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Getting Used To This Vector Thing


Renzatic

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A rather unfortunate juxtaposition, if I may say so! :o

 

I have to hand it to you. That was a clever quote.

The website is still a work in progress. The "Comics" and "Shop" sections are not yet ready. Feel free to connect with me and let me know what you like or what can be improved. You can contact me here, on my contact page, YouTube channel, or Twitter account. Thanks and have a great day!

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I have to hand it to you. That was a clever quote.

 

Props where props are due.

 

Okay, I bought the Texturizer Pro brush pack, and, yup, painting with a mouse is horrible. Gonna break out the Surface, and order me up a Wacom tablet ASAP.

 

...it also doesn't help that I'm not too great at digital painting. But hey, this is as good a place to start learning as any.

 

edit: out of curiosity, what are the chances of Serif porting the touch interface from the up and coming iPad Pro rev of AD to the Windows editions? One of the reasons why I don't like using it on the SP4 is because, besides the stylus feeling a little mushy, the default interface doesn't lend itself all that well to touch.

 

edit 2: Okay, it looks like one of those Ren and Stimpy closeups...

 

Practice will resume.

 

 

post-50216-0-45638800-1491366068_thumb.jpg

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I really like that second one. And it's not bad for a first try at all. I have to give it a try some time. What brushes did you use?

The website is still a work in progress. The "Comics" and "Shop" sections are not yet ready. Feel free to connect with me and let me know what you like or what can be improved. You can contact me here, on my contact page, YouTube channel, or Twitter account. Thanks and have a great day!

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Mostly Kitchen Smoke in the Frankentoon-A set, with a few dabs of Cork Table 01 from the B set to give it that spotty look.  

 

My only problem with the above is that I wasn't too bold with the shadows. I really wanted to give it a more rounded look, but couldn't quite pull it off without making it look weird. 

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I had a strange feeling. Those brushes appealed to me as well.

 

The shadow looks fine, especially since I noticed Nintendo usually has the same shape despite the form of the character. Maybe just add a little bit of a blur to it.

The website is still a work in progress. The "Comics" and "Shop" sections are not yet ready. Feel free to connect with me and let me know what you like or what can be improved. You can contact me here, on my contact page, YouTube channel, or Twitter account. Thanks and have a great day!

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My guess would be because those brushes look the most like what Frankentoon used on his cartoon Dracula. Especially the Cork Table. They're just cool brushes.

 

I just got through spending an hour goofing around with painting spheres, and I've found that Old Rock Wall in B, and the Mixed Materials C make for great blending brushes. They're better than Kitchen Smoke, since they don't spatter randomly like it does, but still produces a similar effect. Duster04 is also a decent one for adding texture.

 

Here's the end result of my little tests if you want to see them. 

 

 

post-50216-0-93429800-1491612571_thumb.jpg

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I decided to take a little break from doing Zelda sprites. I just...yeah, I couldn't handle staring at Link's creepy smile any more.

 

But seriously, folks. I wanted to branch out a bit, see what all I could do without having a tutorial to lean on. I decided to work with a style a bit more traditionally vector: a little building off in the country backroads, somewhere deep in the woods, drawn from a flatish perspective, and lit with bold, flat colors. Of course I couldn't resist applying noise to it, despite the fact I did actively try to forego it this go-round. Don't know how or why the lightest application of nearly invisible grain manages to do so much to improve a scene to my eye.

 

I haven't started the forest or most of the incidental details yet, but the building is mostly done, minus drawing in some of the lighting highlights on the roof. You can complement the scene if you want, but what I really want are critiques. Tips, tricks, suggestions, and other things you all think I could do to improve what I've already done.

And of course it's an interface shot, cuz I think they're awesome. Your mileage may vary. :P

post-50216-0-56876900-1491937914_thumb.jpg

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Nice. It has a nice soft feel to it. I like the corrugated roof and the ice machine. No crits other than to just keep going. ;-) Hopefully the rest will match the nice colour tone you've got going with the building here.

 

On the "noise" topic, it's funny how in the 3d world people are sort of obsessed with getting rid of noise (fireflies) in their renders while in 2d it's sort of the opposite. At least that's what I've seen. I like it in both, I find it adds an overall consistency to the image and a bit of visual texture.

 

Renzatic, have you tried the trick of having one noise layer above everything so you don't have to apply noise to each element? It works of pixel layers too. Just drag out a white rectangle over the entire scene set to multiply to make it transparent then add noise and viola!

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Just drag out a white rectangle over the entire scene set to multiply to make it transparent  then add noise and viola!

 

I imagine a viola could make quite a lot of noise if you play it loud enough. :P

 

Sorry, Kevin, but I just couldn't resist that! I think you meant "voilà". ;) Nice tip, all the same.  ^_^

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Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for Windows • Windows 10 Home/Pro
Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for iPad • iPadOS 17.4.1 (iPad 7th gen)

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That'd be, by far, the most boring video ever uploaded to Youtube. And yes, I'm taking all those videos where people filmed grass growing and paint drying into consideration.

 

But I will give you some hints and tips if you want. Save for the trees I'm working on, which I've been using the pen tool almost exclusively for, nothing I've done is particularly advanced. The building is 99% bog standard squares, circles, and triangles, for instance. It's nothing anyone with a couple hours of experience with AD couldn't do.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Looks nice and cozy. I like the theme.

 

Joke: But it looks a bit futuristic for Zelda.

The website is still a work in progress. The "Comics" and "Shop" sections are not yet ready. Feel free to connect with me and let me know what you like or what can be improved. You can contact me here, on my contact page, YouTube channel, or Twitter account. Thanks and have a great day!

