Jumping back into drawing/painting -- with a twist.

As it turns out, trying to replicate natural media -- especially dry soft pastels -- in Photoshop is a lot more time-consuming than I expected. Perhaps because I still need lots of practice with the overwhelming myriad of tools/settings/effects with Photoshop brushes.

More updates coming soon.

reply to post by SkepticOverlord


There are tutorials online that can guide you through just about anything. But I think that it is easier to aim for photorealism than to aim for realistic art media. You can just simply do a filter effect, and that is easy. But it looks easy with the results.

Good luck...i'd be interested to see your results. Dolluka is working on some similar type stuff (trying to emulate the Grand Theft Auto artwork).

reply to post by bigfatfurrytexan


Tutorials schmutorials.

Actually, I enrolled in www.chrisoatley.com... - very nice structured art courses for digital artists.

I really want to emulate the "painterly" look and feel of some of the pastel on textured paper work I used to do, about 25 years ago. Sometimes I wonder if the insane number of tool tweaks possible in Photoshop is actually a barrier to achieving the results I hope for.

More experiments will soon tell.

reply to post by SkepticOverlord


If you want texturized look, the key is in the texture setting in the brush. You need a good scan of the kind of paper you want to emulate in greyscale. Higher resolution the better, it looks cheesy and repeats if not. It's possible to add texture to it after the fact, but it never seems to look as good as textures added in the brush while painting.

reply to post by SkepticOverlord


Yeah, i don't get much from tutorials, either. I just can't sit through videos....its not my media of choice.

I was "into" art, but didn't have much exposure to it. But I use it as an outlet when work is killing me.

At the end of the day, i sometimes remind myself of that whole "I don't know what I am doing" meme. And sometimes, not so much.

Regardless, I am interested to see how this skill set develops for you. Make sure you keep this thread alive as much as you can.

reply to post by TKDRL

Here's a close-up of my last finished "pastel" work in Photoshop.

Not ideal, but getting close.

There are a long list of tweaks that go beyond just texture, but simulate a specific type of media on textured surfaces. (And yes, I have nice scans of several quality papers.)

Wetness, load, mix, flow, scatter/jitter, transfer, build-up, etc. all contribute to the final look when using a pressure sensitive tablet.

The hardest part (and I think I cracked it tonight) is soft media pick-up. For example, in real natural media, when you pass a white conte crayon over a dark charcoal line, the soft crayon will mix with the charcoal dust for a bit. The same with one color soft pastel over another… there's blending/pick-up that favors the color of the pastel stick in your hand.

reply to post by SkepticOverlord


That eyeball reflection is awesome

One tip I can give about making the texture "pop" a bit after you are done is this:

Make a duplicate layer and set the blend mode to multiply. Then use the high pass filter on the duplicate layer, you got to play with it though to find a good number on the high pass. It is always different for me depending on the resolution. It enhances the texture and also each stroke you put down. I hope I explained it good enough.

SkepticOverlord

I really want to emulate the "painterly" look and feel of some of the pastel on textured paper work I used to do, about 25 years ago. Sometimes I wonder if the insane number of tool tweaks possible in Photoshop is actually a barrier to achieving the results I hope for.

More experiments will soon tell.

Have you tried Corel Painter? You should check out the demo and test out some of the brushes, the default ones are way more "painterly" than Photoshop's. I mainly use Photoshop because I do graphic design for work, but if I ever got a Cintiq I'd pick up a copy of Painter.

As for all the tool tweaks and options, it can be overwhelming at first, but once you find something you like you can save it out as a new brush. I strongly suggest building up a little library of custom brushes. The less time you spend fiddling with sliders and options is more time you can spend painting.

reply to post by freelance_zenarchist


Painter was crap in my experience. I tried it out, and it lagged like crazy, on a simple 2048 x 2048 canvas even. In photoshop, I can paint at 4 ft x 4 ft without lag, at 200 DPI.

reply to post by TKDRL


That's weird, was it an older version?
I think I used 10 and didn't have any problems.

reply to post by SkepticOverlord


I have been wondering how I could integrate sketching in my travelling without taking along all the supplies and this technology might fit the bill. So, are you saying I would be able to sketch on this tablet where wifi does not exist, say, outside wifi-enabled buildings, but not in them? I'm not really not that tech-saavy.

reply to post by freelance_zenarchist


It was about 4 months ago when I tried it out, newest version out when I tried it. My system is not very powerful and new, maybe it runs better on newer machines. Mine is only a 64bit duocore with 6 gigs of ram. I goggled around a bit and tried a bunch of the fixes out there, in the end just gave up and went back to PS.

freelance_zenarchist
Have you tried Corel Painter?

I have a full demo of Painter X3 - don't like it. Trying to learn a new UI is getting in the way of trying to make a painting/drawing. And there is significant lag when you begin a new piece with a high-res background (scan of Canson paper)… also, the "tool" cursor being offset from the actual cursor position feels wrong.

I have a nice palette of custom tool presets in Photoshop now… and finally a soft pastel that has nice painterly effects just like real ones. Will try to do a video that shows the results.

InTheLight
So, are you saying I would be able to sketch on this tablet where wifi does not exist

Yes, already have done several.

The key is getting the Wacom Creative Stylus… pressure sensitive with a few apps like Sketchbook Pro.

This was done on the iPad with the stylus:

The iPad is amazing for art. (And everything else..heehee) I have more than a few apps for drawing,photo editing,and such, it's kind of sad because I have to limit myself otherwise I'd buy every app in the store.

Like skeptic already mentioned SketchBook pro. Other good ones of note are:

Procreate
Paper by 53 --look at the stuff people make with it here - MadeWithPaper
Adobe Ideas - Vector work and layers
Tayasui Sketches - Artist creations


These are some that I have used and have enjoyed. I am trying to learn more drawing techniques. I have been playing a lot of Draw Something 2 which has a great community and talented artists whose work I envy a great deal. It's inspiring and I have made better work lately because of it. Though some stuff is just frustrating! I'd like to learn new techniques and I don't have very many good resources for help. I hope I can learn a thing or two around here.