Artwork?

[Betikyan]

Hey, I'm new to this website and pretty much everything it involves in, lol. I was wondering how you people came up with such beautiful artwork on Krystal and other characters, what kind of programs you use, ect. I would like to be able to add a few things of my own if I am going to make any games of this. I know about the "animation" part though. Any help would be great. Hope I could share some animations with you guys in the future. Thank you

[Mr D]

Making models:
One way to make a character is tracing. There are a lot of artworks on krystal and others. So you just take the picture , import it to flash and take from the picture what you like (like head, eyes, hands and so on).
Of course some people just make their own models from scratch (but to do this you need a bit of an experience in this case).

Programs
People can use programs like Photoshop to make their characters BUT in the end it will all have to be in FLASH (i personaly use Adobe Flash CS4 Professional) if you want to animate it.


AND you should check this first viewtopic.php?f=7&t=413

[KaTsuO_O]

I have a feeling that you can create very good things, i dont know why. If You want Any help with animation pm me and i'll help you.

[Favelor]

i want to know how to make good art too. i just dont have the time or the skills to do it right now. all ive done is look for pictues on other websites added a few touches and posted them here. how ever the sites i WAS useing geot infected and started to infect me. so i stopped and looking for a good site to use. not had easy as it sounds.

[searingdark]

i use to draw alot too, was pretty good to but never finished anything that looks like some of the art ive seen here at most my best stuff looks like your "rough drafts" lol

[Betikyan]

I know how you guys feel.. We're all just left brain thinkers =/ lol

[Betikyan]

I have a feeling that you can create very good things, i dont know why. If You want Any help with animation pm me and i'll help you.

Well I'm studying basically anything that fits into engineering (e.g Electronics, Mechanics..), and I see this as "engineering" a game which I can learn new things and enjoy it while I do. Thank you for the assumtion lol, I'll try my best

[Workhorse]

Photoshop is the go-to program for raster graphics.

Illustrator or Flash for vector graphics.

To make it look nice you just need practice. Roughly 10,000 hours of it to grasp art basics, another 30,000 before you can begin to create professional work. There are no shortcuts, only hard work.

[ronpepper]

@Workhorse: Not sure where you got those figures, but they captured my imagination. I calculated that if one draws 2 hours a day on weekdays and 10 hours over the weekend, it would take 500 weeks or almost 10 years in order to "grasp the art basics." That said, I've been drawing since I was old enough to talk, I was making 3-d Voltrons in 3rd grade while everyone else was making stick figures, and somewhere along the way I did grasp those "basics."

Somewhere in high school. At that time I definitely was drawing at least 2 hours a day on average.

Not sure if I put in all those initial 10,000 hours but as with any skill you learn, you can get tutoring along the way and it will help you along incrementally. I thought the art teacher was going to seize on my talent to make me into a great artist. Didn't happen. They gave me some pointers *after* I finished my works, told me what I did wrong. In that way you can improve a little faster. But you may be right about the time it takes to get really good.

And actually it wasn't my art teacher that really taught me. It was mimicking really good artwork, artwork that I wanted to be able to do on my own. The advice I always give an aspiring artist is to not trace, but copy by sight, a style by a certain artist you want to be able to do, and keep copying his work and style until you are satisfied that you have made it your own. If you can execute it without looking to your references anymore, you've learned it.

Fascinating post to think about.

[Betikyan]

Photoshop is the go-to program for raster graphics.

Illustrator or Flash for vector graphics.

To make it look nice you just need practice. Roughly 10,000 hours of it to grasp art basics, another 30,000 before you can begin to create professional work. There are no shortcuts, only hard work.

Lmaoo, I have no idea where your shooting those numbers from. With a little messing around I was able to draw pretty convincing art. Not saying I'm a professional or anything, but I'm able to draw arms and such with the help of my new friend, Adobe Flash. Maybe your statistics are based on only pencil and paper?

[trunks2585]

Ah references and mimicing styles, such a tricky topic to talk about. I guess it really depends on the type of work you are doing and what you need work on. if it's proportions, human anatomy books and real life photo references or models if you can get them are wonderful tools to help you. There's somethings you can only learn from a real person, be it in real life or a photo, and even then photos flatten out somethings, it's hard to explain exactly until you've practiced drawing from life and from images.

As for developing a style, this is something I'm struggling with myself and I don't feel as comfortable talking about it but here's what I think. It's a fine line between making your own style by learning from another artist, and just ripping them off. Most artists will eventually want their own distict style anyways, but there's no reason not to keep elements of another artists work in yours. Like say you really like how one artists does eyes (probably the most common), but you have your own preference for doing the rest of the figure.

For me, Alvin-Earthworm is the most influential artist to me, he's drawn my character, I've drawn some of his, we're friends etc. He's been at it a lot longer than me and learned just by doing art over and over, as self taught as you can get and a constant reminder that I just gotta keep at it to develop my style, it's also interesting seeing how him (and other artists) change styles over the years. I try to look at how he's drawn my character and say to myself "ok what do I REALLY like about this that i want to include into how I'd normally draw my character."

