25 Parallel Worlds Created by Photoshop Master Michal Karcz. Born in Warsaw, Poland, artist Michal Karcz began his visual journey with a paintbrush and canvas. As a painter, he says he developed “a vision that was hard to create with other visual techniques”—a vision he eventually brought to photography and digital art when those became his medium of choice later in life. Nowadays, Michal busies himself creating parallel realities, often devoid of people, often post-apocalyptic, always haunting on some level. Moody and dramatic, his imagination and formidable Photoshop skills produce “unique realities” the he says represent “places from my dreams, desire, imagination, and fears.”
Wherever they come from, they are spectacular. Detailed wide-angle shots of ‘parallel worlds’ devoid of humanity, reclaimed by nature… or aliens… or darkness itself. As for his inspiration, Michal writes: I can tell that music has the biggest impact on my work. Scroll down to see a collection of our favorite images from his portfolio: 100 Famous Artists And Their Studios. The Public Domain Project Makes 10,000 Film Clips, 64,000 Images & 100s of Audio Files Free to Use. Blending. Checking Values: Ctrl+Y — Thomas Scholes. Royalboiler — 18 tips for comics artists by Moebius "brief manual for cartoonist "
The Uncanny Valley. Most people have heard of "The Uncanny Valley" by now. I've heard people refer to it in two contexts in the animation industry: characters that are almost lifelike but are just enough off to be creepy, and stylized/cartoon characters who have an off-putting amount of realistic detail. I want to talk a little about the second one because I've run into it more often recently when artists have asked me for critiques. I don't think there is a hard and fast rule for this type of uncanny valley. When I watched The Adventures of Tintin, at first I was really bothered by the cartoon characters with realistic eyes and hands. But by the end of the film I was engaged enough in the story that I didn't notice so much anymore. I suspect that a lot of our reaction to the uncanny valley is a bias that can be broken down with repeated exposure.
In my experience, the most important form details for navigating the the uncanny valley seem to be the eyes and the nose. How to See in Value. One of the most important concepts to know and understand as a visual artist is that pictures, scenes and still images are arrangements of value; light, dark and gray shapes. It’s these light, dark and gray shapes that the human mind assembles as a cohesive picture. Being able to see the world as shapes of value, especially colored shapes and objects, is a master skill to cultivate as a visual artist. It’s important to the artist because in order to compose and arrange shapes in our pictures, we must first see and understand their inherent grayscale value. The most basic and abstract pattern of dark and light shapes (A) is the first ‘read’ the mind makes. This happens on a visceral, almost subconscious level.
As more information is processed, like details and color, the mind can then assemble a more refined and sophisticated image (D). How do we train our eyes to see the world in value? Step 1: Ignore color information One way to see color as value is to simply ignore the color. Cartoon Fundamentals: Create Emotions From Simple Changes in the Face. There are millions of eyes, mouths, noses, ears, chins in the world, each with their own characteristics. However, to draw faces in a cartoon style, you just need to understand the basics of them. Once you have mastered these concepts, pay attention to the depth, make sure that the head of your characters give the impression of being three-dimensional and you have mastered the technique of drawing them from every imaginable angle.
If you can do that, great! But if you really want to draw attention to your art, you have to master the technique to bring them to life with facial expressions! Practically anyone can draw a face. You make a circle with some dots and lines and anyone who looks to it will say that it's a face. But, in the same way that it's something easy to build, it can also become difficult when dealing with feelings and emotions... The various expressions of the human face, like the different tones of voice, can be changed with ease.
The fun doesn't stop there! Filmmaker Miyazaki on Escaping Perfectionism: Start Your Next Project. Hour of Need. -By Jesper Ejsing This is a magic card illustration for the set called Journey into Nyx. It is a setting much like the ancient Greece. I was asked to paint a card showing 2 sphinxes with tiny riders on the back charging down from the sky. When doing 2 figures on an image that is going to be as small as a magic card I always try to focus on one character and make the other less significant. It helps to create a clearer image. So I sketched a couple of lion bodies with wings in different dynamic poses. When I got back to the studio the day after and looked at the sketches on my table, a cold feeling of mediocre crept into my stomach and I checked the mail to see if I had already gotten an approval for any of the three.
I transferred the figures to a watercolor board and inked the whole drawing with waterproof filt pen, added greytones in black acrylic washes and took a print for color rough. After I finished the background I base colored the main figure in a dark burnt Sienna. ONESHEET-BOOTCAMP1 - ONESHEET-BOOTCAMP1.pdf. Temperature Structure. -By Dan dos Santos A few days ago, I discussed a basic Value Structure technique. I showed how we can emphasize the spacial distance between Foreground, Middleground, and Background by restricting each area to a specific part of the value scale, either Black, White or Grey.
