After that MS-Paint thread brought Paint.NET to my attention, I decided to give it a try.Ã, I did find that it has a few things above MS-Paint but not enough to award a kick-ass designation.Ã, MS-Paint actually does some things quite a bit better.Ã,Â
Anyway, for a work-in-progress for work, I did a picture of one of the Lucasfilm security badges, trying for a 16 - 32 color type design.Ã, The top made me miss Photoshop terribly and I (admittedly) got a little lazy on it. I had a bitch of a time trying to figure out what I wanted my palette to be and how to represent gold (I know I've done gold better at some point).
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v74/TheYak/badge1.png)
Ã, General pointers and tips would be nice but in particular on how to make the gold more realistic and the whole thing a tad more metallic.
Okay, use dodge where the bright parts are, and use burn where the dark parts are.
Also, use the smudge tool to get the following:
(http://www.2dadventure.com/ags/Badgefixed.png)
I don't know, but I liked the original version better. The dodging, burning and smudging didn't make it look more realistic, but just blurry imo. I have no idea how to do it better though. I'd take a look at some real badges. I'm sure you'll find plenty on google. Take a look at them and see how the gold looks there.
Just my two cents.
Wow, this looks great! I hate to bring forth a ton of critics because you did such amazing work in paint alone, but I'll name a few things.
As for the gold, the color is pretty close to actual gold plating. But normally, just before the white highlight, the gold turns a bit yellow.
The eagle and banners have a lot of good values, but the outet leaves are light. A few darker values here and there will bring out that detail.
The middle circle, I think, is really taking away from the image. And I think when it's more finished, it will better the picture.
Its still fantastic work and I can't wait for more updates. :)
yeah, I like it, but for some reason the middle circle doesn't look right, its not bad quality of anything it just doesn't quite go together :/
Alright, now you've done it. With multiple comments on the centerpiece I felt inclined to photograph my reference. Now I've got to confront my demons and notice where my proportions and overall shape are wrong.
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v74/TheYak/badge.jpg)
Come to think of it, I should just take the metal color values from this, eh?
I am seeing (now that it's a photo and not just in front of me) what you meant by the more yellow values. There's also more consistency in the highlight to dark thing that I used. I had more of a random metallic-shading thing going.
Thanks for the tips, Webspider but I've been doing this only in Paint.NET. It'd be a shame to break down and use Photoshop (which I haven't got at work anyway) now.