the dragon's artbook

[aby arty]

hi friends

me ,the dragon, welcomes u to my first ever thread . :smug:

here are 2 pics ;

frst one is my speed painting challenge 92 entry .

the other is for the Wacom/deviant art ,BRING UR VISION TO LIFE CONTEST: GOOD VS EVIL.


now i wanna improve these so gve me ya suggestions please.

COMING UP NEXT:SKETCH BOOK SCANS


c&c are really welcome . if u dnt ill take them on gun point :evil:

c ya.

[M_Cederstrom]

aby- man you have a great sense of humor, and creativity. one thing i recommend is to use ref, right now they are looking a little flat. i do like the color choices. looking forward for the sketch

[Avatar-3DT]

Okay, I'm confused - is that man in the hat Freespace or BigToe?

[aby arty]

AV: that is big toe sir. freespace sir is inside the mic. i have made the speech bubles different dnt u notice?

updates cmng sunday night or by monday.

as for the dragon pick iam thnking of perspective wide angle . and the dungeon walls wud be grey stone , any ideas on how to place a full body dragon on two legs?

[Freespace-3DT]

Hehehe, I sent BiG ToE into the lair, while I'm safe at headquarters. ;P

[aby arty]

@freespace sir, that can also mean u dnt have the stamina for the athletics. :p
hmm that gves me idea to build big toe sir on the lines of the crocodile hunters haha.

[M_Cederstrom]

that or freespace is already in the belly of the dragon. :D

[aby arty]

that is a statue,the dragon is supposed to wake up only if big toe sir mess up the runes combiz, if they are right he can take the bottle unharmed.

[Lynette-3dt]

I would laugh at you guys in these, but I'm scared I might end up in the next one, hehe ;P Just kidding, pretty funny concepts, looking forward to the refined versions. All the best!

[aby arty]

yay lyn mams here, finally

yup custom brushes are up, just trying to make the dragon statue erect on 2 legs and holding the vial in his hands, but in perspectve its quiet hard.

any hlp would be greatly apreciated.

[aby arty]

hi ppl

here are the sketchbook scans

[aby arty]

more....

[aby arty]

all of these are from 1-3 yrs back .
the quality has suffered in scan and ps manipulation a lot (the scans initialy came out 500-900kb each)

i really need ur feedback on this.

soon ill add from the latest sketchbook.

see ya
:)

[M_Cederstrom]

the sketch's look good, i see you like cartoon character, on think you can try is on your next post size down the image's just a little, also try to make your line a little cleaner, not so sketchy. nice work Aby :D

[aby arty]

thanx MC

i know, i have been trying to reduce the lines but it is coming slowly.working on the dragon pic, will post updates soon.

[DaddyDoom]

Nice improvement dude. Great to see ya attacking from all flanks :D
Since you're working on cartoon style characters, you could try some line raster so you can go all vector mode. Cartoon stuff works better that way, and you have more control.
Keep up bro!
DD

[aby arty]

thanks for ur comments dd sir.

Great to see ya attacking from all flanks
i have to learn fighting to grab a golden grenade u know :D

you could try some line raster so you can go all vector mode
umm that went above my head for sure, what u mean . enlighten me.

[marazo]

About your custom brush hardness slider thingy you've been asking...

To my knowledge, you can't change the hardness of a sampled brush. If you think about it a while, it's very logical.

If you create a brush from an image, how does the program know what to do with the hardness? Does it soften all the edges, only the "outer" edges, how much exactly softer would one tick be, and so on...

So, if you need softer brush, you just create a new one, with proper adjustments done to the image you create the brush from. For example apply gaussian blur or what ever to the template image.

[aby arty]

@marazo aah thought so , but i conformed coz i thot i did it wrong.
thanks ill try the filters and adjust ments more.

[DaddyDoom]

umm that went above my head for sure, what u mean . enlighten me.

If you're doing old school 2D, using paper and pencil, after scanning it, use a raster tool (Adobe Illustrator, Corel Draw or Freehand have this tool) and turn the sketches from pixels to vectors.
Simple :D

[Creator]

hi,
youre sketches are good but i think it's time to develope.
What i mean is that you should gather some references on how proportions looking good and especially posing.
When i look at youre drawings i get a bit the impression that you don't really offered much time on the most ones.
But anyway there is definitely potential.

