Portrait Tutorial

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Kestenvarn
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Re: Portrait Tutorial

Post by Kestenvarn »

kitty wrote:@ spaceinvader: the ink tool... paths are great if you don't know how big you'll need your picture for you can scale it as you like. but you'll never get as much "life" and variation as if you do it by "hand" with the brush, the ink tool lines are just too perfect and homogeneous for a painted style imho.
You can weight lines created from paths in Photoshop by clicking the simulate pressure checkbox, which looks fine once you build some familiarity with the tool.
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wayfarer
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Re: Portrait Tutorial

Post by wayfarer »

What Kestenvarn said, I use it quite successful.
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kitty
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Re: Portrait Tutorial

Post by kitty »

i'm sorry but i don't agree at all - i'm aware that the ink tool can simulate pen pressure (and use that function for other ourposes). but that's the point: it simulates it only and doesn't react to real pressure. you always get narrow ends and a bigger center of the line - it's all uniform. it will always miss imperfection, little (happy) accidents which are human, show that the thing is drawn by a human and bring it to life. for me the look is just too slick...

(if it's fundamentally different with gimp i take it all back)



@ shadow: i know your work and like it a lot - but as far as i can see you don't use them as outlines but to create a scribbly look by using lots of them... immitating pencil seems to be quite succesfull that way! but outlines are soemthing different imho
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Sgt. Groovy
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Re: Portrait Tutorial

Post by Sgt. Groovy »

what advantage would paths have at all?
Paths are quite quick and easy to make after some practice, but the biggest advantage is that you don't need a tablet for that, considering outsourcing the flat painting phase.
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Kestenvarn
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Never bothered to use it much since I have a tablet, though.

Post by Kestenvarn »

kitty wrote:you always get narrow ends and a bigger center of the line - it's all uniform.
Well, like I said... it takes familiarity with the tool. Many paths, overlapping, giving paths a base line thickness before using simulate pressure, etc.
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Re: Portrait Tutorial

Post by Shadow »

kitty wrote:i'm sorry but i don't agree at all - i'm aware that the ink tool can simulate pen pressure (and use that function for other ourposes). but that's the point: it simulates it only and doesn't react to real pressure.
...
If you have a pressure sensitive tablet, than it might be true but talking about mouses. :augh:

kitty wrote: @ shadow: i know your work and like it a lot - but as far as i can see you don't use them as outlines but to create a scribbly look by using lots of them... immitating pencil seems to be quite succesfull that way! but outlines are soemthing different imho
From you. I fell honoured. :oops:
The flip side is that I don't get clean separated color areas most of the time. Gets quite annoying when I try to color it. I still think you can use the path tools (even for longer lines) to emulate the pencil drawn feel. Photoshop gives you some nice tools at hand as the gimp should do and as Kestenvarn said some work.
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Jetrel
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Re: Portrait Tutorial

Post by Jetrel »

For curiosity's sake, the way that I had previously colored linework was this:

1] Draw all the lineart in black, and have it in one layer by itself (either black on a transparent canvas, or black on white).

2] Take a layer filled with black, and apply the lineart to it as a mask.

3] Paint into this layer as appropriate.

(Variations include creating additional layers that use the layer made in step 2 as their mask, meaning that that layer never gets destructively edited.)


:eng: Kitty's method seems like it's simpler and quicker, and also can get nearly all the benefits of non-destructive-editing by simply making a backup copy of the layer before one begins coloring. Collaborative learning strikes again.
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Sgt. Groovy
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Re: Portrait Tutorial

Post by Sgt. Groovy »

Technically, what "fix transparency" does is using the alpha channel as a mask on the same layer, so "under the hood" it's very similar to Jetryl's method. The beauty of it is, though, that not only is it simpler to use, but because there is no need to storage the mask data separately, it conserves both memory and file size.
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kitty
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Re: Portrait Tutorial

Post by kitty »

i'm so used to having a tablet (i never use a mouse at all) that i tend to underestimate what a pain it is to work (and especially paint) with one - if you only have one paths are indeed easier and quicker to handle.


@ kestenvarn: as far a see can see by overlapping many paths you loose most of the advantages they offer, paths are made for exact working and if you make a bundle of chaotic overlapping ones you wont be able to scale them as you like with predictable outcome... i prefer not to use many paths as strokes but closed paths to produce forms, which is a bit more work but creates more reliable effects.
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Drake General
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Re: Portrait Tutorial

Post by Drake General »

As an artist myself, I liked the tutorial.
I have one question about the tablet though, is it easier to draw with a piece of paper over the tablet, to get some friction? I've always wondered that...
I'll have to try this out, we'll see how well I do! :)
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Sgt. Groovy
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Re: Portrait Tutorial

Post by Sgt. Groovy »

I have one question about the tablet though, is it easier to draw with a piece of paper over the tablet, to get some friction?
I'd say it's a matter of personal preference. I have found that the friction between my hand and the tablet is a bit too much, and a small piece of paper under the hand (that moves with the hand) helps some.
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kitty
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Re: Portrait Tutorial

Post by kitty »

argh - i start to feel like a wacom sales person... :lol2:
i don't use paper underneath my hand at all. if you are traditionally drawing you have your hand on the table and the tablett doesn't feel much different. i prefer mine rather small. it's only about 12,5*9 cm. i used a bigger one once but it's about the relation between the screen and the tablett, to me it feels really strange if you have to do larger moves than reproduced on the screen.
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Re: Portrait Tutorial

Post by Shadow »

Proud mouse user since 2000. :lol2:
... all romantics meet the same fate someday
Cynical and drunk and boring someone in some dark cafe ...
All good dreamers pass this way some day
Hidin’ behind bottles in dark cafes
jimmy
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Re: Portrait Tutorial

Post by jimmy »

hard enough to hold the pen, but jimmy has to watch out where he puts his feet on the wacom!
*sweat*
anyway a good tutorial, even if it's not suitable for imps :P
Jormungandr
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Re: Portrait Tutorial

Post by Jormungandr »

This looks quite useful - thanks kitty!
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