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Post by kgstanley81 on Jan 17, 2017 15:07:38 GMT -9
I think the middle one looks good as chain, and wouldn't loose to much detail in printing
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Post by jeffgeorge on Jan 17, 2017 16:53:58 GMT -9
 Here's a couple quick ways I've done chain mail/scale mail in the past. Honestly, as much as it seems "lazy" I find simple cross hatching to read just fine in most cases, and it's also the least time consuming. Slap a shadow & highlight behind it and you're golden. Wow, printableheroes! Thanks for this input! (BTW, everyone should check out the Printableheroes Patreon. Tons of great figures available at a very reasonable price. I strongly recommend supporting at $3, to get all versions of all figures.) I think I was too stuck on trying to make the mail contour over the figure's body, and couldn't manage to wrap the mail texture convincingly by hand. But these versions where you just lay a texture over it actually work fine at this scale--I guess I'd lost touch with the fact that the final reproduction size for this art is less than 1", not 11x14! I did try a cross-hatch similar to your first version here, as well as a scale texture not unlike your second version, but I couldn't get the lines to look light and natural enough working at the scale I have the figure saved at. Maybe what I was doing wrong was drawing directly on (a layer on) the original art, instead of just doing a texture on a blank field at double or triple-size, and then layering it on the figure and scaling it appropriately. Again, I was trying to wrap the mail around the arms and legs, which I see now was wasted effort leading to a dead end. I also love the coloring and shading you did on the metal. It's amazing how much you can learn when someone of far greater skill and experience gives your work a tweak or a nudge in the right direction. I looked at dozens if not hundreds of similar drawings and paintings, but couldn't translate other artists' technique onto my work. Seeing you apply your talent to my problem is like having someone shine a giant floodlight on the path forward, so I can start moving again. Thanks so much, printableheroes and everyone else who has offered advice and support on this (very, very small) project. I'll do some test-printing tonight, and hopefully get this figure finalized in the next day or two. I'd intended to submit him to the Procrastinators' hoard, but I managed to procrastinate past the delayed final call for that... |
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Post by printableheroes on Jan 18, 2017 20:56:13 GMT -9
Here's a couple quick ways I've done chain mail/scale mail in the past. Honestly, as much as it seems "lazy" I find simple cross hatching to read just fine in most cases, and it's also the least time consuming. Slap a shadow & highlight behind it and you're golden. Wow, printableheroes ! Thanks for this input! (BTW, everyone should check out the Printableheroes Patreon. Tons of great figures available at a very reasonable price. I strongly recommend supporting at $3, to get all versions of all figures.) I think I was too stuck on trying to make the mail contour over the figure's body, and couldn't manage to wrap the mail texture convincingly by hand. But these versions where you just lay a texture over it actually work fine at this scale--I guess I'd lost touch with the fact that the final reproduction size for this art is less than 1", not 11x14! I did try a cross-hatch similar to your first version here, as well as a scale texture not unlike your second version, but I couldn't get the lines to look light and natural enough working at the scale I have the figure saved at. Maybe what I was doing wrong was drawing directly on (a layer on) the original art, instead of just doing a texture on a blank field at double or triple-size, and then layering it on the figure and scaling it appropriately. Again, I was trying to wrap the mail around the arms and legs, which I see now was wasted effort leading to a dead end. I also love the coloring and shading you did on the metal. It's amazing how much you can learn when someone of far greater skill and experience gives your work a tweak or a nudge in the right direction. I looked at dozens if not hundreds of similar drawings and paintings, but couldn't translate other artists' technique onto my work. Seeing you apply your talent to my problem is like having someone shine a giant floodlight on the path forward, so I can start moving again. Thanks so much, printableheroes and everyone else who has offered advice and support on this (very, very small) project. I'll do some test-printing tonight, and hopefully get this figure finalized in the next day or two. I'd intended to submit him to the Procrastinators' hoard, but I managed to procrastinate past the delayed final call for that... Awesome! I'm so glad that was helpful! Yeah, I can totally relate to the trap of unintentionally over complicating things - I often have to step back and ask myself, "is this really necessary at the scale it will be seen?" or more often, "did i really just spend all that time making this way too detailed and totally muddying up my design?". It's really amazing how far you can go with 3 tone shading (shadow, base color, highlight). Before I ever add color I like to paint my shadows in all on one layer (full black at 35% opacity) and my highlights on another layer (set to Overlay, full white, at 45% opacity), only then will I'll paint flat colors underneath. I usually over complicate it from there and make more work for myself, but at least starting with that base 3 tone setup I highly recommend. Plus it makes it really easy to change colors because you're only changing the one color and all of the shading/highlights remain the same. I'm looking forward to seeing the final halfling mini and following along on the next mini you start on  |
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Post by chiefasaur on Jan 18, 2017 21:27:58 GMT -9
I go out of my way to under-complicate my designs as much as possible.
