Art Work On Amiga

[3246251196]

I love the idea of drawing some nice art on DPIV or whatever. But, I am the worst drawer you could imagine. Looking through the pictures I can see some amazing artwork but I have a question: WHERE DO YOU EVEN BEGIN.

To think that those people once had a CLEAR screen and their final product was nothing short of a masterpiece is great.

My idea was always to draw in terms of frames... i.e. layer on your next bit.

But I would like to know what your artists do step by step!

[fuskoSCN]

Hi there

what kind of hardware do you plan to use making your gfx ?  a plain amiga, drawing pixel by pixel ?  or an amiga with a gfx-card ?  A pc maybe ?


Myself I made most of my artwork using an a1200 060 + 240mhz ppc and gfx-card. I also had a wacom-pen connected, since it is easyer to draw using a pen (compared to draw with the mouse). The gfx-program i prefer is photogenics.

The problem with photogenics is that it doesn't handle layers very well - so most of my artworks are drawn "flat" without any layers... this is timeconsuming, since i have to draw some parts of my picture several times, before i get satisfied.  Using arteffect, tv-paint or something like gimp or photoshop will able to use layers more efficiently.

The first thing you should do is ofcourse to find something to draw.. either from a comic, an magazine, or some other picture you have

Then i usually make a black and white sketch of what i want to draw - just to get the correct proportions.

After this i add simple colors, dark colors where it should be dark, and bright colors where it should be brighter.. then i start adding colors to make the picture  more detailed - mostly using airbrush, and smudgetools. I try to look closly at the picture, and just "copying" the colors/shadows and so on... to make my drawing as close as possible to the original photo.

Hehe.. well, im not a real a professional graphician, but this is atleast how I make my gfx (explained rather briefly).. most of my fellow scenic-graphicians used to laugh at my way of making gfx, and they were ofcourse correct - it's not an efficent way of making gfx.. and only doable since im not making a living as a graphician..  (i would probably starve to death before ever finishing a picture).

Good luck atleast, and don't hesitate to ask questions - either by pm or here on this thread

best regards

fuskoSCN - aka - Torgeir Vee

[cv643d]

There are different techniques. In the old days GFX artists used to draw an image by drawing the edges of the objects to get the shape. Then they colored the object and finally they shaded it. In DPaint there is a tool for this but it was of low quality so artists shaded their pictures pixel by pixel.

You should also learn a lot of shortcuts in DPaint. If you select a brush you can press “x” for flipping the brush, and “y” for flipping it in y-axis. Very handy, especially when making logos.

And that is how I painted some pictures. No layers and such. If you want to do modern style pixel graphics like “trendy” isometric art it is better to work with layers. According to some pixel artists they use Photoshop for making isometric art, but I have never got Photoshop to work well with that (I have not ever got Photoshop to work good for me when trying to paint anything old school pixel related). I just stick to PPaint and laughs at them who uses Photoshop for pixel art, what do they know, (or maybe the new trendy pixel “articians” are laughing at me for sticking with an older “crappy” art package?).

Hmmmm.....

But then I rarely do classic pixel art anymore, to timeconsuming, Im mostly into my own kinda style, not finished yet but take a look if you want.

[3246251196]

Hey, thanks for replying guys - and two good ones at that. I have my A1200 w/ 1220Accelerator (~~30MHz / 4Mb (6Mb total))

I personally am using DPaint though I do have PPaint and Photogenics (but the diskette is corrupt     )

I start off with the typical BLACK screen and on LOW RESOLUTION of colours....

So, that link, cv643d - has it took you a long time to do.. did you work on each little section for hours? do you use my kind of low resolution when you start?

THANKS!