Help! CG is too boring!

[AzureBlaze]

I am having a problem.

Does anyone here who does CG art have any solution?

I guess my problem is that for me (with the methods I use) coloring anything in photoshop is too boring, takes too long, and comes out only OK, nothing spectacular. I've tried a few tutorials, like masking and doing zillions of layers and stuff...but that all builds up to being squillions of hours spent on just 1 drawing.

I like to draw/paint/pencil anything, but I also have the ability to get tired of works, and then not complete them, or get to thinking how much of a time-sink one will be, and then never actually start CG'ing it. This is really bothering me because coloring is GREAT! There are so many cool ideas to do, but whenever I look at all the boring toil that's going to go into it I'm like.........

Because I have 2 websites to run, an ongoing comic series and job and everything else that you do on a daily basis, I can't just be like 'yea its chill to spend 16hrs on ONE drawing'. I don't really have the patience, or the time to drop on it.

So my question is to anyone who colors on the computer:

What program do you use?
I have photoshop and painter

Do you use any method in a tutorial available somewhere?
I've tried a few, havn't found anything good and fast yet

How long does it take you/do you get bored/quit/tired of it, or are you fast enough to like the process as well?

I do have a tablet, which helps, but it seems no matter what I try, it always ends up to be this enormous time-pit that hogs hours with boring activities such as tracing over nasty lines (EVERY PEN is nasty, according to my scanner) or select/deselecting color areas or trying not to spill color and things.

Hopefully someone has an idea...I want to get to posting colored art/any art...

[biggabertha]

Photoshop is the saviour and bane of my cause for my pictures. After trying out so many ideas and trying out so many methods, it's all down to how you can learn to use the damn program. The usual method of plopping layered lasso'd images to colour things in so you don't touch your original drawing to colour in the main blocks then do all kinds of strange gradients to mess about with them to do shading and highlighting really makes it boring.

I guess to speed things up you can use the Magic Wand to select huge areas cutting down the time you need to use the Lasso tool but it's still really just bucketing large areas. For me, I try to use photoshop to only clean things up now. The actual colouring, I'd rather not use photoshop or any kind of program to colour in because it just takes too long to learn and too tedious to pick out the right colours when a set of acrylics, water colours or pens will do a much faster job.

Scanning, I've found to be a great problem as well. Putting everything onto gray/grey never scans anything well and putting it to black and white just kils the thing. I've found scanning it in colour, as a photograph then adjusting the gradient/brightness setting so all the lines (or most of them) turn a solid black but this process feels very fiddly to me.

Heh heh... Maybe we're just old fashioned and can't get used to how you can do mistakes on a computer and just hit th back button. With the real thing, you are SO much more careful with the original drawing unlesss you use a trace/photocopy of the line drawing and even then, you're careful because you don't want to waste materials.

[Sagasu]

Augh, see. I dont think "a good fast method for CG'ing" exists. You either spend the time on it, or you dont. Only, some people are so good that even when they dont it looks like they did.

CG never gets shorter, at least for me. Cause by the time you learn to do something faster, you start trying out new things that take even longer.. and the process just continues.

Scanning is probably half your battle, though. I scan in from pencil and attack my work with brightness contrast correction, so I usually dont have to do a lot of cleanup. Cleanup sucks out your soul.

And as for actual suggestions, I'm thinking theres probably two things you can try. Speed painting, and painting objectively.

I believe speed painting is just like pencil sketching, you do what you normally do only very quickly and without much in the way of care or precision. In the beginning your sketches look like garbage, but as shapes (or color blends) become more familiar to you, you can piece them together quickly in a relatively attractive picture.

And just like sketches, if you pick up on something good, its easy to elaborate on it and add detail. If its not so good, hey, it was just a sketch, right?

I cant say for sure, though, I dont speed paint. I paint objectively.

Like for a quick sketch, thats been elaborated on to the point of resembling something worth coloring on. I'll open up my one and only true love, adobe photoshop 6.0, and get to work.

After I have my lines (http://www.freespaces.com/bodyofsoul/voshay%20sketch.jpg), I create a flat layer of color (http://www.freespaces.com/bodyofsoul/voshay%20sketch%20flats.jpg) that gives me the feel I want.

And then I start shading individual areas and turning them into finished parts, as opposed to shading every part of every color one single layer at a time. Its done-

piece (http://www.freespaces.com/bodyofsoul/voshay%20sketch%20cp1.jpg)

by (http://www.freespaces.com/bodyofsoul/voshay%20sketch%20cp2.jpg)

piece (http://www.freespaces.com/bodyofsoul/voshay%20sketch%20cp3.jpg)

by (http://www.freespaces.com/bodyofsoul/voshay%20sketch%20cp4.jpg)

etc.

Now while this doesnt help my time any, it still feels like I'm getting a hell of a lot more accomplished. Which helps my motivation, and I personally find it easier to pause coloring, pick it up later, and not loose track of my origional goal if I've paused game after completing a number of objectives.

Dont know if this helps you any, or if you've already tried this. I am gifted with more time to pursue such things than most, so while such issues are not alien to me they are not quite familiar either.

