Eric's art thread

[Eric]

I guess sort of, in the sense that I don't do pixel art, 3D, or photorealism, and animation-style backgrounds feel like kind of the catch-all in-between. The tree itself was an experiment inspired by an art museum exhibit on American impressionists. I have no idea how to draw a tree in color (I usually draw them the chiaroscuro Milt Caniff way), and I don't want to draw individual leaves, so I used a big abstract brush with varied scatter and size settings. Does it work at all?

[selmiak]

looking warm nice and clear. But a bit too clear for my tastes, the pavement could need some cracks and little plants growing in the crack and inbetween and some cigarette butts and other trash. posters/skribbles on the walls. And the door and the shop could need a light above them and a doorbell.

[Eric]

Cigarette butts are definitely coming (especially in that gap in the sidewalk around the tree base), and I've got to dirty and grunge up the place up significantly.  I'm also trying to figure out how to get some dead leaves and garbage blowing randomly down the sidewalk. There are lights I need to add as well. A bell's a good idea too! I tried to add some sidewalk cracks, but haven't gotten very far. Everything I've tried so far has looked very drawn-on, much more so than the rest of the image, and any blurring or smudging kills the effect of the crack. It might be a matter of using the right brush, or maybe just using my tablet better (I find non-45-degree diagonal lines really hard to draw digitally -- my hand just isn't smooth enough for it).

Here's the real life place I'm referencing in the pic. I never could get a good front-on photo because U-Haul trucks are always parked in front.

[selmiak]

Interesting, you caught this scene pretty good. About the 45° angle lines, do you use photoshop? Use the 'R'-key shortcut to rotate everything so that you can draw your 45° angles. And ESC sets it back to normal rotation As I always switch between them, somehow I wish R and B were closer together. On the keyboard, not in music that is...

have you tried streetview for a front pic? Or just stand there and block the trucks, they are blocking whole roads for movies so a truck can wait a minute for an adventure game. And if the driver gets angry this could turn into a real life adventure game in no time.

Seeing the tree in the picture I realise this is a rather tall tree and not so voluminous, but before seeing the original I wanted to suggest you use some more subtle shadows and highlight to give it more volume. There, I still wrote it

[Eric]

Use the 'R'-key shortcut to rotate everything so that you can draw your 45° angles. And ESC sets it back to normal rotation

Does that 'R' stand for revolutionize my f---ing life? How the hell have I gone this long without knowing about this?

[Anian]

You seem to be going in a Disneylike background style but with more texture variance, really digging it so far.

Does that 'R' stand for revolutionize my f---ing life? How the hell have I gone this long without knowing about this?

I'm actually wandering how you haven't come across the need to find such a thing, since you seem to be really good at drawing in PS. Btw Shift+R will give you the 45 angle while rotating.

[Eric]

Thank you! More texture, as I noted, is coming.

I believe the answer to why this skill has evaded me so far lies in two factors: the first is that I'm entirely self-taught in Photoshop, and usually only learn things when I need to do something specific. I really should take a class so I can learn how to use clipping masks and lots of other tools that I only barely have a grasp of now. I have done ridiculous, time-consuming things involving the actual rotate tool and layers to do this.

The second is that my old computer wasn't really strong enough to run the CS that I bought for it, and so I could never enable OpenGL (which the temporary rotate requires) without slowing down Photoshop considerably. I hadn't thought to turn it on again.

[Ilyich]

Use the 'R'-key shortcut to rotate everything so that you can draw your 45° angles. And ESC sets it back to normal rotation

That's news to me too! Is it a new feature? I only have CS3 and it doesn't seem to work here.

As for the background - I really like it! The colour scheme is wonderful and the style sits nicely between realistic and painterly.
I feel that the it could do some good to bring out the shapes a bit more, though, since it still looks a bit flat, like a theatrical set. I'm not quite sure how to do that, though. I'll probably try to do a little paintover a bit later and see.

[Eric]

I feel that the it could do some good to bring out the shapes a bit more, though, since it still looks a bit flat, like a theatrical set.

Thank you for the compliment and advice. You know the regard in which I hold your work, since I've written about it at length elsewhere, so I'm pleased to hear from you here!

I've been taking a closer look at the image today, and agree that it's flat...and a bit shiny in places where it shouldn't be. I'd like to add some weathering texture to the facade and the visible brickwork, add some variation to the sidewalk (figure out how to shift the plates to slightly different heights even, maybe?). If you'd like to do a paintover, I won't stand in your way! Some guidance by a master would be appreciated.

This image is a cropped version of a basic template I'm using for different views of the office. I've drawn a few stories up, thinking I might use them in subsequent games (haha, you and my inner voice say. Let's see if I can even finish one), but haven't really rendered them yet because I don't see them being used in this first installment. I've been cropping this down, collapsing my layers, and then going over with additional layers and filters to provide different atmospheric and color effects, and selectively blurring and smudging according to the changing light source/intensity. I'm not sure if you'd rather work over the cropped dusky image on the previous page, or the template (or neither!), so I'll share the base model here too.

[Ilyich]

So, I've tried to do a paintover, and there's not much that can be done here without adding new objects. It's hard to make a straight-on view of some buildings not flat-looking, I guess. And it has it's own charm the way it is as well. The only thing I can say (and it's a very boring and obvious thing ) - drawing all the faces of objects is important. So, if you have a slightly extruding column (like the ones on the yellow-bricked part of the building) and you're not standing right in front of it - you'll see two of it's sides and rendering both of them is essential.

Oh, and here's a paintover itself. Best viewed in comparison, since I doubt the difference is very noticeable otherwise.

