Tale #43 - The Tale Of Geek Tip I

Hi, all!

Anyways, today I'm going to do a short tutorial on Flash Painting. So here I go!

HOW TO PAINT IN FLASH 8 (or higher)



Okay. Here's what you need to make the magic happen:

* Your computer/laptop
* Some input perfieral of some kind (Either a tablit, mouse or whatever. If you want, you can even use GlovePIE and your Wiimote together too. Although, I'm not going to tell you how to set that up because that's a whole other can of worms there.)
* Your hands and the creative powers of your MIND!
* A copy of Flash 8 or higher. (If you don't have a copy of Flash, you can download a 30-day free trial on Adobe/Macromedia's website.)



NOTE #1: Please don't ask me how to hook up your wiimote to your computer. I'm not trying to be mean or anything. It's just that this isn't the place to do it. It's an ART tutorial and NOT a wiimote tutorial. Okay? Thanks.

NOTE #2: To those of you who don't have a tablit - RELAX! You really DON'T need one so don't fret if you don't have one. I mean, I hear people almost complaining to me saying that the only reason why anyone could be any good at drawing on a computer directly is because they're tablit users. I'm living proof that that's not true. You can get away with using a mouse. You just need to practise with it. Actually, before I got my first Wacom, all I was using was a mouse. The reason behind it is well... several, actually. The first reason was because I live in a small enough city where getting anything like that in town in the early to mid 90s was pretty much unheard of. The only thing we really did have that came close was this tablit you'd plug in to your TV. Other than that, we had nothing. So if you wanted to draw something on screen, all you'd have is a mouse. The second reason was that I saw this book in the mid 90s that was talking about graphic design (I'm pretty sure the book came out in at least 1993 or 1994) and some of the best artwork in there was done by just a mouse. The logic behind it was that graphic designers and artists need to be able to adapt and be flexible so then that way, they can work with anything they encounter. I've always kept that philosophy in the back of my mind whenever I'm training myself on something new. A good artist/storyteller adapts to their tools and don't let the technology itself be the one that dictates how good something is. You could still use MS Paint and come up with the Mona Lisa. You see, in the end, the technology doesn't matter. I mean it's always changing, you just have to put up with it and adapt while keeping in the back of your mind is that it's NOT the technology that makes you good. It's you who makes you good. It's as they say "A poor craftsman blames their tools."




So how do you actually paint in Flash? Well here's how you do it!

STEP #1



Sketch up your lineart on screen. Just quickly come up with something in Flash. This is the lineart I sketched for this tutorial.

STEP #2



Layout your base colours.



Just make sure that on the timeline that you keep your base colours SEPARATE from each other. It makes life easier when you do that. Also, KEEP YOUR LINE ART ON A SEPARATE LAYER FROM THE COLOURS!


STEP #3




Then create a new layer over top of your base colours (but UNDER your line art layer).




Using the Brush tool (Hotkey: B), paint your first layer of rough details. Make sure that you adjust the alphas to make your shading colours semi-transparent. I usually like to keep my alphas low so I can better build up the detail.

STEP #4



To add your next set of details, create a new layer and paint over top of your rough details where ever you want shading to take place.



Just make sure you adjust your colours and your alphas slightly whenever you add more details.

To do highlights, it's the same process only you're making your colours lighter. To put shading and highlights on the eyes, go and create a layer ABOVE the lineart layer and make sure to keep your base alphas/shade at 50% otherwise It'll never show up on the black. After you get your base in, keep your alphas low and follow the same instructions like you would in regular shading.

Here's what everything looks like in a step-by-step process to achive the end result:


















And here's some close ups of some of the details:




AND




Anyways, there you have it! That's how you too can paint in Flash!

So until next time, I'll see you all later! (And this was seriously one long blog entry. I think it's my longest one to date! XD )

Tale #42 - The Tale of Flash Painting

Hi, all!

