03-18-2023, 05:57 AM
@JosephCow
Thanks! The scale armor absolutely looks best for needing only placement in a X pattern and point more or less down. I've just hooked up the basic rotation back, 1st one looks way better already:
The 2nd in the original lineup is a Shan Wen Kai (Chinese Mountain Armor). The base clothing models I'm using just barely fulfill the requirements for turning them into mails to catch edge cases where it kaputs. They don't have the right spacing for the second, plus the "links" looked cool in a flat plane yet are producing uninspired light/reflections in curved areas. I'll rework them.
This type of armor was said to be worn by high-ranking officers in ancient China. No one knows how to manufacture it anymore nor what it really looked like. It's supposed to be strong and very flexible. All we have now are ancient statues. It's very cool:
![[Image: china-shanxi-province-qiaotou-vilage-shu...E2F5T0.jpg]](https://c7.alamy.com/comp/E2F5T0/china-shanxi-province-qiaotou-vilage-shuanglin-temple-song-yuan-and-E2F5T0.jpg)
I'll also test this generator with some kind of lamellar plating because why not? And it slays when using sequins for links. xD
Yes. I created a single leaf and used something called Geometry Nodes to scatter them on the surface of invisible blobs with a few controls. I've included a quick video for Leo Ki below if you're curious. I rendered with a transparent background and used as a mask in a similar way I'd foliage brushes after hammering them into something usable. I'm so happy with the artistic control and efficiency!
The forest is very messy. Barely any sense of depth because everything is everywhere. That's what I do by instinct -- I do unfocus my eyes haha. I've got to tone down the amount of brushstrokes and drastic value/color transitions, plus work the edges in a cohesive way.
I like to think of the hierarchy of elements of a piece in terms of LOD (games' Level of Details) because I'm a huge nerd, and that's what I'm lacking there. I don't need nor should squeeze visual interest in the form of edges colors light into background elements supposed to be out of focus.
@Leo Ki
It may not be quick as a spitpaint, but there has to be a way to be better and faster than I currently am, hah.
I'm a cheater.
Picked pine-like trees because they're simpler, growing in a sort of ambient that isn't nearly as busy as the wild landscapes of where I live, in a biodiversity spot in the tropics. Here straight-trunk trees like that are a rare sight.
Like most computer things the answer is a resounding "yes", it's more a question of should I invest more time on it? I modelled a single lowpoly leaf and used something called Geometry Nodes to scatter copies on the surface of invisible blobs with a few controls. Adding more controls to cover things like other growth directions would be straightforward.
It's GPU inexpensive, and absurdly faster to work with than wrestling foliage brushes. No comparison! I'm leaning towards reverting to actual hand-painted blogs for leaves far in the back, maybe a few leaves on top of it to smooth out the transition between depiction styles. I have some ideas of different approaches to structuring the painting, I'm just lacking the time.
Hah, it's just an excuse to do a comic in my life. I worked out all major points of the story, but I'm not ready to move from detailed outline to script while I'm not sure it can be done art-wise. I want something pretty and weekly.
The thing with forests and rocks and skies is that the brunt of the story takes place on the road, in rural and wilderness locations, and I'm a big fan of wide shots to communicate emotional states.
It's fantasy and cosmic horror, taking place in a world undergoing industrial revolution but with magic. There, beings from someplace Outside wear the faces of the dead. Guess how the protagonist starts? Dead. Then not dead. :D
Noo, don't do that! I couldn't take good photos of my own dominant hand, and I don't hold the pen 100% vertically just close, but in any case, can you spot the issue with my default claw grip? I call it "death" grip not because I apply pressure against the paper. It's on the pen and vs the fingers themselves.
The pen rests against the ring finger nail; When using solid graphite pencils it even gets gray. This claw hand is great for pressure control, but— movements are all finger flections.
That's where the tendon pain comes from. I don't get carpal because the wrist barely moves, I get literal hand and finger pain, heh. And it's exacerbated by the way pinky and ring fingers are stiffly curled underneath the others for stability. Pressure control and stability advantages be dammed, those can be learned with other grips quite easily. I'm glad to leave it behind! This is an evil grip.