That very same principal can be applied to Color Temperature as well. Try breaking your composition down into three distinct temperature ranges: Warm, Cool and Neutral. Just like value, restricting certain areas to a particular range of temperature will create a more legible composition and a greater sense of depth. Once again, you can arrange these temperature in any order. By using tryptic schemes for both color temperature -and- value you ensure focus and legibility in even the busiest of compositions! Once I've decided on the basic value structure, I reinforce that with the same tryptic structure of color temperature.
As I paint the image, I incorporate a lot of different colors into each of these areas. Value Structure. Loomis's Scheme for Tonal Organization. Illustrator Andrew Loomis developed a practical scheme for organizing the tonal values of a picture. In his book Creative Illustration he presents squares of four different tones: white, light gray, dark gray, and black.If you let one of those tones dominate, you can arrange them four different ways: 1. Grays and black on white, 2. Black, white, and dark gray on light gray, 3. Black, white, light gray on dark gray, and 4. Nearly any sort of picture can fit one of these plans. For example, this sketch of kids and sleds on snow fits the second plan. These sketches of a mother and a baby near a window follows the third plan. Collecting. How much time and energy do you spend chasing “likes”, “retweets”, “shares”, and the host of additional measurables in the social media sphere?
Do you find yourself wondering what it is going to take to go “viral”? Maybe you are worrying about the wrong things… I used to spend a lot of time checking out my “stats” on every article I wrote, every FB post I made, every tweet I tweeted, and every other bit of social media promotion I was involved in. I used to make myself crazy dissecting the data to try and understand why certain articles were ranked better than others. After all the time and money, I saw a slight increase in my stats, but nothing to justify all the effort.
“What are you trying to do with all this effort you are spending promoting yourself?” That bit of advice was incredibly important to me. I had many conversations with artists about using social media to grow their fan base. Let me ask you a question though - what are all those fans doing for you? Support ArtOrder: Cheating. Above: Me shooting the breeze at the Illustration Academy by Arnie Fenner A few weeks ago Jon Foster and I gave an on-line lecture about the history of Spectrum at The Illustration Academy followed by a series of reviews of portfolios that had been submitted for consideration in advance by members of the audience. I generally don't like to do portfolio reviews for the simple reason that I don't view them the same way an educator does. A teacher or mentor offers critiques to help an artist improve and hopefully move on to the next level.
As an art director looking at someone's book my position is less nurturing and more black and white: would I hire this person or wouldn't I? Maybe that's a little cold—I know many art directors who happily offer critiques and suggestions to developing artists in the hopes it will help them achieve their potential—but I try to be a realist. I had an immediate response: "There is no such thing as 'cheating' in art. " Above: The camera obscura But…cheated? Jean “Moebius” Giraud on drawing from the work of other artists, from life, and from photos… | Ragged Claws Network. — via — [KIM] THOMPSON: You attended art school, right? [JEAN] GIRAUD: Yes. I began as a self-taught artist, copying other artists; then, luckily, I entered an art school, which freed up my hand and opened my eyes to a degree.
It’s very dangerous to work only second-hand — referring only to other artists, that is. SOURCE: Jean Giraud, “The Other Side of Moebius,” interview by Kim Thompson, The Comics Journal #118 (December 1987), pp. 85-105. Brandon Graham > That elephant rumble — a loose, baggy monster of a blog post that includes two pages from National Geographic displayed alongside two pages by Moebius (see also below). kiCswiLA?
Quenched consciousness > Comics artist Leland Purvis sent me this photo… — a side-by-side comparison of a famous photograph by Horst P. Quenched consciousness > Approaching Centauri Page 3 w/photo reference. The Art Connection Academy - Saturday Lectures. The ART CONNECTION ACADEMY is now offering free Saturday lectures on a variety of topics. From Animation and Foundations, to Portfolio Reviews, these lectures are designed for beginners and professionals alike. Our schedule is always changing as more lectures are added. Check in with us often to see what our acclaimed artist will offer in upcoming lectures!
Free Lecture: Breaking into the Illustration Industry April 12, 2014, 1:00pm, Central Time About the Lecture This installment of our Free Saturday Online Lecture series delves into the process of breaking into the illustration industry as well as establishing a career in the arts. Featured artists: Sterling Hundley, Edward Kinsella III and Jeffrey Alan Love Register below to join us this Saturday! Let's Get Organized — Part 1 of 2. This is a cross-post with Muddy Colors — An Illustration Collective I have in my possession an artifact of great historical importance to myself and no one else: my digital calendar. Beginning on Monday, February 28, 2005, it records nearly every event of my life, both personal and professional (including the hours required to write this blog post).
