orphanlast
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Posts posted by orphanlast
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Okay, so... let me just do a rundown of what I'm doing.
Dimensions 7 in x 10.5 in
Margins:
Inner, outer, top, bottom are all: 0.25 in.
Bleed:
Inner, outer, top, bottom are all: 0.25 in
Am I missing something?
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Even at 300 DPI the measurements don't work
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And why would you have it at 300 DPI most comic books print at 600
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Well I've done it at least 50 times now and it doesn't fit even slightly
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This doesn't work.
The document is supposed to be 7" by 10.5" and when you place the image into the file -- the image is larger than the document.
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What about Affinity Publisher, when exporting as PDF it's all super pixelated. I need to raise the PPI.
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Just select what you need flipped, CTRL+X, CTRL+V, pull out the selection tool. Right click, transform, flip horizontally/vertically
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Thanks Walt. You're the man
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30 minutes ago, Fixx said:
Document>Convert Format (that is in new beta, older 1,6x it may be a bit different. Serif changed that to less Photoshop-like and maybe more accurate version)
Oh so you're talking about doing it inside of publisher itself. I was more thinking of doing it in Affinity Designer and having a dedicated folder for CMYK versions, possibly for working with Linked images. Would it be the same workflow in ADesigner?
I'm thinking this book will probably be something like 150 pages, teaching curvilinear perspective.
As far as color profiles... wow... that sounds like a catch 22. If you want to get published, you have to have a finished manuscript. But if you have one, you'll have to rework the entire manuscript, almost starting from scratch. So that pretty much means you need to go self publishing. I have an audience of 1,500+ people and it's projected to grow to 10,000 by January of 2021... But each self publishing house has different page layout designs.
It's hard to know where to even get started. I have this really cool beta program, but I have no idea where to even start. And now I even have to worry about color profiles. Is that something like a long list of CMYK color swatches that will print well with their printers?
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Okay, So I have a TON of images that are all RGB, and quite a bit of them need to be converted over to being CMYK and I have NO IDEA where to start. I'm thinking of using and eventually purchasing Affinity Publisher (I love the Affinity products, so far I own all of them).
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I've looked for tutorials on this topic and nothing seems to explain it.
So if I have two raster layers, it's really frustrating because if I know for a fact that I want to merge those two pixel layers, the program won't let me. I try CTRL+E. Nothing. I try to rasterize the already raster pixel layer. Try CTRL+E again... Nothing. There's no way to merge these layers it seems. I I've resorted to grouping them, which still sucks. Because regardless of if I'm drawing in Affinity Photo or Affinity designer, I could have a sketch spread out on three layers, by accident and then if I need to erase, I have to juggle between all of them to figure out how to erase something that should take 1 second to accomplish.
This is extremely frustrating and anything anyone can do to explain this would be freakin' awesome.
... And merging raster layers is a really super basic operation. I can't see why it wouldn't be in the program.
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I'd love to share these original Affinity Designer files to get these images in the Samples that load up every time I boot up Affinity Designer. I really think that my artwork could help people see the commercial value that Affinity Designer has.
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Much appreciated
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This will be the thumbnail for my next video. The character was drawn in Krita, everything else, Affinity Photo
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I did actually, and I couldn't get any brush sensitivity to work. It all seemed like after-the-fact adjustments. Like I'd draw a line, it'd look like crap, then I'd have to play with it to simulate pressure. I've played with the settings to see if the simulated pressure could be automatic while drawing lines... it just didn't work out.
It's also bothersome that if I want to color the image, it needs to be a closed shape. So I need to make a dedicated color layer that fills the silhouette of what I'm drawing.
Eventually I'll get into the Affinity products more. But it's always a gradual process.
That said I don't hate the drawing experience in APhoto. But I think a free alternative is better.
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So here's a video of mine where I'm drawing in Affinity photo:
So, I've actually been drawing out my thumbnails in Affinity Photo for a little while. And although I do plan on leaving a review on Affinity photo on my channel, it will be on discussing it as a means to create composite images rather than it's drawing and painting capabilities because that's where it's strongest capabilities are. As a photo retoucher. But as a drawing/painting tool, I find it lacking, and so I'll leave my review here.
I am a firm believer that when comparing a product, you can usually compare it to a free and open source program and not only does this get the developers of the commercial software to realize what we already get FOR FREE but also to see where the market already is (for free) and the developers of the commercial product can actually look at the free alternative's source code and make efforts to not just improve but know EXACTLY HOW to improve. This gives me reason to discuss Krita.
Affinity Photo (as a drawing painting tool) VS Krita.
First off, I don't mind that features be spread across multiple software. What I don't like is having to export my Krita File as a PNG. If I could just drag and drop the Krita file directly into Affinity, that would resolve most issues.
In Affinity, I find it impossible to draw in perspective. I'm sure people can work it out, like they've worked it out in Photoshop and it's complete lack of tools regarding perspective. But I find the Assistant Tool in Krita far superior to any software in the market, with both free and Open Source and paid Commercial software. The assistant tool does more than perspective work, it allows you to draw with parallel rulers, have splines, and a long list of other things. And why is this the case? Originally some upstart in programming created the initial building blocks of the Assistant tool, who was attending high school at the time? THIS TOOL ALONE makes it possible to draw a panoramic image. A full 180° image. I teach how to do that on my channel... I haven't found ANY other software that can do this.
The fill tool in Affinity is terrible. There's barely any options for it in the tool options. Where as the tool options in Krita make it so that you have not just a laundry list of options, but you can have it fill with awareness to content on other layers, but it also can fill "limited to current layer". Affinity appears to be limited to only "limited to current layer".
The brushes in Affinity are nice, Krita's are better. There's multiple brush engines in Krita. And tons of options for them. This is the first thing most people notice about krita. The brushes themselves take the form of different tools as well, making less of a need to clutter the Tool's Panel.
In Affinity, there's the smudge tool, and three brush tools. I'm sure there's a reason for that, but I'm constantly having to press the "B" key over and over again. Where as the exact same tools exist in my favorited brushes in Krita's brush engines and I only need to press "B" once.
If I have to press "B" more than once, that means there's a number of ctrl+z's. So it's easier to select it with the mouse in Affinity. It's needless redundancy. It's constantly tripping me up. And there's no need for that.
Next, Krita has brush stabilization options in its tool options. Not only that, but it has the "Dynamic Brush Tool" for slow calculated stylus movement. Yeah... there's a weird stylus on a string thing in Affinity. I saw it somewhere, but the dynamic brush tool is awesome.
Making a selection and in affinity and pressing ctrl+B will bring up the options to expand or contract the selection. This is cool. Why doesn't pressing "enter" not execute the task and get rid of the dialogue box? I have to press the "ok" button, or whatever it is with my cursor every time?
So that's my comparison and negative feedback towards Affinity. But what does it do right?
It draws decent lines. It tracks my stylus activity well. You can draw good images. It's not ram heavy, and my potato computer appreciates that.
But it feels like some core elements are missing in the drawing/painting arena are missing.
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Just a quick response. I'm hard at work trying to meet my weekly video deadline. I think I need to take a few courses on Skillshare that teach how to handle Freelancing. As soon as I do, I'll contact you about it.
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About the bits pending, not sure if those two first videos you posted them as good or bad tuts examples.
The first one is speaking about building with light/shadows, values, actual volumes, kind of sculpting with the brush, and he is teaching caricature drawing.
Not specially interesting for this matter, but it is in the fact that well, one can do it better or worse, but thinking in "3D" while drawing, and doing it in greyscale is a very old traditional technique.
Oh they're all good tutorials in their own way. All of these guys are currently working in the field. Some of them are better than others. The Characture drawing video, doesn't really matter if he's drawing a face or a landscape, basically that technique is what you described. Big brush, gradually make a small brush
QuoteIs like any other approach, has its pros and cons. For concept art, specially landscape, and structures, it has solid advantages, but a color-from-the-start approach will have other pros.
