[Art] Tapewolf's Colouring - Sethir redone [2011/03/16]

[Keleth]

Today Tapewolf and Ren do art.

Tomorrow

TROMBE~

[Tapewolf]

I can't decide if I like blue, orange, or green.... perhaps if the flack jacket had a mixture of black and white padding.

I went with blue since that is her favourite colour.  Red and orange went nicely with her hair, though.

as for Tape: really all i've said has been said, it seems, for what it's worth, You and Ren are making quite the duo lately.

Thanks, that is much appreciated.

[Tapewolf]

I forgot to post this here earlier, so here's two updates.

Firstly, Joshua in a sort of robot flight suit.  This was a pencil sketch by Ren, which can be found here:
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/4044224/

This is my version, inked and coloured:


I think I made it a bit too shiny, I had no idea what the material was so I chose some midway point between armour and leather.

Full-size versions are here:
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/4213242
http://tapewolf.deviantart.com/art/Flightsuit-Josh-172655809


Today's picture is of Torris, who curiously enough, murdered my own character.  Or so they say.



...this is a blow-up from Project Future page 129.

Full-size versions are here:
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/4272711
http://tapewolf.deviantart.com/art/Torris-slayer-of-Johan-Cross-174245684

[Tapewolf]

Another shiny motorcycle picture.



Full size versions here:
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/4281111/
http://tapewolf.deviantart.com/art/Dorcan-Ja-Fell-Road-Warrior-174475095

Here is our intrepid android incubus Dorcan, pushing a fusion-electric bike through its paces. There is also an alternate version of this I did as a joke while trying to decide what colour to make his leathers. I'll upload that tomorrow or something.

For those who are wondering about the rash of motorcycle pictures and suchlike (*), it's summer and on the way to work I'm starting to go "Hmm, maybe I should have learned to ride..."
That train of thought usually ends up with "Yeah, but you'd have got yourself killed." I guess it's fun to dream, and injuries are something that Dorcan, at least, doesn't have to worry about so much.

This was made from pencils provided by Ren after much poking and pestering. Sorry about that once again!
Thanks also to Keaton for her help on the background layout and perspective stuffs. Now if only it didn't look like he's on the wrong side of the road...

Alternate version


A weird idea I had while trying to work out what colour the leathers should be.

http://www.furaffinity.net/view/4281984/
http://tapewolf.deviantart.com/art/Dorcan-in-doberman-leathers-174510526



(*)Referring in part to this picture which should keep Lizardbeth in sushi for the rest of the year

[Ren Gaulen]

A weird idea I had while trying to work out what colour the leathers should be.

"Feels like I'm wearing nothing at all~"

[Gabi]

You really love motorbikes, don't you?

I like the motion effect on the background, and the colors on the letters.

As for the previous pictures, I like the Josh one. The one you did of Torris looks a bit weird to me, like Torris and the background don't quite match. Still, nice brush strokes effect.

[Alteisentier]

Jesus, do you colour in MSpaint or something? How do you managed to get such jagged lines from Rens artwork?

[WhiteFox]

The shading and highlights make everything look flat. Since they follow the top and bottom edge of the linework, it looks like a Photoshop bevel. Realistic lighting conforms to the surface of the object, and implies volume and depth.

The lines look fine to me... I have no clue what Altei is talking about.

[Turnsky]

The shading and highlights make everything look flat.

what shading? all i see is the highlight he's added for the sheen of the suit, which doesn't really fit into the rest of the unshaded/highlighted piece.

Since they follow the top and bottom edge of the linework, it looks like a Photoshop bevel. Realistic lighting conforms to the surface of the object, and implies volume and depth.

Generally one wants to avoid looking like a photoshop layer setting, there really is a fine line between having depth and having cling-film wrapped on it.

The lines look fine to me... I have no clue what Altei is talking about.

i do, actually, but this may stem from tapewolf working from a lower resolution than what other folks may be acquainted with, for example every single pic of mine is usually done on a canvas of roughly 3k pixels wide, at 300 or so dpi. so when it's all shrunk down (foxfire for example is at 3000x4767 pixels) the aliasing isn't noticed whatsoever.

