushes and not have it look ham-handed? I can add texture in by hand and I can plop, say, a few textures over the whole thing but there seems to be something I'm missing otherwise.

[matt kohr]

Thanks for all of the great feedback, everyone! I'm hard at work getting this thing put together, and I hope that everyone will like the result. Keep these great questions coming (email them if you like -- mattkohrart (at) gmail (dot) com) --- They're quickly on their way to becoming video tutorials.

[doodles-inc]

Hi Matt, I would also like to know about implementing colour colour onto a black and white sketch (like mentioned earlier in this thread). I find this process very difficult. This sounds like a very helpful blog. Many thanks for sharing your knowledge.

[Kharnaghe]

Hey Matt, I've be having trouble with rendering skin tone and clothing with shadow. When I do it just seem right. In my paintings my people look like amorphous blobs of colour.

[GrayMind]

I don't know If this has been addressed yet, but I've always had trouble getting from the gray scale painting (which a lot of people encourage to do first) to making it colored.

[DAMJAN]

what I have problems with is with advanced stuff. What I mean by that is realistic rendering of different things, details and achieving certain textures. I also have trouble with creative process. This is because I recently started concept art. So how to get ideas would be great.

[Hav0cc]

When will this blog be up to visit? or is it already? (if so, where lol)

[Nikola Marinkovic]

can't wait for this blog! :)

[Jaunay]

Thank you so much for doing this for the community, I can't wait to see what you produce and im eager to see the solutions to the questions that have been asked, a lot of them have been on my mind.

When thinking about light, do you work on one light source at a time and make sure that you've got the ground of one before going onto another? I tend to blend all my light sources together by fault of over experimentation, and it ends up being murky.

Also what daily and weekly practices do you partake in to help yourself improve?

[Psychobuddy]

Can't wait Matt.

Any updates yet?

[matt kohr]

Thanks for the continued excitement, everyone! I'm still in the process of generating some of the video content. The site is built and all the infrastructure work is done now. Hopefully in the coming weeks I'll be going live -- and you can all see what I've been hard at work on!

stay tuned.

[Jaunay]

Oh another question, when working with clients how much progress work do you like to show them or do they like to see? I've worked with people that just want 1 thumb then the final, and others want 100's of pages of ideas.

Do you send pdfs presentations and that type of thing? It would be interesting getting an inside look if you're willing to share. C:

Thanks again for all your help.

[Wozza]

How to paint something that is transparent? This would be good for like glasses, clear plastic sheets, windows, googles etc etc.

[matt kohr]

Ok -- all of these questions have been helping me a great deal! I'm finally in the last sprint now, so get ready to mark your calendar...

http://www.mattkohr.com/storage/ca/grandOpening_march7.jpg

[Charmer]

Something like the Bargue technique would be very cool. You know what I mean?
Copying a piece exactly to learn to "see correct".

Keep it up dude, I love your art!

[Semus]

Wow, I have been looking for something like this for quite awhile. I really hope you start doing this soon. I am REALLY looking forward to this.

I love your artwork. It's absolutely amazing.

[ApplePanini]

Man, I regret finding this thread so late but some pointers on creating environments from imagination would be incredibly helpful. That's what I'm having trouble with. And thank you for offering help to the community. Can't wait to get some solutions to my general suckiness. :)

[matt kohr]

http://ctrlpaint.squarespace.com/storage/_ca/ctrlPaint.jpg

Thanks so much for the help, everyone! The blog is called ctrl+Paint, and houses a growing collection of free video tutorials that I'm creating. it's finally all finished and ready to go. Check it out, and tell your friends!

It's going to have two new (free) videos every week on Tuesday and Thursday.

www.ctrlpaint.com (http://www.ctrlpaint.com/)

Thanks again for all of the continued support :)

[FootstepsBeckon]

ILL BE THERE MATT



ill be there




*shifty eyes*

[NoobConcept]

Many thanks for all the effort you've put into this project. :)
Keep up the great work!!!

[woxter05]

thank you very much for your time and effort.

excellent work ;)

[Semus]

Fantastic start to a great site! I really love the layout. It's very intuitive and clean. I also love the character holding the pen in the site border at the top. great idea.


Your work is awesome and the site is coming alive. I hope you continue to do this and I hope to learn a lot from you and your site. Wish it the best of luck in it's (and your) future. :)

[Hav0cc]

damn, really nice! videos well explained and stuff ;D hope youll also do in depth stuff with rendering an that kinda stuff :]

[Charmer]

Hey Matt!
I Just wanted to say THANK YOU! This site is totally great for like everybody who isn't professional. There where some really, really good tips for me.
Especially the texture sphere study thing!

Keep that definitely up man!
I'm straight looking forward to see more!

-Flo

[Charmer]

Sorry for double posting.

[Saracen]

Well done! Site looks great!

[chil3]

hats off to you sir for the great contribution to the artistic community.

[dracken]

Is the site still updating or is it pretty much over?

The last video went on in February...

[Semus]

Is the site still updating or is it pretty much over?

The last video went on in February...

The site is going to be continually updated with various videos. If you take a look on the left hand side towards the top he mentions when the next set of videos are going to be uploaded to the site.

[vineris]

Hey, saw your series on Lifehacker the other week. I thought the name looked familiar! Good stuff. :)

[Kristoff]

wow! great vblog! You sure showed me new things!^_^ Thank you!!!

[thematrixiam]

Great idea.