I'd be happy enough with slimmer drawing tablet pens with better nib shapes and angled pressure processing.
@Dominicque
It's easy to spot because you're not alone. Some people have a serene approach to work, a certain confidence naturally in them. Us? It's a learned skill.
Just.. Look at these four attempts at the same person. First three took place in the same week, when I first got back into pencils at the beginning of this thread, fourth is from January.
And I'm still inching forward. I hope this drives home the incremental nature of art. Want more, a truly wild ride? Look at Miles Johnson's CA.org sketchbook phase.
Learning is a rollercoaster of progress and seemingly nothing at all. The starting point might not be even aligned with what you can do in a different medium! You've got to make room for the tool learning curve. Don't get overwhelmed.
Find the study strategy that works for you. Mine is sneaking one or two subjects into a kind of work I enjoy, like hiding vegetables in yummy food. Plus, whenever I get overwhelmed or stuck in a fail loop I downsize. I try them, but I don't follow the usual study path if it's evident it won't work for me. And you know the mean critic inside your head? Make them earn their keep.
"This looks off, the arm is wrong, (...)" is shit critique. Thanks captain obvious, I have eyes. Don't let the demanding part of your mind get away with such lazy comments, if it wants to complain it better be useful. I've just got into gestures and I think it's a good example of how I deal with it.
I didn't stop at "it's bad", I didn't let "the legs in particular are terrible" slide either. The asshat part of your mind was right there during the creation of every piece, so make them debug what went wrong during it. Did you feel uncomfortable? Why? Is it because you're not confident in the anatomy? Is it the angles? The silhouette? Interrogate the critic until you extract a concrete diagnostic of what's not working right now, what's scaring you or derailing the drawing. That's useful information. You can take action with it, downsize like I did: just legs, legs and more legs, without timing it because fuck it I take two to three times longer than other artists for any gesture and if that's what it takes, that's what I'll do.
Oh wow, you're putting me in the same level of amazing artists here. That's a lot of responsibility! xD
I've described my approach a new post below to keep the thread minimally organized.
Yes, absolutely. The point of the comfort zone is to drag things into it and build upon what you know. I dislike the idea of "stepping outside the comfort zone" because it sounds like you got to throw yourself at challenges every time, everywhere, when it's much easier to sneak in and out, bringing some small new thing with you.
Another way to look at it is to keep in mind when you're working for a client it's enough to make them happy. That's your target. If it looks awesome to you as well, all the better, but this is not a requirement of the task.
Remember that different styles are answers to different questions. They may look off when judged by specific lens, yet they still fulfil their original purposes. That's worthy and enough.
It's been a while since I did these, I think I sculpted a striated pattern for the orange one and deformed, painted over and under it to test the process. Derivated the gray one from it and just painted the rest. It's as much a test of the process as it's to see if the result is too busy or what.
I dug up a timelapse of the mountains!
(03-15-2023, 04:33 PM)JosephCow Wrote: The chain mail looks really good actually, especially the one on the left is pretty convincing. I think that stuff is really cool.
Thanks! The scale armor absolutely looks best for needing only placement in a X pattern and point more or less down. I've just hooked up the basic rotation back, 1st one looks way better already:
The 2nd in the original lineup is a Shan Wen Kai (Chinese Mountain Armor). The base clothing models I'm using just barely fulfill the requirements for turning them into mails to catch edge cases where it kaputs. They don't have the right spacing for the second, plus the "links" looked cool in a flat plane yet are producing uninspired light/reflections in curved areas. I'll rework them.
This type of armor was said to be worn by high-ranking officers in ancient China. No one knows how to manufacture it anymore nor what it really looked like. It's supposed to be strong and very flexible. All we have now are ancient statues. It's very cool:
I'll also test this generator with some kind of lamellar plating because why not? And it slays when using sequins for links. xD
(03-15-2023, 04:33 PM)JosephCow Wrote: What was the process exactly for doing tree leaves? Was it a bunch of leaves in blender to get the shapes? It seems like that could work well.
Yes. I created a single leaf and used something called Geometry Nodes to scatter them on the surface of invisible blobs with a few controls. I've included a quick video for Leo Ki below if you're curious. I rendered with a transparent background and used as a mask in a similar way I'd foliage brushes after hammering them into something usable. I'm so happy with the artistic control and efficiency!
