So I used to draw yyeeaaarrrsss ago, I think that last time I drew anything of significance was ~10 years ago. I wasn't even that good at drawing but I did enjoy it, so I figured I'd give digi painting a try.

My boss bought me a gigantic intuos pro, I think it's like 18x11 drawing area or something, seems too big for me so far but I guess I'll get used to it.

I started with the class 1 thread from shattered from a year or two back with the sphere exercise so here it is:



The sphere is 300x300 and I used the hard brush at size 20-40. It actually took me awhile to do, maybe 45 minutes, but the first 20 minutes was slowly figuring out not to just use white and black with only pen pressure to vary shades, I'm actually kind of surprised how long it took me to catch onto that lol

It is definitely awkward getting used to the pen and not looking at my pen tip while I'm drawing, but practice makes perfect I guess. Blending with the hard brush still eludes me as you can tell, but I got plenty of time to figure that out /shrug. I'm trying to think of how much I should do per day to try and get the hang of it, I can put a few hours a day into it, and I think sphere/cube/bnw and shading are probably going to be the main focus for me for a long time just judging by this first attempt.

Let me know what you guys have for pointers, I would love if some of the digital painters could point me in the right direction. Any brush tips, general shortcuts you guys like, anything at all to help me get into the right mindset and feel of doing this would be great.

OR

Feel free to just napalm the shit out of this thread, that's also completely fine as I will most likely join in.

Decided to do the Chalk and Soft brush spheres as well, went a bit quicker. Soft brush is obviously way easier than the other 2, I'm guessing the chalk brush is what you might use to make something seem like a rougher metal or something? I don't really like the results of either still, but I'm sure I'll get there eventually.

nice

Today I tried something more complex, probably too complex looking at it lol. I spent around 1.5 hours on it so far, the lighting on the top and each individual cylinder took most of the time, the picture I got wasn't the best quality butI felt like it was a decent starting point none the less. Not sure if I will continue with this BnW, try coloring something on this, or move to the next random thing.

If you spent an hour and a half and thats where you got, then you're not spending your time wisely. It's not too complex, it's a cube and four cylinders. The problem is that you're wasting time worrying about shading and trying to chicken scratch your way to straight lines.


If this was difficult to get right, I would suggest just using the line tool and hanging a bunch of overlapping cubes onto a 1 point perspective grid, and if that proves boring and easy, then try it with a 2 point perspective grid. Then if even that is too easy, go for more complex shapes like say.... legos. Just google "cubes in 1 point perspective" if you need to know what that looks like.


Just whatever you do, don't waste an hour and a half of precious study time blending values onto an incorrectly structured lego piece.... Draw before you paint, I can't stress how important that is.

I did draw out the basic shape, but I'm still trying to get used to using the tablet, it's too big for me to turn about as I'm drawing, and when I do it just feels more awkward. I definitely need to work on it more, but I was just trying to think of what to paint that would be more difficult than a ball but easier than an apple or something.

Their perspective lines are definitely something I should have drawn first, and I realized it about 30 minutes in lol, but I didn't feel like scrapping. I might revisit it tomorrow and draw those in first, but I think I will get a clearer picture before hand.

In my opinion, I think his time was well spent. Hes trying to find values, and hes training his eye. Not only that, but hes also getting use to the tablet ( and/or photoshop? ). As long as you're drawing, you're not wasting your time. It will take a solid week or two before you can get comfortable with the tablet.

I'm pretty impressed by the lego piece for so early on. Keep it up!


sorry Humari, I always fully respect your opinion, just otherwise on this one thing

Mainly the tablet, I use photshop/AI every day, but it's mainly for logos and layouts, making the lego piece in shapes and gradients would have taken 5 minutes, but I was really trying to do it 100% by drawing.

What is the view on using stuff like shapes and line tool/making outlines for straight lines/shapes when digital painting? If everyone does that then I can easily make a much better version today, but I felt like it was cheating. I can easily see the view of using tools available to you to achieve a higher quality, but I don;t know the general process/thoughts on the subject.

I still don;t think I want to move to apple/banana yet but I might.

It really depends on what you're creating and want to take away from it. If you want to improve your drawing skills, then draw every bit of it? If you're creating something for a client and have a deadline, use any damn tool necessary to make the best/fastest outcome possible.

Using the linetool and gradients for a study is pretty much pointless.

You will feel much greater satisfaction from a painting that you did with just the brush tool and a layer or two.

Main thing I'm trying to get from it is more comfortable using the tablet and stylus. Also knowing when to use what tools/brushes. I don't expect to get a feel for that stuff very quickly as I only put in maybe 5 hours a week on it currently, but I might start taking the tablet home from work and practice more at home.