Hi ... you can post some tips here for figurativley challenged artsist
I'm doing this not just for myself, but for the new artists who is striving to be a better animator/cartoonist ... please think about ...

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Feel my POWER!!! .... in drawing ... FIGHT!!!

Adobe has a photoshop book you can find in any book store or office depot of good reputation. Pick it up. Read every word, do every exercise, learn every thing they teach you...its called classroom in a book for a reason.

Knowing the absolute ins and outs of basic photoshop is KEY to your ability, speed, and knowledge of the program and no drawing tutorial out there is going to give you the wealth of photoshop information that book will give you. Granted 90% of the book is photos, with I think 1-2 chapters on drawn artwork, BUT the basics you learn in all those other chapters will improve your skills for regular artwork as well. Its the book we used for Image Editing I in college.

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[22:38] <DJ_Cyni-Cole> you're tell me, a writer, that books are lame?
Jesus fuels with 89 Octane and so do I. Eat it, heritics. -Halo

I'll show people how to make text bubbles in photoshop elements 2.0. But only if they have elements 2.0.

Do you still want me to post it?

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I use the CorelDRAW 10... it s so greate!!! look...

And this s the first imagen I do with that program

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sometimes you are right, no?

mordejai anielevich sender musnac, virivich?

A veces estas bien, no?

Photoshop can do all that and more.

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Blargh, I'm not big on Corel, takes forever to load >_< not that flexible.

Actually, Shockwave, I'm almost completely self-taught when it comes to Photoshop, so that's what I recommend. It's easiest to learn when you have a goal in mind.

The first thing I did was scan in a drawing, and then just bumbled around with the different functions until it was coloured. I learned bits of tricks from tutorials (there are some in the How to draw Sticky) and got better as I practiced!

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Dave: I'm rageing lesbian trapped in a man's body.
Sucros: You can't learn to cook without learning a little french, you can't discuss softcore gay porn without learning a little japanese.

ditto.

I self taught myself for 2 years, went to school and got alot of stuff, and since still learn a tip or two online from tutorials or other artist (I once stole a .psd file from Scott of VG Cats and learned alot of nifty ways to use layering for shading).

And word bubbles: Shapes with a layer effect. There is not an easier way to do them, I GARUNTEE. Once you have the layer setup the way you like, you just draw your shapes and its alot more flexible than using paint fills.

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[22:38] <DJ_Cyni-Cole> you're tell me, a writer, that books are lame?
Jesus fuels with 89 Octane and so do I. Eat it, heritics. -Halo

That's how I do them. I draw the oval with shape tool, contort it to how I want it, draw the little arrow with pen tool, merge all the bubbles together and put a blending>stroke option on it. I like inside better than outside.

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Dave: I'm rageing lesbian trapped in a man's body.
Sucros: You can't learn to cook without learning a little french, you can't discuss softcore gay porn without learning a little japanese.

Inside is better. And I draw my rounded square (got tired of ovals, and they waste space), then use a pen tool and set it to "union" or "add" or whatever where it keeps all your shapes on one layer. Then I just set the layer to stroke inside...over lapping word bubbles? 2 layers.

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[22:38] <DJ_Cyni-Cole> you're tell me, a writer, that books are lame?
Jesus fuels with 89 Octane and so do I. Eat it, heritics. -Halo

OH MY GOD-- In Photoshop CS2 they took away the "link" layer button. Now it's like a few steps to link two layers together. No more drag down > merge linkeding!! I am so sad.

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Dave: I'm rageing lesbian trapped in a man's body.
Sucros: You can't learn to cook without learning a little french, you can't discuss softcore gay porn without learning a little japanese.

...I will never EVER use CS2 if thats true. Wow...I can't believe they'd even do that...whats the point? Are they trying to push layer sets? What if you want to link an item behind and in front of a character (something I do quite often). LAME

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[22:38] <DJ_Cyni-Cole> you're tell me, a writer, that books are lame?
Jesus fuels with 89 Octane and so do I. Eat it, heritics. -Halo

Man, the way I make bubbles seems so archaeic by comparison.

See, first I go out and gather herbs, then I mix them together in a magic cauldron over a sacred fire. Then I invoke mighty voodoo spirits to flood fill a selection in black, then I contract the selection by three pixels and fill again with white.

Added after 38 seconds:

What does linking layers even do? XD

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I actually found a tutorial on how to do bubbles way back when I first started making drawn comics (after sprites). I foound it very useful and have been using the same method ever since. I'll see if I can't dig it up.

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Linking layers does a couple of things... if you link layers and use the move tool, it moves all the linked layers as if they were on the same layer. The most effective use of linked layers by FAR though is Merge > Linked, causing all linked layers to become one layer. This is RIDICULOUSLY useful if you use copy&paste a lot, because pasted things go on a different layer automatically. Maybe we can still use merge > Visible.

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Dave: I'm rageing lesbian trapped in a man's body.
Sucros: You can't learn to cook without learning a little french, you can't discuss softcore gay porn without learning a little japanese.

Layers confuzzle me to no end....


So i dont use them...I dont think....


Hell i dont even know. I just use a blank canvas and do everything on there. Im guessing layers should be on my "to learn list"

wow, Cali, I'm surprised you don't use Layers. Layers are like......... the basics for everything.