(03-15-2023, 04:33 PM)JosephCow Wrote: I agree foliage is a tricky problem for us. Painting every leaf is out of the question, but foliage brushes look kinda cheap. I think it's one of those things where you suggest the mass of color and light and then cut some shapes of leaves into it. On your forest currently you basically have that, and when I kind of look at it unfocused it works, but then of course all the hard edges of each shape draw attention.
The forest is very messy. Barely any sense of depth because everything is everywhere. That's what I do by instinct -- I do unfocus my eyes haha. I've got to tone down the amount of brushstrokes and drastic value/color transitions, plus work the edges in a cohesive way.
I like to think of the hierarchy of elements of a piece in terms of LOD (games' Level of Details) because I'm a huge nerd, and that's what I'm lacking there. I don't need nor should squeeze visual interest in the form of edges colors light into background elements supposed to be out of focus.
@Leo Ki
(03-15-2023, 12:16 PM)Leo Ki Wrote: A forest is not a place, it's a dream that overwhelms the senses with details, scents and sounds. No wonder it's difficult to depict, and impossible to describe. When you say you want to make it readable and fast to make, I'm afraid the only way is by drowning the peripheral vision into blobs and streaks of darks and lights, and forcing a focal point. Not that I've ever been successful at doing this...
It may not be quick as a spitpaint, but there has to be a way to be better and faster than I currently am, hah.
(03-15-2023, 12:16 PM)Leo Ki Wrote: Regarding the vegetation library, an often overlooked fact is that many species are multi-stem trees, resulting in a different structure and overall shape than single-stem ones. Also as soon as you have a clearing and sunlight, even a tiny one, you will find fast-growing vegetation (bush and birch) that create a parallel universe.
I'm a cheater.
Picked pine-like trees because they're simpler, growing in a sort of ambient that isn't nearly as busy as the wild landscapes of where I live, in a biodiversity spot in the tropics. Here straight-trunk trees like that are a rare sight.
(03-15-2023, 12:16 PM)Leo Ki Wrote: Your foliage technique is intriguing, can you tweak it for more fuzziness and overlap on larger, distant volumes, or would it take a NASA computer to compute?
Like most computer things the answer is a resounding "yes", it's more a question of should I invest more time on it? I modelled a single lowpoly leaf and used something called Geometry Nodes to scatter copies on the surface of invisible blobs with a few controls. Adding more controls to cover things like other growth directions would be straightforward.
It's GPU inexpensive, and absurdly faster to work with than wrestling foliage brushes. No comparison! I'm leaning towards reverting to actual hand-painted blogs for leaves far in the back, maybe a few leaves on top of it to smooth out the transition between depiction styles. I have some ideas of different approaches to structuring the painting, I'm just lacking the time.
(03-15-2023, 12:16 PM)Leo Ki Wrote: Now I want to know more about your painted comic project, badly.
Hah, it's just an excuse to do a comic in my life. I worked out all major points of the story, but I'm not ready to move from detailed outline to script while I'm not sure it can be done art-wise. I want something pretty and weekly.
The thing with forests and rocks and skies is that the brunt of the story takes place on the road, in rural and wilderness locations, and I'm a big fan of wide shots to communicate emotional states.
It's fantasy and cosmic horror, taking place in a world undergoing industrial revolution but with magic. There, beings from someplace Outside wear the faces of the dead. Guess how the protagonist starts? Dead. Then not dead. :D
(03-15-2023, 12:16 PM)Leo Ki Wrote: I never thought of holding it vertical, I will try that but I know I won't like it.
Noo, don't do that! I couldn't take good photos of my own dominant hand, and I don't hold the pen 100% vertically just close, but in any case, can you spot the issue with my default claw grip? I call it "death" grip not because I apply pressure against the paper. It's on the pen and vs the fingers themselves.
The pen rests against the ring finger nail; When using solid graphite pencils it even gets gray. This claw hand is great for pressure control, but— movements are all finger flections.
