Helpful Tips/Tricks for Drawing Digitally or on paper.

[Snotnarok]

Art tips? Don't just use a photoshop filter and leave it, it will stand out as a glaring filter and will distract from your art.

 

[Eclipse Dragon]

Draw
Be critical of your work and be open to criticism <- this is a big one
You're still drawing? Geez take a break once in a while before you burn yourself out like I did

Those are good tips, but if you're burnt out... don't stay burnt out for to long... you'll get rusty.

0_0....perhaps the ease of photoshop can be a crutch sometime but damn....that sounds waaay too frustrating

It's mostly for practice purposes, pen shouldn't really be used on anything you actually care about... (unless you're inking, and even then, I make a copy of the work just in case).

Figure studies and gesture drawings are great to do in pen though, because you won't be devastated if you mess up.

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

on the side, can any one give advice on scanning black ink cartoons. I use sumi, india, quink and standard water based markers with quills and brushes and i cant get them to digitally look as sharp as a drew them. My scanner is relitively cheap so recomend me a better one or tips for photoshop or illustrator to sharpen things up post scanning (currently i just fiddle with the brightness and contrast. and the balance)

Tip the First: scan all images at the highest dpi/rez setting your scanner can. Downscale when you've finished working on it.

Tip the Second: Avoid Raster based tools where possible. Vector tools give smoother, sharper edges.

Tip the Third: expect to touch up work after downscale. Only use vector tools at this stage.

Tipper Gore: Horrible woman and stickernazi.

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

Art tips? Don't just use a photoshop filter and leave it, it will stand out as a glaring filter and will distract from your art.

I'll go one step more extreme - never use a filter you can't first reproduce by hand.

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

Figure studies and gesture drawings are great to do in pen though, because you won't be devastated if you mess up.

Bah, gestural works are best done with a mop and bucket of ink.

 

[Not Lord Atkin]

I only have 2 photoshop tips most people would have figured out by now but I find this really useful nevertheless:

A> use the eraser. this is one of the greatest advantages of digital drawing- you don't have to get everything right from the get go. eraser here does many things, it's not just there to correct small-scale mistakes but you can also use it as a tool to create angles and shapes which would be really hard to do using just the brushes.

Spoiler: Here's an example: I drew these using just a black round brush and eraser

Spoiler: and here's one I coloured in, courtesy of lock transparency function

B> Ctrl+U. The greatest keyboard shortcut in the history of photoshop. opens a window which lets you edit colours of a given layer however you see fit, including their saturation and lightness. If you're anything like me and use base colours on separate layers, then you will find it incredibly useful.

 

[Legion]

I have Photoshop Elements 10 (came with the tablet) as well as SAI, and I *literally* only use Photoshop for the special brushes if I need leaves or something and I'm feeling particularly lazy or if I want to look at what an image would look like with a specific color scheme with a gradient map or such. Other than those specific uses, I find SAI to be better than PS Elements for basically everything. Also, since SAI can use *.psd files, you can easily move images between it and PS and back if you need to switch for something specific, with the only potential problem being if you're using layer groups since Elements doesn't support them. SAI is also *far* easier to use than PS because it isn't cluttered up with all of the functions that are really only useful for photo editing and have little, if any, use in digital art.

so it has layers and oppacity and blur tools? I assume it doesnt have lens flare or other stuff? (I know gimmicks like that should be a crutch..but still)

You can download it for free. It has a 31 day trial before you need a licence, and the free version has exactly the same stuff as the paid for.

I downloaded it myself the other day as the user interface seems more friendly than GIMP.

 

[SweetShark]

Also I want to put this link for those they love the Paint Wheel from Corel Painter, A Paint Wheel for Photoshop C6

http://nerdchallenge.com/lenwhite/LenWhite.com/LenWhite.com/Entries/2012/9/16_PW_CS6.html

I didn't try it yet myself, put I think it will be SUPER useful!!!

Cheers! ^^

 

[Meatspinner]

Draw
Be critical of your work and be open to criticism <- this is a big one
You're still drawing? Geez take a break once in a while before you burn yourself out like I did

Those are good tips, but if you're burnt out... don't stray burnt out for to long... you'll get rusty.

After all the studies and practices, doing art just became a chore. Everything had to be done a certain way and that just wasn't fun anymore.
But I got back on the saddle a few years later when I "discovered" 2D animation. It's more fun since you are trying breathing life into some bouncy, stretchy, stylized toon characters

 

[Vault101]

Tip the Second: Avoid Raster based tools where possible. Vector tools give smoother, sharper edges.
.

photoshop is raster based isnt it? when I zoom in the edges are a little blurry/pixelated..though you'll always gt pizelated if your zoomed in enough...does that have anything to do with it?

