Portrait drawing...
Zalbaje
Drawing and when is it going to be released? Is it that hard to come
up with such a book? I mean everyone is talking about how great this
and those paint softwares are yet I haven't seen a book that touches
on the art of drawing people using these applications from scratch.
Alvin P
It's because the writers writing these current books you see around
are not the real artist types. They write to describe the software, or
the "tool", and not the art. But I understand what you mean. Many
people would like to pursue their artistic ambitions by leaping
straight to digital art, not to mention skipping traditional media.
And I do think it's possible. I, for one, would like to see Walter
Foster type books using these new tools. For example: "Portraits Using
Painter 8", "Landscapes Using Painter 8", "Fantasy Painting Using...",
and so on.
Unfortunately, we won't be seeing books of these kinds any time soon.
Rick Baumhauer
news:qla5bvg6tls8lvdda...@4ax.com...
> Unfortunately, we won't be seeing books of these kinds any time soon.
Don Seegmiller does have a character design/painting book out - "Digital
Character Design and Painting". I've seen it on the shelf at Borders, and I
have a copy on the way from an ebay auction.
It actually covers some landscape painting - trees - in addition to
character design and technique, pretty much all done with P7. It's a lovely
book, color throughout, and while it's probably not quite as broad as what
you're looking for, I think it would be a good start.
wendeebee
>
> Don Seegmiller does have a character design/painting book out - "Digital
> Character Design and Painting". I've seen it on the shelf at Borders, and
I
> have a copy on the way from an ebay auction.
>
> It actually covers some landscape painting - trees - in addition to
> character design and technique, pretty much all done with P7. It's a
lovely
> book, color throughout, and while it's probably not quite as broad as what
> you're looking for, I think it would be a good start.
>
>
looking for. The emphasis is on compostion and expression, rather than the
software. Of course, the best way to learn to draw the figure is from real
life with a pencil in your hand. There is just no subsitute. You will find
that in this book, most of the examples he presents start with a hand drawn
sketch that he has scanned in.
--
wendeebee
@sympatico
.ca
Zalbaje
Painter and Photoshop Elements 1. Although both versions don't have
the full features of Painter and Photoshop, the combination could get
anyone started in digital painting. So far, all I can say is, it's
amazing. The canvas texture look, wash look, charcoal's grainy edges,
fresh paint sticking out of the background and more, and it's all
there – digital media mimicking traditional ones. The gap has finally
closed.
I'm more of a copy artist and I would very much like to see myself
being able to draw original sketches and drawings using programs like
Corel Painter, or any equivalent. I learn fast with books that have
plenty of step-by-step tutorials. Books that dives straight through
the core of the subject as opposed to the ones that start out with
seemingly endless introductions and description of the software that
would make your head spin. Why can't a computer book just start with
something like: Open the program, click New (a dialog box opens),
accept the defaults. To achieve that curve, color tone in Figure 1 (a
nice drawing or painting), hit the color palette, etc. etc. Why can't
writers just put the introductions, acknowledgments, forewords and all
those endless description of how great the software and the author is
at the back of the book?
Alvin P <alv...@fictit.com.org> wrote in message news:<qla5bvg6tls8lvdda...@4ax.com>...
gruhn
This is not surprising. For something like 3d where the tools are new and
different, the how to books are common. Painter explicitly tries to mimic
the capabilities of traditional media. All of the "how to draw a bunny"
books out there apply. open your Painter/newsprint; pick up your charcoal;
start drawing.
If you can draw people then you can draw people. If you can't draw people
then you need to learn how to draw people. If you can draw people but can't
draw people in Painter then I'm baffled.
Painter offers tools that the analog world doesn't, but it offers very
little to help you leard to see and to control your hand.
Zalbaje
>
> The various Painter WOW! Books give good starting information on translating
Yeah, they're just that, "starting". Like in all other profession,
there's such a thing as area of specialization. Not all artists use a
wide variety of styles as well as medium. That's why only about less
than 20% of those WOW! books' contents is useful to a guy who likes to
paint high contrast subjects, for example. Or an artist who prefers to
paint flowers in palish colors, as another example. The rest of the
contents is actually useless.
So you're paying for more than what you're getting on these types of
books. People would like to see more books that are written by
category. Don Seegmiller's book about character creation is an
excellent book, but not as extensive.
> other media. Art books on pastels translate most readily to Painter because
> you're applying color directly in both cases. The rest can be translated...