[aby arty]

@dd sir : aah thats much simpler , ok will do that nxt time.



gee thanks creator sir,
i agree i back out wthout detailing every piece.but thats gonna stop when i can make clear lines rather than the haystack i make right now :D

il get to wrk right away sir.

[M_Cederstrom]

any one can get better, just don't stop learning or tring. :D

[aby arty]

point noted my lord :D

[DaddyDoom]

Next time you call "sir" or "lord" to someone, I will personally go to whatever you are and do you a extreme wedgie.
Now go make some dragons.

[Creator]

/signed

[M_Cederstrom]

Next time you call "sir" or "lord" to someone, I will personally go to whatever you are and do you a extreme wedgie.
Now go make some dragons.

Wow!!!

[aby arty]

i didnt know what wedgie was, so i googled when i read D's post. this is what i can conclude.
WEDGIE: an act of meddling wth ones or others undergarments while they are on them :p

fine , ill save the addressal for mods only, actually the courtsy has become a habit , ill try to get rid of it.

[DaddyDoom]

:D
Don't take me wrong dude. But after several posts reading "sir" and "lord" it can get kinda irritating.
What if I started ending all my sentences with "garlic"?
- Thats a great model you got there garlic! Can we see some wires garlic? Did you Zbrush or just Max garlic?

Dang... I should wedgie myself now...

[Avatar-3DT]

I prefere Master of te Universe myself, but people can call me God also. And if I feel friendly, I can be adressed by "Your Majestic Presence". :D

[M_Cederstrom]

Well since we are on the subject of "aka" i would like to be called Master of Disaster. :D

[aby arty]

@DD : got ur point , please dnt call me garlic. and yes i cant find rastor tool in corel draw 12 , wherecan it be.

@AV:how about "brush lord of heaven" or "archsketcha" :D. to equal he-man's title ,frst tell me how many abs he got :p

@MC : so u want to be called a M.O.D . MC-3dt dsnt sound good :p



and about the book collection ,could u tell me some specific titles for starting , instead of i spend a mini fortune on hoard of ref books.

[M_Cederstrom]

That does have a good sound to it.:o :D

[aby arty]

:D lol

big toe sir is under construction , will post soon . cant gather up strength to pick up tablet as iam bit under the weather, i hate summer colds man.:grr:


i have been asking about legs (when erect on 2)please evem the vaguest guideline will.
yo mc get to work :p

[M_Cederstrom]

i found some time to do another speed painting I'll post it. :D o and those summer colds suck, i prefer the winter colds. :haha:

[aby arty]

update!! :dance: :dance:


here are some more old sketches , again they have lost the glamour in scanning.

they are batty , wolvy, silvy and scotty .

sketched wth image in front (on the monitor) :D


C&C welcome

[aby arty]

last one

[M_Cederstrom]

nice update on the study's. :D

[Avatar-3DT]

They all show promise. There are a few askew features and some out of perspective stuff but with practice you'll come to overcome them. Maybe try working a cleaner line. When working comics characters, don't fill the black, maybe place a small X where black would be and then scan the lineart and ink it in photoshop, filling the black areas there.

[aby arty]

i know. thnx for the tip. will try it.
the shading is wth felt tip, it was sexy on paper,but it looking like crayon now , hmf.

may be ill take another shot at them soon wth difff tools.
and AV iam waiting for the request i made to u, please one goku illutration.

[aby arty]

here is my Speed painting challenge 95 entry.

and i need hlp on how to draw anime girls , please hlp me guyz.

[DaddyDoom]

Nice colors aby!
Good luck on the anime girls quest. Not an easy task :)

Keep up!
DD

[aby arty]

hi guys ,
sry for ben gone so long , was busy getting my life moving , and my p c broke down and took almost whole of august .

its still recvring , cant go into safe mode , thesystem resatrts , if u know how it is fixed tell me.


well , here challenge 100 SPC entry , and the beginning of my anime girl practice.

[Avatar-3DT]

Check the processor fan. If its cluttered with dust and doesn't spin right, the processor gets hot and restart to keep itself from burning up. The second possible problem might be the power source. If its got a short circuit in it might provoke the restarts.

