Slime

[yaomon17]

I didn't really intend for this thread to be about making slime like textures, rather it be about digital art techniques and ways to practice. Now I feel obliged to try to make slime like textures though...

[Ai]

Well, as mathias suggests, that -is- a good way (the only way?) to learn the techniques: just try to do work that is good in terms of whatever it is (whether that means a slimy rendering, a cracked rendering, glowing, whatever) and let it press you to develop techniques for that type of rendering. IMO you'll be more able to effectively develop your rendering technique if you try to render actual objects rather than rerendering an existing drawing; my experience is that it can make you try to too rigidly reproduce the particular features, instead of reproducing the -concept- and being free to experiment with the details of the actual form. (For example, the gray rendering you just did is much more coherent, whereas earlier renderings felt like you were trying to mix illustration technique (in the form of strong crisp lines) with CG technique). In case you were wondering, yes, it does also look much more slime-y to me.)

My personal perspective is that CG is no different from pixelling really, I tend to use the same techniques and think in terms of stacks of color clusters whether I'm CGing or pixeling; I just can be a little messier and more complex when CGing.

Anyway Moatdd has a neat series clearly explaining various digital art practice methods and why they're good.  Not to mention a truckload of other interesting digital-art related tutorials/discussions. HTH

Oh and BTW, are you currently using SAI, or MyPaint? In the case that it's MyPaint I can give some specific advice on brush choice and color/line control.

[yaomon17]

I'm using GIMP. The brushes in MyPaint or Sai keeps acting like an airbrush for me :\

[Ai]

^ All of them? Mypaint has hundreds -- have you looked at the brush selector dialog? (a mini version is available in the top toolbar for recent MyPaint versions, and you can access the full brush selector window via the menus.) .
And if you bring up the brush Settings dialog, you can turn on the 'Update the last canvas stroke in realtime' option at the bottom of it, which will redraw your last stroke with the new brush as you change brushes; it gives a pretty accurate preview of what your experience could be with any particular brush you are thinking about trying.

Here's an image showing various doodles, each drawn using only one brush from one of the standard MyPaint sets:



(In my installation, all but one of these brushes are included in the set identified as 'Set #2')

EDIT: A few additional thoughts:

* It's possible that you are inadvertently lowering the brush opacity and this is causing the effect. Because MyPaint brush rendering is based only on dab opacity, lower opacity drawing can seem somewhat airbrush-like with certain brushes.
* GIMP is in general a poor option for painting. Dedicated painting/drawing apps (SAI, MyPaint, Krita) make painting and drawing much simpler than GIMP or Photoshop is ever likely to be. I mention that mainly to point out Krita as another option (I personally don't like it quite as much as MyPaint, but it's certainly much better than GIMP)

[yaomon17]

It turns out like this rather than filling in 1 color per me holding down the button.

[Ai]

I understand that (and for a few brushes that effect is intended), but under what conditions? With all of the brushes you've tried? What brushes -have- you tried?

Edit: note that Y'sen's screenshot is misleading -- it depicts the effect of stroke opacity, but MyPaint uses only dab opacity.

[Y?sen]

It turns out like this rather than filling in 1 color per me holding down the button.

It may be the amount of Hardness or Opacity that you're using for the Brush.

Although this I am using Photoshop in this screenshot, you should be able to figure you're way around the example given (I use to use GIMP and Sai a few years ago and remember them having Brush settings).


As you can see, the amount of Hardness and Opacity being used is at 100%.


The amount of Hardness being used is at 11% and the Opacity has been changed to 48%, all while still using the exact same Brush.

So perhaps you just need to check your Brush settings and reconfigure the amount of Density/Hardness/Strength and Opacity that you're using for the Brush.

[yaomon17]

I understand that (and for a few brushes that effect is intended), but under what conditions? With all of the brushes you've tried? What brushes -have- you tried?

Edit: note that Y'sen's screenshot is misleading -- it depicts the effect of stroke opacity, but MyPaint uses only dab opacity.

Yes, I have tried every brush.

[Ai]

Interesting. Some of those (like the ink brushes) shouldn't be rendering even slightly soft. Have you tried adjusting the global pressure curve (in Edit->Preferences, 'Pen Input' tab)? If that fixes it, then your tablet's pressure reports may be miscalibrated (eg. saying it reports 0 to 1023, but actually reporting only levels 0 to 511), which is a general issue that would effect every app until you get it fixed.

Of course, if the 'Mode' in the 'pen input' tab shows 'Disabled', then there is your problem: you have not configured MyPaint for the tablet so it's just treating it as a mouse.

[yaomon17]

I think the issue might be that I don't use a tablet :|