AuthorTopic: Update + Playing with techniques  (Read 7435 times)

Offline Helm

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Re: Update + Playing with techniques

Reply #10 on: October 29, 2006, 11:42:32 am
That's wonderful. Bold shading thechnique, usually we go for the 'oily smooth' version, with 50% dithers where needed etc. I am very happy with how the 'scribbly' thing worked here, because usually this sort of technique creates jaggied monsters that are inexcusable in their roughness. This has just the right amount of texture, I think! Nice colors, great update. Congrats.

Offline flaber

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Re: Update + Playing with techniques

Reply #11 on: October 30, 2006, 08:28:24 am
hey, wow, thanks helm
glad you like it :)

didnt always start off as this though
it went through abunch of different stages - and slowly evolved into this
here - ill share some steps incase someones interested to see

originally i had wanted to do the oily smooth look to it
little - no dithering, all block colours

(8 colours)
when i did this though, i found it to be very harsh looking, and knew the colours had to be blended somehow because of how harsh they were together

next i knew i had to blend the colours. i played abit with regular dithering, using 50%, or dither gradients and such, but didnt much care for it. the looks it gave me just werent right.
i also noticed that it just didnt give me the form i wanted. the dithering aided in the harsh look because of the checkerboard patterns, and diagonal lines it creates. No flow, all geometric patterns.
i needed something that could blend the colours and provide the right form

(8 colours)
this is where i developed my attempt at what i call dynamic dithering. the dithering wasnt set really to any patterns, yet was still organized enough to flow and blend. this began to give me an interesting texture. original dithering gave kind of a sandy grainy look - this i found to give more of a clay / sculpted look.
I found this was starting to go along the lines of what I wanted. but like you mentioned, it has 'jaggied monsters' and unexplained roughness. this led to my next problem to try and solve

i have the right depth - right form - right shading. that im all happy with
however - its rough and jaggy. i need to fix this
this is where my theory of double pallete blending (i call it - sorry for poor terminology) came in. by creating a duplicate pallete, but changing the hue while keeping same shade (well, slightly lighter or darker then corresponding but basically the same), i found my solution. this extra pallete does not affect shading / lightsource at all because it is the same shade as the base pallete. It acts as a buffer, or a transition between the shades. in addition it aids in hueshifting for the overall piece.

(15 colours)
my reasoning behind this is because with the original pallete alone the eye focuses on the difference of shades, making the jaggies stand out. when adding the second pallete the eye then focuses on different shades and colours causing focus on more random things everywhere, rather than focusing on teh shade difference alone.
in addition to all this - the other key factor that this can do is, normally texture is created by shading/dithering/transition of colours. when there is a large space of 1 solid colour it is empty space. by using this second colour you can utilize that wasted space and add more info about the texturing and directions of the form. it utilizes all the space of the image.
i was inspired by photographs - lots of areas that look like a simlar colour, yet there are tons of different colours all contributing slightly to their own way of shaping texture
however - as you can see, my colour choices were kind of extreme

my last step in this was now just playing with colours
texture, form, and shading i all like - just colours seem to be off
played with colours... made slight slight touchups (not really though)
and ended with the final image

Offline Dogmeat

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Re: Update + Playing with techniques

Reply #12 on: October 31, 2006, 11:05:49 pm
8 color one looks best IMO.

I think the lips need more work in all cases though, they seem blurred in comparison to the rest of the image.
Daisuke Nagano Yokoyama

Offline Evil-Ville

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Re: Update + Playing with techniques

Reply #13 on: November 01, 2006, 09:22:55 am
I like the 15 colour one a lot better, more interesting to look at.