Tuesday 5 October 2010

Tablet and Photoshop work

So I finally have my licence from adobe and Photoshop CS5 extended is fully functional! Hoorar! I've never used a graphics tablet before and my only experience with photoshop has been texturing, so I was a little nervous!

Photoshop Workshop 1:
Here's my first attempt:


At this stage I'm just playing around with my tablet and photoshop to get used to the interface and tools etc. I found it a bit counter intuitive at first but with Phils support I felt I was making progress by the end of my first lesson!

Photoshop Workshop 2:
Second Attempt:
Taking on what I'd learnt from Phil's tuition in the first lesson, I started with a base colour background. Created a new layer and made a block silhouette of a sloth. 

I think a key aspect and a real selling point of my final design will be realistic looking fur. So I started with simple brush strokes and some darker tones for depth.

Phil showed me how to make a custom brush and the resulting affect is gorgeous and halved the amount of time!

I started to add some more detail on the branch to tie the character into the scene.

I feel I'm starting to get to grips with it now!

Photoshop Workshop 3
So this is the last sloth painting I will do, I promise, before I move onto concepts of my final piece! This time I did the fur on another layer so I could adjust the colour separately. Here's the result.


Photoshop Workshop 4
Since my last lesson, I've been thinking about my final piece in terms of pose, final look etc. Through my head, hand and feet studies I've got a general idea of the final outcome, it's just a case of putting them altogether.


Sloth's predominately reside in trees and very rarely venture down to ground level. Because of this they can barely walk or stand, so I want to incorporate this into my design. This sketch is a rough idea of what I'm looking for.


My first attempt at trying to re-create this sketch in photoshop didn't exactly go to plan. Really not happy with this one.


Second attempt fair slightly better. Still alot of work to do before I submit my final piece!

Back to the drawing board. I have done a few more sketches for reference.





Final Piece Progress




















5 comments:

  1. Anatomy: Interim Online Review 05/10/2010

    Hey Paul,

    Great in-depth film review, nice life-drawing, head-studies, yes, animal pics, cute, charismatic style, certainly - not enough work! What’s clear to me already (and to Phil Hosking) is that you’re a bright, attentive student – hurrah for that, but your blog – as my only measure of your creative development – disappoints. In terms of content, it’s full of holes (one film review, no digital painting try-outs, no development sketches), and it tells me that your relationship to blogging is not yet ‘little and often’ but rather sporadic and ‘if I must’.

    Remember this; I’m not assessing the blog – I’m using the blog to assess your creative development. Showing me your creative development – impressing me with your speculations, investigations and fizzing grey matter – is your single most important JOB! To ‘develop creatively’ is why you’re here and why you’re paying to be here, so, for God’s sake, show me everything and don’t waste a single second. More than this, if you post ‘little and often’ – if you generate a creative buzz around your own work, you’ll generate feedback and quickly establish beneficial relationships with your classmates. Likewise, while it may seem ages off, at some point, your blog – if it’s a fantastic, creative space – will be visited and browsed by potential employers.

    At time of writing this feedback, I can offer no constructive criticism re. your favoured approach, the logic of your metamorphosis, the means of its execution, or the intended subject of your written assignment! Boringly, I am left to comment on what is ‘not’ on the blog – and what a waste of everyone’s time (mine mostly!) that is.

    You’re a good student, Paul - and my guts tell me you’re going to be very good – so ‘get with the programme’ and make the most of this opportunity to enrich your creative working. I want to see a big improvement over the coming days. There – lecture over.

    For a great example of what a good creative blog can look like – both in terms of general presentation, formatting and content (i.e. lots!), take a look at Leo Tsang’s unit 1 blog. Leo is a second year now, and always scored very highly in terms of his creative development; the reason for this should be clear. Copy-paste this link and browse backwards through the older posts; the brief was different then, but this is what a degree level creative development blog can – and should – look like:

    http://ltsang.blogspot.com/2009/10/final-portrait.html

    A general reminder that, alongside everything else you need to have ready for crit day, you also need to submit an offline archive of your creative development blog. There is a way of exporting your blog as PDF via Blogger – which would be ideal for this purpose. Incase you missed the original post, Alan gives details here:

    http://ucarochester-cgartsandanimation.blogspot.com/2010/09/how-to-turn-your-blog-into-pdf-document.html

    And finally – now is the time to return to the brief; time and again, students fail to submit what they’ve been asked to produce – and how; usually because they haven’t looked properly at the brief, or haven’t done so since week one. Trust me on this; just take a few minutes with a highlighter pen to identify what is required, when, and how. Remember – non-submissions are dumb!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anatomy: Interim Online Review 05/10/2010

    Hey Paul,

    Great in-depth film review, nice life-drawing, head-studies, yes, animal pics, cute, charismatic style, certainly - not enough work! What’s clear to me already (and to Phil Hosking) is that you’re a bright, attentive student – hurrah for that, but your blog – as my only measure of your creative development – disappoints. In terms of content, it’s full of holes (one film review, no digital painting try-outs, no development sketches), and it tells me that your relationship to blogging is not yet ‘little and often’ but rather sporadic and ‘if I must’.

    Remember this; I’m not assessing the blog – I’m using the blog to assess your creative development. Showing me your creative development – impressing me with your speculations, investigations and fizzing grey matter – is your single most important JOB! To ‘develop creatively’ is why you’re here and why you’re paying to be here, so, for God’s sake, show me everything and don’t waste a single second. More than this, if you post ‘little and often’ – if you generate a creative buzz around your own work, you’ll generate feedback and quickly establish beneficial relationships with your classmates. Likewise, while it may seem ages off, at some point, your blog – if it’s a fantastic, creative space – will be visited and browsed by potential employers.

    ReplyDelete
  3. At time of writing this feedback, I can offer no constructive criticism re. your favoured approach, the logic of your metamorphosis, the means of its execution, or the intended subject of your written assignment! Boringly, I am left to comment on what is ‘not’ on the blog – and what a waste of everyone’s time (mine mostly!) that is.

    You’re a good student, Paul - and my guts tell me you’re going to be very good – so ‘get with the programme’ and make the most of this opportunity to enrich your creative working. I want to see a big improvement over the coming days. There – lecture over.

    For a great example of what a good creative blog can look like – both in terms of general presentation, formatting and content (i.e. lots!), take a look at Leo Tsang’s unit 1 blog. Leo is a second year now, and always scored very highly in terms of his creative development; the reason for this should be clear. Copy-paste this link and browse backwards through the older posts; the brief was different then, but this is what a degree level creative development blog can – and should – look like:

    http://ltsang.blogspot.com/2009/10/final-portrait.html

    ReplyDelete
  4. (Good to see these Photoshop studies on here, Paul - and I'm pleased to see you getting to grip with brushes...)

    ReplyDelete
  5. Great post. Thank you for sharing.

    ReplyDelete