Trying Stuff

I was flicking through my Pinterest feed, when I saw a way of making clouds that caught my attention, and I thought I'd give it a try.

Person who knows that they're doing: 

by Thomas Romain (I think)

Me: 

Not sure why I decide to make the cloud pink...

^_^

Back at the ranch...

While I'm stumbling along in my oh so formal art "education", I continue to try to make little pictures here and there. 

I have also recently downloaded a trial version of Photoshop CC, which I am currently in love with.

^_^

Anywho, here's another example of me doing whatever the hell I want and pretending I actually know shit.

I call it: Ice

^_^

Wonder of wonders

From spheres to Melvins, and now, to CUBES

The other day, I had an epiphany.

To be able to create digital art, it helps to know how to draw.

Mind. Blown.

In essence, that means I'll be stuck in the basics for a while.

>_<

Whoopsies

Looking back at my first few posts, you may recall a struggle with a certain sphere and a desire to move beyond it. 

I moved a little far. 

 

On the CG cookie website, there's a tab that says START HERE and then another one that says TUTORIALS.

Naturally, I went to START HERE first --> which is where the spheres come in.

So, having watched all of the START HERE videos (except for the ones on how to install a graphics tablet, etc., etc. ), I went on to the the TUTORIALS tab.

Under TUTORIALS, there are a bunch of little options that I figured would just be included when I clicked on the tab... I thought wrong. 

But there I am, unaware of this fact, and head on straight to what I thought would be the most basic tutorial --> How to draw Melvin: 

This is how far I got before I realized my mistake:

Now, he's alright... but I'm thinking my work may improve if I go back over these newly discovered basics videos.

^_^

Color Tests

In the spirit of hopefully moving on from spheres, I decided to practice making a few to hopefully become at least slightly more proficient in the concept.

To be short, it went... okay.

I got a better feel for how to blend colors, and which colors don't work...

Right now I'm hoping it gets easier.

^_^

Da Shine--cracked?

So, I got to thinking, and I realized that a lot of my issues with finding the shine where because I kept getting freaked out by areas of high contrast --> and by that I mean areas where the color changed reallly fast.

That in mind, I decided to try a different tactic. 

First, instead of painting the whole circle with a base color, and then adding light accordingly, I made a stripe of the base color across what I wanted the darkest part of the sphere to be and smudged outwards.

Around here ^ is where I started using a very large brush (with a radius above 1/2 of the sphere) on a very low rate (under 10%) to smudge. It gave it a smoother blur effect and evened out a few bumps.

More low rate smooth.

And then tada! 

So far, I think it's the best I've been able to do. 

It's not quite at the goal: 

But it's closer than before.

I also did a darker version to see if the effect carried on.

Not sure to be honest. I think it might have something to do with the reflection light near the bottom.

Anywho. Will do more, and hopefully I can move on from spheres! 

Da Shine--3rd Try

I like this one better. 

It even took less time! 

But I cheated >_<  

I think.

In GIMP, you can leave a selection up and paint inside of it so that only the area inside the selection gets painted. It makes for a really nice crisp outline. 

So, that's what I did this time, and while it really helped me not worry about screwing up the edges, I feel like I should probably practice without it... I think.

Hmph.

But it looks better, though, right? 

But then, I 

Da Shine--Part 2

So, remember the shiny ball?

Well, I forgot to mention that that was my second try.

(the first being too horrible for me to bear posting)

Anywho, after a lot of frowning and flicking bath and forth between screens, I finally ended up with this: 

Now, the edges were not originally this neat. I ended up cropping it with the circle select tool in GIMP so as to sooth my inner obsessive side.

It was supposed to look like this: 

I will be trying again--mark my words, shiny ball! I WILL try again.

^_^

Da Shine

So, next lesson: Materials

In this lesson, the guys from CG cookie talk about how different materials reflect light and all that fun stuff. 

So, I'm trying to make a shiny ball. 

My progress thus far: 

I laid down the colors, but I'm having a miserable time smoothing out the shading... 

>_<

My Second Sphere

I feel my creative juices really flowing when it comes to these title names.

^_^

Anywho, back on CG Cookie, I moved on to Color Basics

Behold, my purple sphere!

I feel very proud of all that "hue shifting" (<-- fancy new lingo I just learned) 

^_^

My First Sphere

I found this website: CG Cookie with free, step-by step art tutorial videos.

I say this because I have been looking up and down, left to right and upside down for something like this.

Anyway. I'll admit I skipped the first few lessons because I don't have a graphics tablet, know how to use layers and all that jazz and I wanted to get to the good stuff (note the tendency towards impatience).

The first thing I learned was about lighting

and here's how I did: 

Not too shabby (if I do say so myself)

^_^

Let me explain.

There is a reason my blog isn't exactly "colorful"

If left to my own devices, the blog will end up with some sort of tiled pattern that is specifically designed to draw attention in the: "Hey, that's a neat background" kind of way.

For some reason, I have the impression that the frame isn't supposed to distract from 

THE ART 

Whether the stuff I post qualifies as ART is yet to be determined.

Anywho, right now I'm just gonna launch into a slideshow of the stuff I did before I knew what I was doing.

I hope you're not too put off by the circle with a mustachioed shadow.

^_^ 

It Begins

This is a blog dedicated to the visual arts--more specifically, my half assed attempts at learning the digitally visual arts.

Now, to get a few thing settled: 

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