Suggestions for following along with Bob Ross tutorials

[TKLarsen]

Hello,

I’m just wondering if anyone has any suggestions on how to digitally follow along with a Bob Ross tutorial? Every time I watch one I’m inspired to try something, and my instinct is to turn to one of my Affinity apps - Photo or Designer (even the iPad versions). But I’m not quite sure how to begin.

I’ve used both programs extensively, but mostly for photo editing and drawing basic vector illustrations. Very little digital painting experience.

I’m guessing I would probably use Photo, and I would probably need to set up a palette ahead of time and pick some brushes to match the techniques he uses.

Has anyone done this? Any tips?

Oh, and I do realize that digital tools will not be able match an actual brush and paint exactly. I just want to be able to follow along and do something similar for fun, not looking for perfection :-)

[GarryP]

It might help you to get some answers if you give a link to a video so people can see what a “Bob Ross tutorial” looks like. (Not everyone knows who he is or what he does.)

Painting with physical media will generally be very different to painting digitally as the pixels have no physical properties – weight, viscosity, drying time, etc. – so it might be difficult to learn how to do the same things.

There are probably a lot of videos about digital painting out there but you will probably need one which is Affinity-based, otherwise you might get in a bit of a twist trying to convert techniques from different software (just makes the whole thing more difficult and, sometimes, frustrating).

Anyway, show us a video of what you are trying to re-create and the experts might be able to give you some tips.

P.S. Affinity Spotlight may be of some use/inspiration: https://affinityspotlight.com/

[h_d]

Some ideas (not a tutorial). Photo is definitely the right program to use for it.

Start with a white fill layer and rasterise it. This will give you something akin to Bob's liquid white background.

Use the Paint Mixer brush with different colours, sizes, shapes and strength settings. Experiment!

Use muted colours - Bob paints with pigments, whereas Photo paints with light. Using the RYB setting for the Paint Mixer brush will help with blending.

 

Auto Load Brush will also help. Clicking Clean Brush will make you feel like Bob whacking his brush on his bucket and spattering the film crew.

The rest is just happy little accidents... and I'm not showing you mine 😆

 

[sfriedberg]

17 hours ago, GarryP said:

so people can see what a “Bob Ross tutorial” looks like. (Not everyone knows who he is or what he does.)

It is certainly true that not everyone knows who the late Bob Ross was, but it's also true that he is such a well-known icon that (generally affectionate) parodies of Bob Ross's afro haircut and relaxed voice are instantly recognized by 10's of millions of people (perhaps 100's of millions).

[briff]

I went through the Krita Bob Ross tutorial (on Age of Asparagus channel) and I'm planning to try the same in Affinity Photo. I think the concepts would be the same, even though Krita brushes are way more featurepacked and for washing, blending, mixing colors Krita is closer. However I do think that having fun can be achieved in Affinity Photo, even if differently.

[TKLarsen]

Thanks everyone!

@h_d Thank you for the suggestions! That definitely points me in the right direction.

@briff I haven't tried that tutorial. I'll see if I can find it.

For reference, here is what I would say most people think of as a typical Bob Ross Tutorial where he paints mountains, clouds and happy trees. His show ran for 12 seasons from '83 to '94. From what I've seen, he seems to use the same techniques and colors every time, I think to make it easy to follow along. According to good ole Wikipedia, he used a wet-on-wet oil method (as h_d said) and one and two inch brushes and painting knives.

And I did find a YouTube vid of a Disney background artist following one of his tutorials in Photoshop. It was a bit intimidating 😅 But also really great to see how she chose to follow along digitally. Looks fun!

[TKLarsen]

On 4/22/2021 at 2:22 AM, h_d said:

Clicking Clean Brush will make you feel like Bob whacking his brush on his bucket and spattering the film crew.

I love it! 😆

[briff]

18 minutes ago, TKLarsen said:

Thanks everyone!

@h_d Thank you for the suggestions! That definitely points me in the right direction.

@briff I haven't tried that tutorial. I'll see if I can find it.

For reference, here is what I would say most people think of as a typical Bob Ross Tutorial where he paints mountains, clouds and happy trees. His show ran for 12 seasons from '83 to '94. From what I've seen, he seems to use the same techniques and colors every time, I think to make it easy to follow along. According to good ole Wikipedia, he used a wet-on-wet oil method (as h_d said) and one and two inch brushes and painting knives.

And I did find a YouTube vid of a Disney background artist following one of his tutorials in Photoshop. It was a bit intimidating 😅 But also really great to see how she chose to follow along digitally. Looks fun!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FfVnEIkA3I&list=PLaGRTLvEbVzybijtYZRy4EoGrx6Bq_xOG

I tried something like this in Affinity Photo - I gave up, as it seems everything depends on the brushes and the default AP brush set is very far from the tools Bob/Krita uses, fan brush, palette knife - they don't really have a counterpart in AP. Although with a lot of work, you might come up with brushes that allow you to do something like Bob... However, I started to feel that it really makes no sense to try to have "palette knife" and whatsoever in AP. Next time I'll just use some built-in AP brushes and try to create something I enjoy doing... that would probably work much better for me.

[briff]

Ok, so I followed Bob in Shades of Grey (Season 2 Episode 4 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-ousb8-SD0 )

For some parts it was really fun, for some parts it was not - probably because I'm quite a beginner. I'm not an artist at all. I used the following brushes in various sizes: large and mid bristles, broken bristles glazing and detailer, short daub 1 and 2, and the chisel stuff. This was plenty, I struggled quite a bit to keep consistency.

I have no idea if I managed to produce something that is at least a little bit good, but I enjoyed the process anyway, and that was Bob's goal I guess. 

This is my 2nd digital painting in my life, the 1st in Affinity Photos. I chose a black-and-white picture, as I have color vision deficiency. This is the result:

[briff]

I though I'd share one more attempt, season 1 episode 3. Now I tried to limit the usage of brushes, and let them work as they are. No customization, only blending mode (average/lighten/darken sometimes) and size, used Oil: Chisel Shaped (trees, shadows, soil, water lines etc. ), Medium Fibers (small bushes, clouds), Large fibers (large bushes, water), Broken Bristles Glazing (snow) and Smear brush with Broken Bristles Flickering. 

I think I'm getting better: getting to learn the brushes and learn to control them.

[Ron P.]

Serif provides a forum section for sharing one's work..

https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/forum/10-share-your-work/