[Tapewolf]

The shading and highlights make everything look flat.

what shading? all i see is the highlight he's added for the sheen of the suit, which doesn't really fit into the rest of the unshaded/highlighted piece.

Since they follow the top and bottom edge of the linework, it looks like a Photoshop bevel. Realistic lighting conforms to the surface of the object, and implies volume and depth.

Yes.  That's the bit which I can't get my head around, which is why I don't usually shade things fully - it makes them worse because I can't seem to make it work.  It's a known problem, and it's been something of a brick wall for some time now.  Bitching about it won't help.

Generally one wants to avoid looking like a photoshop layer setting, there really is a fine line between having depth and having cling-film wrapped on it.

Firstly, which picture are we discussing?  Of the Dorcan motorcycle pictures, the one which had most effort put into it was the red one.  The grey and tan one has a quick and dirty recolour hack for the bike and somewhat rushed highlighting on the suit - it was done as a joke and was never really intended to be a piece of fine art.

In this picture and the 'Ride in the woods' one, I have been trying to ease off the cling-film effect because I'm aware it's been a problem.  Personally I think it has been improving and I've been meaning to redo Sethir because looking at it now, that one was pretty bad.
Remember though that the plastic parts of the suit are supposed to look plastic ;-)

i do, actually, but this may stem from tapewolf working from a lower resolution than what other folks may be acquainted with, for example every single pic of mine is usually done on a canvas of roughly 3k pixels wide, at 300 or so dpi. so when it's all shrunk down (foxfire for example is at 3000x4767 pixels) the aliasing isn't noticed whatsoever.

Yes.  Dorcan and the bike was done at around 2k by 1.7k.  I'm somewhat restricted to the resolution of the line-art I've been given - having them in higher res would be nice for that reason.

The composite image with the background is 2.9 by 2.1.  The 500 pixel thumbnail looks better, so that might be a better comparison to Foxfire, or DMFA - which uses the same basic techniques.  In the 1280 version, I played around with different scaling algorithms and so forth in order to minimize the aliasing, and knowing what to look for I can't really see it happening in this picture.  Alt must be extremely sensitive to it.

Now that I think about it, I did 1280 because I was hoping to make it approximately wallpaper-sized.  I figure that if someone really wanted an artifact-free rendition, they are perfectly able to scale it down themselves...

[Tapewolf]

Some time ago (August 2009) Ren did a pencil sketch of Bas.  Somehow I found it again the other day and decided it needed to be coloured.  Thanks to Bas for his help with the fur patterns, and Ren for drawing it and suggesting the background and stuff.


http://www.project-future.org/stuff/things/Bas-small.png

Larger versions here:

http://www.furaffinity.net/view/4485115
http://tapewolf.deviantart.com/art/Basilisk-179487221

[Paladin Sheppard]

Awesome stuff Tape and Ren

[Alteisentier]

It's like a lens flare, except it's burning into my soul and making me cry.

[Mao]

I'm going to give you all a little reminder about how the Tower of Art is supposed to work, as per the rules stickied in it:

The tower of art is meant for detailed feedback and critique of posted art.  This means no useless asspat posts, and no useless "I think it sucks" posts.  We've been lenient on this in the past, but lately it's been starting to become a regular occurrence that these kinds of posts show up.  If this continues I'll start to crack down in here, and bans will start flying around.  I trust that from here on in, you'll all endeavor to offer something constructive when you post.  You wouldn't want me to start cracking down in here, would you?

Fix it.

[WhiteFox]

The tower of art is meant for detailed feedback and critique of posted art.  This means no useless asspat posts, and no useless "I think it sucks" posts. 

I just want you to know: this made my day.

@Tapewolf: The streaky not-lensflare background is centered on the middle of Bas' head: this makes the image as a whole look very static. It might look more dramatic if it were shifted to side or the other.

It does imply a horizon line without actually being a horizon line, which is kind of neat.

I notice that his garment is two toned... nice touch.

The the wings would have more definition and depth if the gradient on the forward membranes didn't line up with the gradient of the membranes behind them. This would give a visual cue that the forward and backward parts of the wing were on separate planes, and add some depth.

@Ren: the fingers of the wings don't have any bones or joints, which doesn't seem to jive with the attention to anatomy on the rest of him.