Yeah, I'm sure it would. That's a workflow I'll be trying out.
About the portfolio. the goal isn't to have a huge portfolio that I'd send to all potential employers. It's more like I'd have multiple portfolios and I'd send the applicable one to the job.
QuoteMy main point was more in the painting technique: biig blocks first. true that you are limited by your machine, BUT.... if that's the case, one dirty trick you can very well use is painting that in very low resolution, like in a 1200px wide image, desktop size, as this is only a mere composition initial planting of masses.
Doesn't that add noise to the image? Because with the content of my channel, I also have to think "this image will be a print down the road."
QuoteThe second video is very good for the case, IMO. They are actually doing this of drawing in small. I probably wouldn't carry it too far, although I can see how this way they can "brainstorm" visually very fast. They don't get married to a first idea, and they are all time comparing visually several different compositions. Working in scale, they are actually working with HUGE brushes, because each scene is tiny, but they are defining an entire mountain with a single brush splat. Of course, its easier to do so with mountains than with a high tech futuristic building, but you could very well have built that wall you made by painting by large flat brush splats, building that sensation of a wall... One thing I left out: Too much detail in the background sometimes is not convenient.
Well yeah, atmospheric perspective and all.
QuoteIs still good what you did, but lousy, large paint daubs like they make, even if detailing quite, help that sense of distance and lower detail, of atmosphere. My main point is I think is a general better approach than very refinined and cleaned line art, unless you are actually making a comic.
Right.
QuoteAnd you use a lot of time in the selections with krita, with PS would be long, too.
Thinking back in hind sight, yeah. But I still think a faster and even GOOD result would be the thick inverse selection lines I mentioned earlier.
Maybe I'll make a video about that. I don't know if you're getting my meaning.
QuoteWhile you could have done the thumbnail tech (maybe you are suggestiing you were thinking od doing so, to, when showing me that video) as then the brush size is not a prob, and once you scale up, you have that full structure planted, only need to refine some spots, not all, those that make the brain feel as enough to "feel" detailed. You do not need to detail every single thing in a same level. Just enough for the brain to understand (this would be easier explained by painting than with words...)
Well watch a 6:00 I was thinking of doing a similar workflow:
It just didn't work out.
Specifically I was trying out this guy's three layers per thumbnail approach for background, midground, and foreground
The three layer technique didn't work for me.
QuoteThe thumbnailing technique, they explain it as the most convenient to use well your time, plant fast a set of brainstortmed visual possibiities, for you to see several possibilities, and for your boss and rest of the team to have the options. It helps you tons as it is deciding stuff than if not done first, doing those decisions later when the drawing is advanced, is complicated and a waste of time. In your case, is almost the only way to go in this style of large blocks which is so fast and so convenient, as your machine, surely for the small cpu cache, and other matters, in Krita can't do larger brushes. But as I say, by doing a main compsition in small,then scaling up, the machine should have zero probs.
As long as it doesn't make a bunch of noise on a print.
I'm in a bind. My body's falling apart. I just injured myself. And I'm doing construction. So if I don't get picked up in the industry, then I better keep building my audience and plan on making money on prints, tshirt sales, brush packs, tools like the one I linked for the actions pallet.
QuoteThat 2nd tut is really good, and done by pros. But my proposal, and you make what ever you'll desire of it, is, doing a single thumbnail, meaning, even larger, kind of almost all screen, but not as for press, not 300 dpi, not a 5000x5000 pixels. Whatever works well in that machine. Can be even a single small image at 1.000 pixels wide, also you can zoom-in a bit for easier work, at this point if you see a bit the pixel, no biggie (never hurts me, I'm a pixel art artist in games, I don't mind seen big pixels from time to time). The "large brushes", as the image is so small, will be in absolute terms pretty small, yet covering a large part of the image. Remember: you can, maybe should, worked in zoomed in, so that you see the entire desktop filled with your scenario. if hate seeing the pixels, work in thumbnail mode like them, is even good to forget about detailing in this stage, as is a bit your enemy in first stage.
Well with concept art you have strong deadlines. So big pixels and such, that's kinda expected. And people still love "The Art Of Books" but, for a youtube artist, who's going to sell prints... dunno... right now the youtube quality is the priority for me (I'm not rejecting everything you're saying though). To me, I live in a small town, never ran into anyone with an artistic job. The idea of me being picked up seems unlikely.
QuoteWell, eventually, I supposed I'll get my hands on Clip Studio Paint.
Its main advantage is a superb ink and pencil feel, stabilization of the line is not from this world, too. The oil brush is very good, even if does not try to mimic the "3d texture" of a very dense oil daub, but I don't like that much when Painter or Art Rage do that, as.... is a fake, anyway, the printer wont show the 3D blobs, and is constraining to a light source direction ofr those blobs, etc. Also is extremely good the customization of each tool. And the performance is very good. But you can do very well with almost any painting software out there, including A. Photo (which is not a painting software). I'd save my bucks for now to go adding for a bit more powerful machine.
Well, It doesn't cost as much as photoshop and you can do animation with it so I'd say it's likely I'll pick it up some time.
Quotewow. No need that much, u can add some parts later...Dunno in your area, but in my country, which has very similar prices than the US, indeed, a bit more expensive, you can just get :
Well I need a computer that will last me. Kinda working with a Channel I need to keep up with. Specifically, this is what I'm thinking of.
And I have a laptop, no monitor.
Quote-No monitor, as you have already one, and we're only talking about the performance issue, a Ryzen 7 (8 cores, 16 threads! ) 2700 (I'd go for the 2700x, but is constantly out of stock, everybody wants it, is fine to make a rough estimation, and the 2700 is very good, too, though 500mhz of difference in stock speed) . Enoughcpu cache. 8 mb ram 2400 mhz (you can add more later easily, I'd recommend 16). Just a HD seagate barracuda 7200 rpm, mother board B350, not going too low, to a A320, as that can be limitng later on. Box, well, with a 600W power supply, passive, should be enough. (so, still around 15 euros more than a basic one with a 500w). Card... g. cards are a case of extorsion now due to the bitcoin mining. bad time to buy a high end of those. So, a 1030 from nvidia has quite some of the needed shaders (Blender would benefit from a better card, specially Eve, but...not a show stopper, IMO). This card even can be used for playing e-sports games (but one's better not playing too much...
). It has 2GB, enough for a while... if the mining stuff changes, will be a time to buy sth better. You don't need anything else (speakers, mouse, keyboard, will just use your current ones)
That all is about 668 euros, if you go to the right shop.
Know anywhere that already has that ready-made? I'm kind of a software guy, not much into hardware. And an Nvidia Graphics card is ideal.
QuoteAnd an additional $300 on Cacani
I don't fully get this... There are a bunch of free or cheaper animation tools...
Maybe a month to month License for a stint.
QuoteHave seen the oficial videos, nothing that much justifying the price compared to other options... I'd seriously test the one I mentioned, Animation paper.(and synfig does a bunch of the things cacani seem to do).
The problem with Synfig is you can't actually draw with it. It's all done with a mouse. I'll check out animation paper.
QuoteThose are free, but even if willing to spend 300$ bucks for whatever the reason, I'd go spine... is not frame by frame (for that Animation Paper is great, IMO) but is a job bringer.
Isn't spine only for game development though?
QuoteA lot of companies are requesting knowledge in Spine, even if is focused on games, skeletal animation and animation per sprite parts, for game optimization, but is highly requested. Is a job profile. For my own indy stuff, I don't see the point. You go better with Animation Paper + Synfig, and if anything, getting to master Blender, to a point you can even do character animation gives u a ton of possibilities.