Anyways, on a bet with a friend, he bet that you could NOT paint in Flash. He said that you can paint in Photoshop, OpenCanvas, and Painter but NOT in Flash. So I set out to prove him wrong. This is a WIP, but so far this is what I have:



And here's a close up of my most fav part:



Now I bet you're probably guessing and think you already know who I was exactly referancing for this. But I'll tell you now that it isn't what you think. So what did I referance? Well... MYSELF! XD You see, I took my picture using one of the filters in Photo Booth on the Mac (Mac STILL doesn't have a name yet). I then created my characture from that. Well... it's not a TRUE characture because I definately DON'T look like that and last time I checked, I was definately a hell of a lot younger and perkyer looking, has hair, and is FEMALE. All I did was referance my own face for lighting and proportioning. After that, I just decided to have fun. I'm still working on him, but that's what he looks like. One of the things I spent the most time on in painting was the eyes. It's my most fav detail in the entire painting. There's a huge quality about it that just seems alive. It really does seem like he's looking at me. I have to say I'm impressed with the work I did so far.

And before I go, here's a look at the lineart just to show you how much of a major difference that painting it gave:



Anyways, I'm going to tell you guys again, I do NOT own a Cinque or anything fancy. Really! I totally don't! All this was done just using a mouse. Observe:



Here's the mouse that I use to do it. Nothing spectacular there, right?



And here's me working on it. I'm the goofy looking hand. XD

But yeah! That's my set up. Nothing fancy or anything. Just your ordinary laptop mouse and a little known program called "Flash." XD

So anyways, see you all later!

Tale #11 - The Tale Of Time Traval

Hi, all!

Well.... today I haven't got much to say except to post the daily sketches. Well... today's sketches aren't so much sketches as it is what I've DONE to them.... or what I've done to my sketchbook that is. So what exactly did I do? I painted it! OBSERVE!



Ta dah! See? I painted it! Before this point, my sketchbook was entirely black and it frequently got confused with my sister's sketchbooks. So to tell them appart, I painted mine. However, I have yet to decide what to paint on the back of it, though. I might do some 50s style retro logo. The image painted on here is based off an old vector graphic I did in 2006. Here's the original....



Anyways as a note on this graphic, I did this for a friend on a now defunked project. The Mauna Lua is an actual restaurant in the 50s. It was extremely popular back then. I think it burnt down or something eventually and the owners lacked the funds to rebuild so now all that's left of it is the foundation of where it once stood. While it was in buisness, it had this major tiki/beach theme. So this vector graphic is a new retro-modern take on the old Mauna Lua restaurant.

And now, boys and girls, time for a bit of time traval with today's post! Now as you all may or may NOT be aware of, computer graphics have been a major part of my life since I first introduced to digital graphics when I was a little kid in the late 1980s/early 1990s. What I had back then was this huge tablet that plugged in to your TV set. Unfortunately, I couldn't remember for the life of me what it was called. I also wish I hung on to it too. Anyways, about 1997 was when I got my first tablet which was the Wacom ArtPad II (it also came with another program called Dabbler II. Although, I still believe that Dabbler is the old precursor to Corel Painter. There's just way too many similarities between these two programs!) It was when I got it did I ever make the major leap in to the computer graphics scene. Since then, I've been rocking out the pixel-box and learning whatever I can about the strange(ly awesome) world of digital media.

Yeah.... you could also argue I was a wee bit of an oddball growing up. Here I am interested in media while everyone else was interested in Barbie dolls and G.I. Joes. Er.... wait... actually, when I wasn't geeking out, I did play with Barbies.... only not in the typical way you'd expect a six-year-old girl would. All my Barbies were actually these superheros and they were always battling the forces of evil in the form of an evil tennis player. So uh... I guess you can strike the Barbie part from the record because I did have an interest and did play with them.... but not in the typical play-house sorta way. But anyways, at those times, it wasn't typical for a little kid to be toying around with graphics. But here I was, toying with graphics weither they'd be on the TV screen or on the computer. XD

So now that we've got that bit of history outta the way, here's some artwork I dug up from days past!



