Photoshop 7 brush

[Grifter730]

I hope I'm posting this in the right forum. I've been using Painter 8 to do most of my digital painting, but I want to test out Photoshop's abilities in painting. I'm using Photoshop 7, and so far I can't seem to do much. I'm basically just using the brush tool, is this about all I can use? Seems like the only thing I can do is change around the brush size and opacity. I don't have any sort of custom brushes since I couldn't find any. Can any of you point me in the right direction, or just give me some pointers on how to produce the same type of work using Photoshop instead of painter.

Justin Gerard seems to make really great use of Photoshop (you can see his work at portlandstudios.com), and I don't get how he's getting that kind of effect. Am I missing some essential tools such as custom brushes, or am I just not doing things right?

[Xpose]

I dunno I use photoshop CS and I can do alot more than just that.

[SimonT]

Gee Grifter 730 I don't know what's up with that. I nearly passed out when I saw all the new default brushes in PS7. By tweaking the opacity vs fill options and using the brush options (top right) you can get all sorts of subtle effects (like airbrushing for a start).

Or.. hang on, are you just using the keyboard short cut to change brush size? (the curly brackets) If you do it just changes the size of the brush you are currently using. You haver to actually go up top left and scroll through the brush libraries and click on a new brush to use it. If you just use the shortcut you might have missed this.

If that's not the case you probably need to reinstall or get a different copy of the software because it hasn't laoded the brush libraries

[Leopoldo]

I use photoshop 7 and only the hard brush with varied opacity and brush size.

Check out my portfolio and my tutorial and you get an idea what you can do with only those tools.

www.fabpics.com
www.fabpics.com/values

http://www.abcmedia.se/fabpics/ca/drunkard.jpg

Cheers,
Leopoldo

[Grifter730]

Awesome work Leopolde. I'm curious though, do you create ALL of your work by doing a greyscale one first before coloring it? I love those Silver Silver Starfish stuff. Are any of those printed? It'd be nice to be able to look at the finish product at a bookstore or something.

[Leopoldo]

Grifter730 - Thx! It depends on the purposes of the illustration if I do or don't do a value (aka greyscale aka lighting) study first or not. For final illustrations for production paintings, pitch/presentation material and so forth then yes. For inhouse concept artwork for production then no. The difference is of course the amount of time I have to complete the illustration. The value study takes at least as long as the color stage, and the pencil/composition, form stage takes as long as the value stage as well.

The Starfish stuff has a very liberal deadline and budget so I can take as much time as I need on those. Not every production has that kind of liberty.
Starfish is self financed for now (it's my own script and so forth) and the money I make on client assigments I invest in Starfish and Eon.

Yes, the Starfish balcony and the Starfish forest wedding are printed but only for pitch purposes :-) so no you can't find them at stores (yet).

I was checking out your portfolio at www.skycastlestudios.com/riki/ and saw that you use alot of "comicbook" style coloring. If you look under "printed" on www.fabpics.com and check out the last 6 or so pages then you'll see a comic I'm working on. These were also done in Photoshop :blahblah:

Cheers,
Leo

[Grifter730]

Yep, I checked out all your work, including that comic. Do you happen to remember around how long it took you to draw the first page? Also, did you happen to color it with the greyscale first, or did you just go straight into color? I'm also working on a children-style comic book, but it gets so hard forcing myself to work on it. The biggest thing about children type of books is that they need to be colorful in my opinion, and I just get bogged down thinking about how much time I spend on it. Coz if I was working on some other comic, it'd take half as long, so it's just always at the back of my mind, and I just end up drawing other stuff.

Oh, before I forget, what size paper did you draw the comic on?

If you ever get to print that Starfish balcony, I'd definitely snag one. I love that one.

Anyway, your tutorial helped me out a lot. I started messing around with using different contrasts in my painting last night, and I also finally understood how basic lighting works, all thanks to that tutorial. I'm just really psyched now!

[Matt Dixon]

That's pretty much all you can change from the brush toolbar - sounds to me as if your brush palette isn't open.

Press F5, or select Window > Brushes from your main toolbar and it should pop up, giving you access to much more than just opacity and brush size settings.

[Leopoldo]

Yeah, as Matt said, there's a whole world of brush opions in the brush palette (window>brushes).

The first page (the one with the grandma and the kid, right?) took 2 days (ca 16 hours that is) in thumbsnails and line art. None of these are inked at all. Everything is pencil straight off. The colors took 1 day (8 hours).

The values and hues were selected in one sweep, no value studie done beforehand.