[astuarlen]

So much to say, so little time. I don't know what you know or don't know, so forgive me if I cover familiar ground. Here are some thoughts and things to consider or try:

You might consider expanding your definition of/approach to working digitally. It's not all about lassoing and filling in the lines and the like. If you like to paint, why not make your digital workflow more like painting? Try painting over your sketch rather than slavishly filling it in and applying formulaic highlight/shadow areas. Use the tablet stylus like a brush, making marks rather than using it like a crayon to fill up your lines. Consider building up a structure of value first, rather than plunking down flat colors and shading each area individually; you can achieve unity/consistency more easily this way.
Speed painting is an excellent suggestion. It's not about being sloppy; it's, ideally, about economy and "seeing the big picture" rather than getting mired in details from the get-go. That's another thing to remember: general to specific. Get the basic structure down right before going into details, because you don't want to have to redo already-refined areas if things aren't working at the compositional/overall level. Of course, don't be afraid to cut things up a bit; if something is out of place or scale, snag and drag. For me, this is one of the greatest advantages of digital over traditional: moving things around. Hell, I rarely use the undo function; I prefer to paint over a mistake or shift areas around and rescale, then rework. It's like being able to cut up a piece of a paper drawing and stretch it (I can't count how many times I've wished for that flexibility ;p).

Anyway, I have to go to class (ugh), but I shall return with more!

[AzureBlaze]

Helpful so far!
I will try anything mentioned here that I havn't already tried. I am always willing to try just about everything that comes along pshp wise. (Thats why so many tutorials accumulated)

BiggaBertha:
I way agree here! Yes, non computer mediums tempt me, but I've no real space to set up anything. Sooo frusterating, that's why I pencil. It takes: a pencil! I'm resorting to CG due to lack of space but want of color, and also because I've seen what CAN be done with it and I go "ooo I wanna". (Have you posted up any arts here?)

Sagasu:
Your style is so much more "liney" than many others I've seen. It's like you nearly 'pen' with the pencil (as for comic books) this ads in detail and uniqueness, which is great--I've seen your other stuff on other posts and really like it. Most people (me included) just seem to try and outline whatever it is, then color that. I'd think yours would be impossible to work on, but it looks like you're coloring below your lines on a layer somehow?

What are you using to scan them so they're not insufferably jaggy/pixelated? This is a major malfunction for me.

I tried solving it with illustrator...but that takes another couple hours bending lines around with funfun arrows and points and things. The result is good enough and doesn't do any jaggy with the magic wand

http://www.phantasystardynasty.com/Color%20Gallery/DBZ/KoolerNouveauClr.html

Kooler there is the result of that--he was posted here before. I like your 'sense of accomplishment' you've got going as well, this is important motivation.

Astuarlen:
This approach is interesting too. How do you build up a value? What item do you use? I usually use airbrushes set to various opacities and dodge/burn. I'm not particularly worried about sloppyness/recutting because anything that gets scaned in has always been perfected to the best of the ability at that time.

I will try these methods...and if they work, I'll post something that they worked on.

[astuarlen]

Oop, kind of forgot about this thread. http://www.pso-world.com/images/phpbb/icons/smiles/icon_wink.gif



Astuarlen:
This approach is interesting too. How do you build up a value? What item do you use? I usually use airbrushes set to various opacities and dodge/burn. I'm not particularly worried about sloppyness/recutting because anything that gets scaned in has always been perfected to the best of the ability at that time.

What I mean by "building up a value structure" is figuring out your lighting in b/w (or monochrome, though don't neglect a full range of value) before doing colors. So paint your midtones, shadows, highlights in grey and then work colors over top on a separate layer. One way to do this is to paint a layer set to "Color" mode above the b/w value layer; then, once everything is tinted--and this is super important--make a new layer with "Normal" blending and work up the colors with more solidity and finesse. Don't neglect to add hues other than your local color to give added vibrancy and place the subject within its context. I noticed you paint a lot of bots, and this last point is key with painting metal, since its reflectiveness causes it to pick up colors from surrounding objects (all surfaces really do this, but metal is very noticeably affected).
Couple other tips:
-Hard-edged brushes typically give you a crisper, more refined look, and I highly recommend them for dealing with any subject, especially metal.
-Dodge/burn have their place, but I think most digital painters will agree that they are not a good primary tool. Go with the paintbrush or airbrush tool if possible. You'll have more control, avoid that characteristic dodge/burn look, and learn more about selecting highlight and shadow colors.
-If you haven't already, experiment with setting your stylus/pen pressure up to modify your brush's size or opacity.
-Uh, I think I had something else to say here, but I forgot. Anyhoot, I hope that clarifies what I mean. I most post an example of the 3 stages I use for value, basic color, and refinement.

:>

Edit: Here's a piece I did a couple months ago that illustrates what I mean about working with value first. The top image is my b/w, middle just has a color layer with blending mode of "color" on top of this, and the final image includes painting I did on top of both these layers in a "normal" mode layer.

http://cateyes7.home.comcast.net/bwtocolor.jpg

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: astuarlen on 2007-03-22 07:29 ]</font>