[aby arty]

tnx av but i just got everything cleaned , the safe mode crash is due to a virus but where do i look ?

i know boot sector viruses are no more but still what antivirus can find those?


and guys please comment , ill be unloading a lot in a cupl of days, keep the c&c cmng.

[Avatar-3DT]

If your hard disk is partitioned and you've formated just the c partition then the virus can be in any other system volume information partition. Fix for that its to format all your partitions. But again, this might have nothing to do with viruses. Check your processor's fan. If you have a home made system you can open it and check for each hardware piece to be put correctly in its slot. If you get a blue screen it might be the memory overheating. If it blocks and restarts in games it can be the video card. Unfortunately if you have no hardware experience you might have to go to a specialist with your PC.

[aby arty]

yes i sent the system to my assembler only, the system has been thoroughly cleaned and all faulty hardware has been fixed or replaced.

yes ur right i only told him to frmat c drive. and the virus was in sys volume wch i fixed by switching off sys restr and restrt and thn switch on.

the antivirus dsnt show it now.

when i try to boot in safe mode , i see safe mode in four corners but thn next it restarts again.

i belive my assembler put more viruses to sell me a paid antivirus , ill rather survey and buy myself than trust these guys anymore.

thnx for ur quick responses

[miycko]

cool sketches &colour too :) hope you can fix your pc soon

[aby arty]

thank u miycko

and AV reply to my previous post please

[Avatar-3DT]

I don't think they messed with your system. To be sure I don't know for sure how that works since I build and install my own systems. Try this: press "del" at the begining of the restart to enter the BIOS setup and then press "load optimized defaults". See if that works. The truth is whenever I had those issues I simply checked the hardware to be firmly pushed into the slots, I checked the power source and the fans to work correctly and only after that I thought about viruses.

[aby arty]

heres my entry for april digital painting challenge.

the title was "The Lost Jungle-Tomb Raider"





C&C very welcome.

[aby arty]

hi guys i was working on the wake up the dragon revamp , could some one who know Big-toe sir personally share some pointers about him , that would really help in character design.

if any one knows how he looks please share.


inputs, comments and crits, suggestions are always welcome,
thanks for your help in advance
yours humbly
aby arty

[Avatar-3DT]

Well, aby arty, where should I start? My first impulse was to make an overpaint. Things are way better explained visually. I decided 'tho to start with some advices and see how things go later on.
First of all, as usual, I advise: when in doubt, use references. There is no shame to use pictures to understand form you otherwise couldn't. Find pictures that contains the pose or the illumination you think you need for your image.
But before that, what I would advise is practice. A lot of practice with simple images and character. Start with frontal and side views, simple postures, simple shapes. Go from there. When you think you have a steady grip on shape, try some shading and illumination studies.
For now I advise sketching. Lots of sketching. Sketch everything you can see; carry a sketching book with you everywhere and sketch whenever you can get a few free minutes. Sketch trees, pebble stones, dogs, leafs, anything you can land your eyes on.
Practice is the best teacher and life - the best subject.

[Vatsel]

Id say start with still lifes, construct figures and put them in perspective, pay attention to anatomy, get some of Loomis's books and just draw and paint as much as you can.

Buckle up!

[washka]

and just draw and paint as much as you can.
+1

[aby arty]

thank you AV , vatsel and washka .

i try all the time but results come out like done by a 4 yr old so i loose heart.

vatsel how you do what you do?

[hulahuga]

heres my entry for april digital painting challenge.

the title was "The Lost Jungle-Tomb Raider"





C&C very welcome.


Ey man, cool thread you have here :). I like the comic stuff!

Overall I would say that you would need some more practise in building up your linework, that's at least what I think of as important. Do some pencil drawings and try to build the forms and make them look good, all the while with the perspective and curves in mind :).

When you do your colored images I know there are like two major principles...

The first one is drawing the color right away not doing the blacks and whites at all, unless doing it as a different lights and such.

The second is built around doing the lightning (black and white) first, then with overlay and other layers as well to get the colors onto the set lightning. Light changes are made in the base layers set on "normal" or "multiply". Take care to have the lightning only in the base with a color changing only in its lightness (preferably B&W). Further additions to the image can be made as you like, but the foundation is what I've said.


There are a lot of variations out there, I know Avatar told us about his method in his art thread here pretty recently, but these are the ones I know as the pillars...


