Casual meaning quick, experimental, and mostly lazy.
Over the weekend I felt like trying to color some roughs that I had sketched up a long time ago. But these are items that did not have proper scans or proper line art or inking, etc, so I was basically just thinking up ways to experiment.
I know there’s a lot of room for improvement everywhere, but I’m just testing stuff for fun. These where sketches I did at work when I was supposed to be doing other things.
^an improvement already! just make sure that with bold, black lines, in most cases you have to complement them with strong colors and values so one doesn’t overpower the other.
But after I finished these I went looking on youtube and saw people using lots of different methods, so next time I’m going to try doing things really differently.
So woof, if you notice this thread again, I appreciate your advice. I had a question regarding this, though.
Assuming I start with thick, bold, black lines, is there a nice method to finely/smoothly reduce the thickness of the lines very easily?
I was experimenting with feathering and anti-aliasing but those methods didn’t work too well. I also tried an edge enhancement filter which worked really well for some things, but not others (and also caused other issues). I can’t think of any other way other than like having to manually re-draw the lines or smooth them out with brush/smudge strokes, which in my case isn’t really an option because I don’t have a tablet and doing that with a mouse is like fux no thx.
I do understand what you mean regarding the strong color values to counter balance the dark lines, but sometimes I want the colors to be dark and drab anyway, so n this case I need to figure out what to do with the lines…
Well, anyway here’s what I’m currently working on.
I was planning on making his pants camo, and giving his dogtags a chain, and adding a flag tattoo to his right arm. But yeah I’m getting lazy and impatient again.
I wanted to experiment with a different coloring method.
I was too lazy to fix the rough sketch at all, so I didn’t (but yeah I know it’s fucked up). I just wanted to get a quick rough down so I could experiment with a different coloring method.
as far as the colors go, there isn’t enough contrast between the light and dark colors. i haven’t worked with watercolor in a few years but one thing i learned was not to work on a certain area too much or try to fix anything. also try painting it in a cel-shaded style. if you want a softer look then use a wet brush to go along between the light and dark areas so they slightly blend into one another. hope that helps
EDIT
if this is all done in photoshop then disregard what i said
These are just the flats and line art, and beyond that just a little color on the leaves of the palms. The colors need to be reworked definitely, like especially the hammock. I want to put a wrap-around rope for the hammock around the tree. Also the background is inconsequential since it will just be deleted for whatever background it’s overlayed with.
best advice SFMC gave me was to think of painting as “creating shapes”. It’s pretty interesting if you look at it that way – breaking the volume down using shapes that help define the subject.
Thanks, I enjoy hearing tidbits like that a lot. I especially appreciate it because I’m not in school nor have I been to art school. I was recently told of a way to approach colors so I’m giving that a try now.
As the day draws closer to an end on the East Coast I decided to “finish” that previous WIP. Meaning, I could go on and on forever but I really just want it to be done, so I’m calling it done and tagging it for 4th of July. Updated previous post.
Haha, funny you say this, last night I was thinking about precisely that. My anatomy will forever suffer because I have tunnel vision, and some weird left/right brain thing. But, I was telling myself that I should really paint over my sketches or at least ink proper line art (and then still paint over the lines because I’m terrible anyway).
But I LIKE my chicken scratch!
[Edit]: Also FYI: I strongly encourage any sort of tidbits like what has been posted in this thread so far by everyone (thanks woof/pootnannies/rook/cptmunta). I really take it to heart and I believe it effects me a lot. I may joke about it, but believe me the next time I try to do anything I will really keep in mind any advice thrown my way.
It’s mostly in the hair that is awkward to me though, which might not necessarily be the case (who knows what else my brain isn’t able to “see”).
But yeah this is what I’m up to with that little ditty now
:d:
[edit] (next post) [/edit]
Nose needs to be rotated to compensate for the skew. Area around eyes need shading. Shirt needs color. Ears need color. Hair needs adjusting on the right (his left). etc etc.
) and mind your scratchy look on your line art.
