In this Photoshop tutorial we look at laying down the base colors on top of character silhouettes to turn into final renders. We start with learning liquify and masking and use them to lay down a color foundation for a character.
Note: please let us know what you think of this kind of tutorial in the comments below! We realize it is not Blender, and it is not GIMP but it is an integral part of the character design process and is an area of education we are interested in exploring further (including GIMP tutorials!)
Why is on BLENDERcookie tutorial for Photoshop?
As the Note in the description says, we are testing out whether people like these kind of tutorials. Doing this allows us to gauge how well a dedicated drawing/painting site may do
-Jonathan
Believe me, it would be freaking awesome, sufficient, and its very much needed. 2d teaches us a lot, about topology, shading, proportions, its all good stuff. I, myself am very fond of these tuts,
I just hate the fact that my tablet is too inaccurate for digital work
What kind of tablet are you using if you don’t mind me asking?
I would love to see a dedicated drawing/painting site. I really want to learn more about creating environment and character concept art.
i agree very much so needed a quality one that i know cg cookie could create
And they do☺☺!!!!!!!
Moar!!! I love this stuff…even though I dont have photoshop most if not all these techniques can be done in open source programs like GIMP….please keep em’ coming
Jeremy, this is my tablet:
http://hu.farnell.com/genius/wizardpen-4×3/tablet-wizard-pen-4×3-usb-genius/dp/1196928
I am strongly in favor of a drawing/painting site.
If you want to make a drawing/painting tutorial site, it would be awesome if you used only Open Source softwares, like GIMP, MyPaint, Krita, Inkscape, Alchemy, etc. OpenDrawingCookie maybe xD?
Nice bot pls do a own Website for this.
Thanks
Why???
Nice. I learn something there.
Great tutorial
I really like to see some more like these, if possible including GIMP as well.
I don’t think a separate website is needed. Just create a category for it.
Once there are a lot of tutorials like these, u can rethink the website idea.
Thanks for the tutorial
Thanks for this tutorial, i think that is fantastic to have tutorials for 2d artists too, you can find more in one palce..
I think this tutorial and photoshop tutorials in general are great. Specially for characters, I don’t care if it’s open source or not, actually I prefer photoshop. You could bring the guy who did the concept art for Sintel and the Kara series sometime and maybe teach a little of painter too!
Great video! I feel its about time someone starting making tuts about making the character planning process. I look forward to seeing how this comes out. Photoshop has so many useful tools and shortcuts!
Cool, do you guys have any tuts for people who are really new to Photoshop?
Not yet but you can count on them in future if we launch a new site!
-Jonathan
http://www.ctrlpaint.com
@Cluly Thanks for the link
@Jonathan Oh, ok, i hope you do lauch a new site in that case lol
Great tutorials, keep them coming.
These are really neat “Photoshop basics” tutorials, but for those who already know the software (or want to use other software) the character design tips get pretty bogged down in Photoshop interface explanations.
I hope the drawing/painting/design Cookie-site becomes reality, it’s a great idea. But I think a lot of site visitors already have some basic Photoshop skills, and would get most out of it when tutorials reach an intermediate level. I’d love character design tutorials that focus on the design elements and decisions themselves, rather than the technical nitty gritty. Why this kind of sheet should be made in the first place, what poses/angles to choose, how it fits into the grander scheme of professional character creation, etc.
Starting with the basics is probably the best way to go with a new 2d direction, but I understand if the reception is more lukewarm than it might have been otherwise. Compared to Blender 2.5 tutorials… the Internet is pretty much teeming and crawling with basic Photoshop tutorials for those with any interest.
Regarding Gimp… as much as I appreciate the efforts of the developers, I don’t think it’s to Photoshop what Blender is to Maya. I like Gimp because it’s Open Source, but I love Blender because it’s just great! I’d really appreciate tutorials that help me make better use of Gimp, but for general tutorials… I think the feature set of Photoshop should be the baseline.
Yes, yes and yes! I could not agree more. I love the continuing expansion of the CGCookie Universe!
I did not see this in the Citizen Downloads. Will this be ported over?
It is added now! My apologies for the delay on that, I missed it
-Jonathan
thx TIM
Two thumbs up!
would definitely like to see more on digital painting.
Blender is the focus of course, but true modeling of a character starts before Blender is opened
I have Photoshop and a Intuos4 tablet, but would like to see some GIMP for the people who don’t have Photoshop.
This is pretty cool also, but it’s speed up.
http://www.youtube.com/user/FZDSCHOOL#p/u/1/xCmz3XuS6TI
I don’t know if your the same person that linked to that channel in the first part, but if so thanks. I’ve been watching them from the beginning since then and find they are really amazing. Some of the best tutorials I have seen.
