Painter 12 Brush Review (and Photoshop, sort of)

I bought Painter 12 a while back and I really like it (and if you change to the Legacy Brush Resize tool, it's fairly stable too, at least for me).

I tried to get familiar with more of the stock brushes this time around, so this review includes some new brushes, but some old brushes I really liked as well.  This is a compressed review though, for the full version look here.

My favorite new brush:  Real 2b Pencil.
Least favorite new brush:  Real Oils, any of them
Favorite new brush that has actually been around for a few versions of Painter: "Grainy Water" Blender
What I hated most of all: Photoshop CS5's Mixer Brush Tool

Just so you know what criteria I'm judging by, if a brush is easy to get the behavior I want out of it, and the results look pretty good, then it is a good brush.  Brushes that are clumsy or non-intuitive get a low rating, regardless as to how good they look.  I want efficiency in painting more than anything else, and if I feel like I'm wrestling the program, my joy in painting just disappears.

So here's some of the other brushes I spent some time with:
Painter 10+ (and maybe earlier versions)
Blenders> Grainy Water: 2 thumbs up, best blender even in Painter 12
Watercolor> Wet Wash Flat: the least offensive of the watercolors for actual painting
Watercolor> Diffuse Bristle: great for adding natural texture
Digital Watercolor> New Simple Watercolor: 2 thumbs up, best for adding color to drawings

Painter 12
Real 2b Pencil: 2 thumbs up.  Most useful for drawing.
Variable Chisel Tip Marker: 2 thumbs up when opacity control changed to "Pressure."  Corel gets Markers right.
Real Pastels/Chalk: 1 thumb up by themselves, but two thumbs up with Grainy Water Blender
Real Watercolors:  1 thumb down.  You can't predict what they are going to do!
Real Oils: 2 thumbs down (nice looking, but painful to use)

Photoshop CS5 (CS5 doesn't have real stock brushes, so this is a review of the brush engine)
Basic brush tool: 1 thumb up if you use a Brush Preset that has some texture and add a little spacing/scatter/texture, 1 1/2 thumbs up when using dual brush functionality
Smudge tool:  2 thumbs down by itself, but if you modify it with a Preset, tie the strength to your pen's pressure, and adjust the spacing/scatter, you can get it to do some nice things.
Mixer Brush Tool:  Waste of effort.  Photoshop basically copied Painter's "Oils" controls, which are the most unwieldy part of Painter's brush engine.

Florian Satzinger: Working with References

Here's a nice example about using references for a new design:

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Update: Here's the finished piece.

The colour palette I was working with:

book preview

Here is a book prievew that I hope to have out by comicon!

Wouter Tulp: Caricature sketch demo

Close up. Click image to take a close look at the brush strokes

 

In this video I recorded the process of sketching a James Brown caricature. At the very start of the recording, my computer suddenly ran slow, which caused the initial sketch to be a little rude and blunt. I decided to keep on going and use the heavy linework as a staring point for the rest of the painting. I usually create a more subtle basic sketch.

You can see that the basic sketch does not have the right proportions yet, and I chose to paint and correct this along the way. I used dark linework on top of lighter values and left some parts open to keep the painting vivid.

Mark McDonnell: How To Draw With Different Mediums - PrismaColor Pencil 01

As we're all gearing up for the 3rd Annual CTN ANIMATION EXPO in Burbank California, I decided to post an all new video in the realm of using different mediums and experimentation when creating gesture specific drawings for the Animation and Entertainment Industry. It's a quick over the shoulder view of a few drawings done with a PrismaColor Pencil, as they are a wonderful waxy smooth pencil to draw with.

Mark McDonnell: How To Draw With Different Mediums - Pastel 01

Here's a video showcasing how to approach gesture drawing while experimenting with Pastel, as it's a medium that has much to offer. I'll be posting different videos in the near future that deal with the subject of experimentation, this one is the longest of the already recorded videos. It's the first on using Pastel in quick sketch sessions.

