Digital Art Tools & Advices You Should Know About

Posted on 12. Feb, 2010 by DAS Team in Articles

Hey there DigitalArtSecrets.com! My name is Reid Southen and I’m both a student and a professional concept artist/illustrator. I’ve been a digital artist since the summer of ’06, and since then it has been my preferred medium of choice. In that time I’ve worked on a ton of projects and learned a lot about creating quality digital art, and it’s my pleasure to bring you some insight into the process so you can as well.

Quick note: I primarily use Adobe Photoshop to paint, so some of what I talk about will be referencing it directly, but many of the ideas I’ll discuss are general art concepts, or can be adapted to many programs.

Imagining Your Painting

The first step to creating something fantastic is simply imagining it. Having the idea is often the easiest step in the process; getting it out of your head and onto paper (or in this case the computer), is where it becomes difficult.

If you don’t have anything you think is good enough to draw or paint, then doing the research for inspiration is probably a good start, and a fun one at that. My inspiration usually comes from movies, games, music, or just browsing art galleries online. CGhub.com, CGsociety.org, ConceptArt.org, and deviantART.com are all good places to hunt around for ideas. If you feel like your idea has been done before, spend some time thinking of ways to spice it up or add a new twist to it.

The next step is obviously sketching the concept out. The best idea in my opinion is to start with rough thumbnails. You want to make sure the composition works well and the idea comes together before you start detailing it, so work small. This way, you don’t get too attached to anything and they’re quick.

Once you have one you like, you can blow it up and do a refined sketch on a new layer over it, or just redraw it bigger and with a bit more detail. Here you can work out the rest of the kinks and finalize the composition. The next step would be to do the overall semi-detailed drawing to do you painting with. This includes finding or taking the reference you’ll need to get things to look right.

Lighting and Rendering

After you’ve finalized a drawing, whether it be tightly drawn with detail, or looser and more open to interpretation, it’s time to decide how to light it and what your palette is going to be. But, before you even think about color, it’s a good idea to do value studies.

Underneath your lines, it’s best to make a layer and loosely render the painting in black and white. Doesn’t need detail, but it will help deal with how elements interact, the contrast, and how your lighting is going to work. It’s best to work it out quickly in black and white than struggle with the final in color. You should do a few of these and choose which one looks best to you. Each one shouldn’t take longer than 15 minutes, just get a general idea.

Next, it’s a good idea to do the same with color that you did with the black and white. Roughly block in the colors you plan to use to get an idea of the mood and lighting. Try a few different palettes and keys, see what looks best. These will take a little longer than the value studies, but they’ll help immensely when you get to the final rendering.

This is the process work they teach in art school, and most professional artists will tell you that these steps are vital. Working through each of them helps ensure you’re getting the best possible painting. Think of it as practicing for a big playoff game. Once you’ve done these steps, everything will feel familiar when you do the final, so you’ll end up struggling less and you can paint more relaxed.

And when you get to the final, the smartest thing to do is block in as much as you can as fast as you can. Get rid of the white canvas, it’s intimidating. Take a little bit of time and get the overall image working together, and then start tackling it piece by piece. Set little goals for yourself, and it’ll make the task a lot less cumbersome.

Reference

Also remember, you should be using reference for all of this. That’s not saying you need to copy everything completely, but observing real life directly or through reference is going to vastly improve the realism in your work. Too many beginners think using reference is cheating, but let me be the first to tell you that all professionals and master artists use it, so you should too. You have to be creative and be able to create something of your own, but if you actually use someone’s art directly, you have to take permission first.

I’ve also written another article which tackles a lot of these same ideas, but goes more in depth and has a number of examples. You can check that out here:

http://news.deviantart.com/article/100857/

In addition to that, I’ve created a walkthrough for this particular painting that details some of these steps. (painting http://fc02.deviantart.net/fs50/f/2009/313/8/d/Frigid_Warmth_by_Rahll.jpg)
(walkthrough http://fc09.deviantart.net/fs50/f/2009/314/8/d/Frigid_Warmth_Walkthrough_by_Rahll.jpg)

Digital Tools

Paint Brush

There are a number of tools I use regularly to create my images, number one being the paint brush. I have a massive library of brushes that I use, but I honestly only regularly use about 5-10 of them. And for 90% of the work I do, I use the standard round brushes, hard and soft.

Gimmicky shape brushes are good for speed painting and looser interpretations, but if you want to be more realistic with the work, you have to keep painting on top of those and refining them. I have a number of foliage brushes I like to use, but they work best for background stuff, and nothing close up.

I also have some chalk and texture brushes. There are a lot of tutorials out there on how to make your own brushes and it’s relatively easy. So if you want to get the most out of the tool, you should learn how to make your own. Downloading other people’s brushes is helpful, but you’ll never get quite what you need.

Dodge and Burn

Another pair of useful tools are the dodge and burn, but if you’re not careful they can be just as harmful to your work as they can be helpful. Use them for minor adjustments in lightness or darkness, or perhaps the occasional highlight. Anything more, and seasoned artists can call it out a mile away, and that’s not a good thing. Some people try to do full renderings with these two tools after they block their colors and the results are usually… interesting.

Smudge

The smudge tool is another one you need to be careful with, but it can help immensely with getting the right effect. Setting it to a regular brush can help you with rendering water and hair, or other sorts of detailing. It’s also good for blending if you use something like a speckled brushed.