I am loving this tutorial! Please do more!
Great idea of doing this kind of tutorials! I love it, because I don’t like doing only 3d things, 2d is great too. One question Jonathan, when you guys are going to do more tutorials on this, do you also include inkscape? I would love it to see some tutorials on that.
I think in order for a separate 2D site to be as successful as BlenderCookie that it should focus on Gimp and Mypaint. I don’t say this just because I use them, but because there are plenty of sources for Photoshop tutorials. I believe a fundamental of business is to supply a new product or a superior one than what is available. I think you would have to have some really knock out Photoshop tutorials if they were to drive new users.
As far as I know there is no one stop shop for Gimp tutorials, possibly one reason why more people just use Photoshop. CG Cookie could fill that void rather successfully I think.
I think either route you choose it will be successful. I just think if it is mainly Photoshop tutorials that the majority of the users for the painting site would be existing CG Cookie frequenters already and may not drive as much new traffic as you’d like. Just my two cents.
I couldn’t agree more! One of the main reasons we have not done more with GIMP, MyPaint or Inkscape at the moment is a lack of experience. However, we are digging ourselves in quickly to start offering these things up.
-Jonathan
I would love some more painting tutorials. I like David Revoy’s tutorials, but the guy is just so good at what he does that I find it hard to follow. I just watch his tutorials and timelapses to enjoy seeing how he creates things, not with the hope of actually learning that stuff. I find that the tutorials on blendercookie are more down to earth and more procedural, so I can actually learn something. The photoshop tutorial is like that, because it takes much smaller steps.
I think it’s ok that the tutorial is in photoshop, because I think anyone who knows the gimp can mess around a little bit to find the corresponding controls and filters.
As to where the tutorials belong. If you have enough of them, you could make a separate site on digital sketching and such. Or you could just post them on blender- and maxcookie, because people in both communities can use them.
If you are going to go 2d i would suggest providing some Gimp/Mypaint/Artrage/Photoplus tuts as these apps don’t need a bank loan to get involved.
Excellent post by Jeff btw.
Paul Caggegi (another Aussie, http://paulcaggegi.com/) does a few GIMP tuts, along with some Blender tuts, but his updates are fairly sporadic, and he doesn’t do much in the way of character development that I’ve seen. FYI.
Well, I use GIMP and MyPaint, and I’d still like to see some Photoshop tutorials, too.
Great stuff! Keep it coming in my opinion, as long as BlenderCookie doesn’t turn entirely into PhotoCookie.
No worries there
I say BRING ON the concept art tutorials included with Blender tutorials.
Concept Art – 3D Modeling/Texturing/Animation means great!
I do agree that it should be more than Photoshop that’s featured.
I absolutely love these types of tutorials and would love to see a dedicated site.
These tutorials are good and I think it’s a good idea, I follow http://www.ctrlpaint.com rather a lot for this kind of stuff.
Great Tutorial and yes, make more like this. Only problem is the download is not available in the Citizen area. What gives?
I have to say I’m finding these tuts very helpful. Contrary to some’s beliefs, you can’t just open Blender and create a masterpiece. It starts with a concept.
As a newbie to 3D modelling (and still a crap artist, digital n the like!), it’s very helpful to see a workflow which looks to move into a Blender-ready design. Cheers Tim, great work.
(p.s. I agree with Jeff entirely, but have the uppermost faith in you guys to knock out the competition regardless).
I like the idea of a separate site, but photoshop does tend to be rather expensive, and seeing tutorials for closed-source/expensive things on a website dedicated to FOSS 3D Suite is rather confusing (I question why GIMP wasn’t used, aside from probably personal preference).
I wouldn’t use the site however, as 2D drawing on a computer (and even some 3D things) requires a tablet for the most part, which I lack.
these tutorials on how to design your characters before you create them in blender I think is a great idea. In my opinion if you were to put these tutorials into another website I would aprecieate it if you advertised it here on blender cookie just so that everyone knows about it. also great tutorial, your an incredible artist.
Hi all, and congrats to CG Cookie for all the excellent tutorials!!!!
I am very happy to see the 2D tutorials, they are a very good adition to the 3D toolset, I wouldn´t worry about the program used in the tutorials, I don´t see an issue here, and I don´t believe they need a different web, they could be under the concept section.
I would love to see also some tutorials made just with pencil and paper, where the focus is just in character creation. Maybe there could be character concept tutorials in different styles, like characters for children animation (Pocoyo Style), heroic characters, or even a tutorial of how Ward came up with the BC Baker character
.
Keep the good stuff coming.