MAC

Leighton Hickman: An Introduction to Plein Air Landscape Painting

The greatest challenge for anyone new to painting en plein air (in open air) is distilling the overwhelming visual information of the landscape into a painting. The key to this is simplifying and grouping objects into a manageable framework that can then be added to, refined and detailed. In this post I've included an exercise from my landscape painting class as well as a step-by-step series of photographs from one of my personal plein air paintings explaining how the exercise applies to creating a finished piece.

The first exercise I have my students do is to construct a composition using white and burnt umber in a five value scale. In this exercise burnt umber will serve as our darkest value and white as our brightest with three steps in between. The goal here is to challenge yourself to create a simple graphic composition using a limited value structure while still remaining true to landscape you're trying to depict.

Before I begin any painting from life I like to take a moment to name the colors and values of the objects I will be painting. This helps me to create a plan before I start applying paint to canvas and helps limit any mistakes and frustrations that arise from beginning too hastily.

I picked this view specifically to give more leverage to my limited value structure. The overlapping levels of lights and darks not only add visual interest to the painting but also act as depth cues separating foreground from middle-ground from background.

The sun, your light source, is always moving when you're painting outside so use your time wisely and try not to be too precious with your drawing. Establish your lights and darks immediately to avoid confusion later as your light source moves overhead. Never try to chase the sun while you paint- instead start your painting with an established light source and stick to it. This will save you from hours of frustration.

First, I lay in my composition by doing a loose sketch. I then begin painting with my middle values saving my darkest darks and lightest lights until the end so that I have more room to adjust contrasts. It's often wise to leave your sky blank when painting outdoors because it's generally your lightest value and if you try establishing it too soon you'll often paint it too dark.

Once my middle values are established I pop in highlights and add my darkest darks at contact points and overhangs. Be careful not to break the value structure you established in the beginning of your painting- the goal here is to sweeten the composition with just a few touches in carefully chosen locations to keep the values from becoming spotty. I often try to centralize the highest levels of tonal contrast to my focal point in order to add to it's visual interest.

While the goal here isn't to create an art piece this exercise is a great introduction to building a composition and has direct applications to creating a finished piece. Below is a step-by-step plein air cityscape I painted using the same concepts from the exercise above.

Before painting I established the composition's figure ground relationship and defined the areas of light and shadow in a pencil drawing.

I began the painting process by applying the middle tones to the areas in shadow using heavily diluted paint.

To create the stylized, vintage and atmospheric look I used a series of monochromatic washes, adjusting my values by adding or wiping away paint. At this point I'm leaving the areas of highest value white much like I left the sky white in the exercise above.

Its not until I begin to address the lights that I abandoned my atmospheric washes for thicker paint and sharper edges. This was done to create stronger visual contrast between the areas in light and those in shadow, further allowing them to blend and recede. I kept my lights limited to hues complimentary to the shadows using only blues and greens to create a sharp contrast between the reds and oranges of the shadows. The highest chromatic and value contrasts are reserved for the focal point: a blue vintage sedan.

Here is the finished piece, stylistically very different from the exercise we started with but conceptually they are one in the same.

A view of the street and my set-up. The light has changed dramatically at this point but this is why I established my value structure early on. Hope this inspires some of you to move your studios outside for a bit and try your hand at some plein air- happy painting!

-Leighton Hickman

Eaton Canyon demo photography courtesy of Fred Palacio http://fredpalacioart.blogspot.com/

Florian Satzinger: Poster Artwork - Complete Break Down

Florian Satzinger: Warm-Up Sketch Video

I recorded a new drawing process the other day and thought it would be nice to share it over here, too. Hope you like it...

Work In Progress 7 (2) from Florian Satzinger on Vimeo.

Florian Satzinger: Guides

Drawing those green guides (you can use any colour you want, of course) on the characters effect automatically a better understanding of the volume or form. Which is important for the whole process related to placing shadows, accenting weight etc.