But like dodge and burn, overusing it becomes obvious. When you paint, you want the viewer, no matter how skilled, to either wonder how you did something, or not think about it at all. You don’t want your process to be too apparent.

There is a brilliant brush that I set to the smudge tool. With a few tweaks to the settings, it works greats, and I use it all the time. You can download it here:

http://nebezial.deviantart.com/art/blender-brush-78999414

Masks

Masks are something that most people have heard of, but never use or bother to learn about. Trust me when I say that once you’ve used them, you’ll wonder how you ever worked without them. They basically offer up a non-destructive way of editing layers. Want to erase something, but aren’t sure if you might need it back later, or do you want to fade part of a layer but keep the rest intact without erasing? Don’t create a million copies of a layer, just use a mask. There are a lot of simple tutorials out there that can teach them to you, even YouTube videos. Do yourself a favor and check them out. They have a ton of uses.

Adjustment Layers

Something else worth noting are adjustment layers. You know all those adjustments available under the Image menu in Photoshop, things like Brightness/Contrast, Curves, Levels, Hue/Saturation, Color Balance, etc. Well, if you need, use one of these adjustments, but have a bunch of layers you’d have to apply it to, simply make an adjustment layer above all those layers. You can use any of those tweaks available in the menu, and the layer will affect everything below it, without making it permanent. You can toggle it on and off whenever you want.

Better yet, it comes with a layer mask attached so you can fade the adjustment if you need to and have it only affect certain parts of the image below it. Like everything in Photoshop, it’s best if you just play with it for yourself and see what happens. They’re incredibly powerful, I tend to have a bunch of them stacked by the end of each painting I do.

When is the work done?

It’s often hard to tell when a painting is done. In a professional environment, you have to weigh your deadline against quality and overall finish. On personal work, you can take as long as you want, but there is definitely a point where you can end up beating a dead horse.

The best advice I can give is that if you have time available to you while working, get it as far as you can with the work, and then step away for a day. Don’t even look at it for 24-48 hours. When you come back, it’ll be easier to gauge how much time you need to put in to finish it off. Staring at something for 12 hours a day for 3 days will mess with your perception, so it’s good to step away for a while.

On more than one occasion I’ve put a ton of time into something, only to get frustrated and feel like it’s not turning out well at all, or that I have a crazy amount of work left… but I step away for a day or two, and when I come back, I realize it’s much better and much further along than I initially thought.

Also, show it to other people if you can. See what they think of it as you go. Often other people’s reactions to it will help you gauge how far you need to push it before it’s complete.

Sometimes you just need to call it quits, even if you’re not fully happy. Occasionally you can only take a piece so far based on your skill level when you started it, so every now and then you need to just call it done and use what you learned to do better next time.

Additional Advice:

- Don’t be a lone wolf. Artists need to interact with other artists in order to reach their full potential. Don’t underestimate what another pair of eyes on your work can do for you, or the ideas you can come up with together.

- Find yourself a mentor. My best friend and mentor is concept artist and illustrator Danny LuVisi. He’s not only a great person and artist, but he helps me when I need it, and vice versa. It’s always good to have someone to go to when you have questions, don’t be afraid to ask people.

- Put in the time. Some people think they can put 6 hours into a painting and be done with it, or they’re too impatient to put in more. Sometimes you can get away with it, it all depends on the style and subject matter. But typically I put in anywhere from 10-30 hours on a single piece. Don’t expect to be done quickly, take your time and you’ll do better work. Also, draw every day. All those pros out there with the amazing work you want to aspire to, they draw nonstop, so if you want to reach their level, you’ll have to as well.

- Surround yourself with inspiration. Buy art books, create a folder on your computer full of paintings and images you find online that inspire you, hang art on your walls. You’ll never be without ideas that way, and you’ll always have a drive to get better.

- Don’t give up, work through the difficulties. I’ve come a long way since I started doing digital work, but one thing most people don’t know about me is that I actually gave up on it for 6 months. I got extremely frustrated and fed up, and simply put my tablet away. I’m glad I decided to get it back out, otherwise I wouldn’t be where I am today.

- Show your work. Even if you don’t think your work is that good yet, you should still put it online and show your friends. Getting feedback from other artists or just art admirers makes it all worth it. Also, if you plan to make a name for yourself or work professionally, putting work online is the easiest way to do it. Keep a number of different portfolios and interact in art communities like the sites I posted above.

- I’ve written another article as well about challenging yourself to become a better artist. I think it’s a good read for anyone who’s looking for a way to become better at what they do without becoming discouraged. You can read that here:

http://news.deviantart.com/article/100654/

- I also have a Livestream channel you can access that has some walkthrough and tutorial videos recorded last year that might help out with some matte painting techniques and the custom brush building. You can check it out here:

http://www.livestream.com/rahll

- Most of all, have fun. If you’re not enjoying doing the work, then that defeats the whole purpose. Sure, it gets tough, but you should enjoy it more than you hate it.

I know this was long, but hopefully it’s helpful to anyone looking to improve their work and do great things. Well all start somewhere, so don’t get discouraged. Just keep your eye on the goal and you’ll make it. Take care!

For more information, visit:

DeviantArt Link: http://rahll.deviantart.com/

Carbonmade Link: http://rahll.carbonmade.com/

Tags: advices, digital art tools, dodge, experience, imagining, information, layers, lighting, masks, notes, paint brush, photoshop, rendering, smudge, tips, tricks