[Betelgeuze]

I just bough a wacom tablet (Intuos3 A5) a couple of days ago and these are my first tries at painting something with it in Photoshop:









Ive been working with photoshop for years but I have almost no experience with digital painting, if you have some tips and tricks for me please post them. Constructive critisism is always welcome! :)

Thanks in advance!

[Mull]

very nice first steps Kevin, I really like the boldness of the mountain one.

Its always hard to find the right words when commenting on members work who have just started painting digitally as you want them to progress without knocking them down so they stop all together.
My comments on your images are things which you will naturally improve upon with time and experience and aren't a reflection of how good these are for your first pieces in digital art.

World of Hades & Arizona Vista: Both images have great colour range and shows you have a good solid understanding of colour, the areas which could be improved upon is the perspective and depth. I've added a quick paintover to illustrate these points.
If you have any questions or would like me to elaborate on any points please ask.

[Betelgeuze]

Thanks a lot Mull, I really appreciate that you took the time to make those paintovers. I agree that I need to work on the perspective and depth in my paintings, your paintovers are giving me some great ideas for my future work. Sometimes I'm afraid to try new things and I limit myself because I think I don't have the skills to paint some of the ideas I have.

Looking at my paintings and your version of it, I should try to add more layers; I notice I've limited myself to 3 layers so far (front, mid and background). I also love how you did the smoke in my lava painting and how you keep everything rough.
I always start with the idea of keeping it all rough (like my mountain painting) but somehow I always end up trying to make everything look 'smooth' and clean. I don't know why I do that xD

Anyway, these are my first 3 paintings and I've already learned a lot in a couple of days. I know they are far from perfect so I don’t mind getting critique and getting 'knocked down', as a student I'm used to those things and I try to learn from every mistake. I rather have people say it looks bad instead of telling me it look good when they don't mean it, that doesn’t help at all.


A couple of questions I have:
-How long did you spend on those paintovers? :)
-If you make a painting, do you work in different layers, or do you paint everything in the same layer?
-Do you use the basic Photoshop brushes?

Also, related to my paintings and your paintovers; if I add mountains in the background, do I have to keep them sharp or should I blur them a bit? Should I add volume to them with light and shadow or only a 'flat' silhouette?

[Thujon]

Hello

First, these are some really good digital paintings, especially if they are your first... mine looked far more terrible!!!

As for depth:

Always keep in mind that warm colors and sharp shapes are in the front and colder, paler more blurred object are in the back of the painting.... look at some landscape photos, you will see it is like I wrote before....

Its kind of hard to also paint that way... it need lots of practice that I unfortunately dont have... but the knowledge that it works like that is a good start...

Hope that helps a bit!

Regards, I d love what you think about my sketchbook...

[Mull]

Originally Posted by Betelgeuze

A couple of questions I have:
-How long did you spend on those paintovers? :)
-If you make a painting, do you work in different layers, or do you paint everything in the same layer?
-Do you use the basic Photoshop brushes?

Also, related to my paintings and your paintovers; if I add mountains in the background, do I have to keep them sharp or should I blur them a bit? Should I add volume to them with light and shadow or only a 'flat' silhouette?

Your welcome mate, at CGPAD we try and encourage and help anyone who is genuinely wanting to improve and learn.

I'll answer your questions now:

• I only spent around 20 to 30 mins for each image.
  
  I tend to work in layers but keep them to a minimum, often my direction changes and having layers allows me to change quickly rather than re-paint the entire image. For speed paints I tend to use 3-4 layers, one for the background, one for the middle ground, one for atmospheric elements if any and a final one for foreground and detail work.
  
  I do use the default brushes, mainly the hard round/soft round but also a handful of custom made brushes. Customs are great for speeding up your painting process, laying in large areas with texture or for implying details. Most of my customs are just tweaked default PS brushes, too many brushes become over bearing and confusing. Even using a custom brush adding your own brush strokes over the top help take them into a believable state, there's nothing worst than seeing someone use for example a tree brush just stamped into a painting.

For items in the distant whether mountains, buildings etc etc they're always going to be affected by atmospheric elements, the particles [light, dust, moisture] in the air changes the hue and sharpness of distant objects so they appear a lot less crisp/bright/detailed.
As your eye moves closer the less obstruction is caused creating cleaner/crisper objects.
I tend to 'imply' details and leave the viewers eyes to fill in all the missing information, very much like that passage of text which has letters missing but we are still able to read it [if you know what I'm talking about ??]

I hope this answers everything mate, anything which is confusing or your not sure on just ask

[Betelgeuze]

First, these are some really good digital paintings, especially if they are your first... mine looked far more terrible!!!

Thanks!
I do have a little experience with vector art (Illustrator) so that might have helped, but never environments so I don't know.

Some of my vector work:

Hope that helps a bit!

Regards, I d love what you think about my sketchbook...

Yeah, thanks for the info, and I will check your sketchbook ;)

I hope this answers everything mate, anything which is confusing or your not sure on just ask

It's all clear, thanks! :)

Oh and yes I know what you mean with the text example, I studied Graphic and Multimedia Design for 4 years and I got a lot of lessons in typography and visual interpretations and other things like that :)

[Betelgeuze]

Im trying to make an asteroid now, maybe adding a base on it later.

WIP:



edit:
Ok I'm finished with it:

[Betelgeuze]

I made this for a school project where we are designing some type of virtual tron-like worlds. The main character is some a robot that manipulates it's environment by shooting sound waves. I know it sounds strange but there’s a whole story behind.

[Betelgeuze]

A low-poly 3D head I'm trying to make in Maya.


This was my first attempt, from a couple of months ago:




Just like digital painting I'm pretty new to 3D work aswel, but I'm learning fast.

[Betelgeuze]

A sci-fi texture I made today:



Random sci-fi texture ready to be used in a game, its hi-res and tileable.

Diffuse map and bump map made in Photoshop, rendered in Maya.


feedback is always welcome!

[Betelgeuze]

Speedpainting for a schoolproject. Alien chickens land in an egg shaped UFO ^^

[Betelgeuze]

so far Ive been toying with landscapes and environments, now I wanted to try something new; characters.

One of my first tries at making a character:


speendpainting in photoshop

[Betelgeuze]

trying some human faces:



Inspired by a digital painting by Daarken (+-20min)




Made this during my drawing courses at school

[Betelgeuze]

Another head. speedpainting in photoshop +- 30min

[Betelgeuze]

feedback is always welcome!