Digital Painting Blog

12.05.06 Sketchup

ok not exactly digital painting here... but damn good fun to muck about with and learn. Google Sketchup (beta) has been released, and is perfect for people wanting to get into 3d on a really simple intuitive level. I've tried sooo many packages and 'this' is the ultimate for instant results. Go get it, watch the tutorial videos and spread the word, this thing is gunna be huge!

10.05.06 Slacking update

Been a bit slack on the ole painting front recently, mainly because the sun has come out now, and I'm out skating loads. Everything I do (for fun) in the summer months gets shelved when the suns out, the same is probably true for most people too. But as I know no-one reads this it makes it a whole lot easier.

I'm also struggling with the 'new approach' to painting without line art, not sure i'm liking it tbh. It all seems to be a bit 'make it up as I go along' when I'd prefer to know/see exactly what is needed and where. It may mean I end up doing the warsaw shot twice, particularly if the outcome isn't quite what I hoped.

Another thing that I'm doing differently with this new picture is painting mostly with 100% flow and opacity. This is because the picture doesn't use a lot of gradients atm.... and it would feel so slow to go over the same areas many times to build up the colours.

Also, issue 5 of 2D Artist pdf is out, I'm just downloading it now, and with the pound so strong against the dollar atm, its really cheap too (£2.20p). bargain!

03.05.06 Casual thoughts ...

I'm sat at work, and should be working, but there isn't any work to do as a big project has just gone 'live'. This means I get a few days (probably till the end of the week) to myself. This is an excellent opportunity to work on other things. To learn. I've been wandering the CA forums during my lunchbreak, and yet again I'm fully charged up and inspired to start something again. Something new, and different. The Market Sq. picture below is going to take me some time, like a jigsaw puzzle, it'll get pieced together over time. Exactly how long, I don't know.

This morning I was sat in the livingroom looking at the 'stuff' I have, and decided that I'm going to get rid of all the traditional art materials I have, I'm simply not going to ever use them again, and if I ever do want to, then to just buy new stuff, cause as long as I can use photoshop and a graphics tablet, there isn't going to be a need for oodles of paints, brushes and various papers. Its a shame that I spent all that money on that stuff, but I needed to ignite my interest in artwork again. It had been dormant for so long, I'm really glad its now resurfaced! (albeit in a 'cleaner' more 'pixelated' format) :)

I've gotta go in to town now and post something.

Note to self: Sketchup.

02.05.06 Warsaw wip 3...

More progress, even though I know that hardly anyone can tell the difference between this and the last one. But hey, that ain't my fault. I'm paying a lot of attention to the positioning, and I'm definitely considering the accuracy with just as much precision as I would with the line art. However, don't expect this detail to continue! I'm going to make sure this one ends up being more like a painting than a 'pixel duplication' like with the guitar.

Lots of work done on the roof tonight, plus the chimney edges and the window areas. I've got a quiet day at work tomorrow and I really wished I'd emailed the psd to work, but I've switched off the main pc here tonight and can't be arsed to fire it all back up again.

01.05.06 More Warsaw...

A little more work done on the Market Sq. picture. I've not had much time lately, but hope to make good progress on it this week. I spent quite a while messing with brushes and their settings trying to figure out a way to create the roof tile texture, but gave up... clearly I have to put in many more hours to learn that stuff! Anyways.... this screen grab below shows a little 'rewind' on the progress from the previous screenshot. But at least now, I've got the big blocks of colour sorted and most of the major alignment too. Not working with line art first is really tricky atm.

Blocking colours

Once I was happy with the main colour blocks, I felt comfortable bumping up the canvas dimensions to 2650 wide (or something) .... and could start working on cleaning up the edges and begin blocking in the window areas on the roof. Its very tempting to start painting in all the windows, but I managed to stop myself and concentrate on the main brickwork and windows on the roof.

Its starting to feel fun now... the details are great to do and it really starts feeling like a proper picture. I'm using a grid at about 400px square (I think) to make sure everything in in the right place.

Roof details