Cheerios,
Doc

[aby arty]

thank you hula . ill keep the points in mind.

heres my attempt at coloing AV's linework.

i just did one character for now.

[hulahuga]

Pretty good coloring actually :).

Still a bit grainy, but good progress :)

[Avatar-3DT]

Aby, try using a hard brush. If you don't have a tablet, use the laso and select the areas you want to color then fill the with ctrl+backspace. And use a bit more saturated colors, maybe toward the middle of the upper part of the spectrum.

[aby arty]

tnx hula , the grain is coz i increased the size.

AV , the shading isstill thre so selection is quite haphazard, initially i chose lasso only but
it didnt work coz the image pixelated a lot.

ill try poly lasso tommorrow.

do you know a way i can keep the lines and erase the shading?

i just cant get how brian haberlin , colors everything with lasso.

[hulahuga]

Duplicate the layer and hide one of them then erase the shading :). Also try to use soft brushes for the erasing so you don't get visible edges...

[Avatar-3DT]

Well, the only way to have a clean line art piece is to just set a new, normal layer over the current image and start inking a clean line with a hard brush, much like in comic line art. You get to choose what details you line art in and what to left out. Its a lot of work and you need a steady hand but I guess thats the trade off.

[aby arty]

heres a new character, i named it silbus.

ill try and post more please leave feed back.

[R.Kamal]

practice, practice...more practice!
regarding your character silbus, how about making some expressions for him

[aby arty]

thanks r.kamal

i am working on silbus's gestures,meanwhile heres another speedy ps doodle.

please leave ur comments and ideas and critz.

[aby arty]

erm no comments? please give feed back.

[hulahuga]

Keep on showing stuff and your progress and it will come sooner or later ;). Plus it isn't all about that..

Brilliance of the eyes look pretty good though. Although I think you will need to keep on working on the shading. Why don't you try out painting it in b&w then using overlay for the color... Also remember to use a middle neutral gray to get all the colors right as well as the shadows and highlights...
This way you can focus more on the volumes, contrasts and shading to really be able to diversify yourself :)

[Avatar-3DT]

You should try and curve more the lines of the abdomen, it will give it more volume. also, why so little shading? You should try and spend more time establishing your light source and shading with more contrast.

[aby arty]

thanks hula and AV ill follow those guidelines from now on.


heres a custom brush fun time image, pretty similar to sibus because of the reverse u body shape.


hope you like it.

[washka]

Too much details kill the contrast, care with effect dosing/filters.
Your art is funny, keep it up.

[Kitana]

The cartoon characters must be clean and simple looking. You have too much effects here that are not in a plus of the character - they are useless and make it look chaotic some kind. The mouth is not smooth shape as the body ( not good) . I want to see other version.

[aby arty]

:D

heres the last minute mouse entry for the wacom contest that just ended.

i did plugged in my tablet but these new drivers have some trouble recog the area , the tab area ends at the mid point of the screen.strange.


so since the tablet didnt respond i quickly flashed it with mouse , lol i was googling currrent tokyo time, i hope i wasnt 1 min later than 11 59 pm.

well please suggest what else design changes you would like to see and any other features this cartoon should have.

and yeah the topic was anime/ manga monster.

[aby arty]

hello everyone

this a new study i am wrking on : i am trying to get my lighting and composition right.

http://img571.imageshack.us/img571/8057/cofeemug3.jpg (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/571/cofeemug3.jpg/)

ill remove the link later and use manage attachments then as this pic is over 600k right now.

please drop in ur invaluable comments and crits.


thnks in adv
aby

[aby arty]

hmm can someone help me with this image please i really need the crits.



thanks
aby

[Alisor]

Hi , I think the cup looks quite good, but the table looks too blurry. maybe if you add some reflections of the blue cup on the table and wall would help. also, you need i think more objects to develop the composition.

[aby arty]

thanks for your inputs alisor

yes i am aware of the reflections , the wall and table will show in the cup too.
and what to add in the scene iam totally baffled. cant decide wether it should be a painting or window or something else coz it shouldnt shift the focus from the mug but just complement it.

[aby arty]

i am re uploading the image with manage attachment now.

will be posting some updates on it today. please continue giving your feedback it helps immensely.