[snip^_^

I have a question in regards to this...

how do you know what color to use? like say if I have somone with an orange top..."light/darker" shades of existing colurs at least have a logical progression

 

[Vault101]

After all the studies and practices, doing art just became a chore.

but its worth it...if you dont put in the tedious work you dont improve

[quote/]Everything had to be done a certain way and that just wasn't fun anymore.
[/quote] actually no, there are many ways to do things...it depends on what works for you

 

[Amaria]

I have a question in regards to this...

how do you know what color to use? like say if I have somone with an orange top..."light/darker" shades of existing colurs at least have a logical progression

Well, you look at whatever you're drawing and see what the colors there are. Deciding which exact colors to mix to make a look you want is largely trial and error (FUN trial and error, of course) for whatever effect you like. There's no real set 'you have to use this specific color if this color's your base color' thing, here. Try some things, play with some colors, and find something you like! Colors that are similar, but different (Blue and purple), or colors that are completely different (Red and green), or anything in between. Play with it a bit before you go on worrying about accuracy; a huge benefit of digital art is that your only limit for amount of 'paper and ink' is your hard drive space, which is easy enough to clear up. You don't have to spend fifty dollars testing out all of the soft pastel combinations ^_^

There's a way to get specific colors, of course, but for that I recommend buying/looking up a color wheel. There are far, far too many colors and their combinations to list here - and that tends to get very, very tedious if I start listing it all. Experimenting's more fun, and tends to stick a bit better, but if you'd like to be specific...

Spoiler: Color wheel and a quick and dirty lesson on color

Since we're talking about digital drawing, specifically, I'll stick with the RBG/CMY color primaries. This is for simplicity's sake; keep in mind that actual pigments (as in, physical paint) work differently than digital coloring. I can give another quick and dirty lesson on that one if someone wants it, but till then, I'll save some space.

We'll go off of the primaries here being Red, Blue, and Green. Combining each of those in equal parts equal the secondary colors; Cyan, Magenta, and Yellow (the labeling in the picture's off with Cyan, calling it Aqua, but the color is the same regardless). Combine a secondary with a primary, and you get a tertiary color; they look like stepping stones between the primary and the secondary color. Simple, right? Well, this part is.

You might be wondering, "Well, what happens if it gets mixed with a color that's not next to it?"

That's when things start getting complicated. Colors across from each other on the color wheel (For example, green and magenta) desaturates them. Essentially, you go from the saccharine bright colors here to something a bit more muted. In the case of light (which is what you're working with), this also lightens the color. The new color you create takes its coloration based on the levels of each color present; if all are in balance, it's either black, a shade of grey, or white, depending on what level they're at.

Getting them all in balance normally's a bit difficult. Near impossible on what you're painting itself, in fact. You can get the exact color balance correct by messing with the color picker. Stick with that, if you want a specific one. Remember that opacity controls how much of the color you're planning to use, not how much white or black is replaced. Meaning, it covers the color itself, along with the background. This seems obvious, but this effect is what makes it difficult to actually reach a grey, normally. Don't expect to get a grey by painting a 33% opacity of red, green, and blue on top of each other, since it'll be 33% of the first painted color, as well.

 

[aba1]

on the side, can any one give advice on scanning black ink cartoons. I use sumi, india, quink and standard water based markers with quills and brushes and i cant get them to digitally look as sharp as a drew them. My scanner is relitively cheap so recomend me a better one or tips for photoshop or illustrator to sharpen things up post scanning (currently i just fiddle with the brightness and contrast. and the balance)

Tip the First: scan all images at the highest dpi/rez setting your scanner can. Downscale when you've finished working on it.

Tip the Second: Avoid Raster based tools where possible. Vector tools give smoother, sharper edges.

Tip the Third: expect to touch up work after downscale. Only use vector tools at this stage.

Tipper Gore: Horrible woman and stickernazi.

Keep in mind Vector is not always better and you cannot get a lot of looks with vector based programs. When working with vectors everything has clean cut guide lines and when you want to get a more organic style you really can't achieve it with vector based tools as everything is to clean cut and organized. Unless of course you are drawing in flash but even then you are really limiting your drawing options.

Personally I tend to work like this

Vector = Design work
Raster = Fine Art

Though for web design you gotta go raster anyways so it really doesn't matter since vector can go raster but raster cannot go vector (minus simple images).

