Starting Digital Painting, any pointers or tips you can give??

[hatter]

Well, the title is self explanatory, but let me get into topic here anyways.

Seeing the artworks of the likes of Diepod, MotorRoach, Daeron, Jiggeh and kakkoii superhero inspired me to get off my lazy ass and start learning how to digital paint.
Also want to point out that my laptop houses Adobe Photoshop CS5 and I have a Samsung Galaxy Tablet, and I'm currently saving up to buy a Wacom Tablet (An Intuos HC480 or something, I recall it costs 90 dollars);

So if this is the right place to post this topic, does anyone here have any pointers to give to a guy who wants to start reaaaaaaaaaally slow? Maybe tutorials or tips from experts so I can go in the right direction? Not gonna lie, I don't expect to go anywhere from day one, same expectation with spriting, and you already know my receptiveness to feedback.

Hope to gain some knowledge an/or tips from the digital art elders roaming this forum.

Spoiler (click to show)

Also if this is not the right place to post this, feel free to move it to the correct board Mods.

[Insigniawarfare]

All i can say is good luck and drawing digitally isn't like drawing on paper.
It takes time and dedication like trying to get back into drawing when you haven't drawn anything in years/months.
Also most artist wouldn't suggest Photoshop when starting digital drawing. It really isn't the program to start on, its best for touch ups and coloring your art.
Check out these videos they may help https://www.youtube.com/user/architectus777/videos

[Bastard Mami]

I am also just starting , but while I am mostly interested in animation rather than drawings, some things still stand. one of the things I did was buying an android tablet, somethign aorund 150-ish that ahs a similar chipset to that of a wacom so I can directly look at what I paint . can't talk about much more because I have spent the past 2 months studying 3d modelling/animation instead; but today I get started studying "The Animator's Survival Kit - Richard Williams" , my previous read was andrew lomis' books. as far as digital panting goals I got a few books written by tozani and co (the rage of the dragons team in short)

[JustNoPoint]

My art is not very strong but my coloring is. If you like I can send you PSD files so you can see the layers of my coloring on my comics. This might show you some tricks.
I'm not sure what all you are going to try and get into. Look for composition, light source, and color balance tutorials. If you see things in my art that you wish to try your hand at let me know and I'll explain the best I can!

[hatter]

All i can say is good luck and drawing digitally isn't like drawing on paper.
It takes time and dedication like trying to get back into drawing when you haven't drawn anything in years/months.
Also most artist wouldn't suggest Photoshop when starting digital drawing. It really isn't the program to start on, its best for touch ups and coloring your art.
Check out these videos they may help https://www.youtube.com/user/architectus777/videos

Thanks bro. I'll look into those.

I am also just starting , but while I am mostly interested in animation rather than drawings, some things still stand. one of the things I did was buying an android tablet, somethign aorund 150-ish that ahs a similar chipset to that of a wacom so I can directly look at what I paint . can't talk about much more because I have spent the past 2 months studying 3d modelling/animation instead; but today I get started studying "The Animator's Survival Kit - Richard Williams" , my previous read was andrew lomis' books. as far as digital panting goals I got a few books written by tozani and co (the rage of the dragons team in short)

Can you give me the names of the books written by Tozani and Andrew Loomis? I'd like to look those up.

My art is not very strong but my coloring is. If you like I can send you PSD files so you can see the layers of my coloring on my comics. This might show you some tricks.
I'm not sure what all you are going to try and get into. Look for composition, light source, and color balance tutorials. If you see things in my art that you wish to try your hand at let me know and I'll explain the best I can!

If that doesn't bother you, go ahead and send them whenever you want. I have a few light source tutorials, maybe I'll look for some composition and color balance tutorials on dA or Pineterest. Thanks JNP.

[Kintoku]

http://helpyoudraw.tumblr.com/
I use this pretty often. Has a few tuts on getting used to draw digitally, IIRC. You can head to navigation for specific tuts or get critiques there. Be weary that there might be some repeating tuts from time to time.