If 2.0 was here, especially with the grease pencil, then sure. Currently you need to screen capture your greace pencil animation when you're done because you can't save your progress.
QuoteThis is a extremely long path: I can now do that, but you need first to learn ALL modeling, uv mapping, texturing, animation, toon rendering, and of course, general Blender usage. But for Indy stuff I see it great. I'd be to think 3D animation is more future proof, but in the moment, animating in 2D in pieces/bones has its place in Unity game engine companies (small/mid size, there are many out there). I've recommended you better focusing in a single field, wont do it again...
Animation is the main focus. But right now I'm building an audience and trying to make money on youtube. If I get freelance work along the way, cool. But even if I planned on going 100% freelance, sounds pigeon holing yourself into less work in just focusing on one thing.
I've been illustrating my whole life. So I show it off on my channel. But I'm focused on 2D animation for film and TV. When learning Blender, there's not much of a reason to learn every one of those things immediately, because blending 2D and 3D won't always need all that.
I'm capable of learning the techniques of concept art. But chances are, that'll be for me and my channel. Where am I going to run into someone that'll hire me? So my focus is on my channel. Been working 80 hours a week on it. 8 for my day job. 8 for my channel.
QuoteYup. If anything, I'd add A. Designer (not because we're in this forum! I don't get a coin for recommending it, but I have it) if want for example a vector based solution to export to vector based (Adobe Animate (aka ""Flash", Synfyg, etc) animation packages, or for graphic design gigs requiring vectors. A lot of ppl used to go Illustrator first, and export for animation in Flash. But later Flash got so good that some eliminated the Illustrator step.
Oh yeah, I have Designer.
QuoteThe witcher technique example: Perfectly right, but that's totally a comic approach, less of a digital paint style. Is fine if a very specific project request that aesthetic, but in concept and illustration, way more projects will require the painterly approach. You are absolutely free to use any. But learning new paths is good, you already know that other one... No?
Yup
QuoteI'm interested in all sorts of different types of workflows
I like both styles. But your painterly style sounds like it's faster. I dunno if I could paint everything on one layer, but I could reduce my selections.
QuoteYou know what? why push other style if ur so inspired .that's key...Keep doing that. Maybe try the other techniques, out of curiosity, as you never know. But trying hard in every style, always a good thing, no matter what.
Yeah, it's curiosity. And I'm also searching for a favorite workflow.
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This is the thing... I'd ask you the favor of uploading one (forum attach feature) of the files you have issues with, one that you don't mind uploading as has no secret stuff, or that you don't mind sharing at all, even if is not a drawing, but where you have the performance issues. I have used Krita quite, and while I know it has its performance issues, I have not found such show stoppers as in your case.
Well yeah, I can mutilate a file and upload it, how do you want me to upload? It's a 136 MB file. I've gone ahead and uploaded it
QuoteYour machine could be having a very small cpu cache (krita uses mostly CPU and CPU cache), or be super old or super low powered machine. OR, you could be doing something that creates a bottleneck (these tend to be very interesting to detect fro developers). Hard to say without experimenting with one of your files. Also, it is important that you'd be using Krita 4, it has been improved quite in performance, in auto save, now really happening in the background, etc. Were you using 4 or 3.x / 2.x ?
I'm using Krita 4. And yes, my computer is economic, cheap, not really impressive.
QuoteI do not experience those problems, even while I have a 9 year old computer, a core i7 860, 2.8 Ghz (stock), 3.46 Mhz turbo , 8 MB 1600Mhz RAM, GTX 275, HD sata Seagate Barracuda 1Tb , 7200 rpm. Which was a middle machine in its day, today beaten in single core by cheapo 2 core pentiums, among at some other departments . (but is still an i7 with 4 cores, 8 threads, and so beats cheap machines today in some stuff, like Blender's Cycles rendering)
Exactly... What machine are you using ? This counts a lot.
It's an Asus. Intel i3-5010U 2.10 GHz, 6 GB RAM, 64 Bit,
QuoteThis is the most strange part. And reason why I'm really willing to check one file of yours that triggers this. Even if I detect it happening in my machine, I'll probably be able to tell you a workaround or trick.
Well your processor IS better than mine. So far my channel has been centered on low cost. So my computer has been low cost.
QuoteAnyway, look, I've worked as a concept artist and illustrator at several comapanies. The way you are illustrating is one of the possible ways , but not necessarily the best for art. You are doing a very image editing approach, which is even noticed in the result, and this is not necessarily good. Today, is much more valued a painterly approach. And with this I don't mean not to use image edit features. I'm talking here about style. And by using so much a selections based technique, you are forcing a specific "feel" that wont help you much in convincing certain high spheres, specially if planning to get into a company, as an artist (but neither helps for selling a good book cover!). Indeed, even in concept art, where is definitely seen with good eyes the use of textures and photos and photo montage, and photo editing tricks. Even there, they totally hide the editing traces, and don't rely that much in selections. There lies the difference between an artist and a photoshopping guy.... ( I wouldn't call my self a "Photoshop God", as I think you wrote about you, hehe, while you'd be surprised the amount of PS that one can learn using it as your main tool 24/7 since the year 1995. So, is not that I say this because I don't know well Photoshop... "au contraire". )
I'm very familiar with Photoshop and its various features. I've even made some tools for it with the action pallet: https://www.deviantart.com/art/ACTIONS-Augustine-Tools-191441357
I'm actually hoping I might be able to do something similar with A Photo. I believe... they call it Macros...
QuoteIMO, you should start a lot more thinking of painting with big brushes and less in profiling , bucket/gradient filling line art, more in "painting". I know is hard for someone who come from comic lineart and pencil and paper -I know as is where I came from- but you need to check tuts about digital painting. But god ones, from high end pros, not from others that are at your level or below (even if you think those are good ! ) at youtube. At that place there is a HUGE LOT of non professional tuts ...
Yeah, I'm sure you mean like this
and this:
In Krita, this was an impossible task, even a medium sized brush would lag out the entire system.
QuoteIn a low powered machine I would not abuse of vector layers neither adjustment layers, that's for sure.
Well I used a good number of adjustment layers. But as I understand it, every layer is treated like a smart object, and probably needs to be rasterized in A. Photo. And by and large I used masks a way of saving selections. THE way I know of so far in A Photo).
QuoteAll that said, IMO AP is better in performance than krita (but Krita is improving in that area, actively, I know from good source...). BTW, CSP (Clip Studio Paint, aka Manga Studio) is a ninja in performance. That thing deals with large files, many layers like if it were melted cheese. Still, again, NOT an image editor, NOT a Photoshop replacing. Indeed, is workflow is very much thought for comics ! It has a superb inking/penciling feel. This is is a terribly common error people do with painting software. AP is an amazing image editor WITH painting features. Krita, Rebelle, Paintstorm, Art rage (well this latest covers a bit more fields now. But eons from what AP or PS do cover) are amazing painting tools.
Well, eventually, I supposed I'll get my hands on Clip Studio Paint. But at the moment, I just spend $200 on software. I'll be spending $1,000+ on a new computer. And an additional $300 on Cacani. And my channel has been centered on free and affordable stuff... An additional $200 isn't something that I am able to afford. Sketchbook Pro, Krita, and A. Photo should do the trick.
QuoteI would recommend you then Lazy Nezumi Pro, but if you are having lag and performance issues with Krita, which I never experienced with this arcane machine (and remembering 3 high end projects where I should have noticed issues, if attending to the big size/scale matters), and still, I noticed lag with Nezumi combining it with several apps, not sure if is a good idea to point you in that direction.
I am familiar with the software, never used it. From what I understand it does brush stabilization and has perspective tools. I'm not sure how advanced the perspective tools are. But I'm sure for $5 it's worth it.
The thing is, Lazy Nexumi shouldn't be a scape goat for commercial software to NOT put in a stabilization options and perspective tools into their own program. But for right now, it's a competent ghetto rig for what software developers refuse to do for themselves.
