As you might see from my recent Submission, I've opted for a different method of image creation. Rather than work on colouring and lighting at the same time I've opted to separate them out in the initial stages. I expect a reasonable amount of pain later on as I combine the colour and lighting, but I also expect the result to be better.

It all started when I was reading an old tutorial by Henning Ludvigsen. He'd done the same and the result seemed to sell the method well, even if it wasn't the point of the tutorial.

The artist in me intrinsically fights against the idea of the two being dealt with separately, as in the real world the two are intrinsically linked. However, the mathematician and graphics programmer in me sees that despite their linkage, the two could (at least theoretically) be dealt with almost separately.

In the field of computer graphics, the intrinsic colour of an object is (through a series of equations) simply attenuated by the light falling upon it. Additional work can be done to ensure that the changes in light colour due to reflection and refraction from surfaces is dealt with properly, but the basic idea that light transport throughout a scene can be calculated separately with good results is a fact often used here in the games industry.

Therefore, my plan is this.

1. Initially paint the light transport around the scene without colour, aiming to build the mood of the scene through light only.

2. Paint the colour of the scene using tonally similar colours so as to avoid upsetting the established lighting values

3. Do a final pass over the combined scene to deal with any more complex lighting interactions. and add any final details.

so far I'm in the middle of stage 1.
I'll let you know how it goes.

It's rare that I manage to update my journal; Things discovered and progress made have prompted me this time.

As you may have noticed, I recently finished an image that I've been working on for so long it's hard for me to even remember a time before it. Its my first real 'digital' painting, it's the reason I bought a graphics tablet and it's the place learnt (the hard way) all that I currently know about digital painting. I'm sure in time I'll look back and see all the errors and poor choices, but for now it's shiny and new and I'm happy with it.

In the months that I've been tinkering with it I've learnt a few really valuable lessons and techniques. If I can help even one person by sharing what I've found I then all this rambling will be worth it.

On with the help.
note: I've been working in photoshop 7.0 and CS, but some of this might be relevant if you use something else

1. Image Size
Work big. really big.
If your PC will cope with it I suggest making your canvas size at least a few thousand pixels across, this help in a few ways. firstly, if you ever want to make prints of it, then its really easy and secondly, all your lines can be nice and smooth and pixels never get in the way of details.


2. Bit Depth
Work at 16bits per colour channel.
If, like me, you like your subtle gradients of colour to be nice and smooth and free of banding or you like to apply your colour really gently then the more variations of each colour you can get your hand on the better. At the usual 8 bits per colour channel (red,green and blue) you get 256 different variations of each colour, giving you about 16.7 million colours which might sound like a lot but when your just dealing with small variations or trying to paint really softly the colour errors soon start to show. However, At 16 bits per colour channel you get 65536 different variations of each colour or just over 281 thousand billion different individual colours. All of a sudden your colour blending looks correct and painting really softly results in what you expect.

3. Masking
Layer masking is your friend.
I don't know where I'd be without my layer masks, the freedom to paint onto the foreground layer without my colours spilling all over the rest of the image saved me hours. If you don't know how to use them (they're a little fiddly at times) then I really suggest you have a play and experiment.

4. Scanning
Don't put up with a poor scan.
If your the sort of person that draws an image on paper (or card) then scans it in; make sure your really happy with your scan before you pack your scanner back away again. I did the original lines for 'The Beholder' on a nice super smooth sheet of white A2 board, I then scanned the image as a series of A4 images with the aim of rebuilding the image in photoshop. I used a big set square (made from a few pieces of wood) as a guide to ensure that each scan wasn't crooked and in all there were about 10 images, giving plenty of room of overlaps. Having finished scanning I put all the scanning equipment away (as it takes up some serious floor space) and moved into photoshop. To my horror I found that many of the images were not as perfect as I'd hoped, some were slightly out of focus while others were just ever so slightly to crooked. The huge error I made here was not to go back and redo the images that were not good enough. Instead In my hast to get on with some painting I composited as best I could and started the masking and basic colouring. As soon as it came to a point where I needed to define some details the inadequacy of the lines because horribly apparent. so far into the image I could no longer go back and re-scan without losing all that I had done, so instead I spent the best part of about 8 hours building new layers of corrected lines and masks. Hours of waste instead of half an hour of rescanning.

So the clear moral here is, don't put up with poor scans of line art, it's just not worth all the pain it'll cause later on.

5. Monitor Colour
your monitor output does not look like my monitor output.
Another hard learnt lesson here, this one didn't bite my until after I'd submitted a version of the finished image into my gallery. Happy with myself for finishing the image I gleefully skipped of to show one of my friends what I had achieved. As soon as it popped up on screen I could see there was something terribly wrong; all my carefully balanced colours looked awful and washed out. The reason; I'd not spent the time setting up the colours on the two new monitors I'd recently received. Half an hour of fiddling later and I too could see the colours for what they really were. I quickly corrected the original hi-res image and resubmitted it (16bits per channel helped avoid nasty colour errors here too).




Well that's enough ramble from me I think. If any of this helps or if you've got any other really helpful tips please tell me. I'm here to learn too.

So having gone to the effort of paying for a subscription and in celebration of my website rewrite, I've decided to mess about with the Journal CSS.

In truth, this time last month I would have been incapable of editing it. you see, by trade (i.e. for my day job) I'm a programmer, but until recently I've left to work of creating my web code to the likes of Dreamweaver, so I never had a need to learn HTML, PHP or CSS. However, In a fit of dismay at the difficulty of updating my website I decided the time had come to learn these things and do the code properly.

Some weeks later and some serious learning done, I can now safely handle all these things without them blowing up in my face. Hurrah.

Have a peek if the mood takes you:

DarkPsychosis.net