If I can think of anymore places, I'll send 'em your way. Good luck!

[hatter]

http://helpyoudraw.tumblr.com/
I use this pretty often. Has a few tuts on getting used to draw digitally, IIRC. You can head to navigation for specific tuts or get critiques there. Be weary that there might be some repeating tuts from time to time.

If I can think of anymore places, I'll send 'em your way. Good luck!

Thank you very much! Any link or video play list or tips are highly appreciated and warmly accepted! 

[Demitri]

bro this is funny i just started trying to get into digital painting a few days ago(been on my todo list for a few years, just been lazy, but i got a wacom intuos already)

Anti always suggest I check out Feng Zhu https://www.youtube.com/user/FZDSCHOOL fengzhudesign.com/
I also suggest http://www.ctrlpaint.com/

[kakkoii superhero]

well the first thing that you will have to get use is the fact you re drawing without watching your hand movements, eye to hand coordination is way different than drawing on paper where your eyes staring at your hand and know exactly where your hand moves, it would be a big hurdle to anyone who move from traditional to digital, it is much easier if you also draw with mouse (like spriting) prior.

unless of course if you draw on touchscreen tablet or Cintiq.


Photoshop don't really utilize your wacom very sensitive pressure levels, photoshop is best used with one hand on your keyboard and another hand on your mouse, that is how I color my drawings most of the time, I have Wacom, Intuos 2 but I only use it to draw long flowy hair, other than that I use
Photoshop's keyboard shortcuts with left hand, and painting with my mouse on right hand.

most important keys for painting are:

[ and ] are used to resize your brush size on the fly, tap it to increase and decrease sizes

another important thing is transparency level of your brush
1 = 10 percent opacity
2 = 20 percent opacity
etc
0 = 100 percent opaque

use double digit to make it more detailed like 37 = 37 percent opacity

space bar = to momentarily set your mouse to move around your working area (hand tool) no matter on what tool you're currently at

b = brush
e = eraser
g = paint bucket
r = smudge
x = quick swap between 2 active colors (most useful when working on a quick mask since you switch between white and black all the time to refine edges of your object)

Shift + one of those to circle into their sub tool's option, for example: "Shift + r" will circle the active tool between smudge- blur- sharpen

ctrl+shift+alt+e = create a new layer that copy+merge all the active layers underneath, you want to do this when you want to export a completed drawing into another file for layouting, otherwise you will end up with incredibly huge files.

to draw a straight line instantly in Photoshop pick brush, click a spot where you want the line begins, press and hold shift then click another spot where you want the line ends, form there if you hold shift again and click another point, the line will straightly turn to that point.
useful for quick outlining a comic frame, and best used with smaller brush size (for much bigger/ fatter line using this method, you need to custom your brush to reduce its spacing, by default brush spacing is 25%, you need to reduce it into smaller, to make the smoother line)

smudge & blur tools in photoshop seem lame at first glance compared to Painter's blending tools for example, but in Photoshop you can also apply other brushes tips including ones you download online or create yourself as your blending tool (smudge & blur) and beside you also can set its opacity, so they are actually quite sophisticated.

there are lots of things you will find along your way, there are more than one way to achieve similar result, you can debate all day about the best way with fellow digital artist, but in the end you should decide your own way of doing things.

another important thing with wacom tablet: NEVER EVER DROP THE STYLUS, replacement of that thing is expensive, so be careful don't twist it around your fingers like you do with pencil, that thing don't have pocket clip so don't put it in a sloping desk either.

[hatter]

Thanks Genesis and kakkoii for the links and tips, if anyone has anything to share post them here, id that doesn't bother anyone.

[Bastard Mami]

Can you give me the names of the books written by Tozani and Andrew Loomis? I'd like to look those up.

tozani's are in spanish so they might not be helpful, as far as lomis goes any of his books are good, they are divided/titled by theme , my favorite one is figure drawing.

