[x]

BrushesThis is somehow a continuation of the previous journal with a listing of tutorials I use.
People ask me about what brushes do I use even more often than about me making tutorials. Unfortunately here I might help only Photoshop users as I've never used SAI or GIMP and my Corel Painter worked so unbelievably slow on my machine that recently I've simply uninstalled it.
To be honest, the brush I use most often is a simple round brush with tablet pressure controlling the opacity.
With that baby I paint almost everything starting from under-painting and ending on medium details. Yet, there are all sorts of different brushes I use for other things - hair, texturing, backgrounds, foliage and so on. Here are a few sets I have installed. I do not use every single brush from them and I've deleted most of them right after installation... sometimes leaving as much as 1-5 brushes from a set of 30. You can get rid of unwanted brushes by either using the preset manager in the brush menu panel or by cl

Tutorials and techniques 2It's time to refresh the tutorial journal! Added some new ones and removed those which, after some time, I found a bit misleading.
Below you'll find a list of tutorials I personally think of as the best on dA. If I have any problems with painting something I usually take a look at one of those.

Is there anything you're having troubles with? Need help looking for a good tutorial? Or maybe you'd like to see a video walk-through of me painting something?
I'm open for suggestions for what kind of tutorial/walk-through you'd like to see from me. If you're interested in anything, post your suggestions in the comments!
Poses, composition and perspective

Expressions and emotions

Colour theory, selection and mixing VS light

Blending Tutorial by ~acidlullaby :thumb146178

Pay me a monthly salary with no money?The two following websites pay me a monthly percentage according to the traffic I bring to their website. It would be really helpful if you read the pages updates there~! They both are user-friendly and neat!

Thank you!
What's this exactly? Need more reading? The below is for those who like to read~
—–
You all know that a lot of us, webcomicers, are putting everything on the line for this labor of love and that we make money off books (for those who are fortunate enough, thank God), merchandise, commissions and out appearances in conventions.
Thankfully, I don't have to worry much about living expenses since I'm still living with my family. We don't have the culture of living on one's own after a certain age here, but I still live in a 3rd world country where

EmoticonsI saw a post on Tumblr full of cute text emoticons so I thought spam them here. For future reference.
It's my mission to use them in ALL THE COMMENTS :iconallthethingsplz:
Table flip: (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻
Alarmed table flip: (┛◉Д◉)┛彡┻━┻
Angry (ノಠ益ಠ)ノ彡┻━┻ ┻
Putting the table back: ┬──┬ ノ( ゜-゜ノ)
R u srs/rlly: ಠ_ಠ
Srs gentleman: ಠ_ರೃ
zzzzzz: (￣。￣)～ｚｚｚ
Le drool: °٢°
Innocent: ʘ‿ʘ
sjfsjl: (°ロ°)☝
Oh joy: ಥ‿‿‿‿⌣ಥ
Kawaii kawaii: (づ｡◕‿‿◕｡)づ
Yay~:

Rat Anatomy Compilation.Rats are very fascinating little creatures. They have small hands like humans, minus the thumbs. They are intelligent and social, and each rat has a unique personality. They can also easily stand on their hind legs, making them an easy transition to an anthropomorphic form for stories and art.
Unfortunately, though, they are damn difficult to draw, and there are precious few resources for those wishing to delve into their anatomical structure (certainly me included). So I will be collecting references, both photos and drawings, that I think might be helpful to someone looking to draw my charming friend Rattus norvegicus (and perhaps some of his closest family members). I will probably add to this from time to time as I find new resources, so please feel free to suggest things that you think might be useful!
Scans from "An Illustrated Dissection Guide to the Rat," by Allen Kurta
Lineart only, these are not gory
Rat Skeleton: http://i181.photobucket.com/albums/x254/CJArtist

5 Things I Bet Amateur Writers Haven't ConsideredEDIT: If you like this journal entry, check out The Sarcastic Guide to Writing ebook http://www.amazon.com/The-Sarcastic-Guide-Writing-ebook/dp/B005TOCC1C for exclusive content on world-building, character, and dialogue!
1. You will have to reduce your story to one page. This is called the query letter, what you write when you try and land a legit agent or publisher. You basically say "Hey, this is what my story's about, how long it is, and why I chose you to look at it." It is, in my opinion, one of the most difficult things a writer will ever face. All your nuance, your subtle build-ups, your "yes, buts", and your "no, wait, there's more" all have to be condensed to three paragraphs or so. No query letter is really allowed to be longer than one page, because no one has tl;dr worse than a literary agents or his or her minions. Not only that, queries show off your writing style and what you value in terms of story. A good query gets somebody t

Fast and easy way to create a reference sheet...Just the other day, I discovered a super quick and easy way to create reference sheets for digital painting. So, instead of having a ton of documents open all at once, slowing down your Photoshop, or spending a half hour to create your own sheet, you can use Picasa to create one for you in just seconds.
Below is a video I made to show you how. There are some other tips in there as well, so take a look if you're interested!
Take care!

