Painting without lineart, other questions.

[Pavel Sokov]

some of u might have noticed that im getting into digital art a lot.
but whats bothering me is that the skilled artists dont have their black lineart in the finished result.
how would i achieve this?
for example i started this like a month ago, it had black lineart, but i decided to cut it off on his body and color it brown. but no success u can still clearly see the lineart, but if i was too take of the lineart completely my colors wouldnt give u enough info.
this is btw my first attempt at wacom tablet. ( working in open canvas )
open canvas has many lows, but the reason why im painting with it is because the pressure sensitivity adjusts opacity and not brush size like in photoshop elements 2.0. but Oc doesnt let u import textures, and doesnt give u brush options, so i need a way to make pressure effect opacity in photoshop instead of brush size. hope someone can help.
http://img22.echo.cx/img22/3307/conancolorswip1oa.jpg (http://www.imageshack.us)

no line art:
http://img22.echo.cx/img22/9567/nolineartconanwip7qg.jpg (http://www.imageshack.us)

[hrothgar]

Hi,

About the lineart problem you can have the lineart as an underlying layer (I don't know open canvas but I just assume it has layers) and then paint on a new layer on top of it. So for your final result you'd just turn the lineart layer off, delete it or whatever you wish. You can also switch this layer back and forth between visible / invisible so you see your lineart as a guide and can paint in the missing info on your new layer.
Or you just make the lineart layer the top layer, which lets it float over erverything you've painted, so you still always see it unless you turn it off. For that to work you'll need to select and erase everything which is not line (eg. white paper) so you can see the painting in the background.

Cheers :)

[Pavel Sokov]

ya i know how to delete the linart, i showed u a pic there without it, but i was trying to say that without the lineart it looks like ass, and its impossible to recodnise things :(

[luxun]

the way i do it is just paint on top of the lines without using multiply, and leave the lines in at the end, that way only the lines you choose to be left is left and it looks better.

[dCepT]

Removing the lineart makes some of the "contrast" the lines make disappear (sp?). If you keep your lines 'till you get the colors down, much like you've done in the example, and hide the lineart-layer, you can see where you would put more contrast. Shadows make the overlying form pop. Like his armpit, and under his chin. If you push the darks there, it'll up the contrast and make the picture look better. You can always switch on your lineart-layer to check if you're unsure. Also, try painting on a toned canvas... Makes it easier to see the values.. The pure white behind him, makes it difficult to see what kinda valuerange you should go for on the character.

Hope it helps :)

d-C

[Pavel Sokov]

a toned canvas?
how come? wouldnt that fuck up ur colors that u chose so lovingly?
( btw the colors i choose are always wrong )

[sixBlade]

from what i've seen of good artists painting without lineart -- they start by blocking the whole background in the colours they want for the background (just roughly so say they wanted a red sky and very earthy ground -- lets say a forest, they'd put brown along the bottom of the screen and red on the rest.. then they start blocking in general shapes of things on top of this.. for example you would block in the barbarian on your picture.. and then keep on building up and up in layers adding highlights and shadows according to where the light is coming from in the scene as a whole.. in the example there would be some brown reflected light from the ground as well as the general red colours in the scene.. remember not all skies are blue!!

[Qitsune]

Just so you know, you can use the pressure of the tablet to change the opacity when using Photoshop. It's just not the default setting.

[Pavel Sokov]

Oh snap!!
how do i do it!! help me please please, i cant wait to use photoshop with opacity pressure!!
aaah

[one2hit]

I think there are a few different ways to do it. This is how I do it: Open the brush pallet and chose a brush. I think a soft brush is better, but choose anything, you can make it harder or softer later. Go to "other dynamics" and check the box. Under opacity jitter, in "other dynamics" there's a box that drops down. Choose "pen pressure" and keep the opacity jitter slider close to the left for a full range of opacity/transparancy. This is how I do it with CS2, if you have CS or 7 it might be a little different.

-cheers


--> btw I hate painting with digital, it's sofa king hard to blend colors and control edges...I am so frustrated with it right now :[

[one2hit]

one more thing...you've got a lot of whites in your skin tone. I'm pretty much a noob at painting...and..well a noob at everything, but I might suggest going for a larger value range with the skin since you're not quite that high chroma area of color yet.

[Pavel Sokov]

hey thnx man.
i have photoshop elemtns and seems like i cant do it in that prorgram.
i better get myself a real photoshop :er:

what do u mean by ur colors comment?
could u give me an exam of ur human skin colors? plz

six blade, thnx for ur reply, il keep it in mind, i never do background first, i always forget

[one2hit]

I'm not good enough to make nice skin tones (therefor I should not give comments concerning said issue :dead: ) haha but I know that skin tones have different hues in them...they have light reds, purples, yellows, and the shadows have a lot of subtle color in them and reflected light... I dunno man, just play around and observe things more in real life and in other's works...I would stay away from just plain white in skin tones, but that's just me *shrug*

well good luck anyways

[dogfood]

I prefer the one without the lineart. There are a couple places that could use some more contrast, but overall, it looks better. The lineart gives the same amount of emphasis over the whole piece, as opposed to highlighting what needs to be brought forward. But, you need to start with bigger brushes and vary the edges. Look at Prom's tutorial (http://www.itchstudios.com/psg/art_tut.htm) and really get into it (you may have sen it before, but it covers the things you're trying to do).

And it's much easier to get the skin tones correct if you start on a sheet that has the basic color of the environment because that has such an effect on the color of the skin to the eye (the brain corrects a lot without you knowing). White and black canvases are tough to work with.

[look]

*twitches* Don't you dare go bash on softwares, especially openCanvas. >:{

If you rely on fancy brushes to give you texture, you may be better off without it. You don't see many traditional artists use fancy stamps for their works, so why do you have to use fancy brushes?

Anyway, aside from that part, a few tips I have for color lineless, and hopefully it can be of any help. Reason your work look less defined without lines is because you don't have defined volumns. If you boost up the contrast and shading, it would help. When I color lineless, I always use dark shadings to seperate two volumns, and reflective lighting to seperate areas in shadings.

Always watch out for the edge of the object. If the object is connected to the other parts in the background, the shading may not be as distinct. If the object is not connected, it should have a sharp edge when you color it.

Your lineless version is a good start, give it darker intense shading, and it should get better.

[Pavel Sokov]

i dont use special brushes tho, i want too start.
thnx for the comments guys, il read the tutorial, and up the contrast of my work.

[Qitsune]

I use the smudge tool to mix colors and control gradients. Anyone has another technique?

[EccoXile]

gitsune: i just use a lower opacity brush and a lot of color picker(alt click)

sixblade had good advice. really work from background up, blocking in colors. Don't rush to get all the little details on the figure. And the really small brush you used for the details doesnt look good for areas like the skin. Big forms to smaller ones, big brush to little brush.

[look]

I use the smudge tool to mix colors and control gradients. Anyone has another technique?
I don't know other techniques in photoshop. I only tried painting in photoshop two or three times, once is cell shading, so no need to worry about color blending. The other times I just start with dark background first, then use low opacity brushes to brush out the lighting and values.

painter and openCanvas are a lot easier to blend colors in my opinion.