[washka]

Like the cup part, nice shading and lighting.

[Avatar-3DT]

The cup looks nice and crisp but the table around and behind it should look sharper too. Also (and thats only what I'd do) you could darken the further corner of the image (right hand) so that it seems the cup is lighten by a spot. It will focus the viewer's eye more on it.

[aby arty]

thank you for the response AV sir and washka

i have some updates , few versions of the image please tel me which one should i go further with.

and AV sir if its not a spot then how should i treat it? and if its spot then also how much burn circle would the light form around the mug ?

and the mug is actually a 3dmax render as i wanted to try working with established light frst to gain confidence for more studies to follow up.

please keep the comments coming iam keen on making this a finished piece .

thanks
aby

[Avatar-3DT]

I would say keep the clear and sharp image of the mug in cmug5 and the background in the coffee mug 7. Also, don't use the burn brush, use a brush with a multiply or an overlay settings. The dimension of the spot its up to you, as well as if you want to use that idea or not. The trick with the spot is that, since your image is rather large and the subject is not centered while the lighting is pretty much scattered, the eye tends to sleep away and you loose focus on the object. With the spot, darkening the edges and bringing the cup into focus, you keep the eye of the viewer on the subject.

[aby arty]

thanks for the reply AV sir heres another update wth spotlight.

tell me what can be added or taken out of it.

does the wall need any other object to balance? or may be smthng on the table?

[aby arty]

hi all

wrking on some props and other concepts.

iam having a hard time maintaining a pallette on this one please help me adhere to color theory right now its more on hunches.

thnks
aby

[julianchou11]

I looks great. To me something looks a little wierd with the arm, not sure what it is. I think that the chest is a little wider then it is supposed to be anatomicly-wise.

[aby arty]

thanks julian

can someone leave some feed back on what color scheme would look great on the sword i know iam doing something wrong there but not really clear what to change ,its still a wip so please help me change the colors.

thanks in advance.
aby

[Avatar-3DT]

A very, very quick example on how you could improve the anatomy of your weapon. I suggest also trying to look out some sword reference and information if you feel like improving it further.
As for the colors, if you have red and blue together, you need some purple translation between the two. Don't use yellow, use something in between the two you already have on your image otherwise they'll just clash.

[paulius-st]

you are for a good start with this sword and i like avatar's version . :) . atatched just a little thought from me :) .

[terry1337]

here are some helpfull painting tips en triques http://itchstudios.com/psg/art_tut.htm

[aby arty]

thanks AV sir, paulius and terry

well about the yellow i was trying to achieve golden but it came out to be google's color scheme.
i quiet liked the red yellow dial but i really loved the changes you guys made in your paint overs and its immensely helpful. thanks for your efforts.

now what i was trying to do was get a better understanding of color palletes such as triad , tetrad ,complementary and analogic.

i was really happy wth the result on the side ribbing attached to the dial , though the hilt became a mess.

now i am making the changes on it, though one question iam still curious about , what colors should have been used if the basis for the pallette was the red and yellow dial?

hoping prompt responses
cheers

p.s. and AV sir i still wait ur inputs on post 83 , ty :)

[Avatar-3DT]

I hope this quick paint over and adjustments helps better than any of my explanations.

[paulius-st]

what colors should have been used if the basis for the pallette was the red and yellow dial?


this should help you with colours :) .

http://colorschemedesigner.com/

chears and good luck :)

[aby arty]

@AV sir thanks for taking out time to do a paint over , it clears up a lot of things now.

@paulius-st i use that too thanks to this tool i did not hurry to make a gaudy image wch goes against the color theory. the problem is that i cant find any other tool that would let me use Pantone colors. here pantone has asked to remove there pallettes.

so if use this wth my pantone colors in PS the results are way off. and since adhering to color schemes is what i just started wth i am having trouble wth unavailability or incompatibility of pantone wth these tools.

is there any other tool or any other color palette in photoshop i can use keeping in mind the current standards for freelance artists and illustrators worldwide. i mean if they dont use pantone what will they use and is there a tool like colorschemedesigner for those palletes as well.


thanks again
cheers

[aby arty]

hello people

here are some outings with a tool called harmony its just an html 5 online drawing tool which i got to know about from markus sir. hope you like them.