If accurate, during the course of that initial week I spent 6 hours at the gym, cleaned the bathroom for 1.5 hours (filthy, I'm sure), went to Costco, a friend's book signing, and Drew's party (I can't recall who Drew is at the moment). The vast majority of the week, however, was spent making comics. I finished painting 2 covers, varnished and photographed 2 others, and began painting the 4th page of an X-Men book — all in all, 68.5 hours of work. I know this because I used iCal, Apple's default calendar app, not like an appointment book, but as a time log and to-do list. Nearly a decade later, haven't stopped keeping track. Digital Skin. -By Serge Birault I think I have to speak about skin because I had a lot of questions about this. Here's a list of tricks to do paint more "realistic" skin with your computer ...
I. Skin Tones Avoid simple gradients. You cannot obtain convincing skin if you only add black and white to a basic skin tone. Of course, all skins are different but you can try this : - A little bit of olive green on the shadow. - A little bit of blue under the eyes (lower lids). - A little bit of red on the cheek bones. Just work with low opacity (0 - 5%), on a separeted layer and with the soft round brush. By the way, if the contrast is not good, it will not work. About black skin, I never find a good and single way. II. Don't forget the ambient and the direct lights could changed your basic skin tones.
The color of the light is important too. You can easily adjust the contrast/the tones/the luminosity of some parts of your picture with your favourite software. III. I use the "dry brush" to do skin textures. Do What You Can & Be Happy Regardless | Zac Gorman. For somebody who drew a rather popular comic extolling the virtues of “Quitting Your Day Job and Doing What You Love,” I’ve come to understand that this idea is fairly problematic. I’m not even necessarily referring to the classist implications like those that are presented in this well written piece on Slate, but the issues that “Doing What You Love” causes for the people who’ve followed that advice, or have at least attempted to convince ourselves we did. I don’t want to speak for others so I’ll try not to generalize (much) and instead focus on my own experiences.
I grew up in a firmly middle class household. We got by just fine. Work became in my mind the punishment that you endure in order to exist in this otherwise reasonable world and it weighed on me. I should point out that having an uncomfortable relationship with work didn’t mean that I didn’t do it. In retrospect, art school was my ironic rejection of work. I’m not sure I ever really wanted to be an artist. Why "The Process" is the Most Crucial Aspect of Achieving Your Goals. Reilly Vocabulary. Having a common vocabulary is essential in any field of study.
Reilly used some common art terms like "local" and "value" for his teaching program, and modified or invented other terms like "wash-in" (imprimatura), "lay-in" (block-in), and "poster" (averages without the details). Wash-in: A thin, translucent underpainting, usually made with Raw or Burnt Umber. An imprimatura. Color Note: A tiny color sketch representing the intended color averages.
Lay-in: Initial application of opaque paint. Poster: A condition or stage of the painting where color averages are laid in as simple flat shapes to insure that colors are accurate relative to their surroundings. Effect: The visual effect of the main light source on the subject. Local: Intrinsic quality of an object regardless of illumination. Form: The illusion of a three-dimensional object on a two-dimensional surface. Chairoscuro: light and dark. Value: Color component that distinguishes light colors from dark colors. Order of the Blog. How to Work with Opacity. How to Work with Opacity. Ordering Art for Games | Monte Cook Games. 10 Things...Evaluate Your Painting. 10 Things...Finding Your Audience. The Science of Vision and the Emergence of Art.
Using images from the Web: A Guide to “Fair Use” | Shake. Design Seeds® | for all who ❤ color. Creating Form – With Planes – Enliighten. Mischief | Sketching & Drawing & Painting Software | 61 Solutions. Photoshop sketch process. Chaos&Evolution - Digital Painting 1h30 open tutorial. Alla Prima: Everything I Know About Painting. The Best Ways To Make Your Photos Black & White. Trendgraphy. ROBERT FAWCETT'S PATTERN OF LIGHTS AND DARKS. Three important rules for painting.
Quick Tips on Photographing Your Works of Art - How to Photograph Paintings, Drawings and Sculptures. How Did You Become A Freelance Artist? Pricing: The Key To Not Destroying Everyone's Career | Photoshop For Noobs • ImagineFX hosts an epic Photoshop... Noah Bradley Painting Study. Photoshop sketch process. Hovering Art Directors. 45 Markets of Illustration. Summer School for Freelancers : The Institute of Awesome. Color Theory Crash Course by ~pronouncedyou on deviantART. Photoshop For Noobs • Adobe Kuler or Adobe's Badly Named Colour Wheel. Rogue Warden. Best Practices For Effective Design Of "About me"-Pages. Art History Timelines: View Artwork: Caravaggio, David. Lois van Baarle. Brom Art. How to Start a Painting by Noah Bradley.
College Portfolio - 1992. KTB.net :: We are not done yet... Know your Allies. Eyecager: Gradients. Video: greyscale to color. Coloring with Layer Effects.