[selmiak]

Use the 'R'-key shortcut to rotate everything so that you can draw your 45° angles. And ESC sets it back to normal rotation

Does that 'R' stand for revolutionize my f---ing life? How the hell have I gone this long without knowing about this?

I found out about this only recently myself and thought the exact same thing! And before posting it I was unsure to post it at all, as I thought that you know this already as your picture shows you know what you are doing in PS. Well, I'm glad I have no fear of redundant information that turns out to be good

[Eric]

Ha! Never assume I know what I'm doing, because I'm winging it all the time always.

Ilyich: If I hadn't already used the jaw-drop gif, I'd use it again. That is wonderful, and shows me exactly where I need to improve. I'll send you a PM momentarily.

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

Have you tried playing with the color temperature at all?  It's obviously fall but I don't quite get that 'colder' type of atmosphere from the image.  I'm a real stickler for color contrast, though, so it's more a matter of taste.  The background itself is very competent and I hope you finish it.

[Eric]

What's awkwardly funny is I've actually significantly warmed this one up via Photo filters and even, if I remember correctly, a 15% flat rust-colored overlay, because I was shooting for this background to appear during sundown. I had just watched Days of Heaven, which was shot almost completely during the "golden hour," (the whole movie looks like this and am perhaps too easily influenced and probably went too far.

When I finish this dissertation and eventually get a teaching job, I hope to make use of the one-free-per-semester audit class to learn more about the specifics of art that I've not formally learned, especially color theory. Cool = autumn is good to know. I'm trying to find better resources, but Google is only giving me results about the season-colors-as-fashion theory. I'll keep looking, and find some autumn-y photos to analyze too. Thanks, Shane!

[Eric]

Still working on that background and some others. Taking lots of photographs as the seasons change here. Going to the city for New York Comic Con next weekend, and the weekend after, we're going on a drive through Vermont with some art gear in tow, so will hopefully get some better experience working with autumn colors.

Otherwise, I'm going to take a break to try to enter the MAGS competition for October. This will be my first MAGS entry, and, should I pull it off, my first completed game in AGS. It's only going to be a few rooms and two characters, so I have high hopes.

Here's a WIP of one of the characters I spent a few hours on tonight:



Things I see wrong:

* Arms swing too much.
* Forearm needs to have movement -- too stiff now, and makes him look like a robot.
* Need to give the hair some bounce.
* I think he might pick up his foot a little too far when it's in back, or maybe it's not high enough on the frame after?
* Head bounce a little too much on the downstep?
* Hands look like panther paws because I'm horrible at drawing hands and probably always will be.
* Need to outline the boots so they'll stand out better.

Now what do you see?

Thanks all for your continued assistance. Every new thing I do, I feel like I'm improving, and a major portion of that is your collective fault.

[cat]

Looking great!
Two things I notice:
* The upper arms seem to be a bit too short (but this might only look this was because of the shirt sleeves)
* The general movement is smooth, but the bouncing is hard and abrupt (not sure how to say that)

Edit: I love the boots!

[Tabata]

Looks good! 
Just the bouncing is very abruptly and the shoulders are completely stiff - I would like to see some movement at that part.

Edit: I love the boots!

... so do I   

[Eric]

* The upper arms seem to be a bit too short (but this might only look this was because of the shirt sleeves)
* The general movement is smooth, but the bouncing is hard and abrupt (not sure how to say that)

Edit: I love the boots!

Just the bouncing is very abruptly and the shoulders are completely stiff - I would like to see some movement at that part.

Thanks guys for your respective critiques!

It is partially because of the rolled up sleeves that the upper arms seem short. And it's also partially because I was tricked by the rolled up sleeves into making his upper arms too short. Good eye, cat! Elbows should be much lower.

I'll try and smoothen the bounce. Maybe reduce the pixels traveled by the torso and head. Do you think the shoulder movement should be where the sleeve starts, Tabata, or along the curve of his back? I'll make my wife walk around for me and try to see.

Best thing about the cowboy boots -- they curl up on the end, and so when the foot goes back and rolls off the floor, they're already the right shape, and you don't have to animate a joint in the foot! I'm trying to figure out whether I can animate a seam in his jeans without it being jerky. I was also thinking of how to do forearm tattoos, and, with the arms needing to be redone anyway, I think I've figured out the best way to do it.

This fellow will also eventually be the third detective/the receptionist in a detective agency for the longer game I'm working on (and for which the front door of the detective agency can be seen above), but I think his sprite will mostly sit behind a desk in that one. This shorter game will be about one of his toughest cases yet -- as a babysitter.

I tried a trial version of Anime Studio to try to do this, but I'm afraid I didn't quite get it to work. But I did figure out how to set a rotate point in Illustrator, which resulted in the animation being much, much smoother (and quicker!). Start-to-finish, this version took about two hours, which included 3D modeling the face so I can do the other perspectives. If anyone else does vector animation in Illustrator,  alt-click while using the rotate tool does the job. I set up pink points on the places where the joint should be rotated so I can do it precisely, and then just deleted them later. I grouped my limbs in degrees, rotating, for instance, the whole leg first, and then the calf second.

[Tabata]

Do you think the shoulder movement should be where the sleeve starts, Tabata, or along the curve of his back?

Me and explaining - but I'll try :
When the right leg is forward, move the right arm (now being in the middle) slightly backwards completely (- that makes the shoulder become the move) and when the right leg is back, put the complete right arm a bit more forward than the middle (where it is now).
That makes it look as if the upper body is slightly moved/turned while walking.

Edit:
I found something like this explained and made by one of our best over here - it might be easier to understand if you watch the shoulder there

[Eric]

Thanks, you helpful mouse! (And thanks again, Shane, by proxy!)