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View Full Version : Basic painting technique: edges! Please help!


Xitu
March 5th, 2011, 04:05 AM
Hi all,

I realize this is a bit like a football player asking how to do corners, but here goes... I have massive problems creating clean and/or intersecting edges when painting digitally. As soon as something cannot be done with dabbing blotchy spots of color, I seriously have to surrender.

How is this done?

To illustrate, here's a concrete example from a simple piece I'm working on. To clarify, this is supposed to be a flat patch of brown terrain, and the black bit to the left is a boot.
Now I wanted to add a flag there, lying on the ground, with the boot resting on it. The flag is the Union Jack, and this is where the hilarity starts:

http://www.electric-zombie.com/stuff/datfuckingflag.png

The top half of the image is supposed to show a rough sketch of the flag, with the outlines explained for your convenience.
The bottom half is my pitiful attempt at suggesting any sort of coherent form. Notice how everything looks mushy, blotchy, unrefined, rounded and messy?
And now with the shading - imagine I carefully created the flag on a pixel level, and then decided to add more shading. I'd have to follow the edges with pixel-perfect precision, wouldn't I?

There should be an easy, or at least conventional way of doing it. Unfortunately I don't seem to know it :(

This is really holding me back. How do people create these perfect, smooth, crystal-clear edges you see in these masterful works, just to give an example: http://conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=152847

I'm really happy for any kind of help. Please, I'd love to know how to get through this!

bjoern3000
March 5th, 2011, 05:11 AM
A short answer that will help you a lot is: donīt stick to one single brush and brush attribute

dpaint
March 5th, 2011, 05:49 PM
Use the selection tool and select the flag outline. Paint the flag colors with midtones. Then with the paintbrush paint the shadows with a blue gray with paintbrush mode multiply on. Add highlights with an off white with overlay on. Invert the selection by using control shift i then paint the outside edge of the tan color
The selction tool controls the outside shape while you paint keeping edges crisp

Xitu
March 8th, 2011, 12:13 PM
Wow, thank you very much for that great reply and all the time and effort spent!

I'll try to copy that method as best as I can. I'll need to have a good look into my workflow, too - there are things I should be able to do by now, but which still elude me. Also, I'll need to see whether SAI is really the right choice...

In any case, thanks again! Now to copy this... ;)