Alvin P
>paint high contrast subjects, for example. Or an artist who prefers to
>paint flowers in palish colors, as another example. The rest of the
I never liked art with pale colors. They're unrecognizable just a few
yards away. To me they violate one rule of producing art -- grab
attention, that is. Clean-looking portraits done in pencils just don't
impress me. I like charcoal with sharp contrasting values or
equivalent colors with subjects laden with emotions.
gruhn
That sounds more like a rule of selling art and/or of making a name. Nothing
really to do with actual art.
> Clean-looking portraits done in pencils just don't impress me
I'm sure they don't impress _you_.
Alvin
>
>That sounds more like a rule of selling art and/or of making a name. Nothing
>really to do with actual art.
>
>> Clean-looking portraits done in pencils just don't impress me
>
>I'm sure they don't impress _you_.
That's right. They don't impress *me*, or any artwork done with
subdued lighting. Fantasy painting is the pinnacle for me. If I could
only have half of Rowena Merrill's talent, I'd be happy. I look at my
work and I see crap.
Don Jolley
First, Cher Pendarvis was an artist long before the digital age, and has
degrees dating back before the advent of the Macintosh. As a pioneer in the
digital art world she's worked alongside people like John Odom and Jack
Davis, altogether rather "pushing the envelope" in incorporating traditional
art and graphic tools into the digital world. With Cher's immersion in both
fine art and graphic design, along with her extensive teaching background,
the resulting product is a book that teaches the traditional AND digital
artist how to incorporate Painter's many tools. But better yet, she
explains everything in a way that doesn't step over individual style or
talent, which is something I see happening in other WOW books a bit more.
Second, as a teacher myself, it is far more important to hand the student
the know-how of the tools, not the paint-by-number monotony that produces
robots pushing buttons, crushing individual style. The Painter WOW books
demand much more critical thinking than any other WOW book, and delivers an
education worthy of a college course if one would simply work through
Pendarvis' chapters.
If you're a painter who enjoys "palish" colors then build a color palette
AFTER you learn how an artist emulates the brushes, but don't look for
someone to hand it to you on an easy platter, lest the world be full of
"pushbutton" books, the very ones you're trashing.
Lastly, not only is the Painter WOW a fantastic book full of knowledge, but
each one holds amazing galleries of work collected from some of the best
Painter artists out there, including Don Seegmiller and Nancy Stahl, two
artists I want to be when I grow up - and my work is in there, too! I've
not seen any digital collection that beats it in any other publication.
And no, I get no royalties from this!
Don
> Yeah, they're just that, "starting". Like in all other profession,
> there's such a thing as area of specialization. Not all artists use a
> wide variety of styles as well as medium. That's why only about less
> than 20% of those WOW! books' contents is useful to a guy who likes to
> paint high contrast subjects, for example. Or an artist who prefers to
> paint flowers in palish colors, as another example. The rest of the
> contents is actually useless.
>
> So you're paying for more than what you're getting on these types of
> books. People would like to see more books that are written by
> category. Don Seegmiller's book about character creation is an
> excellent book, but not as extensive.
>
>> other media. Art books on pastels translate most readily to Painter because
>> you're applying color directly in both cases. The rest can be translated...
Zalbaje
>
>
> Second, as a teacher myself, it is far more important to hand the student
> the know-how of the tools, not the paint-by-number monotony that produces
> robots pushing buttons, crushing individual style. The Painter WOW books
> demand much more critical thinking than any other WOW book, and delivers an
> education worthy of a college course if one would simply work through
> Pendarvis' chapters.
Totally agree. I'll just have to say, AFAIC, the WOW series are great
to have as references which contain descriptions of features specific
to a particular software. I do salute the efforts of everyone behind
them. However, you may have noticed that the title of the thread is
"Portrait Drawing", which is as broad a subject as describing the
program itself. Some may say the usual things such as learning to do
it the traditional way first, then use the scanner, etc. That's true
and I am completely at peace with such view as there are really no
easier options anyway. But that's just really saying you don't really
need to buy extra books, all you need is the program's manual, surf
the net for a couple of tips and tricks, expand them by discovery,
experimentation and lots of practice... I've heard it said often by
artists themselves that if you could do portraits and human figures
realistically, the rest is freehand. And I've always thought that when
people mention painting or drawing, the first thing that comes to mind
are hand-drawn pictures of faces and figures. I just wished a group of
enterprising professional artists out there would come up with a
Painter series and start with something like Human Face and Figure. If
not, that's still fine. My life would certainly not grind to a halt
without it. There are just those times when you wonder how the masters
would tackle a particular problem, their routines... with the
additional "software factor" in the equation.