telophase | (no subject)

When I am elected queen of the world, my first decree will be to lock down the Dodge and Burn capability in every copy of Photoshop until and unless the artist can prove that they can shade comics without them first. I've just spent time on the Deviantart forums verbally bitch-slapping people for telling the newbies who are going "i wanna no how 2 color comix kthnxbai" to use teh Dodge and Burn tools. They can be useful -- if and only if you know what you are doing! Otherwise they produce results that say "Hey! I burned the shadows and dodged the highlights!"

And don't EVEN get me started on the bloody Multiply function.

And I just spent some time counselling some 18-year-old kid from Central Texas, according to his DA userpage, who wants to go to anime/manga school in Japan that (a) unless you're perfectly fluent in Japanese don't bother, (b) if you don't want to work over there then the things you learn may not be useful here because the industries are totally different and (c) the cost of living is exponentially higher and you can't guarantee that the school will let you work. *sigh*

In other things, I've added a couple more things to my DeviantArt gallery, including my first venture into cel shading with a Vash the Stampede.

Actual job fair tomorrow -the Fort Worth Public Library is hiring. Must go.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Dude Telo, I love the Vash you did. :D :D

I by no means am good at drawing or CGing or anything (and I'm an Art major...ah the irony)...I really like to color stuff in Photoshop though, namely making custom My Little Ponies XD However, I never use the dodge or burn tools to add shading/lighting. I found it to be a pain in the butt and generally didn't give me as much control. I usually just make "shade" layers and pick a color slightly darker or lighter than the "base" color...I didn't know there were other ways of doing it. XD XD

Thanks! That Vash was hell to draw, but he turned out pretty durn good, so I'm all happy.

I'm so happy that someone *doesn't* use the dodge/burn. :D And there's all these people on DA giving advice to newbies on how to do crappy art, basically, because dodge/burn is a shortcut. It's really for adjusting highlights and contrast in photogtaphs rather than anythign else, but if you work hard at it, you can *sometimes* make it work decently in drawings and paintings.

But when the results of doing it the other way is so much better, then why use Dodge/Burn? Sheesh. I even just uploaded an example of what I'm talking about (http://www.deviantart.com/view/7252703/) into my Scrapbook area because of one guy who's all "But I'm just giving him some advice on how to do it simply!" It ain't that simple, hon... [off soapbox]

Uhm...don't laugh, my stuff sucks, but here's an example of a custom My Little Pony, no dodge/burn implemented XD

Woo I suck. Go me.

And it's so much better than it would be with dodge/burn! :D

I really like the primitive/naive-type style of the paint dabs on the wings - they ahve a nifty texture to them.

Thanks :D I enjoy coloring and shading in Photoshop, even though it's painfully obvious I have no idea what I'm doing. I'll keep at it though, maybe eventually they'll get better. XD

Do you know any good art sites that talk about how to be intuitive when shading, i.e. figuring out what gets shaded and what doesn't from a light source you've created?

Hrm. Actually, I don't. I've got a bunch of art and digital art bookmarks, but I don't think there's anything that concentrates on lighting.

Hm.... I went to this site (http://www.gfxartist.com/features/tutorials), which has a ton of good step-by-step and digital art tutorials. I managed to find one on how to use dodge and burn effectively. :) http://www.sijun.com/dhabih/gallery/howto/

Let's see what else is there... ah. Here's one on basic light and shade that might be useful: http://www.anticz.com/drawing1.htm

Thank you, I'll take a look at them. :D