QuoteEven here... I'd say.. is best if you train your hand/eye/brain to not need so many assistants... People is kind of thinking they can skip more traditional skills than they should !.
Drawing in perspective is a very traditional skill and lacking the proper perspective tools, such as an assistant tool is glossing over the traditional skills, relying on perspective transformations and photographs in order to make the perspective for them as a crutch. And I'm sure that's how using photo templates started, a lack of perspective tools in the software. There's nothing wrong with it. But I'm completely in agreement, people should know the traditional skills, like perspective. Thus it's best to have an assistant tool.
Although Kim Jung Gi is excellent at just eyeballing his perspective, that's a skill most people just don't have. And when working with a table top graphics tablet, it's not entirely always possible to just eyeball perspective without the necessary tools. And in my case, hardware also prevents me from even being able to see the vanishing point at all times because, in order to keep Krita from completely lagging out, being zoomed in at a comfortable level reduces the lag.
I'm not really quite sure how I can understand that statement... the Assistant tools help create a traditional workflow when compared to Perspective transformations and photo templates and etc. And quite a bit of the concept art that I'm seeing these days, without a photo template, are landscapes, because they don't have an assistant tool or a photo, showing that traditional skills are dying off.
And to keep a 4 Point Continuous Curvilinear Perspective image's continuity correct, it's best to have 6 fisheye perspective assistants, otherwise it becomes an ungodly mess.
Quote(fatal error) Assistants are good, but it make you train less.
I disagree. Without assistant tools, artists don't even bother learning perspective, something you kind of mention later on. And it sucks drawing pencil to Paper with a ruler. Assistant tools are the ideal way of drawing in perspective, especially if you need things measured out. And you WILL need at least somethings measured unless you want the pillars of buildings none aligned, A bench to be the size of a full grown person when measured to what it would be off in the distance. Things like that.
I've never studied perspective more than when I have assistant tools.
QuoteIMO are good for speeding up once you are indeed able to do that fast by hand (you might even eliminate the necessity), but I wouldn't totally focus in its use, my 2c...of course, am all time thinking of digital painting, be it for illustration or concept art... For COLORING comic pages of inked art, that might be different. (I've done all of that, tho, I mean, paid to do all that, and more.)
That's great and all but drawing in perspective IS the traditional form of an artists work. I don't have a screen tablet, so some of what you're suggesting isn't even possible, unless I get all of my perspective work PERFECT with a thumbnail first. An assistant tool is essential given some of the hardware at our disposal. I understand there's the phrase "It's not the tool, it's the person using it." but if you're using a tool that's not very good at a particular task then it's expected that the person using it will take longer to complete the task, especially if all the other tools require you to eyeball everything.
QuoteAgain.. .a gradient is fine, but not so usual in a true digital paint approach. What you solve with gradients and bucket fills, should instead be solved by big flat brushes and building up with paint daubs, transparent brushes in some cases, of certain size, from bigger brush size to smaller(avoiding small brushes at start, at all costs). And handling well opacity, painterly brushes, etc. Otherwise, it'd be reflected, the too much image-editing/filters approach, and the result will suffer..
Okay, well there's a ton of different workflows that artists adopt, like this one.
After twelve minutes in, he does tons of selections and uses the fill tool. I know this because I've taken his Skillshare course. I'm interested in all sorts of different types of workflows. And the workflow you're describing sounds like the Proko and thumbnailing technique listed above.
I DO feel I'm in a better place to do that type of workflow, now that I have Sketchbook Pro and A. Photo. And I'll be in an even BETTER position to use Krita in that workflow when I eventually purchase this newer computer. However, just by tinkering with this workflow, I don't find getting anatomy and poses its this techniques strong suite.
For example, I absolutely hate the pose and anatomy the final image in this video (just look at the thumbnail. Yeah... this workflow's good for environments. But look that this dude's torso in this thumnail his ribcage is all messed up. He has no calf. Something's wrong with his butt. The front of his neck makes the neck WAY too thick. The woman in the distance looks nice, but then again, she takes up less than a 10th of the pixels:
Also Keinan Lafferty even states that it's not for building good poses and anatomy.
I'm not apposed to this workflow. In fact, I look forward to using it. But it seems like it DOES have weaknesses.
QuoteThing is: You would go for over paint the hair with subtle light opacity, large brush, instead of applying a filter or color fill over a quick mask, color range, or worse, magic wand selection. You seem to be going for a very comic-page like approach,
Well yeah, I'm starting to peak my head out from under the comic book page approach for the very first time, because I'm starting to adopt a very digital workflow and I'm now trying to build up my youtube channel.
Quotebut you are talking about concept art, art in general, which would mean quite a different approach. "Painterly" means not going to the past, pre-computers era , means doing high quality digital painting, digital art. You would attract a lot more attention of game HR people by doing so than by filling a hair area with a gradient or even a plain bucket fill with later on applied filters or adjustment layers.
Destructive editing, is what you're saying. Only that usually means doing the same task multiple times. In my NobleFrugal Studio series, I draw out a rather large background and that's exactly what I had to do.
When I mentioned the hair I was more-so talking about refining the selection for the tiny strands of hair. Suppose you need to move the character and switch up the composition. Suppose your boss told you he wants it that way. In Krita, that would be impossible without some repainting.
But most selections should be done with a CTRL+Click on a layer and maybe a quick lasso to add or remove part of the selection.
QuoteYou should not be doing photo retouch techniques, but painting techniques, IMO. Specially when handling a painting software like Krita. This is why you like much more A. Photo.
Well -- I have more than 183 videos. A good chunk of them I'm using Krita. You tell me if I'm doing major photo editing techniques with Krita. Initially, sure, I was definitely treating it like photoshop. But then gradually loosened up so that I could actually get some work done. In the attached file (which took forever to mutilate for you btw, I used some gradient maps, but plenty or artists use gradient maps in coloring their grayscale images.
Quote(which is not superior to Krita in its brush engine, it is in photo retouch and image editing (is superior to most everything out there apart from PS)...because they are two different areas! Is like saying that Nadal is a better tennis player than Ronaldo.
I'm not familiar with Sports references.
... I know what you're talking about. I've discussed it at length in my videos.
QuoteOf course, if your career path aims more to concept art, the photo techniques will be crucial. Although tons of concept artists just illustrate and don't rely in photo editing tricks. In illustration in general, you'd better off "painting" and not going for powerful selections and filters. Been many years at this...
Fair enough. I'm more interested in making a crap load of images. Creating an impressive portfolio that can land me in any of the areas that I'm interested in. If I approach a concept design job, I'll already have images for it. If I want a job doing comic book art, I have images for it. If I want a job in 2D animation, I'll have animations for it.
QuoteWell, I enjoy both... but my comments go in the direction that most artists have taking to evolve in digital painting. You would see it easily in Corel Painter artists, more than in Photoshop artists. Still, these techniques can be used with both.
I'll look at some videos on Corel Painter then.
QuoteNo, but it can't be denied that being able to select and mask and such makes for a faster workflow. They worked in a completely different commercial capacity for a different time.
It depends on what you are after
Well, suppose you're painting an image that has a mountain, a tree, a bunch of walls going different directions.
Being able to quickly select each wall and applying a mask can quickly allow you to just paint instead of having to worry about if you're painting inside the lines. Same with the tree, after you're done painting the walls and the mountain, the tree, all its branches, and leaves, coloring it would be much easier if it's a mask is around the border of it so that you can just focus on the tree without having to worry about accidentally screwing up your work with the mountains and the walls. And sure, you can merge these things when you're done with them so that it's all on one layer.