Chainmail? I'll draw like, 3 wiggles. Good enough!
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Post by jeffgeorge on Jan 19, 2017 15:15:25 GMT -9
It's really amazing how far you can go with 3 tone shading (shadow, base color, highlight). Before I ever add color I like to paint my shadows in all on one layer (full black at 35% opacity) and my highlights on another layer (set to Overlay, full white, at 45% opacity), only then will I'll paint flat colors underneath. I usually over complicate it from there and make more work for myself, but at least starting with that base 3 tone setup I highly recommend. Plus it makes it really easy to change colors because you're only changing the one color and all of the shading/highlights remain the same. That is a much smarter way of doing producing the sort 3-tone effect I was going for. I may double back and start the colors from scratch using that technique--it will be easy enough for me to pull the middle tone in each set from the colors that are in the palette on the side of the file. What's more, your method will make recolors even faster. Here's how I've been doing it: - Duplicate the figure on a new layer.
- Desaturate the new layer.
- Add a layer mask to the colorized layer, usually set to start at full transparency.
- Paint (on the layer mask) over the feature being recolored with 100% white, to replace the old color with the new.
- When the coverage of the item on the mask is perfect (black outlines make it so much faster!), merge the masked layer to the working layer (a copy of the original layer, which stays untouched on the background layer until the very end, when it gets merged over or deleted).
- Lather, rinse, repeat, for each feature on the figure you need to recolor.
Working this way, I can recolor another artist's figure in a few minutes, while preserving his or her original shading. But if I'm working on an original mini, and I've set it up the way you describe, recolors would basically take the Fill tool, and nothing more...Cool! Thanks again for these amazing pro-tips! |
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Post by jeffgeorge on Jan 20, 2017 18:36:47 GMT -9
I go out of my way to under-complicate my designs as much as possible. Chainmail? I'll draw like, 3 wiggles. Good enough! I tried a 3-wiggles-type minimalist approach, but I couldn't figure out WHICH three wiggles were the essential ones to say "chainmail," and which 5,000 wiggles were extra... Maybe I'll get this fig done this weekend...been slammed with actual work lately...but I haven't forgotten this project... |
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Post by jeffgeorge on Aug 2, 2017 15:38:25 GMT -9
Turns out I actually did forget about this project for six months, but with Papercuts coming up, I finally had a deadline to get it done. Here's my halfling fighter, as done as he's going to get for the forseeable future:  The image above is an actual-size .png. Here it is as a .pdf as well.I hope some of you get some use out of it. Thanks very much to the community for the guidance and support, especially printableheroes and chiefasaur , without whom this guy would never have gotten done! |
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Post by printableheroes on Aug 2, 2017 15:56:00 GMT -9
He came out awesome! I love the expression and shading in the face, reads nice and clear.
P.S.
When is Papercuts?
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Post by Vermin King on Aug 2, 2017 16:11:49 GMT -9
It started yesterday and goes until 8 AM Alaska time on September 1
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Post by jeffgeorge on Aug 2, 2017 16:43:06 GMT -9
He came out awesome! I love the expression and shading in the face, reads nice and clear. P.S. When is Papercuts? Thanks. Going through the process of making a single PC mini--just one, mind you--makes it clear to me how hard it is to do what you real artists do. So, based on a rate of one mini every 6 months, you can imagine how much I'd have to charge per figure to be able to support my family as a "professional" paper miniature designer!  |
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Post by lightning on Aug 2, 2017 19:35:48 GMT -9
He came out awesome! I love the expression and shading in the face, reads nice and clear. P.S. When is Papercuts? Thanks. Going through the process of making a single PC mini--just one, mind you--makes it clear to me how hard it is to do what you real artists do. So, based on a rate of one mini every 6 months, you can imagine how much I'd have to charge per figure to be able to support my family as a "professional" paper miniature designer! Limited edition set!!!  |
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