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Post by godofrandomness on Dec 26, 2008 18:14:29 GMT -9
Ok, between all the good stuff here from Jim and others and the art thats my current avatar, I've been inspired to attemt to draw a mini myself, despite my despite my horrible drawing skills. I jsut hope I can overcome that with some good graphic editing
I'm chosen to attempt to do an anthropomorphic penguin of some sort, for several reasons: 1. I LOVE penguins!!!!!! 2. It doesn't have to look all tht realistic 3. If I screw up badly, I can go for the "artistic reinterpretation, modern art" excuse. 4. I have yet to see a penguin mini in either paper, plastic, resin, metal, cardboard, wood, ice, flesh, or any other material. 5. I LOVE penguins!!!!!!
I'll post results as I get to them.
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Post by abaddonwormwood on Dec 26, 2008 20:19:20 GMT -9
So I take it from the above list that you are going to do a mini of Hello Kitty.
Lord Abaddon of Wormwood
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Post by godofrandomness on Dec 26, 2008 22:10:47 GMT -9
well if i remember right, one of the hello kitty characters is a penguin...
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Post by kane on Dec 26, 2008 22:17:46 GMT -9
well if i remember right, one of the hello kitty characters is a penguin... And he will kill you three times before you hit the ground.
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Post by abaddonwormwood on Dec 26, 2008 22:21:35 GMT -9
LOL
Lord Abaddon of Wormwood
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Post by godofrandomness on Dec 26, 2008 23:27:09 GMT -9
Oh, he so needs a mini! Ok, well tonight I learned that a ultra fine sharpie marker does not a good inking pen make. Either that or my tracing paper or scanner is lame, but when I scanned the inked image, it came out purpleish and none of the lines aer complete. I'll re-ink and try again tomorrow, but here is what I have so far:
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Post by Bhoritz on Dec 27, 2008 10:48:52 GMT -9
The purpleish scan color is probably the result of your scanner setting. Try to scan in shades of grey instead of color, increase contrast. It should come out more black .
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Post by squirmydad on Dec 27, 2008 17:23:43 GMT -9
I recommend those fine line technical pens. The size I use is a .05 on all my figures.
I scan my figures with the black and white setting to 600dpi. You can always reduce the resolution, but the high resolution will keep the lines smooth for reducing to 300dpi for photoshop work, or at highres for vector tracing.
If you have no idea what I just wrote, google digital painting resolution. JIM
And just remember, if you don't like how your stuff turns out, keep practicing. Sometimes I have to draw something a hundred tomes to get good at it. Nobody draws perfect the first time.
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Post by godofrandomness on Dec 27, 2008 17:36:21 GMT -9
I've been following the ghoul figure design guide, and it's been really helpful. Drawing figs is nowhere near as hard as I thought it would be, at least the basics of it.
Putting out a high quality mini isn't my primary goal yet, as I am looking for techniques and concepts at the moment, but even if the final version of the penguin comes out crappy, I will be happy.
Also is there a good 3rd party scanning program out there? The default HP one seems a little crappy.
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Post by squirmydad on Dec 27, 2008 17:43:07 GMT -9
I can't help you with scanning software. I just use a basic TWAIN scanning thing from inside my art program, and have no idea how all that software stuff works together. Good luck. JIM
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Post by kane on Dec 28, 2008 0:57:18 GMT -9
I'll second Jim in saying scan with the art program you are using (PhotoShop, et al). Saves a step and should do a fine job.
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Post by godofrandomness on Dec 28, 2008 1:17:37 GMT -9
I did that; i scanned with gimp, and it popped up with 3 options, don't remember what they are off the top of my head but they weren't very detailed. I chose the first one and it loaded the HP scanning program. It's fine now that I found the B&W scan option, but the lines are still way full of holes and some details need to be redone where lines blurred together, but so far things are going good. I should have the fig ready for coloring tomorrow evening sometime and I will post results then. However, now thanks to boromirandkermit my workload had octupled (is that a word?) and do many more after this one. What a shame...