I'd be interested in seeing something done for lighting and shading. I tend to go over board and just make a mess of the whole piece.

Also, masking/selecting. Specifically selecting everything in a layer, and using that to inverse select on another layer.

[conte]

you da Man, Matt!
Very enjoyable and professionally made videos, definitely will return my ass for the new ones.
cheers

[UmpaArt]

Dude. I've had this page bookmarked forever! And the funniest thing is I found your tutorials through blog.drawn.ca. I didn't realize it was even yours until lesson 3 when you opened up the piece that you have on the front page here. Awesome stuff, so glad you finally finished it.

[Laurice]

Hey Matt, thanks for making this. It should prove extremely helpful to such a newbie as myself. Something I'd like to see (though I suppose it's closer to art in general than digital art specifically) is using brushes and broad strokes to create the base for a character (blocking them in) or vehicle/environment, or whatever. I see this quite a bit in digital painting demos, particularly when an artist isn't working from lineart and I'm very interested in how to use brushes to create the basic shape of whatever it is you're painting. Look forward to seeing the blog all finished!

I second this too, Matt!

This blog thing is a great idea, I (we) can't thank you enough for this help you're freely offering. I'd like to join in and help out as well, but I'm not experienced.. Haha. Might as well learn from you. :)

I've watched videos by Marta Dahlig in the DVD that came with the ImagineFX magazine, and I just can't fathom how she starts with just blocking in shapes then refine them.

Line art to color is good too. :)


How much pressure should we apply, how to not overwork the painting.

[The Pariano]

Dude, this is really amazing. They're easy to find but some general process and speed paint vids would be nice to see how you apply all the information you give to us in detail in the other videos.

edit: ooop didn't see the demo. You've already got it covered x]

[Jurij]

Ehy Matt, I just want to really Thank You.

It's everything very clear, I totally love what you are done for all us.
I'm into Design and Digital Painting since a lot, but i'm still trying to learn how to got nice color starting from lineart.
Well, what to say... nothing, you're just awesome!

Ps. And the layout for the blog it's absolutely nice. The logo animation too.

Keep up the great work

[Flashback]

Thanks for the videos and here:

Small translation for basic shortcut keys (Photo Shop to GIMP 2.6.11):

Pan = Space bar keys

Changing brush scale = bracket keys, i.e [ ]

Zoom = numpad's + and - keys (for some reason when I press the plus and minus keys next to backspace only zoom out works, but numpad works fine)

hide toolbars = tab key

straight line tool = shift key

[aks9]

im so happy this is up at last! its going to help me tons.
thanks a lot, ill give some more feedback after watching/using some of the vids :)

[Mila]

Thank you for your efforts and dedication with your videos. They're véry helpfull. I bought the premium content straight away when I saw it was about going from greyscale to color. I learned a lot from it.

What I would hope to see would be videos about using brushes and making effective speedpaints. :teeth:

[matt kohr]

http://www.ctrlpaint.com/storage/_ca/ctrlPaint_basicRendering_poster.jpg

[Lintire]

Hey man, great site! Looks downright professional,and the tutorials I'm seeing so far are insanely helpful - so hey, thanks for taking the time to make it, the worlds going to be a more informed place for it. I'll be sharing this site around.

Pretty nice name, too, while I'm at it.

[Hito_O]

Hey just passing by to say a big thanks for your video tutorial blog !
Can't wait to see The Basic photoshop rendering :)
If i may one suggestion don't you have a twitter account to follow you and then i can be up to date when you post a new tutorial ? Or any Newsletter subscription ?
It would be great !

Thanks for sharing your knowledge and keep going !

[LeftHanded Matt]

Your site is absolutely brilliant, already improved my brush control techniques. Keep it going, please :)

[gabrielh]

Great tutorial, it really helped me out a lot! Thank you for the help!
Gabriel

[Blissbee]

Looks like a great site! I will be checking it out as I wanna try digital painting ^^. Thank you!!

[abone114]

wow this is fantastic, thanks a lot for putting this together!!!

[Hunin]

thank you, the website is great, very helpful. Are you going to do any tutorials in painter or is it all photoshop based?

I have an issue with painter. I like to right click on an image as a short cut to the eye-dropper tool, to pick up colours from the canvas, how would I go about setting this up in painter IX?

[Vaejoun]

This is my new bible.

[DanielMo]

Thanx a lot man!!.....I'm just starting with digital paintig, your page is very very useful!!

[steve pete]

Thanks Matt. Valuable website you've got there. It's great to have a place to check out the processes behind the production of other artists... so many neat tricks and advice has been learned.
Also a great site to recommend others when they are interested.

Much thanks and appreciation.

Steve

[AlstonA]

http://mattkohr.squarespace.com/storage/ca/mKohr_howTo.jpg

UPDATE: the blog is now live, tell your friends! http://www.ctrlpaint.com



I'm working on a blog aimed at in-training digital painters. Do you know how to run photoshop but have no idea how to make it paint? The blog is going to give all sorts of free tips I wish I had years ago. In the meantime, I NEED YOUR HELP!

What are you having trouble with? As I make this instructional material, I'd love to get input from you guys -- so it can be as helpful as possible. So please respond with any and all questions you have about digital painting! here's an example:

example: "What is a 'mask'? They seem confusing and I avoid them."



Any feedback would be wonderful. If you're not interested in responding publicly feel to shoot me an email: mattkohrart (at) gmail (dot) com

Thanks, guys!







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Thank you for this! very helpful