Miguel Alvarez
Great tutorials. Would love to see more photshop/gimp
With all due respect (which is due to your Blender skills), I’ve been working in Photoshop since before it had whole number versions and am already an expert with it. I pay a subscription to this site for material on Blender, not Photoshop.
I agree that digital painting is part and parcel to 3D work and I get that you’re trying to gauge the popularity of this stuff. But there are a million sites dedicated to Photoshop and other similar products. The market for that material is self-evident.
I wish you luck with any other sites you might launch but I’d much prefer you guys concentrated on Blender work here.
Congratulations on becoming an expert with Photoshop. Did you think about other people. Not everyone is an expert. The world does’t revolve around you.
It’s not a matter of whether or not the material is valuable to someone, it’s about whether that material should be on this site.
I’m arguing that there is little value in scouting a market for it on THIS site; the general interest in such material should be obvious by the sheer number of other sites out there dedicated to it, whereas there are few sites dedicated exclusively to Blender.
I have no issue with yet another site about digital painting – knock yourself out. But my subscription fee to THIS site DOES revolve around me, and I paid for what was advertised – a site dedicated to Blender, not a yet-another-Photoshop-site.
Fear not, this stie will stay dedicated to Blender! We are not actually looking to launch a Photoshop site, we’re looking to launch a drawing and painting site. It just so happens these first couple test tutorials are done in Photoshop. Thanks for the input!
-Jonathan
Concept Cookie!!
*sniff sniff* do i smell some concept cookies baking in the oven?
yea i say that has a nice ring to it char
Yes, I like the photo shop tuts. I could use some basic digital drawing skills. It might just be what I need to get me to do custom textures for my models. I know this is drawing and not texturing. But being able to draw oky-good concept art never hurt anyone. If you make this apart of Blender cookie I will be watching them all
Hey Tim!
Again a very interesting tutorial.
One little hint for the next time:
At around 20:30 min of the tutorial you struggle a little by preparing a stamp of all visible Layers without loosing the original ones. That can be done with one simple keyboard-shortcut: shift-alt-cmd(ctrl on windows)-E merges all visible layers and puts the result in a new layer on top of the stack.
Greets,
Thomas.
i agree with the spirit of these videos. but am in love with the idea of doing a program agnostic version. i’m actually proficient in Photoshop, and can limp about in GIMP, but i think all the cmd/ctrl + METAWHATEVER bogs the viewer down in the interface. Just explain the goal of the action. If you’re gonna combine all the previously worked layers or sets of layers into one, say so. The majority of raster painting+processing programs have the most used features in common, so it’s mostly a non-issue. Of course certain plugins or filters may be a different story, but there’s always a way around that. most plugins and filters just programmatically do something the basic do, but chained or in tandem.
to sum it up– would love to see more concept work. PS, GIMP… doesn’t matter. Explain the why of the action for these concept pieces, not the how necessarily. As far as a separate site… it might be interesting as it would tie together the 3dcookie and blendercookie and who knows what other sites you guys be running… and in effect help to generalize the discussed topics, as mattes and textures and concepts are pretty relevantly general in the planning stages.
keep ‘em coming!
As mentioned by Thomas, rather than merging, copying, pasting then undoing it all, in photoshop the shortcut cmd(ctrl for windows)-shift-alt-e will merge visible layers into a new layer directly above the currently selected one. Alternatively, select all, cmd(ctrl for windows)-shift-c copies from all visible layers.
For GIMP, there’s a neat little script that adds the copy-all-layers functionality: http://registry.gimp.org/node/24270. GIMP also includes a “New from Visible” feature, available in the menu as Layer -> New From Visible, which creates a new layer of the visible layers in the stack.
absolutely need such tutorials 2D and 3D are linked for being an artist in either field
I think a dedicated ‘concept design’ section to your site is an absolutely fantastic Idea!!! For those of us who are very serious about eventually putting out our own short story animations then it is an integral part of the workflow process (art direction, storyboarding etc). The fact that this one is in PS should be irrelavent as the two programmes are very similar anyway. I would suggest asking the person who does the tutorial to take the time and try to do a rough version in both PS AND Gimp and maybe cross referencing the other throughout the tutorial. I personally do have PS but find myself using Gimp more often because I like to support open source projects, but thats just me. Anyway. Great idea guys, and thanks for a great VALUE FOR MONEY site.
Just an idea… but maybe you should encourage your students to interact on projects… a notice board maybe..i.e storyboard artist wanted for voluntary short story project! After all, that’s what musicians do.
This is a great tutorial for someone like me who needs to adapt pen-and-paper technique to producing something digital-quality in a short time frame. Thanks, keep on posting!