[Workhorse]

I am glad it gave you some food for thought. Consider it this way: it would take roughly four years of working 8 hours per day, 5 days per week, to truly grasp the fundamentals of art. I'm not talking about "drawing" but "art". Painting, color theory, sculpting, line quality, value and observational skills. The whole package.

I highly recommend Betty Edward's Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain as a starting point.

[Thaedael]

This actually sparked something in me to a degree. On one hand I think you don't ever really learn the fundamentals, since you constantly evolve and grow, and as you do that the way in which you learn/execute/incorporate fundamentals changes. On the other hand, to a degree, there will always be some basic techniques, but those basic techniques can be changed/combined and executed in a plethora of ways. Basically your art talent and understanding is a constant flowing river of techniques/emotions/tools/mediums/etc. and as they move they can break off into smaller streams, or into bigger estuary, or even form droplets that stand out amongst the crowd.

I am not trying to discourage anyone, because in my mind, anything is art, so long as it has expression, whether it be poetry to basic writing, or doing something like the art of war. It's basically what you attribute to it, and so long as you are honest with yourself and your art you will be happy with it, but then there is always the artist dilemma of trying to better oneself and being our own hardest critic.

I have tried many techniques, and many media;
Digital: Flash-work, Spriting (limited palette, 256 color palette, dithering, etc.), I ventured into vector art for a bit, animation.
Traditional: Watercolors, oils, oil pastels, graphite, chalk pastels, acrylics, silk screening, screen toning to name but a few.
Indigenous Artstyles: Soap stone carving, terracotta sculptures, batiks to name but a few
Wargame painting: Airbrushing, masking, feathering, wetblending, drybrushing, Non-Metal-Metals (NMM)

There is no end point in art, except death. Just have fun and keep going for it. Time doesn't always make you better, it just allows more time for your art to change.

[ronpepper]

@Thaedael: Yep, there's very many different types of mediums, including animation.
@Workhorse: There's many different ways to spend those 10,000 hours, and the 30,000 thereafter. If you choose to specialize in one thing, you can get very good at it without dipping into others. I feel I spent more than enough time perfecting my ability to draw things in pencil, especially figures, but I'm not at the 40,000 mark yet there! Still, I didn't spend much time on painting and coloring, not enough to make me well-rounded.

Still, drawing includes the ability that I think really is at the heart of a basic artistic ability. One needs to be able to draw hands, faces, and anatomy, and to be able to create an image these that looks stylized, as well as a realistic drawing (simulated 3d), and to be able to blend the two. There are those who choose to skip this (understandably, if you didn't put in 10,000 hours and you want to hurry up and start animating, you can skip it). I'm not trying to call anyone out, but there are plenty of examples if you search. All is well for a while but then you see that they run into problems because of their inability to go beyond what they steal and borrow.

@Betikyan: Katsu can really help you with Flash, he's a whiz with that program. He's already helped me a lot when I was stuck and frustrated just trying to learn the basics. CS4 is by no means intuitive, even if you are familiar with Photoshop.

[Workhorse]

Specialization happens. For one to become a commercial artist it is even necessary, at some point. What you describe as "drawing" I would consider a mixture of line quality, observation, and value. They are fields of study that can be broken down into mechanical practice - like any other skill or trade. What are your thoughts on talent? I believe it is an illusion generated from superior observational skill.

[[TxM]Fox]

wow man, if you drew all that ^^^^^^ then you have some serious talent. dont let that talent go to waste, thats too impressive (whoever drew that)

[ronpepper]

@Workhorse: It's an interesting thought. I believe talent is real. Naturally, we all have an inherent artistic ability, as well as a trained ability, and the inherent in some is just going to be greater than others, or vice versa. Nothing is ever the same. In real life, that means that for some, no matter how much they seem to push themselves to do something, they can't get it out with the same degree of excellence as another person does routinely. Some of that is a question of technique, and the best artists (the pros) really take the time to refine and hone their technique.

Drawing lends itself to the line, however real life doesn't have lines, it has blocks of color, shades, gradations. The image you posed was a good example of that. Is that yours? Where did it come from?

[Workhorse]

Not my art - it's concept art for Arenanet. I highly recommend checking them out for inspiration. Hard working folks that have earned their skill through countless hours of work and study. I've had the privilege of studying alongside them at life drawing sessions and it paid some huge dividends. Their work ethic is phenomenal. For obvious reasons I wouldn't post my own art on this board.

[ronpepper]

Interesting, Arenanet eh. Work and study -- got it. No time right now, I'm not a pro.. And yeah I have plenty of drawings I'd like to post too but not on this board - there has to be a wall between my publicly known work and the stuff I do as Ron Pepper.

[Workhorse]

I am rather one note aren't I?