QuoteIf for comic pages coloring, what you describe is a total must. If for actual illustration and concept art, it depends. And for all what is not comic line art coloring, I'd recommend other techniques different to the ones you describe, that for sure. Even if those are very advanced and well done (most of us know all those pretty well, too, but they will leave you with a finishing style you might want to avoid)
You have examples? Let's put it that way.
QuoteIF you are willing to become a video game concept artist (definitely not my best destination as an artist, but this is a very personal matter. Spoiler alert: I hate the video game industry now. With a passion. And I've covered (and be paid for) almost all game professional profiles.) , then, lot of that is done by blocking first with large (HUGE) brushes, finding the right big structure with flat shapes/volumes (but first are shapes). Then you go detailing from there, typically, decreasing brush size in each concretion pass. Not going to details for a large while. You don't necessarily need even a single selection for that.
Yeah, with what I've been liking up above with the Proko and Thumbnailing video, I'm sure I'm familiar with what you're talking about.
Okay, it took me a while to find this video again. But this dude is the best that I've seen at what you're describing. I would argue that this technique in this video isn't traditional techniques. He's stealing perspective from a photo:
But is guy also seems to do some line art at 56 minutes in:
QuoteGallery art as well... then is clear. You should think more in "painting", not so much in doing careful selections and filling those with gradients and bucket fills and applying later on filters and layer adjustments.
Thing is, right now, to keep my youtube channel going, I need to be a one man band. I need to make my concept art, I need to make the story board, I need to do my own animating. The entire production is made by me. I'm not QUITE at the stage where I'm working on a cartoon yet. I'm just doing art practices and trying out different workflows.
Just being able to refine the selection to be able to pick up things like hair. That tool. It makes it so that you don't spend hours making a careful selection. In the video in the OP, I really didn't do careful selections. I was just figuring out the selection tools. Still figuring out the selection tools. If making a decent selection takes more than 1 minute, which it shouldn't take even 1 minute, but if it takes more than a minute, then you don't have the selection tools you need. If you can't save selections in the Channels, you don't have the selection tools you need.
Just pressing CTRL and clicking on a layer and getting all the opaque layers -- that's a nice selection. Being able to merge your layers but saving a selection for later, that takes the speed of CTRL+Click, that's a nice selection.
QuoteI'm quite experienced with Blender and Blender Cycles. I still prefer more modeling with Wings3D, but that's probably counter productive, very old habit that became part of myself almost while at companies. Unlike you, I'm fine with jumping between programs, but if you know nothing about 3D, and have the luck of a very good friend teaching you, you should go all the way fully with Blender. (or fully with 3DS Max, or fully Maya (ie, for an animation focus)) It pays well to full master a high end package in EVERY corner. You later on will port that knowledge to other packages.
Financially going from Maya, to Zbrush, to some other program to pose and animate your character -- that's expensive. It's not a problem of jumping from program to program to complete tasks that's the problem. It's that the industry expects you to be made of money in order to work in the industry. Eventually you wind up using seriously out dated software and then you have to spend more than $2,000 just on software. Blender being a one stop show for everything a life saver, it's commercially supported, and the free price tag is appealing.
Quote2.8 is going to have an "easier" UI for people with zero experience in 3D. I certainly will disable any UI that simplifies stuff, but the software in general has become really powerful. It is a good bet. I learnt in companies first 3DS Studio for DOS (around 91 - 96, I believe, specially during a master after Fine Arts MFA), then Max 1 came and learnt that, was using that at companies till Max 8. Is pretty similar to today's, in the very basic core. Once you learn well a 3D tool, you get the grips of another very easily, or up to speed with new versions.
That's good to know.
QuoteThat said... it all depends on which are your personal aims. If you plan on getting a job in the industry (I'm far from wishing that anymore, 'cause I've worked at it, and didn't love the experience after 4 companies, learnt there were better paths, for me, personally, for my own life, of course) you'd be wasting time not using the real pro requested tools. For concept, it should be one or a combination of: Photoshop, Corel Painter, Sketchbook Pro, and total familiarity with Zbrush (this is a JOB BRINGER, both in games and the promising VR area (almost as promising as AI or big data, job-wise), skills are almost identical, so that's a plus. If you learn games, you learn VR, in graphics), as you will interact with that a lot. But mostly, Photoshop+Zbrush, as concept artists are often requested to do more 2D work than just concept art, except at some good enough AAA companies. If willing to become a game modeler, you'll be requested texturing, too, and uv mapping, and the entire PBR workflow (really complex, even for a "pro" like me) for realistic materials and shaders making, so that he whatever engine will make a true PBR rendering, total must today in EVERY 2D/3D game or VR artist. This would need 3DS Max (I'd personally would choose Max for this profile...) or Maya, and a total need, Zbrush, and the Substance Painter and Substance Designer, or at least, one of them. Ideally, both. For landing in a very often posted job, get familiarity with Unity game engine art pipeline (not super simple). Indeed, if you get good in 2D animation, even if not frame by frame animator ninja, you should learn SPINE animation tool. Highly requested in job offers for UNITY based companies. For aiming higher, you wouldn't need Unity, tho (but one often needs to pick not always the very high end company job...
. if like me, prefer to stay local, not become a nomad.). For 3D animation, it's...Maya. Max can do, but I'd go Maya. And stuff like Motion Builder. CAT or other advanced plugins if in Max. There's a large area, VFX, that's mostly Houdini, but that's an entire whole other world, in which I cannot give any advice.
For no concept art neither modeling/animation jobs, but UI/UX, today you need Photoshop, of course, but also study quite some theory -read books and attend to commercial video tutorials, lessons- about UX, which is an entire world by itself. And surely get access to a Mac and learn deeply Sketch. Even if aiming for game jobs in UI matters. That stuff has spread like a virus, has not been restrained to the web/app development world....So much that I've preferred to move from UI designer to pure web developer (code).
Right now, I'm more focused on learning to teach. Once I've made enough little indie projects I can start teaching on youtube.
My main focus right now is my youtube channel. And the software you've discussed is way too much money. The industry is way over bloated with one software for this, another for that, and another for this other thing. Just one piece of software should do the trick. And like you said, once you learn one piece of software, transitioning isn't too difficult. Like transitioning from Photoshop to A. Photo. I already know there's not going to be a very long learning period for me.
If my channel gets endorsed by photoshop, yeah sure, I'll use photoshop when they send me free copies of the software with an permanent license. The subscription based system they have is stupid and tells me Adobe needs to be replaced.
QuoteSo, sadly, for going to work at companies, specially triple A commercial games, you need to stick to PS (at least, keep up to date with new CC versions features: videos/tuts of new features, trials, etc), is what is gonna be used, and you need to keep totally familiar with it and its latest versions always.
I'm very familiar with Photoshop.
QuoteAnd going Blender would hurt you more than benefit you IF your only aim is to work at a game company, build a career there. If your plan is being a freelancer, that's a very tough option itself (freelancer), i should know, but then, Blender is the way to go for many reasons.
As I see it, if I'm freelancing, how are they to what I'm animating with?
I'm interested in concept art and animation. I don't really care too much about entering into the Gaming industry itself. Gaming wasn't really one of the things I listed.
As far as freelancing goes, yeah -- it's tough but if I build my youtube audience up enough, have a number of products for sale, I won't necessarily have to depend on going from job to job. It'd be nice, but not necessary.
QuoteCinema 4D is being used by a bunch of middle size 2D/3D animation studios.But IMO, a much narrower number of job offers there. In the other side, kind of require from you less different profiles to master, if you get to be a really 2D or 3D animator. Just wanted to warn you: Saying that you totally master Blender is not gonna impress anybody in the high end game industry. Of course they'll consider it positively: knowing deeply any 3D package is a plus, but they know how different is the UI from any of the commercial ones. So much that you can easily move from Max to Maya and the other way round, not so fast from Blender to Max, for example. You would also probably want to aim to specific professional areas. Trying to cover a too wide area could be not the best idea. (ie, both concept/illustration/2D UI or graphic design area, AND all the huge 3D field..... ) That said, there are appearing more and more jobs for generalists, at the same pace than being requested super specialists in other places. Go guess.