Florian Satzinger: From Rough To Finished

Here's the complete break down of my "CTN duck":

Jason Scheier: Landscape Digital Painting Creation.

Here are three videos I recently put together documenting my quick sketching process in Adobe Photoshop CS5. They usually begin with an abstract layout, keeping in mind foreground, middle ground, and background. My process is usually very fluid and organic. Being malleable in the initial stages will help the paintings become spontaneous and fresh as they develop further. Incorporating reference photography quickly creates textures and blueprints for how the paintings will develop. The idea with using photos, is primarily for jumping levels quickly from painted to photographic. The trick is to control the amount of painted elements by creating a balance between both.

It's important to start applying some key rules with speed painting. Local colors, bounced light, focal point, and emphasis of design. Unification of elements such as shape design, and visual cues to bank the eye throughout the landscape.

Important things to keep in mind even in the loose sketching phase:

Perspective, A sense of reality, lighting, selective vision, whether its an establishing shot, medium shot, close-up, extreme close-up, rules of thirds, size relationships, screen direction, avoiding tangents, abstractions, positive and negative space, atmospherics, order vs. chaos, and complex vs. simple.

The key is to start abstract, and to apply grounding rules as you progress in your painting.

Thanks for viewing and I hope you enjoy! If you would like to see future demos, I encourage comments and feedback. I love helping others find their working process, and inspiring most of all.

-Jason Scheier

Hat Lieberman: Stuff I've Learned About Storyboarding Part 3

These next few tip sheets examine the elements of design; line, shape, space and value, and how to incorporate them into your storyboards to help direct the eye and clarify information. The focus here is not the cinematics of stroyboarding but the execution of idea to paper and ultimately how to utilize design principles to achieve desired results in an efficient way within a given panel or shot. Storyboarding is not necessarily about drawing 'good' but drawing effective.

NOTE: There are two other elements of design, texture and color. However they would only be used in rare cases with storyboards and when employed probably wouldn't be for design purposes but most likely for clarification (I.e. using colors to keep track of specific objects of similar size and shape in a given sequence, such as stones or gems, that each have varying story-specific trajectories).

Below are a few examples of how incorporating varying line thickness into a panel can help clarify not only the information presented, but the depth of the shot. There are many things you can do within a given panel to help focus or direct the eye to the important information. A simple way to achieve this is through contrast. Contrast can exist in many forms, and below we look at how contrast within a specific design element (shape, space, value) can create a focal point.

Now we can take these principles and incorporate them into storyboard panels.

I got a bit 'wordy' on the tip sheet above. I think the most important thing to take away from the sewer-rat example above is realizing that even though panel 1 and 3 are the exact same compositions, the shading can either greatly enhance (1) or greatly distract (3) from the important information. This holds true of the other design principles as well. Thinking about these principles while you are boarding can help in creating clear and easy to read compositions.

Storyboards, by nature, are disposable. They are not finished pieces of artwork. The main goal is to present ideas on paper quickly and clearly. Design principles can help sell ideas very effectively in storyboards. Below are a few more examples;

There is no single 'right' way to present an idea visually. The 'blimp' idea, for instance, could easily be boarded successfully in a variety of different ways. Ways that would vary in stylistic choices based on the artist, but that could all achieve the same goal of focusing the attention on the blimp. In fact there are probably compositions that could be more successful than the one presented.

So start experimenting with design principles and find ways to incorporate them into your boards that work for you.

As per my previous posts, I reserve the right to be wrong. These are simply tricks and tips I've picked up along the way that I've found to be successful in my own work.

-Hat

Florian Satzinger: In Quest Of The Right Shape

I often start with certain reference images and then proceed running around on the piece's form and volume on and on and on... lately, I recorded that initial process of mine:

Work In Progress 7 from Florian Satzinger on Vimeo.

Shape reference: Nautilus shell

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