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Post by boromirandkermit on Dec 28, 2008 13:04:13 GMT -9
hehe I look forward to seeing them mate! Ben.
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Post by squirmydad on Dec 28, 2008 18:11:48 GMT -9
I should also note that I scan my stuff at double the final figure size. If you try to draw to small your lines will look all wavy and unsmooth, which is totally uncool.
It takes practice to find a workflow. It's all about the results though. Find the easiest programs and designs steps to get to a final figure that you can. Even after five years of doing this I am still tweaking the process so I can get the figures done as easily as possible. JIM
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Post by godofrandomness on Dec 28, 2008 18:24:56 GMT -9
Yeah, I'm doin the whole "scan at double size" thing. I'm following you're ghoul guide almost to the letter. I just finished editing but I practicaly had to redraw the entire thing in GIMP. Well, here he is, waiting to be vectored; hopefully inkscape can do it well, I haven't used the program yet. After that it's some coloring and hopefully he will be finished before the month's up so I can get him in the hoard.
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Post by squirmydad on Dec 28, 2008 18:27:30 GMT -9
I have inkscape ,and there is no vector tracing in it. I only know of two drawing programs that have a tracer in them, Canvas and Illustrator. If anyone else knows of one, speak up, otherwise your off to google land. JIM
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Post by godofrandomness on Dec 28, 2008 18:29:52 GMT -9
I thought inkscape was a vector tracer? oh well, off to google land then, and I'll see what I can come up with.
EDIT: I can't seem to find a good freeware auto tracer that seemed to do anything. The program I used just made it very blurry and greyish. Next time around I will look more into vectoring, but for now I'm jsut going to color it and post the results hopefully tonight.
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Post by godofrandomness on Dec 28, 2008 20:17:07 GMT -9
ok I got the guy colored. The only thing I need to to is figure out how to make the outline thicker on the back side but here he is:
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Post by squirmydad on Dec 29, 2008 13:52:06 GMT -9
If you colored in Gimp, you need to seperate the front and rear view into seperate images. Then...
Select all the white space... Invert the selection... Grow the selection 30 pixels for the front, and 60 pixels for the rear... Save this selection to a new layer behind the figure... Fill the selection with black...
This will make a the outline appear thicker. This is what I would normally have to do for every front and rear view of a figure supplied to me with thin outlines.
If the design is in vector format, just select the outline part of the figure and give it a outline thickness of 4pt for the front, and 7pt for the rear. The measurements are points, which is common for most programs to have by default.
Hope this helps. JIM
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Post by godofrandomness on Dec 29, 2008 16:49:53 GMT -9
Thanks for the input, I will do that tonight and submit to the hoard. Also, thanks for my own projects section! It makes me want to start on the next mini already. EDIT: OK here he is, outlined and I will test build later tonight, or maybe if one of you guys get to it before I do post the results. EDIT2: Oops, I forgot to post the link for the image. I built it and I don't see any alignment issues, but I did have to reglue it 1/2 way through cutting it out since I guess the glue dried before I could set it. A couple notes: I have to watch the darks on a black outlined model. I totally blacked out the little guys tail and not realized it until assembling, and I made the head too light. Also, I should rethink using patterns to fill in small detail areas. The patterns aren't noticable on the bracers or the sword handle. The ones on the sword blade came out great I think, as I was trying to add a "icy" look to the weapon, though I think I should have swapped the 2 patterns and used the lighter one for the edge maybe. Oh well, I'm pretty happy with the results one way or another, so I probably won't be fixing this guy too much, but I will take what I learned and apply it to the next one I make. If anyone has any comments, good or ill, I would love to hear them.
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Post by Aestelon on Feb 9, 2009 16:01:37 GMT -9
For the record, Inkscape does do vector tracing. If you look under the Paths drop-down menu, it's labelled as "Bitmap Tracing". Check out the Help section and you see it's got a fair bit of adaptability, too. Oh, and Hello Kitty's penguin mate is called Badtz Maru. I wouldn't have known this, except he's the sidekick in "Hello Kitty Roller Rescue" for the PS2, which me and the missus just bought yesterday...
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