I figure the Animation industry will want to see my animations. If they're good, they're good. If they don't want to hire me as a Freelancer, then that's cool. I can just focus on making more videos and products for my youtube channel.
QuoteNobody needed in the huge game companies the perspective assistants, using PS, for decades, and they were and are amazing illustrators and concept artists.. .come to realize that...
So, you can't say is a gripe of PS or AP, maybe need to start to admit that you "need" those assistants while other people don't...
No, I just think depending on a photograph, or a rough 3D model, or perspective warps to do the heavy lifting with the perspective work on a 2D image is far from traditional, and learning the traditional techniques is something you mentioned earlier as something artists need to focus on, and it's amateur when they don't.
Again, the background work that people make without an assistant tool without a photo, without a 3D model, and without perspective warps are typically landscapes rather than urban and city scapes, because they can't make a real looking city worth looking at, fudging their perspective work, breaking the traditional rules, and coming out with a semi wonky image. So even if they didn't originally steal from a photograph, they do it later on in the workflow to fix the mistakes that they couldn't fix by hand because they're either not very good or because there isn't an assistant tool. A work around doesn't make good on an absent tool especially when there's no reason why that tool wouldn't just be there to begin with.
And when was the last time you saw them making a panoramic image? Would that NOT be extremely helpful for a 3D modeler? That way you don't just give him a 60 degree cone of vision of a scene but the entire scene as a 360 image? I can do that, with an Assistant tool. I SERIOUSLY doubt anyone you've worked with have done that unless they stole a panoramic image off the internet and used it as a photo reference.
Quoteso, is not such a lack in PS, is just an advantage for new artists in Krita, provided by people, krita developers, who is focusing in helping in actual drawing and painting, more than in image editing (your approach).
When Image editing (photo compositing) there's no reason to use perspective tools. Because you're using 100% photos. It's the direct opposite actually. And when making an image with a 3D model template or a photo template or when bringing in photos when the image is nearly finished it's just to cover for the fact that there aren't any REAL perspective tools. It's bringing in the Image editing into your workflow rather than actually making a proper image with traditional techniques to begin with.
QuoteWhat I'm sure the reddit krita guy did not take well is some assumptions... in some cases, you might lack yet the experience as to be so sure that a software tool is lacking... or just that you are using it in a very different way to what it has been planned to be used.
Not being able to save your file when you click "SAVE" and having your autosave immediately get overwritten after you open your image isn't a failing on my part.
QuoteBut I've never been afraid to mention a failing in any of the open source software.
That is the problem. That maybe, just maybe, not all what you see as a failure... is such. And that..,."maybe", ...your approach to concept art making is not perhaps the most usual or not even the most effective to get a royal piece of art to WOW certain professional audience...Or at least, not an experienced art director in a high end company.
Not being able to save your file on occasion and having your autosave immediately get overwritten is an objective problem with a piece of software.
My workflow has somewhat been guided by my hardware which, remember, lags out pretty heavily sometimes. And even still, my workflow isn't too different from other profressionals, linked above.
QuoteOr not even "just" an experienced illustrator. While other techniques would very much put you in the right track (you seem to have solid drawing capabilities, and that's the part people can't hardly improvise, tho. Indeed, too many concept artist I've known are bad drawing anatomy, or having a too basic grasp of perspective. And a bunch are earning a salary... ! )
I'm going through a variety or workflows.
QuoteI mentioned how I lost an hour's worth of work because Krita failed to save,
Version 3.x or v. 4.x ? Also, can be that you have a very slow, overloaded disk, or you defragmented your disk last time before the year 2000... OR... very little RAM... these are other reasons why am curious to check one of your critical files.
4.0 and yup.
QuoteI beg to differ. Is a good enough program for any professional painter. See? an absolute statement... probably the Reddit guy did not like that , in the other direction/sense...
I know. This dude's a professional using Krita. It's good for kids and parents that can't afford much but not limited to just that.
Quoteif you are going for REALLY learning software, you really really need to trash assumptions if you find issues in a workflow. As you will find HUGE obstacles while learning Blender, much bigger ones than any in AP, I guarantee that, then you are going to come to that conclusion much much faster. And blennder has a ton of issues, but also a ton of workarounds. I've earned nice bucks by using it. THAT makes a software professional. Even if, as all in life, has some lacks.
I keep getting the impression that though I'll agree with you it's not registering, as if we're talking past each other for some reason... I agree, Krita is a solid program. But it's not fitting with every workflow that I'd like to do, especially the workflows you're mentioning on my hardware. It's like you expect me to have done every workflow humanly possible in one image. It's fine, I can take the critique, but some of what you're saying seems to be contradictory. You mention how Krita's a painter's tool, so it has an assistant tool. But Photoshop, even when used as a painter's tool, doesn't have a failing when it doesn't have an assistant tool. And it's actually my problem.
I suppose if I spent time getting the perspective right on a thumbnail first, I could get some moderately decent perspective, and use photos to improve it later on. But by and large, most concept artists seem to be relying on the photos too much. An assistant tool would do wonders to improve it.
QuoteAnd the cheap or free tools are not just for kids. Are also for pros that want to optimize expenses everywhere, in every bill and area. And now you have the option of a Photoshop substitute like AP. But in the past, you really only had the option of CC or the CS suite before, and that was much more expensive. Back then, one even had to deal with Gimp and Inkscape (in way more spartan versions than today's), in a bunch of companies. So, nope, they are not for kids.. are usable tools, with a lot of lacks, of course.
... Again, my target audience (although it wound up being 25-30 year old people) has been towards kids with parents that can't afford much. So I've recommended Krita. I don't believe I've ever said that Krita is exclusively for kids. I did mention this in my previous message. I mentioned the kids because that's the audience I've been trying to attract. "Hey kids! You can get a $45 graphics tablet and a cheap freaking computer like mine and be up and running with a free program called Krita." But at this point, I want more than just a painter's program. But I'm still thinking of price. What can the kids buy? What can prepare the kids for the future? Even if in 20 years Adobe is still king of the Image Software industry, that's fine, Affinity will prepare them well enough to use Photoshop. I'm thinking like a teacher.
QuoteIn your shoes, I'd review my own software criticism a bit more, IMO...
Again, Krita failing to save a file after going File>save is an objective MAJOR problem. Even if it's a rare occurrence. Krita immediately saving over your autosave when opening your file Objectively defeats the purpose of an autosave. There's nothing wrong with the critique.
QuoteStill, I'd agree with some valid points: performance is a constant pending subject for Krita. Specially with certain number of layers in big files. But the critique of not being a image editor, is not right, IMO.
Okay, here's a previous video in the same series. Here's some interesting information about your feedback:
At 6:42 I say the following: "You can make a grayscale image with doing a bunch of line work the way that you see me doing it right now, I guess, but what seems like the most effective way is where you start out with a really big brush and you make some really appealing silhouettes. And once you accomplish that, you then start gradually making your brush smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller and refine the detail gradually as the brush gets smaller and smaller and smaller, until the brush is fairly small and you're actually doing your line work as the last step. And in the end it winds up having a lot more photo realism, and so I wish I did that approach at a gray scale image, rather than going after the line work first. But you know, we live and we learn."