 

[aba1]

Tip the Second: Avoid Raster based tools where possible. Vector tools give smoother, sharper edges.
.

photoshop is raster based isnt it? when I zoom in the edges are a little blurry/pixelated..though you'll always gt pizelated if your zoomed in enough...does that have anything to do with it?

[snip^_^

I have a question in regards to this...

how do you know what color to use? like say if I have somone with an orange top..."light/darker" shades of existing colurs at least have a logical progression

If it is pixel based it is is raster. Most programs are raster based and Illustrator and Flash are the mostly commonly used vector based programs.

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

Keep in mind Vector is not always better and you cannot get a lot of looks with vector based programs. When working with vectors everything has clean cut guide lines and when you want to get a more organic style you really can't achieve it with vector based tools as everything is to clean cut and organized. Unless of course you are drawing in flash but even then you are really limiting your drawing options.

Yeah but I was specifically talking about keeping linework at it's crispest. With that as a primary goal you really need to work with vector tools.

As for organic styles... you can achieve some really good organic looks with vector tools but the time and effort required to do so makes them a stupid choice if you have any other option. Then again for any complex piece vector is always more time intensive (unless it's animation where the mutability of vectors saves fuckloads of time).

Though for web design you gotta go raster anyways so it really doesn't matter since vector can go raster but raster cannot go vector (minus simple images).

Yeah most professional graphic designers I've known over the years doing web work stay with vector until the last step of their work when they convert it over to raster for use.

Illustrator and Flash are the mostly commonly used vector based programs.

Pity Adobe went and killed Freehand when they bought Macromedia. I always prefered Freehand over Illustrator.

 

[loa]

Try this:
You can lean back since you don't need one hand at the keyboard anymore.

 

[SweetShark]

Try this:
You can lean back since you don't need one hand at the keyboard anymore.

No thank, but I prefer my old methods, but maybe I will give it a try.
I have already a big advance, cause I am left handed, so I can use mouse and stylous at the same time.
Also if your stylous is your GOD, then your keyboard is also a GOD!!!!
You NEED to use the keyboard if you want to be very quick with your actions.

My opinion of course

 

[Eclipse Dragon]

After all the studies and practices, doing art just became a chore. Everything had to be done a certain way and that just wasn't fun anymore.
But I got back on the saddle a few years later when I "discovered" 2D animation. It's more fun since you are trying breathing life into some bouncy, stretchy, stylized toon characters

Don't think about it as everything needing to be done a certain way. Art teachers will drill that into you, but strangely enough quite a few rules don't actually work. (The eyes are not the perfect center of the head, the corners of the mouth don't necessarily line up with the center of the eyes, the head width is not five eye lengths across). The best way to improve your drawing skills is just to look at what you're drawing and draw it, rules can go out the window, find what works best for you.

Animation is fun, especially when you run that first rough pencil test and everything comes to life. There's no other feeling like it. If you want to continue with 2D animation, I'd suggest (if you don't already do this) getting a bulk feed scanner and a light table. Also try learning Flash. People with 2D animation skills can create killer Flash animations, because it's the best way to use that program (in my opinion). Flash will wage war with you if you try to make a complex animation using only Flash.

Also maybe try 3D animation, those programs can be difficult to get a handle on, but it's animation without the repetitiveness of having to draw it over and over again.

 

[loa]

No thank, but I prefer my old methods, but maybe I will give it a try.
I have already a big advance, cause I am left handed, so I can use mouse and stylous at the same time.
Also if your stylous is your GOD, then your keyboard is also a GOD!!!!
You NEED to use the keyboard if you want to be very quick with your actions.

My opinion of course

What.
All the industry standard hotkeys that are shared between most drawing programs are designed for right handers.
What's the use of using both, tablet and mouse, at the same time?
The tablet overrides the cursor position.

 

[SweetShark]

No thank, but I prefer my old methods, but maybe I will give it a try.
I have already a big advance, cause I am left handed, so I can use mouse and stylous at the same time.
Also if your stylous is your GOD, then your keyboard is also a GOD!!!!
You NEED to use the keyboard if you want to be very quick with your actions.

My opinion of course

What.
All the industry standard hotkeys that are shared between most drawing programs are designed for right handers.
What's the use of using both, tablet and mouse, at the same time?
The tablet overrides the cursor position.

What can I say? This is how I roll ^^
Also some Keys is very suitable for a left-handed like me, for example change the size of the brush is easier for me.

Also I use the mouse for specific actions I want when I don't use the keyboard. You will surprised how fast it is.
And it seems I said it wrong for what I wanted to say. I don't use stylus and mouse literally at the same time, but the time to use from a stylus a mouse is fast. I don't need to put down the stylus to use the mouse.