[Tapewolf]

The tower of art is meant for detailed feedback and critique of posted art.  This means no useless asspat posts, and no useless "I think it sucks" posts.

This.

With respect to Pal, while you obviously meant well, some idea of what makes it look decent in your opinion would have been nice.

In terms of critique it's possible to go too far in the other direction as well - goodness knows I've done that myself too much in the past.  Thing to keep in mind is that most people do this kind of artwork for fun, not necessarily to try and make a career out of it.   Ass-pats aren't helpful in the long run, but draining all the fun out of it is not good in the short term either.  The rules have been designed with both these things in mind.

EDIT: And no, I'm not going to try and enforce them personally on my own art thread here, that would be a conflict of interest.

@Tapewolf: The streaky not-lensflare background is centered on the middle of Bas' head: this makes the image as a whole look very static. It might look more dramatic if it were shifted to side or the other.

I did have it off-centre at one point, but I didn't like the effect.  I figured it would look better with a bit more symmetry to it.

FWIW the effect was accidental at first.  I was trying to put together an abstract background, but I tried doing a spiral with a groove width of about 2 pixels and owing to the rasterisation algorithm not being perfect, it produces an effect reminiscent of laser light.  (This was a common thing in the early 1980s on the ZX Spectrum, so I guess I liked it from a nostalgia point of view )

The the wings would have more definition and depth if the gradient on the forward membranes didn't line up with the gradient of the membranes behind them. This would give a visual cue that the forward and backward parts of the wing were on separate planes, and add some depth.

Right, I hadn't noticed that.  I don't normally use gradients, but Bas specified that the wings start almost black at the top and fade to red.  If I do Bas again, I'll try and take that into account in future.  There aren't any references for the wings done in this style so I was shooting in the dark somewhat.

[Darkmoon]

Depending on the program used, I'd recommend, at the minimum, using a lasso tool for each of the "sections" of the wing, and angling the gradients from the top to a natural "bottom" for each wing. It'll give a slightly more segmented look, which probably would seem more natural for the wings.

That said, it'll take some playing with it to get it to look right. Might also require a bit of airbrushing over the top to even it out.

[Tapewolf]

http://i89.photobucket.com/albums/k216/tapewolf/projectfuture/Nigels_Nightmare500.png

Nigel was born with batlike wings on his back.  Now in his early 20s (about 50 years prior to DMFA) he is training to become a warrior.  His deepest fear is that he'll grow up to become a Demon.

The high-res version may not be 100% safe for work owing to graphic violence.  IMHO you can't quite see what's going on in the thumbnail.

These may require logging in:

http://tapewolf.deviantart.com/art/Nigel-s-Nightmare-184949261

http://www.furaffinity.net/view/4736123

For those who can't be bothered to log in:
http://www.project-future.org/stuff/things/Nigels_Nightmare33-v2.png  (1500x900)


...I think the biggest issues here have been trying to deal with the focus for the backdrop, the reflections in the moat and trying to figure out what the blood should look like.

[WhiteFox]

At that angle, the water probably won't be reflecting much other than the wall it's in front of.

As for the backdrop, I imagine it be best to keep it unobtrusive, and let the figure have the focus.

Blood, typically, has one of three looks that I'm familiar with:
-As a pool of liquid, it can be somewhere between almost dead black and light crimson, and has strong, highlights, and a sharp edge. I'm not sure what makes blood darker or lighter, though. Oxygen content, or something. 
-As a smear or smudge, it's usually crimson or lighter, and loses a lot of it's strong highlighting and sharp edges. All the blood in the pic right now looks like smudges.
-When it dries, it turns brown as the copper in it rusts. This can take a while, though.
(Note; I don't really have a lot of practice drawing/colouring the stuff, but as a diabetic who tests his blood-glucose levels four times a day, I see it a lot)

Anywhere blood is dripping or flowing, as it would from the impaled bodies, it'd be liquidy. Splatters, as opposed to smudges, would be mostly liquidy too.

In some places it might have the look of both: the axe might have a smear on it's face, but a dripping blood down the edge. Or a smear through a rivulet coming from the bodies. Using a gradient from one shade to the other works well for spots like that.