5 Ways to Un-Cliché' a ClichéEDIT: If you like this journal entry, check out The Sarcastic Guide to Writing ebook http://www.amazon.com/The-Sarcastic-Guide-Writing-ebook/dp/B005TOCC1C for exclusive content on world-building, character, and dialogue!
1. Do your damn research. I can't stress this enough. We live in the freaking Information Age, and the concept of Googling is an alien one to too many people. While I could easily go on a rant about anti-intellectualism, I'll rein it in and say that cliché' is largely anachronistic. People use them because they're familiar, not necessarily what's true. When I started world-building for my Western steampunk/cattlepunk trilogy, one of the characters was the equivalent of a Chinese immigrant worker. So I read everything I could get my hands on about what it was like to be a Chinese immigrant worker. Wikipedia articles, fiction, and non-fiction. I also read authors like Lawrence Yep

YUM!Jinka, An Artbook! Get those entires in!The deadline TIME is 12 AM EST (sorry I forgot to add the timezone!)
ONLY ONE MORE DAY TO GET ENTRIES IN! FINAL EXTENSION!
DEADLINE HAS BEEN EXTENDED TO FEBRUARY 7th @ 12AM EST
/endEdit
YUM!JINKA ARTBOOk!
YUM!Jinka Artbook Submissions: OPEN until the 7th of FEBRUARY
Book Details:
Title: YUM!Jinka
Size: 8.5in X 11in
Pages: TBD Roughly between 50-60 pgs
Artists: TBD
Price: TBD
ISBN: 978-1467942843
What is YUM!Jinka?
Yum!Jinka is an artbook project filled with original artwork that I would like to put together with the help of the DA community. The book will be published and available online through amazon and buying directly through me. The theme of the artbook is Food & Drink Gijinka's.
What is a gijinka?
Gijinka (擬人化) is a Japanese word meaning "humanoid", "personification", or "anthropomorphic". Basically, your taking a food or a drink and turning it into a character!
Here are a couple of examples:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mo

5 Tips on Creating Dynamic Character1. Start with a concept. This is how most of my characters start, and they usually begin with two or three word descriptors. "Demon stallion" or "spoiled dragon prince" or "psychic dolphin". Characters as this stage are more anima than anything; they are forces at play in the primordial soup of story. When an idea is this new, I try not to focus on it too much. Ideas need time to germinate, and I've found myself disappointed in times past when the potential of the character was so much more exciting than the concrete reality of what they became. Since during this time I'm developing plot and main conflict, I try to move characters around and see who I gravitate towards. This helps story and character grow organically. It's during this time that I try and determine what the character struggles with, the yin and yang of their internal difficulty. For example, I was recently asked to come up with a character for an urban fantasy roleplay, with no real details about th

Photoshop BrushesPhotoshop brushes
Some of you might remember my previous journal with a list of brush-sets I've tried out and found very useful. Today I bring you more!
And honestly I must say that those few new sets contain absolutely everything one needs (I won't join the discussion that a real artist needs only one brush, because it's absolutely true but makes things much less fun and fancy ;))
After downloading and installing a brush set always test every single brush - play with it on a clear canvas, test it in different colours and using different strokes. Pick only those which you like and know how to use, delete the others or at least move them to the bottom of the list, leaving the most often used at the top.
New brush sets

These 6 wonderful sets brought to you by ~Vincent-Montreuil are compilations of brushes that create amazing effects. All of them

Help!! I'm In The Past!!! D:I mean it! I'm actually in the past right now!
Wait ... what is "now", anyway? I ... let's see...
Hmmm, well ... there is no such thing as the "present". All things actually exist at the "same time". It's a huge misconception of people's picture of time.
When an object moves through space, it moves slower through time. If I wave my hand back and forth, its clock runs slower, so it stays behind the rest of me in time. It is now in the past relative to the rest of me. But my hand is still here. If what people call the present were a moment constant in time, then my hand should be gone, as I just sent it into the past. This is true for all particles in the universe. So why are we still in the "present"?
The answer is that there is only 1 space. If you were to travel into the past, you would still occupy this space. You have 4 coordinates; 3 for your point in space and 1 for your point in time.
Even a time traveler who goes 10 minutes into the past would still be visible here, because he o

Improving your Art – what dA news can teach youWhat dA +news can teach you about:
Improving your Art
Issue One!