At 8:23 "... Seems like when you work with a big brush in krita, the whole computer lags out for every single brush stroke. So it just seems like I should get the thumbnail looking really good, and I actually initially tried to do silhouettes but I tried a particular work flow with it that didn't work for me. I tried the Silhouette thing initially... but crap happens. I should have just persisted until it started working for me. But I have to output a video every week, and sometimes that pressure kind of influences the workflow that I wind up doing. But that's fine because even still, that puts me into a position that I want to be in with this series, which is to be uncomfortable, and having a license to experiment. And sometimes that experiment becomes unpredictable. And that's fine. "
At 7:56 "If you only draw things that make you feel comfortable, it's just because you're in a comfort zone and you're just using that comfort zone as a crutch and you're never going to get better. You need to be willing to experiment. Give yourself the license to experiment. And allow yourself to be scared about the outcome of an image. At least that's my opinion. I really believe that's a good way to look at your artwork and improve."
At 19:37 "Now some of the reason why, earlier on in the video, you didn't see me making a lot of selections is because in photoshop you're able to easily save your selection in the channels tab, which is connected to the layers panel." my main issue is not being able to save selection and not being able to refine your selection. Nothing having to do with "careful selections." You can use both of those techniques super fast in photoshop and AF. Being able to do this allows you to merge layers confidently without cluttering up your layers panel. And you're able to still keep the selection of a layer that no longer exists independently with a CTRL+Click. You save your selection with a CTRL+click. You retrieve your selection with a CTRL+click. I don't think there's any problem with that with a painterly workflow, masking stuff, even with tape on dried paint isn't unheard of. With all the links above, they're constantly making new layers. Well... I like to be a bit more organized. Once I finish something I like to sift through the layers, find out what makes what, merge them. Ctrl Click, fill in Channels, selection saved. Especially if I merged a layer into something something else and I later need to work on it independently. If the selection is saved, it doesn't matter if it's merged into another layer. But if you don't have a history brush, or even WITH a history brush, saving your selections isn't a bad idea. Because even though you're working destructively, you're still working selections that allows you to work on the various parts of your image if you've merged it into everything else.
23:26 "I know that Krita isn't geared towards just being a Photoshop clone. That's what it was initially, but eventually the team behind it wound up deciding that their main focus is making it the ultimate painting tool. And that's cool. I agree with them. That's an admirable persuite. I use the program for a reason. It's a great painting tool. But, there needs to me more none destructive editing things" like being able to save your selections. "Again there are things in Krita that are better than Photoshop".
Quote"this is really irritating. It's a flaw".
Hmmm... avoid irritation when finding a workflow issue, it ain't productive (same as in human relationships), is a bad habit... don't do the same thing over and over again, change the technique, find a workaround. Pro advice :p. 90% of critics to software tools are due to the total inability of an user to adapt to a different UI and work philosophy than what they already know and are used to. But our brain is WAY more flexible than we pretend it to be. This is CRUCIAL for handling Blender (or Gimp/Inskcape) . If you are aiming to learn Blender, or 3D in general,this should be a key concept...Blender is very different to most UIs out there, for example.
And when it deals with saves and autosave issues, it's a BIG flaw.
Again, 4 stable version has received improvements in that specific area, I'm curious to know if happened to you in 4.x.
Really? Hmm. I'm thinking Sketchbook pro, for me... Dunno, don't have TOO much experience with it.
I understand the frustration bit, but not being able to save your file in Krita 4? Losing work? In a professional setting you have deadlines. Losing an hour's worth of work? That's an hour wasted that they'll either not pay you for or fire you for, or maybe you'll have to do at home.
QuoteThat is a very nice tool, with a great brush engine.The assistants are more than enough, there, BTW. Don't trust so much in assistants...In the good old days, a concept artist, to speed up, would build a 3D scene , fast grey boxes based scene/perspective and would draw/build over that, using that as your line assistants. Stupidly slow if one is not an experienced modeler, tho. Better bet is train your drawing capability to not need that. But this both in digital and traditional.
Well -- even with the Painterly workflow you're talking about, you lay down a dark gray blob, you use assistant tool to erase the edges of the blob to look like a gemetric shape. you CTRL+click the layer to select it. You get the selection tool and remove a few bits of the selection. Select a lighter value, and brush in with a feathered brush a nice gradient. And now you have a geometric shape with two sides, one in light, one in dark. I'm not talking about overly complex selections that take forever to make. And when using the big brush technique, you're still reshaping things all the time. Only with the assistant tool you'd be reshaping them more accurately into geometric shapes.
You don't even need to go that complex with the selection, you can draw a really thick line right next to the corner of a geometric shape, ctrl+click it, ctrl+shift+I for inverse and then brush in a gradient for the bright side of the geometric object. That way you're always using big brushes and not swapping it for the lasso. That way's probably actually faster. Then you delete these inverse-line-selection-layers.
QuoteYou could totally add the text bubbles in Photo. If for print, though, text goes better using only K, only pure black ink in a CMYK file. All what you describe is heading towards comic, though. And yep, for coloring only in comics, your selections path make total sense, is what is used. Again, totally different world from concept art and illustration, so I'm not sure what is the aimed field in your case....
There's nothing wrong with being well rounded.
And designer just has a nice text bubble shape that you can use and reuse, and reshape different sizes. Seems like less work to me in designer. And yeah, I'm sort of working on a comic right now. I'm trying to nail down the story at the moment.
QuoteBecause you do art in a very "photoshoppy", image editing, photo retouch style. Not necessarily the best thing to do for concept art and illustration. But yep quite fine to work as a comic pages colorist.
Fair enough. I'm figuring it out. I'm getting well rounded. I'm trying out various workflows.
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Oh! Cool! A discussion! Sorry, tybing on my phone doesn't let me quote you properly.
>While I don't exactly agree with the opinion about Krita (to say it softly), I can see where you are coming from.
I have an ecconomic computer. In the beginning of the video, you actually see me saving krita layers (super fast) into .png's and migrating the project over to Affinity Photo. I litterally waited 4 hours for Krita to keep up while I did something that should have taken 5 minutes. I had something like 15 layers and 4-5 none destructive layers in Krita. In Affinity Photo, I made 3 times the number of layers.
Ctrl+E wasn't working. My hypothesis is that I need to convert layers to raster (though they seem as if they're already rasters) in order to merge them... Not sure why, but I'm confident I can simplify the file THAT WAY. And don't get me wrong. The day previous, I made a "Channel Update" video where I discuss how I love Krita but how I need to move on to commercial software for some tasks. I love Krita, especially the Assistant tool. It'd be great to have it in Affinity photo. I REALLY hope they put it into Affinity Photo. I put it into the "feature request" area of the Forum.
>If one enjoys a more image/editing approach for making an illustration, or even a comic coloring approach, you need selection power a lot more.
That... AND speedy fills and gradients. Krita doesn't do that. At least, not on my computer. Especially when I've been working with the program consistantly for an hour or two. Something about using Krita over time... It just gets slower and slower, and I suspect it doesn't entirely deal with the issue of the file getting larger.
>Like you do need it in every in-depth image editing work. If you go the more painterly approach (Painter, Rebelle, Stormpaint, Art Rage, Krita... tho Art Rage has a lot more image editing functions, tho, of all that bunch, including Krita), you don't need it, at all.
Yeah, but even still, you can paint something like hair, little tiny strands, and need to select it later even in the paiterly programs. But I get what you're getting at.
As I see it, though, you shouldn't have to compromise too much.
>This illustration could have been totally been made in a more painterly technique (you don't have selections when painting with real oils and acrylics over a real traditional canvas
),
True, but I don't really enjoy painting on canvas. I enjoy drawing with a pencil and paper, but beyond that, I'd rather work digital.
>and IMO, both techniques are perfectly correct.
True, I wouldn't snear at a nice canvas painting. Leonardo's work, for example. Top notch.
>Vermeer and Velazquez did not use selections...
No, but it can't be denied that being able to select and mask and such makes for a faster workflow. They worked in a completely different commercial capacity for a different time.
Concept artists are popping out a paining every 20 minutes and I'm trying to work up to that speed one day.