[hatter]

Can you give me the names of the books written by Tozani and Andrew Loomis? I'd like to look those up.

tozani's are in spanish so they might not be helpful, as far as lomis goes any of his books are good, they are divided/titled by theme , my favorite one is figure drawing.

Ah I see. Anti-11 also recommended "Figure Drawing" by Loomis, so I'll look into those today.

In addition, I'm gonna post these two links here so in case they'll be useful to anyone who's like me in tablet drawing and digital painting:

https://zhille.wordpress.com/2011/04/09/improving-your-tablet-drawing-skills/
https://zhille.wordpress.com/2011/04/15/improving-your-tablet-drawing-skills-2/

Also, as far as digital painting programs go, I'm thinking of getting ArtFlow for my Galaxy Tab, read a few reviews about it and it looks quite superb I must say. Any programs you guys recommend for PC or Windows?

Also before I forget:

@[user id=12]Just No Point[/user]: I remember something about coloring in Photoshop being in layers (recall it was on Flowrellik's graphics thread). Generally when you are working on coloring a page in your Devon Saga series (which I find very cool by the way ), how many layers do you tend to use? Just asking.

Thanks again folks, I'll make sure to look into everything posted here.

[Bastard Mami]

check if your galaxy tab has got Spen support.

[hatter]

check if your galaxy tab has got Spen support.

Just did, it seems that the Spen supports the Galaxy Note series rather than the Galaxy Tab series. I'm also reading on Samsung dedicated forums, people are saying tht it doesn't work (weird thing is I have a NoMad stylus which literally looks like a paint brush and it works with my Galaxy Tab 4 just fine).

Does anyone know a good and budget friendly alternative I can try?

[Bastard Mami]

this is the one I got.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00GN648WG/?&tag=businessnewsdaily-20

there are similar ones and even a nonhp model, just make sure it has the intelligetn stylus (assuming this was your question ) as navetsea pointed out, the cintiq are pretty expensive. there is also a cintiq esque chinnese drawing tablet that is much cheaper than the cintiq; I might as well sahre the links I got when I was researching this subject.

http://www.monoprice.com/Product?p_id=10707
   www.howtogeek.com/177376/not-all-tablet-styluses-are-equal-capacitive-wacom-and-bluetooth-explained/
   http://www.tabletpcreview.com/howto/how-to-use-a-stylus-with-your-tablet/
   http://www.slide-app.com/
   http://www.instructables.com/id/DIY-Capacitive-Stylus/

   http://www.ebay.com/itm/HP-Slate-7-Extreme-4450-16GB-Tablet-7-NVIDIA-Tegra-4-1-8GHz-Slate-Silve-/301490416108?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item46323aa9ec

[hatter]

Thanks for sharing those links, I'll look into those when I get home

[JustNoPoint]

I'm uploading 5 PSD files in rar form. Unpacked the largest will be near 400MB so I hope your system can handle it.

For the record I use 2 programs to make my pages. Manga Studio for the pencils/inks. Then PS for the coloring. I have a Cintiq.

I'll link you to them when I wake up. Letting them upload while I go to bed.

[JustNoPoint]

http://network.mugenguild.com/justnopoint/stuff/05.rar
http://network.mugenguild.com/justnopoint/stuff/21.rar
http://network.mugenguild.com/justnopoint/stuff/32.rar
http://network.mugenguild.com/justnopoint/stuff/42.rar
http://network.mugenguild.com/justnopoint/stuff/GN%20cover0032.rar
Let me know once you get these so I may remove them from the server since they are hefty in size.

[hatter]

@[user id=12]Just No Point[/user]: Tagging you to notify you that I finished downloading the files, it went faster than I expected it to. Thanks to all of you for answering my call, I'll be sure to look into these.

[JustNoPoint]

I really should label the layers better I finally stopped labeling them as it just added too much time while working.
If you have questions feel free to ask!