The dA +news platform is a great way to adress the community and teach them things about a wide range of topics, and of course to find information that you didn't even know you were looking for!

Over time I've collected many great articles. This series will bring them together per topic so it's easy to find what you're looking for!

Besides helping people find information they need, the aim of this series is also to promote quality on the news platform.
For this issue, I chose articles about Improving your Art. There may be more issues on this topic in the future

Articles may overlap on some areas, and may contain outdated info though I've tried to avoid this.

(For all you beta testers I included thumbs too!

they're invisible to non-beta testers.)

Learning Experience #1: 10 Ways

Steampunk Contest: ClosedIt is now 8:00pm so as of now the Late Entry Period for the Contest is now CLOSED.
Any entries submitted just before 8:00 will still be added to the folder. Any entry that came in a few seconds after 8:00 will still be added. Entries that are sent in at 8:01 will not be accepted in to the contest entries folder.
We thank all those who have took part in this contest. A journal will be posted in a bit with and updated Prize list as well as a detailed explanation on how voting will be held. as well as when expected winners will be decided and how and when prizes will be shipped out.
The waiting period for voting will take a while, and the waiting period for prizes to be distributed will also take a bit as i will be away for about a month or so.
we hope you will be patient with us as we try to get everything done without problems.

5 Ways Characters Can FailEDIT: If you like this journal entry, check out The Sarcastic Guide to Writing ebook http://www.amazon.com/The-Sarcastic-Guide-Writing-ebook/dp/B005TOCC1C for exclusive content on world-building, character, and dialogue!
1. They don't have flaws. Flaws are the first thing that should be explored in character, at least after the first flashes of inspiration have passed and you start moving into more concrete turf. People say Mary Sues are defined by lack of flaws; the flip side insists that giving your character "issues" won't make a character any less of a Mary Sue. Now, my definition of a Mary Sue doesn't involve flaws or the lack thereof; a Mary Sue, to me, is defined by the disproportionate amount of attention given to a Sue by the plot and the priorities of other characters. So, yes, it possible for a Mary Sue to have legit flaws and still be a Mary Sue. However, the difference between "issues" and a character flaw is what role they play in the character's deve

Browse More Like This

more ▶

Featured in Groups:

Not currently featured in any groups.

Details

Submitted: July 7, 2011

Link

Thumb

Statistics

Comments: 56
Favourites: 929 [who?]
Views: 14,950 (20 today)

[x]

Tutorials and techniques

Thu Jul 7, 2011, 5:07 PM

Quite a lot of people keep asking me for tutorials and to be honest I see no point in creating yet another strip on how to paint skin/clothes/light/carrots/whatever. There are so many of them out there that it would be simply a waste of time to sit and basically copy what's already been told.

Instead, I've decided to make a compilation of different tutorials and charts that I personally use to learn how to paint.

The most important thing you need to learn even before starting to read a tutorial is that all walk-throughs are meant for you to understand how things work. My point is that after reading and later practicing a tutorial called 'how to paint a glass duck' you should be able to paint not only a glass duck but also anything else made of glass. You should concentrate on understanding the rules and patterns instead of trying to copy what you see on the image. Otherwise you'll end up knowing how to paint only a few things from only one perspective and one lightning pattern.

Hope you find my collection useful!

Poses, composition and perspective

Colour theory, selection and mixing VS light

Human anatomy

Skin

Animal anatomy

Details and special effects

Photoshop functions, tools and tricks

Walkthroughs to study

56 Comments

Tutorials and techniquesby =tanathe

Journals / Personal

love 1 1

joy 1 1

~~wow 0 0~~

~~mad 0 0~~

~~sad 0 0~~

~~fear 0 0~~

~~neutral 0 0~~

~Avondrood Mar 19, 2013

Neat! Thank you so much for this!

~Ms-Lachrymosa Feb 24, 2013 Student General Artist

Thank you very much! And I love how you point out things that you should understand tutorials and get how you do it. It's true so that you can explore more in art.