I don't just want to get into concept art, but I'd like to get into gallery art as well, cartoon background art, story boarding, and even 2D animation.
When Blender 2.8 launches, I have a buddy that's eager to teach me 3D modeling and 3D animation. It'll have New-User-Friendly training wheels with 2.8. And I'm not all thrilled with the many different programs you'd need to buy just to get up and running with 3D. So Blender seems like the best option for a newbie. It's a one stop shop. And it's respected, and respectable.
> And yep, if you need even just something advanced with text, you will be lost in Krita, for now, till it evolves a bit more (I'm sure the plan is to evolve that tool quite).
Oh yeah, I know that's part of their 5 year plan.
I've been able to make OKAY text for my youtube thumbnails with Krita up until now. Now I can just focus my efforts on APhoto and ADesigner for that. And already, I'm seeing a quality and speed increase with my thumbnail work.
> And a large collection of other things, as Krita is only a painter. You can do painterly with A. Photo and PS (well...somewhat, but it is possible),
My main gripes with these two programs A. Photo and PS is there's no perspective tools like the Krita Assistant tool. Yes you can transform things into perspective. That's cool. And I suspect I'll use that to a point. But I suspect that'll only make a good sketch that I'll have to move over to Krita or Sketchbook Pro to refine... And program swapping a layer around is tedious.
>and do image editing as well.
And I love A. Photo for that. I loved composite images with photoshop. It was so fun. I can't wait 'till I get used to A. Photo so I can teach that. I'm a PS god. And I can't wait to get that good with A. Photo.
>You'd better do paint-only projects with Krita, though.
Well, sketchbook pro is now free. And it has SOME of the perspective capabilities that Krita has. The fisheye grids in sketchbook are... Pathetic. I can only do cocave 5 point perspective with Sketchbook. Seriously, check out my curvilinear perspective playlist. I use nothing but Krita and it really shows how the Assistant tool in Krita is superior to anything in any other program... Don't know why... The code is open source. Anyone can peak and copy.
>But man, the thing is 100% free, made by a very small team, and outstandingly young as a project, probably quite younger even than Affinity line. While PS has been here since always, they got room, human force, time and money to make a wondertastic app...
I understand. I've just been talking up open source software for close to a year and a half. But I've never been afraid to mention a failing in any of the open source software. In the previous Subscriber Drawing Request video, I mentioned how I lost an hour's worth of work because Krita failed to save, and then the Autosave that probably presearved some of my work got overwritten... I understand it's free. I'm not asking for a refund or anything, lol. It's just that I have a weekly video deadline and it's hard to meet when the program starts to bog down and have saving and autosaving issues.
It only happened once with the save -autosave issue, but still, I lost an hour. And the Krita guy on the Krita Subreddit doesn't see me as one big infomercial for Krita. I've made some cool professional images with Krita. And talked it up. It's a good program for a kid just starting out with a cheap graphics tablet who's parents don't have the money for software. That's been the target audience I've tried to attract (but it's mainly 25-30 year olds for some reason. But I still aim to attract the kids. I use Opentoonz for animating. I've even invested more than $1,000 in improving Opentoonz. And man hours creating a presentation for what will be a crowd fund to improve its GUI. I love Opensource stuff) but even still the videos where I leave a legit critique of Krita, the thread gets downvoted on the Krita Sub. I understand, I'm poking holes in a developer's pride. But it's not me being a dick. It's me saying "this is really irritating. It's a flaw". And when it deals with saves and autosave issues, it's a BIG flaw.
>I for one prefer A. Photo, PSP or Photoshop for anything, including illustration, requiring even a small amount of image editing. As a painter tool, Krita is extremely capable.
Oh yeah. At the start of this video, the grayscale image -- that's all Krita, man.
>I like the video, and about building up a visitors base, it takes time, and probably external promotion actions (external to youtube) and also some internal promo.
Oh, believe me I'm trying with all that. Facebook groups, reddit subs, google plus communities, discord chats, this forum (now).
>Plus... time, and videos, posted regularly, even if one per week, 2 weeks at max.
Been doing that for close to a year and a half. Consistantly 2-3 a week.
> That said... for actual sketching, and for projects needing line art (comics or similar) I go all the way with Clip Studio Paint.
Really? Hmm. I'm thinking Sketchbook pro, for me... Dunno, don't have TOO much experience with it. Then painting the pages in A. Photo and then adding the text bubbles in A. Designer.
>I just have not seen anything better till date, very much including Photoshop, for that kind of control. For painting directly, concept art and sketching, and even line art... Krita. For painting and illustration where one needs selections, and a ton of other image editing power, it'd be crazy not to use A. Photo....(or similar).
A. Photo had me sold at 2/3ds or more of the Ps features for $50.
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Subscriber Drawing Request Warrior Mouse 5
Originally I was painting this thing out in Krita and I got sick and tired of dealing with the Limitations of Krita, so I decided that I should probably use something more professional, so I purchased Affinity Photo and Affinity Designer and I'm up and running to make some professional quality images.
As soon as I understand Affinity Photo a bit more, I plan on teaching how to make composite images and such.
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On 5/24/2018 at 1:17 AM, stokerg said:
Hi orphanlast,
Once the sample has downloaded, the Cloud icon next to the preview of the sample will disappear and then you can just click on the preview image of the sample and the sample will load. This is all done from the Welcome screen and no need to go looking in your downloads folder for a file
thank you
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Quote
Just out of curiosity, I assume you are working on a Mac?
Nope.
QuoteI ask, because Krita works like a charm on my (almost) decade old i7 920. The Krita devs are working on improving Mac performance.
I have an economic laptop. A few years old.
QuoteAnyway, Krita is indeed slow on Intel and lower GPUs. if you are interested in painting/drawing software with very nice perspective tools (not as nice as Krita, though) and very responsive even on very low hardware (it runs absolutely smooth on my aging i5/intel chipset 4gb Windows 7 tablet with 600ppi A4 files!), I'd suggest you look into Clipstudio https://www.clipstudio.net/en
I'm not really apt to buy any more software, really. I mean I just downloaded Sketchbookpro, which is free now. And although it has some perspective tools. It pales in comparison to the curvilinear perspective work that you can do with Krita because the assistant tool allows you to construct your grids. Continuous 4 point perspective, as an example is impossible in Sketchbook pro. And I'd wager a bet, it's probably impossible on clipstudio
QuoteI love painting in Krita, but it runs at a snail's pace on that table. And Clipstudio offers by far the nicest drawing "feel" of all drawing software I worked with so far.
Maybe eventually. But my youtube channel is mainly centered on artists on a budget. I've been using Krita for quite some time because all that's required to get up an running with Krita is a computer and a graphics tablet. Well -- now what's the next step? Something cheap but full featured, Affinity Photo and Affinity Designer. Seemed like a no brainer to me. And with Sketchbook Pro becoming free, there's really not MUCH of a need to go back to Krita... Unless this means that Autodesk is abandoning this IP. If that's the case, that's a real shame.
But regardless, it'd be nice to get the Assistant Tool in Affinity Photo, regardless of if similar stuff is in other software, it's not that it'd be nice to have something similar in Affinity Photo -- it's be nice to have the exact tool with upgrades that would allow you to draw an Azimuthal Equidistant Curvilinear Perspective grid.
Although Krita's Assistant Tool is the best out there (for some reason... it's a free program) it's still limiting.
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When you open up Affinity Photo or Affinity Designer you can look at sample files and see how these files were made.
So I go to download them and then I can't find them. I have no idea where they download to. You'd think they'd just wind up in the "Downloads" file or something, but no.
I looked at a tutorial and all it said is "Look at where you save your files" which isn't helpful because they're not where I save my files.
Tutorial idea for Comic Page Print Template.
in Feedback for Affinity Publisher V1 on Desktop
Posted
..... Waste of time.