prince alexander for say

[bartonjo2]

what can i do to fix alex up ?  i have been trying to use some of the techniques you suggested say

[Jeysie]

I think you went a tad overboard with the blur tool, but I'll leave someone with more experience to make detailed notes.

I more wanted to be the nitpicking pain-in-the-butt that I am and note that while it's debatable whether or not Alexander has blue or brown eyes, AFAIK he's definitely never had green ones.

Peace & Luv, Liz

[Storm]

Judging by my attepts at coloring I shouldn't be giving others advice either, but I would suggest you try to keep more of the looks of the original sketch  

[Say]

its hard because of the complexity of the human body, since to draw it its very hard to make the irregular shapes, as well as to capture the real shadows, it does takes a lot of observation and seriously practice, and as I've experienced it myself its not only on sketching its also in coloring, but in coloring its like to add a complexity level to all that, the colors perse, its not that easy to sometimes get accurate a real pallete, even more skin, skin I admit its a bit of an art to achieve and make it look like real, since as I've heard once from one of my art teachers, human skin has every single color pixel possible there is.

[Oldbushie]

Yeah, it is tricky.

I managed to draw something with my mouse, I found that I draw better if I "sculpt" the image rather than focus on the lines. I may develop this style and make my own webcomic.

[Say]

hahahahaaaa, bushie its on a creative rampage I see

[Oldbushie]

And is that creative rampage good or bad?

[bartonjo2]

the problem i hvae is thinking the colors are too dark or too bold for a face and so i use blurred colors i have seriously spent a long time trying to get his face to look good.

[Say]

dont trouble yourself there, that alex sketch was even difficult for our own staff, they took like a week working on those shades and the face features themselves, I do admit this one is a bit difficult to handle, thats why I dont wanna touch it myself till I got patiente or I feel like Im going to kick my pc

[Storm]

I made a coloring of the Alex sketch... kicked the PC a great number of times still not happy with the result (as usual  )

[Jeysie]

I made a coloring of the Alex sketch... kicked the PC a great number of times still not happy with the result (as usual  )

What, and you're not going to share? For shame! Considering you "weren't happy" with the Edgar ones, and those turned out rather nice, I can't imagine this one won't at least be fun to look at.

Peace & Luv, Liz

[Storm]

I'll share... I just don't have it right here. I'm on a holiday
And I'm a lot less happy with the Alex coloring than I was with the Edgar one  

[Storm]

FINALLY back at my home computer, I can now post my coloring of Alex... I apologize in advance  

[Say]

WHAT THE F*CK!

hahaha, looks freaking amazing! I hope bartonjo2 wont hate me , because I did try to work on it during december and the stupid drawing (sorry jon, no offense ) gave me a headache cuz I tried to clean it up and I seriously got pissed off at photoshop my pc and alex!!! hahaha couldnt just make it to look good IMHO, but I like how this one looks

but I'll try to post something around here any moment soon, maybe some cleaned up ones or stuff, for you guys to practice more easily

[Say]

yeah I liked how storm picks up some of the coments I've made, for example the hair looks amazing, nice going!

shading tips for jeysie, you can use brush or you can use brush and then smudge, or you can color with smudge then just stick with smudge.

suggestion for begginers learn how to use selection tools! they do help a lot to concentrate on working on shades without having to worry about anything else like screwing up something else or such.

how it works? easy you can do the color base of a face, and then you want to add shadows around mmm lets say nose? you can select the nose then select inverse and it will shadow all around the nose (for example), so you can control the brushes (intensity AND scale) and you can do like nice shadows around, same it would go for eyes depth.

for example for the head, you can color the base and then just select the layer and block it for it not to go outside the colored places and then you can EASILY shadow all over the face with a brush giving it some volume, then you can create another layer, and add another coloring shadow to do the cheeks and with smude or something you can sort of turn the shapes of it.

I hope that made some sense

[Jeysie]

It'll probably make more sense once I get my hands on a copy of Photoshop, but thank you for now.

Although I really was less curious about the how of doing it, as I was in knowing where to put the shading, and how much shading to do, and whatnot. Or is that just something you have to figure out for yourself? I wish I had a better spacial perception.

I was also curious about whether it's better to shade the sketch, then color over that, or sketch things in outline, then shade all with the color.

Peace & Luv, Liz

[Storm]

yeah I liked how storm picks up some of the coments I've made, for example the hair looks amazing, nice going!

Thanks Say! I did use your tips on how to do the hair. I found that doing black hair is even harder, and Alex's hairstyle was nearly impossible for me to do
I also used the selection tool, but only for the face & neck shadings, and regarding layers... well, I started out using a new layer for almost everything, but had to merge them when I needed to smudge I also have to admit I didn't "clean" the sketch itself - I'm not enough of an artist to try that -  I just colored over it, then merged it with the other layers and used smudge all over the thing  

I think I'll go mutilate one of the girls next... Any suggestions?  

[Storm]

It's the eyes... I made a crappy job of them  

[KatieHal]

Storm, not one thing in that coloring job is crappy and don't you say otherwise! Amazing work!!!  

[Jeysie]

I like the eyes! I hope the KQ9 artists will give Alex blue eyes as well.

And I agree with Bushie... there is something vaguely anime-ish about the lines of the sketch. Not in an unrealistic way, though.

Peace & Luv, Liz