JaxPad Forum Topic - Color help again. ^.^

KoOkY!

Mon, 19 May 2008 22:12:07 -0000

Noooo head about to explode from abundance of information! Hehe. Thanks for all of the links though, will definitely check them out when I get the chance to. I've done my share of 2d (and 3d) animation too though it's been years. Keep wanting to get back into Flash also but never enough free hours in the day to get to it all. :P

Drakenhart

Mon, 19 May 2008 19:01:05 -0000

Metsys said: ..... While we are on the topic of animation, can I just recommend that everyone here should give 2D animation a try? You can use Pencil (http://www.les-stooges.org/pascal/pencil/) which is a great free/open source 2D animation program. It's kind of like DigiCel FlipBook: really simple and easy to learn (http://www.les-stooges.org/pascal/pencil/index.php?id=UserManual). Even if you only have time to do block-ins, stick figures, or pencil tests of your characters, give it a shot.

*snags the link* ROCK. I've been looking for something like this. :) EE! *Is an Animation grad* * I <3's 2d Animation*

Metsys said: Two things that have really helped me from doing 2D animation: first is that you stop thinking 3-dimensionally with your drawings and start thinking 4-dimensionally. Your poses become more dynamic because you are not just thinking about the current pose but what happens before and after. What did the body have to do in order to get into that position? What is the body going to do next? The pose depends on that information. The other thing that's great about animating is that because you are drawing your character in motion for every frame, it forces you to pay special attention to continuity and making sure your characters are on model every time. One of the things I struggled with as an artist is being able to recreate the same character perfectly in any pose and at any angle. When you are animating a character and their eyes start to move shift around the head or their face morphs into someone else because one of my keyframes was off model before I started inbetweening, you get very clear input when you drew a character wrong, and clear input when you get it right. It's a quick way to learn how to draw characters consistently when your characters have to be in motion. There's something magical about seeing your character move. For many people it's the pinnacle of their creative work; your character becomes alive. That magical experience gives you a ton of drive to improve as an artist.

*noodles* People wonder why Animator tends to be weird. ;) heheh. I ooh and Ahh at wonderful animation techniques, use of physics, and realism (Golden Compass - bear fight scene) while others are OOHing a AHHHing at the move in general. hahaha. :)

Drakenhart

Mon, 19 May 2008 17:56:55 -0000

OOPS!! http://www.posemaniacs.com/ <-- they have no skin, just muscle textures on 3-d models. So its Nudity but not the kind one would expect. This has a few really good tutorials :) http://www.itchy-animation.co.uk/ This is an AMAZING Resource. :) http://www.drawfurry.com/ And this guy had VIDEO Tutorials. Sure they are comic-styled, But OMG. :) I've tried his techniques and adapted them to mine some what and I can now draw females!!! XD http://stevensanchez.deviantart.com/ And Talking about deviant Art, I've been making a collection of Various Tutorials I've found there. http://halfbreed.deviantart.com/favourites/#Tutorials These one in specific you may find useful. http://cedarseed.deviantart.com/art/Guide-to-Movement1-Flexibility-66104159 http://pandabaka.deviantart.com/art/How-I-draw-char-pose-32796586 http://neolucky.deviantart.com/art/Coloring-Tutorial-OC-2-23230274 http://getty.deviantart.com/art/Tutorial-for-soft-cell-shading-27544088 http://meisan.deviantart.com/art/contrast-digital-ink-tutorial-35973729