A few patches of oxidized brown blood would imply he's been slaughtering things for a week or so, without pausing long enough to clean it off. Busy, busy, busy.

[Tapewolf]

At that angle, the water probably won't be reflecting much other than the wall it's in front of.

Yes.  The bulk of the reflections are hidden under the grass.  Water is something I still suck badly at drawing.

Blood, typically, has one of three looks that I'm familiar with:
-As a pool of liquid, it can be somewhere between almost dead black and light crimson, and has strong, highlights, and a sharp edge. I'm not sure what makes blood darker or lighter, though. Oxygen content, or something. 

Part of the problem is that it's a lot of blood freshly dumped onto some grass, particularly in the case of the unfortunate guy on the left.  I did try to add some highlights to that but I'm not greatly impressed by the way they turned out.

-As a smear or smudge, it's usually crimson or lighter, and loses a lot of it's strong highlighting and sharp edges. All the blood in the pic right now looks like smudges.

Originally it was considerably brighter.
See, for example:  http://www.furaffinity.net/view/4714992/  (WIP version)

...there was a lot of back-and-forth between me, Ren and Basilisk about what the blood should look like.  In the end we basically ended up with a compromise between artistic and realistic.

At the end of the day, none of this has actually happened anyway, hence the title of the piece... 

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

-When it dries, it turns brown as the copper in it rusts. This can take a while, though.

Technically, "rust" is specifically referring to iron turning into ferric oxides. Copper oxidizes, but does not rust. And blood has iron in it, not copper.

... but that's just being excessively pedantic. ;-]

[WhiteFox]

Technically, "rust" is specifically referring to iron turning into ferric oxides. Copper oxidizes, but does not rust. And blood has iron in it, not copper.

... but that's just being excessively pedantic. ;-]

Iron, not copper... I must be a dunce. Live and learn: thanks for mentioning it.

[GabrielsThoughts]

The background itself looks like a photograph, and the colors are impressive, but my nightmares are much more violent than Nigel's. MUCH much more violent.

[Tapewolf]

http://project-future.org/stuff/things/Shirtless%20Bass33.png (Higher res)

...colouring of a sketch commission Ren did.  (See also: Daryil the Goth Fox on DA, and also on FA here)

EDIT:  The original pencil is here:  http://www.furaffinity.net/view/4916768

Constructive criticism would be appreciated on this (and Goth Fox as well, if you are so inclined, but mostly on Niall).
In particular I'm not sure about the perspective and the background looks a little sparse, it could probably to with a table next to the 2" machine.

The highlights were done with a mouse and on an LCD monitor so they'll probably look really weird when I get home and see it properly.

[Ren Gaulen]

Rock on. \m/

But yeah, nice work on the colouring, Tape! I like how it turned out!

[Kipiru]

I know it's  a commission, so liberty was limited, but it would have looked better, I think, If the bottom half of the wings was white- the pattern of his tail.

[Tapewolf]

I know it's  a commission, so liberty was limited, but it would have looked better, I think, If the bottom half of the wings was white- the pattern of his tail.

Something more like this, you mean?
http://tapewolf.deviantart.com/art/Daryil-the-Seducer-188934893

...I came very close to doing that, but it doesn't match his current appearance in the comic.

As for the commission bit, that's Ren's work.  i.e. he was offering $10 sketches and now that I finally had a way to help pay him back for all he's done towards PF, I grabbed a few.

What I had also considered doing was joining the vertical lines at the bottom of the wings.  I had intended to experiment with that, but forgot.

[Tapewolf]

This was actually done a month ago, but I didn't think to post it here.  Comments would be welcome, though.

Basically, this is a retread of a picture I did a while back, of Sethir Clandover.  I was never very happy with the head in that one though, and the suit was far, far too shiny.  Basically it was done as a rough draft that somehow became the final version.

While I had meant to redo the highlights in a more modest fashion, I didn't really want to do that until I had the head redrawn.



Large-size versions are here:
http://tapewolf.deviantart.com/art/Sethir-Clandover-revised-197822177
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/5276423

There are also some scraps and outtakes here:
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/5276510/

The old version can be seen here for comparison:
http://tapewolf.deviantart.com/art/Sethir-Clandover-158208613