That's where the tendon pain comes from. I don't get carpal because the wrist barely moves, I get literal hand and finger pain, heh. And it's exacerbated by the way pinky and ring fingers are stiffly curled underneath the others for stability. Pressure control and stability advantages be dammed, those can be learned with other grips quite easily. I'm glad to leave it behind! This is an evil grip.
I'd be happy enough with slimmer drawing tablet pens with better nib shapes and angled pressure processing.
@Dominicque
(03-15-2023, 06:08 AM)Dominicque Wrote: Yep, I do struggle with speed and expectations. Was I super obvious lol? Yeah, I do tend to beat myself up and surrounding myself with constantly negativity is just burning me out. If I don't get things down how I want from my head within the first 10 minutes I start thinking I'm a failure and can't do it. Trying not to see how long something is taking me as a 'value judgement' on myself.
It's easy to spot because you're not alone. Some people have a serene approach to work, a certain confidence naturally in them. Us? It's a learned skill.
Just.. Look at these four attempts at the same person. First three took place in the same week, when I first got back into pencils at the beginning of this thread, fourth is from January.
And I'm still inching forward. I hope this drives home the incremental nature of art. Want more, a truly wild ride? Look at Miles Johnson's CA.org sketchbook phase.
Learning is a rollercoaster of progress and seemingly nothing at all. The starting point might not be even aligned with what you can do in a different medium! You've got to make room for the tool learning curve. Don't get overwhelmed.
Find the study strategy that works for you. Mine is sneaking one or two subjects into a kind of work I enjoy, like hiding vegetables in yummy food. Plus, whenever I get overwhelmed or stuck in a fail loop I downsize. I try them, but I don't follow the usual study path if it's evident it won't work for me. And you know the mean critic inside your head? Make them earn their keep.
"This looks off, the arm is wrong, (...)" is shit critique. Thanks captain obvious, I have eyes. Don't let the demanding part of your mind get away with such lazy comments, if it wants to complain it better be useful. I've just got into gestures and I think it's a good example of how I deal with it.
I didn't stop at "it's bad", I didn't let "the legs in particular are terrible" slide either. The asshat part of your mind was right there during the creation of every piece, so make them debug what went wrong during it. Did you feel uncomfortable? Why? Is it because you're not confident in the anatomy? Is it the angles? The silhouette? Interrogate the critic until you extract a concrete diagnostic of what's not working right now, what's scaring you or derailing the drawing. That's useful information. You can take action with it, downsize like I did: just legs, legs and more legs, without timing it because fuck it I take two to three times longer than other artists for any gesture and if that's what it takes, that's what I'll do.
(03-15-2023, 06:08 AM)Dominicque Wrote: I would really love to have a rendering style like yours Wes Burt, Miles Johnson or Tran Nguyen. Any tips for how to render pencils like you?
Oh wow, you're putting me in the same level of amazing artists here. That's a lot of responsibility! xD
I've described my approach a new post below to keep the thread minimally organized.
(03-15-2023, 06:08 AM)Dominicque Wrote: 'Finding happy place', I need to let myself have a 'comfort zone'.
Yes, absolutely. The point of the comfort zone is to drag things into it and build upon what you know. I dislike the idea of "stepping outside the comfort zone" because it sounds like you got to throw yourself at challenges every time, everywhere, when it's much easier to sneak in and out, bringing some small new thing with you.
(03-15-2023, 06:08 AM)Dominicque Wrote: Even though that sort of art doesn't appeal to me, if that art is fine, my current art can still be good enough for commissions/professional work, whilst I work on having a style I really enjoy. I'm actively trying to find illustrators IRL I can vibe with.
Another way to look at it is to keep in mind when you're working for a client it's enough to make them happy. That's your target. If it looks awesome to you as well, all the better, but this is not a requirement of the task.
Remember that different styles are answers to different questions. They may look off when judged by specific lens, yet they still fulfil their original purposes. That's worthy and enough.
(03-15-2023, 06:08 AM)Dominicque Wrote: Those rock studies are great btw. Did you overlay with photos, or is it just painted?
It's been a while since I did these, I think I sculpted a striated pattern for the orange one and deformed, painted over and under it to test the process. Derivated the gray one from it and just painted the rest. It's as much a test of the process as it's to see if the result is too busy or what.
I dug up a timelapse of the mountains!