Think of them like plastic sheets. So you do your drawing on one plastic sheet and then do your colouring on a plastic sheet on top of it. That way if you mess up the colouring, you just wash off the plastic sheet and the lineart is still OK.

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Dave: I'm rageing lesbian trapped in a man's body.
Sucros: You can't learn to cook without learning a little french, you can't discuss softcore gay porn without learning a little japanese.

I used to just Ctrl-Alt-Z everything i screwed up, thats why i never bothered to learn layers. Now that doesnt work. for some reason the Undio shortcut just makes the screen blink and nothing happen. I use the eraser on my tablet alot, but im afraid of screwing up pre-existing work. So, yeah. Looks like i got no choice now, Layers i must learn. I have tried to use them a couple times, but i always end up pressing the wrong thing and not figuring it out, thus something gets locked and something else is now got dots all over it and half my pallete is missing. I really ahve alot of things about Photoshop i just dont get, and should probably figure out. I have learned alot by experimenting, but its still not enough i guess.

Layers also lets you make neat effects and try different versions of things.

Google "colouring photoshop tutorial anime" and you should find some good ones. Then put them in the tutorial thread XD

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Dave: I'm rageing lesbian trapped in a man's body.
Sucros: You can't learn to cook without learning a little french, you can't discuss softcore gay porn without learning a little japanese.

Oh....


I see how it is. I get to be the packmule of the internet eh?


I AM NOT A MULE!!!!!


However, I will take your advice, cus your art smart and such. Away!

BE MY PACKMULE, DAMMIT!!!

I'm really too lazy to look for tutorials I already know techniques for. But I have read them, I know they're out there...

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Dave: I'm rageing lesbian trapped in a man's body.
Sucros: You can't learn to cook without learning a little french, you can't discuss softcore gay porn without learning a little japanese.

Heres an interesting one on making a portrait via layers and such. Cant say it helps me much, but those who can actually use tutorials, hope it does help.

http://www.bearclover.net/art/photoshop-portrait.html

thats my other major problems. I cant use tutorials. I can hear an explanation just fine, I can read specific instructions, or listen to a speach and do it. But for my life I cannot make heads or tails of a tutorial. Ever. EVER!!!

Yeah as spike said, linking groups layers together so you can move them together. This is useful for say...a hat. Part of the hat is in front of the character's head, part is behind, so you link them and drag it where you want instead of moving both layers at the same time. I use them ALL THE TIME...plus merge linked is the GOD of merging with merge layer set a close second (I use alot of sets).

As for word bubbles: geeze abraham lincoln...better leave your log cabin and feed your dinosaur . Actually its not a big deal on the word bubbles...but since I do a comic every week, it makes no sense to set up the same word bubble layer over and over again sooo...I just have a file with blank panels and my word bubble layer ready to go. ALSO if I need to change text its ALOT easier to update...I just grab my shape, stretch it, move it, and photoshop automatically adjusts my stroke for me. Great time saver.

AND CALI HOW CAN YOU NOT USE LAYERS O_O;;;;!!!!!!! I have some colored images with literally 50+ layers on them...the not use of them is absolutely ming boggling to me.

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[22:38] <DJ_Cyni-Cole> you're tell me, a writer, that books are lame?
Jesus fuels with 89 Octane and so do I. Eat it, heritics. -Halo

The only time I have actually seen them appear in my work is when i used to use pen tool as bread and butter. Then at the top it would of course show i had some near 4000 layers. I never really payed attention to it, just kept doing what i was doing until the end when there was a-fucking-lot of layers. Then, I would just Ctrl-shift-E them all together.

Now i use my tablet, so i sketch a rough figure with a multitude of lines in every direction. then i start at one point, the head for instance, and start making more defined lines and cleaning them up. then ill add color to that area and mae it nice and neat.


Whats it look like halfway through? The legs are like pencil marks from hell, while the body has some shoulder definition and the rest is greyish sketches with some darker lines in between. The head is a near finished project. then its on to the feet O.O


I am so spastic when i do coloring imm not sure how i ever finish anything.

My layers run in sets (> denotes a set title, + denotes a slaved layer to the layer beneath it)
Special Effects>
Glow (sometimes)
Energy (When I use it)
Movement blur)
Lineart>
Line art copy (set to like 15% multiply orlower...helps darken pencil work)
Line art
Color>
+Material #1 Soft Highlight
+Material #1 Hard Highlight
+Material #1 Soft Shadow
+Material #1 Hard Shadow
+Material #1 reflection highlight (dont use often)
Material #1 Base
(Repeat for all materials...I seperate by materials cause the shading is similar. Skin obviously has a different level of shiny-ness than pants, and hair even more so...way more effeciant than all on one layer so if I use blur to soften a material it works globally, and doesn't effect other types but saves the trouble of layering by material)
Background>
Line art blur (use this to soften lineart sometimes
Shadow (when my image casts a shadow or something)
Backgrounds are usually 1-2 layers with me.

As you can see if I have alot of different materials on on image my layers shoot up. When I draw with shapes, which I hate doing, Its pretty much the same except more materials (cause some shapes overlap despite their likeness in material quality, and some are different colors) and no lienart. But still...I have some of my more complex colors that have close to a hundred layers x____x

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[22:38] <DJ_Cyni-Cole> you're tell me, a writer, that books are lame?
Jesus fuels with 89 Octane and so do I. Eat it, heritics. -Halo