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Why, thank you. :D

 

If there's one thing I wish I did more with, it'd be those trees. Other than the fact that I HAD to throw in conifers, cuz Alfred is obviously a huge fan, and I didn't want to let him down, I wish I threw in some others for variety. Thing is, trees besides pines are difficult to do. Couldn't make one I was happy with. I had to roll with what I had for now, or else risk spending a month or more banging on this one scene until I was happy with it.

 

Next up, I think I'm gonna try and make some characters. And get some more tree and plant practice in.

 

Oh, and if anyone wants to check the source file, either to offer critiques for my techniques, or for newbies to see how I did what, here's a handy link to it.

 

 

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Why, thank you. :D

 

If there's one thing I wish I did more with, it'd be those trees. Other than the fact that I HAD to throw in conifers, cuz Alfred is obviously a huge fan, and I didn't want to let him down, I wish I threw in some others for variety. Thing is, trees besides pines are difficult to do. Couldn't make one I was happy with. I had to roll with what I had for now, or else risk spending a month or more banging on this one scene until I was happy with it.

 

Next up, I think I'm gonna try and make some characters. And get some more tree and plant practice in.

 

Oh, and if anyone wants to check the source file, either to offer critiques for my techniques, or for newbies to see how I did what, here's a handy link to it.

 

Yeah trees or nature in general can be tricky. Vector can be difficult with organic or "messy" subject matter due to it's clean and crispy character. That's where I try to stylize things up. I get some good reference that's similarly lit and study it to see how to simplify and stylize it...

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Thing is, trees besides pines are difficult to do. Couldn't make one I was happy with. I had to roll with what I had for now, or else risk spending a month or more banging on this one scene until I was happy with it.

 

It's interesting to read that you struggle with the same thing I do. Pines are much easier because their shaped easier. I want to go back at the beginning of a comic I'm working on and correct some tree objects I made since I feel they look too cartoonish. They are practically several cloud shapes merged together and with a stump. I also want to fix other scenes which I feel look too simple. The point is, to get references, I find a site called VectorToons pretty resourceful. Just be aware that there might be some things which might be found offensively, but I use the website just to get ideas.

 

Here is a scene that seem fitting for the tree subject. It looks pleasable, and yet, it doesn't involve complex knowledge to create it. https://vectortoons.com/product/path-leading-to-the-woods-during-fall-background/#prettyPhoto[product-gallery]/0/

The website is still a work in progress. The "Comics" and "Shop" sections are not yet ready. Feel free to connect with me and let me know what you like or what can be improved. You can contact me here, on my contact page, YouTube channel, or Twitter account. Thanks and have a great day!

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Cool. I've linked that site.

 

Based on my experiences, I don't think it requires any particularly complex techniques in AD to pull off good trees and foliage, so much as a mind for shapes, and a lot, a lot, of patience. For example, take this shot I found...

 

post-50216-0-48997500-1493063524_thumb.jpg

 

...there's nothing in here I wouldn't know how to replicate in Designer after just a couple months of use. The technical aspect is pretty simple. It's the technique, the skill, and the time spent pulling it all off that's difficult. I might know how to do it, but not really how to do it well (not yet). It's like with my other trees, I could copy someone's style, but my attempts always ended up looking...er...goobly in comparison. 

 

But pines? They lend themselves well to vectors. I just have to guff around with some triangles for about 15 minutes to get something kinda cool looking.

Also, I should add that I aped Frankentoon's crazy gopher fur style for that one tree. :P

 

Oh, and another place to pull some good inspiration from is here. I think you might need a Pinterest account to view them all, but man, it's worth the effort if you don't have one already. There's tons, TONS, of awesome stuff in there. 

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Oh, and another place to pull some good inspiration from is here. I think you might need a Pinterest account to view them all, but man, it's worth the effort if you don't have one already. There's tons, TONS, of awesome stuff in there. 

 

I've looked at loads of stuff on Pinterest, but it's mostly been things such as photographs, sketches and typography samples. Thanks for that link: some of those vector illustrations are amazing!

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Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for Windows • Windows 10 Home/Pro
Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for iPad • iPadOS 17.4.1 (iPad 7th gen)

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For example, take this shot I found...

 

attachicon.gifee59dc3791a9957e3a1b9d10a050e605.jpg

 

...there's nothing in here I wouldn't know how to replicate in Designer after just a couple months of use.

 

That is quite impressive and me neither actually, unless I use that image as a reference and work really, really hard. Starting out from scratch to replicate something like that completely from the head seems like quite a challenge. I don't think I could pull it off since I'm more use to cartoonish drawings than detailed vector landscapes like that. I got use to making pixel sketches first and then move to the vector tools. That looks as if a lot of boolean operations (adding) were used along with clipping for shading and expanded strokes. (It's just a guess.) And the bubbly stroke to the left (the bushes) looks like it had a calligraphic line style applied, which Designer does not yet have.

The website is still a work in progress. The "Comics" and "Shop" sections are not yet ready. Feel free to connect with me and let me know what you like or what can be improved. You can contact me here, on my contact page, YouTube channel, or Twitter account. Thanks and have a great day!

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I could see booleans being used for some of the more bubbly shades, but if I were to do it, I'd just bang out the basic shapes by clicking about with the pen tool, then adjust to taste once I have the basics banged out.

 

Those bushes probably would be the hardest thing to do. I'm not sure what the calligraphic lines do in Illustrator (off to google I go), but I'd say the easiest way to achieve that effect in Designer would be to make a single U shaped object, give it a stroke, make the big circle that'll act as the body of your bush, then duplicate your little U shapes behind it, laid out so that the bottom halves are just behind the main body. It's a bit fiddly and tedious, but you'd get about the same results.

 

edit: just watched calligraphic lines on YouTube. You can kinda do the same thing playing around with the pressure graph under the stroke tab, can't you? 

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