Metsys

Mon, 19 May 2008 17:35:49 -0000

Here's my list of animation books: The Animator's Survival Kit by Richard Williams Animation from Pencils to Pixels by Tony White The Animator's Workbook by Tony White Timing for Animation by Harold Whitaker and John Halas Animation 1 and Animation 2 with Preston Blair The Mechanics of Motion by Chris Webster If you want practice doing poses you can do searches on stock photography sites like Corbis and Getty. Search for things like sports or some other activity (jumping, running, etc.), and draw from that. Also scrubbing through videos of people moving is an even better way to learn good poses. I'm a big fan of drawing poses from Parkour and martial arts demonstrations. Find videos with lots of action. Every video editor that I know of allows you to do step through frames. Free ones include VirtualDub for Windows (easy to use) and Blender's sequence editor (will need documentation to use but it's cross platform). While we are on the topic of animation, can I just recommend that everyone here should give 2D animation a try? You can use Pencil (http://www.les-stooges.org/pascal/pencil/) which is a great free/open source 2D animation program. It's kind of like DigiCel FlipBook: really simple and easy to learn (http://www.les-stooges.org/pascal/pencil/index.php?id=UserManual). Even if you only have time to do block-ins, stick figures, or pencil tests of your characters, give it a shot. Two things that have really helped me from doing 2D animation: first is that you stop thinking 3-dimensionally with your drawings and start thinking 4-dimensionally. Your poses become more dynamic because you are not just thinking about the current pose but what happens before and after. What did the body have to do in order to get into that position? What is the body going to do next? The pose depends on that information. The other thing that's great about animating is that because you are drawing your character in motion for every frame, it forces you to pay special attention to continuity and making sure your characters are on model every time. One of the things I struggled with as an artist is being able to recreate the same character perfectly in any pose and at any angle. When you are animating a character and their eyes start to move shift around the head or their face morphs into someone else because one of my keyframes was off model before I started inbetweening, you get very clear input when you drew a character wrong, and clear input when you get it right. It's a quick way to learn how to draw characters consistently when your characters have to be in motion. There's something magical about seeing your character move. For many people it's the pinnacle of their creative work; your character becomes alive. That magical experience gives you a ton of drive to improve as an artist.

KoOkY!

Mon, 19 May 2008 14:37:04 -0000

Heeeey where are those links? ;) I do need to try and get more dynamic with my poses though. Sometimes afraid of going there. Hehe.

Drakenhart said: For poses and posture pick up one of the books the animation students must have for classes. Do some free gesture drawings too, to help you get more dynamic poses. :) Here are a few links to places that I find so helpful. Once yuo understand how the body moves, anything is possible! As for crits on this piece in specific, a lot of what Celty says holds true. Depending on what kind of drawing and inks you use on a character, will decided what kinds of shading you do. :) As for the character body and shape. Good job!

Drakenhart

Mon, 19 May 2008 12:46:26 -0000

For poses and posture pick up one of the books the animation students must have for classes. Do some free gesture drawings too, to help you get more dynamic poses. :) Here are a few links to places that I find so helpful. Once yuo understand how the body moves, anything is possible! As for crits on this piece in specific, a lot of what Celty says holds true. Depending on what kind of drawing and inks you use on a character, will decided what kinds of shading you do. :) As for the character body and shape. Good job!

KoOkY!

Sat, 10 May 2008 04:18:24 -0000

No no, definitely helpful! :) And he's wearing boxers actually, or they're supposed to be. Hehe. But yeah I'm very timid with shadows sometimes, same way I'm timid with poses. I do a lot of kinda stiff standing there with limbs in different positions type of poses. I need to like OVER emphasize gestures in order to train myself to be a bit more loose. Same way I should probably over emphasize the shading too. Kinda go way off to the extreme opposite direction from where I'm at now so I can figure out where the mid-way point between the two should be if I'm making sense. (it's late) Hehe. As for shading to get the texture of fur across....youch that's hard to do I think but will work on it! Need to update photoshop so I can use some of the fur texture brushes floating around out there. Thanks for the feedback! :)

Celty

Fri, 09 May 2008 13:54:51 -0000

It's looking really nice, Kooky. To be perfectly honest, I'm kind of at a loss when it comes to color too. For more toonish drawings such as this one I usually just cel-shade. However, if you are going to keep with this method then I suggest being a little more bold with the shadows. You've figured out your light source, which is good, but there are certain places where your darks should be..really, really dark. The folds in his shorts, for instance. Light and shadow help convey form and texture, and right now the shorts look like they're just a blue part of his body because they're shaded in a similar way. I'm assuming they're denim shorts? If this is the case, make sure to not over-do the wrinkles, as the material tends to be stiffer than cotton or silk and therefore bunches in more blocky shapes. As for the fur, keep in mind when shading that the surface covering his body isn't smooth and rounded like our skin, it's more irregular. The shading would have to reflect this, putting jagged shadows and highlights in here and there. Anyway, not sure if that helped too much, but those are my two cents at least. Good luck! (edited for typos)

KoOkY!

Tue, 06 May 2008 00:49:36 -0000

Picture just finished tonight and putting it up for some feedback maybe. ^.^ I'm trying to improve but my coloring keeps looking the same. I did stop using greys for my shading though, going for dark blue usually in more natural lighting and I think that did help but am I using TOO much blue now? Are shadows deep enough? Now and then I do try for some texture like Vizon was trying to show me but....it's really hard to do. :D And looks iffy when I do a more toonish picture like this guy. So I dunno, I guess any comments on a direction or something would be cool. Here tried using solid brush instead of the soft airbrushes I usually use. Not sure if made much difference the way I did it. Hmmms.