This is Herbie which I digitally painted in the year 2005. I wanted to try my hand at realism again and Herbie was one of my favourite classic movies, so I created this. This was done in ProCreate Painter (Before it was Corel Painter) using my newer Wacom tablet - the Graphire 3!



This was also from the year 2005, a vector graphic of Huge Laurie. This was done in illustrator entirely by hand. The blue eyes were there so you'd be looking the graphic "in the eye" like you would for a living person. It also catches you a bit off guard too since it's the only thing in colour.



This is a rather old (And horribly out of proportion! Ick!) and silly super villian I came up with called "The Puzzler." Now this strange character pays a bit of homage to the origional Riddler from the Batman series only with a twist. The Puzzler is a strange little man who loves Crossword puzzles or any of those word styled puzzles you're likely to find in your local newspaper along with The Funnies section. As you can imagine, he has equally strange weapons for dispaching his foe. This includes the poison pencil in his hat which has REAL lead in it along with a deadly medly of other dangerous poisons. His other weapons include, a giant pen in which he writes something and it comes to life. (As you can imagine, he's a very fast writter!) and "The Crossword Book of Mystery" in which it's full range of attacks and powers are mostly unknown to everyone else except The Puzzler himself. Some of the rumored powers include, toxins storage and Crossword Wraps (Which jump out of the book and bind it's target to tightly that he/she can't move and are rendered immobilized). He was created in early 2006. Like I said before, the proportioning is horrible and it looks quite bad, but as for the colouring and the crazy retro-vector styling, it looked good. What can I say? I love the retro look! ^^

So that's a quick look back in time with me and my geekyness.

Now speaking of time trips and what we were like when we're kids, it's often an awesome time to get in touch with our inner child. Having a sense of fun about you (especially in the media arts!) is something you should never lose no matter how old you are. I mean I'll still play with RC cars and action figures from time to time and even someone like John Lassater has pictures of him with a few toys flying through the air like super heros. So you all, do yourself a favour and don't lose that sense of fun. If you lose your inner child, it's only then can you ever truely grow old.

So this is a perfect sagway in to some funny interesting and really goofy items I've found on the internet. Here's what I've found that gave me a bit of a giggle!

http://www.perpetualkid.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=1669&dc=shoppingcomtrack
(An Actual banana phone! Yes.... they DO exist! Also... perfect if you're an inspector Gadget in-training.)

http://www.thinkgeek.com/geektoys/science/81e6/
(A desktop catapolt and war stuff to fling paper balls with)

http://www.perpetualkid.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=864
(Your very own army of ninjas!)

http://www.perpetualkid.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=1155
(A rocket pen. I guess THIS was what the astronaughts were using to write with in space!)

http://tinyurl.com/257a4e
(I actually own one of these. They call them keychain cameras but I prefer the term "Ninja camera." )

http://www.thinkgeek.com/geektoys/rc/934c/
(These things are cute as they are cool. They're palm-size helicopters)

http://www.thinkgeek.com/geektoys/cubegoodies/8fce/
(A floppy journal. I'm going to see if I can make one of these.)

http://www.thinkgeek.com/geektoys/cubegoodies/80fc/
(It's an Atari keychain. It's cute and geeky!)

http://www.thinkgeek.com/geektoys/science/9617/
(This falls under the catagory of cool stuff if anything else. It's a build-your-own game consol kit. )

http://www.thinkgeek.com/geektoys/warfare/8a0f/
(If trebuchets aren't your thing, plug this in to your Mac or PC and let the fun fly.)

http://www.thinkgeek.com/geektoys/japanfan/9116/
(Okay... this is a doomsday device. Use with caution!)

http://www.thinkgeek.com/geektoys/japanfan/87cc/
(RC SUMO DUDES!)

http://www.thinkgeek.com/geektoys/rc/8b7b/
http://www.thinkgeek.com/geektoys/rc/924e/
http://www.thinkgeek.com/geektoys/rc/8698/
(I think it's no supprise that I also like RC things too. ^^)

Well.... that's my list of interesting internet geek finds. I had a few more, but I misplaced the links. oh well! This should be enough to tide you all over! XD