Frustration in the Digital Switch

Christina Brown

@Will-Terry Thanks for your advice! Your 10 step process is great, but I'm not achieving your amazing results yet. I still need practice! I will definitely try to pretend I'm working traditionally. What frustrates me the most with that are the brushes. I mainly paint traditionally in acrylic and water down my brush/paint to blend color. Here I don't know how to do that! Any suggestions other then lowering the opacity?

I won't give up! Thank you for taking the time to give me your thoughts. Really appreciate it!

Christina Brown

@amberwingart Thanks! When I'm re-working art I try not to go for a "copy paste" look, but more of an imitation. I was focused mostly on how Joy Ang puts down color and shadow. I did notice these same things you have pointed out, and I think they're good for me to see! That way I can choose to keep or discard my differences at to what's working and what isn't. Thanks for your critique! Do you have any suggestions on working from the masters?

mattramsey

@Christina-Taylor-Brown maybe trying playing with the "Flow" slider (next to the Opacity in Photoshop). I've heard people say that Corel Painter has brush/paint options that are closer to traditional and is therefore better than Photoshop---but I have no first hand experience in Painter.

Also if you have a new enough version of PS you can try the "mixer brushes." I don't have a lot of experience with them but I think you can tweak all kinds of options to where they "run out" of paint like a traditional brush, and they "smudge/blend" the paint on the canvas like a traditional brush.

BTW: you really nailed your Ang studies!

Carrie

Hey Christina,
I agree with Matt in trying the mixer brushes. If you go the brush arrow, the last option is the "mixer." I've primarily worked traditionally in oils and pastels in the past, and blending has been vital to my painting. That's something I've found to be really difficult to achieve digitally. I think the blend tool in Photoshop is super ineffective and the smudge tool is erratic; I don't feel I have enough control over the results. However, I've used the brush mixer and that has helped some. You really have to play with and tweak the settings, which are like the "flow" and "opacity" settings for the regular brush tool. I also think your work is really great! When I'm feeling frustrated with digital, I look at the very first digital painting I did and it makes me laugh so hard that I feel better about whatever I'm currently working on. Know that you are making tremendous progress!

Will Terry

@Christina-Taylor-Brown Hi Christina - If you want to skype sometime I can share my settings a little more clearly? I'll also be able to ask a few key questions about your settings and there might be something missing... email me at will@willterry.com and we can set up a time...

amberwingart

@Christina-Taylor-Brown Do I have any suggestions? Sure! My suggestion is: stop being hard on yourself (seriously) - your work is completely amazing...keep doing that.

joyce_carmo

@shinjifujioka said:

I use brushes with hard or semi-hard edges (but mostly leaning toward the hard edge side). When I first tried to learn to pain digitally, I thought a brush with a really soft edge would help me achieve the sort of gradation I wanted. It didn't.

You know, this makes a lot of sense! I was flipping through some of my recent digital paintings and the ones I didn't used soft edges looks definitely better. And now I finally know why, lol.

Anyway, I just wanted to upvote on the people who mentioned ctrl-paint.com. That's definitely a nice place to learn. And I think you're doing great @Christina-Taylor-Brown. Just keep it up.

Christina Brown

Hello again everyone! I've been practicing, and am going to try to paint this guy for a portfolio piece. It's for a book that I'm writing and illustrating called "Dog, Dog, Goose!". Trying to be a biit more simple with shapes and lines after seeing how well it works for Joy Ang. Anyhow, I just wanted to thank you all for your advice and encouragement! You've really pushed me to keep at it and I'm starting to enjoy this all again!

I'll probably make a new post later on about my improvements, but just wanted to share!

Thanks again!

Carrie

I think this is fantastic! I love the studded collar on the goose. Really nice composition. I especially like how the images are cut off on the edges or "cropped" out of the scene. Very well done.

shinjifujioka

@Christina-Taylor-Brown This image reminds me of stuff that I see from Dan Santat. I think his stuff might be good reference for you. I look at his stuff for inspiration as well

Christina Brown

@Carrie Thanks so much!

@shinjifujioka said:
I am actually referencing him for color! He's so inspiring. I love his imagination! Thanks!

Jiří Kůs

Aaaaah, THAT DUCK! This is gonna be awesome!

NoWayMe

Love this!!!!! The shapes are great, the composition is very solid (in my non expert opinion anyway) and the goose... well he is awesome. What if the dog looking behind him would actually look at the duck with a suspicious/confused expression (not in a surprised way like the dog in the foreground but like in a confused way) ?

Can't wait to see more!