The pencil original is A3 (42 by 30 cm)

Yeah, sticking to your guns is proberbly one of the most understated and vital charactistics you need to get good at anything. I have 5 words to keep me on track. Focus, passion, patience, preserverance and booze. Kidding, not much booze... the fifth on is "thuyip thuyip THUD!" The Venezian assassin snuck in and shot him in the small of the neck as he was about to disclose the real meaning of life.

Leopldo had broken the secret code of The artists and paid with his fingers...!

Shit, I can't remember the fifth one! :S Fill it in yourself with whatever drives you. Discipline? Chi? Sex?

Great! I'm happy the tutorial is helping people out because Jason's Amsterdam workshop sure did wonders for my. That tutorial started off as a thread called my workshop notes or something and then I decided to make it a tutorial instead :^^:

Sure thing, I'll keep youo oin mind when the balcony scene is printed (or the film premiers ;) )

Cheers,
Leopoldo

[Grifter730]

Yeah, well sticking to drawing isn't as hard as sticking to a certain project, like one comic, hehe. Man, 2 days for line art... That would be about 3-5 days for me, since I have a day job >_<

So who are your influences? From what I've seen of your work, it seems you're influenced a lot more by European artists, or maybe even Disney style artists. Lots of colorful palettes and also the way you draw people is reminiscent of Franquin, Peyo, Herge etc. I really dig those Silver Silver Starfish concept arts though. Has a smurf-like feel to some of the pictures, just lots of the stuff that I enjoyed reading/watching while growing up.

I saw those storyboards for the pirate story. Is that out on DVD by any chance?

[Leopoldo]

Yeah, sticking to one project is tough. I have Eon and Starfish running side by side so when I get stuck on one I hit the other.

But then again this is my day job so I can put in the hours :rendered:

It's funny that you would mention influences because I was just doing a list of fav artists and what it is about their work that I enjoy. Jason Manley posted this tip somewhere on CA.org and I thought that might be an interesting thing to look into.

So my top 5 Oscars go to -

Jean "Moebius" Giruad for his clear forms, anatomy and character abstractions.

Disney feature animation background and layout team for their varied rendering styles and tight values.

Ralph Eggleston and Dominique Louis for their color keys on Nemo and Monsters Inc respectively.

Carrivagio and Rembrandt for their lighting/values.

Yeah, the DVD is out in Norway, "Kapten Sabeltann".

What are your influences?

God damn it! I have a deadline and here I am posting! I'm hooked, CA.org is a drug :nohope:


Back to the drawing board!
Leopoldo

[Grifter730]

Hmm, I gotta look for that DVD on amazon.com. I wonder if it has English subtitles :/ Looks like a really cool flick. I'll probably buy it just to see it anyway.

How many pages have you done for Eon? Also, what exactly is your day job? I thought Starfish was a personal project...? Must be nice working in the art field. I'm a web designer by trade :(

What does the tip say about listing your favorite artists? Not sure how it can be helpful. I've never seen Moebius's work, but I've heard him mentioned a lot by European artists. My influences... hmmm, lemme think.

Jim Lee for his attention to detail.
Hayao Miyazaki for the heart he puts into his work.
Peyo and Herge for the adventures they give you.
Disney artists that work on Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, and also Treasure Planet.
Mike Mignola for the mood in his work.
I gotta give a special mention to Neil Gaiman, who's an amazing author.

I like Michelangelo and Caravaggio both, but I guess I haven't gotten to that stage yet where I look up their work for references. I guess once I get rolling on my studies of color and lighting, I'll probably get into that a bit more.

[Leopoldo]

Kapten Sabeltooth was ok I guess. There's always practical reasons why things don't always turn out the waay you want them to... I'm not too pleased with the final backgrounds that were stressed through production by a studio that didn't have feature experience but it was a blast to get to do the original set designs and storyboards of course. That was a 10 month production for me :blahblah:

I'm a freelance entertainment illustrator working mostly with features and computer games. Currently I doing set concepts for a triple AAA title that will come out next summer. Check out my CV on my site and you'll see some detailed info :rendered:

The tip about fav artists is to analyz what it is that gets your blood pumping regarding their work I guess. Here's the link http://conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=26636

That's a good list of favs!
Yeah and Dave McKean for his typography and graphic design.

I'm a huge fan of Sandman and Hellboy :rendered:

/L

[Grifter730]

Hey, I figured this thread is more appropriate in private messaging, so check your pm :)

[I0N]

leopold great tut! cant read it all yet (I'm at school) but its already proven very helpful :D

[Leopoldo]

Glad it helped out!

/L