(click for DA version)

A study done testing Krita again. Really like the assisted perspective ruler grid, which helped me a lot with this image. Basically you pull out a perspective grid (multiple of them in fact, as many as you like), then your lines can be made to "stick" to the grid making you draw in perfect 1, 2 or 3-point perspective. Curiously this functionality is currently -not- in the perspective tool but is part of the "ruler assistant" tool. The Krita devs tell me the perspective tool is deprecated and will be merged with the ruler assistant functionality in future versions.

Also played with lots of the fun brushes for making smoke and other nifty textured lines.

[Krita v2.7-pre alpha], took a few hours. Feedback appreciated as always.
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Griatch

griatch: the lighting in this picture blew me off my feet! really beautiful work on that. the perspective ruler seems like a great tool, another reason to try krita (once i get my dual boot)!

Now this is the difference between a filter guy like me and a true artist. All I can say is an overwhelming wow Griatch.

Really imaginative and impressive image! Most difficult thing in this kind of layout is getting poses and proportions to agree with perspective.

I need something like this. I tried using Sketchup, but found it was too overpowered for what I needed.

I love the lighting in this. It reminds me a bit of the "God Machine" in Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis

Thanks for the comments!


There is little except lighting in here so glad it works out! As for Krita there is a Windows version of the older version for testing also without a dual boot setup.


Thanks, but don't underestimate yourself - GIMP filter wizardry is no less artistic than painting, it's just another technique and style. You can do lots of artistic stuff with the computer that I cannot!


I never could get a perspective grid to work well with a anatomical pose so the poses are made "freehand"; glad it seems to work out.


SketchUp is great for planning architecture in perspective (it's even faster than Blender for quick layout tests). But it is indeed nice to be able to test out things like this within the same program. I think the Krita grid is less important for aiding the line and more so for getting quick ideas for perspectives - all programs can draw straight lines, just correctly marking the vanishing points and diminishing lengths goes a long way.

I remember the comic (and the computer game) of Indiana Jones in Atlantis. I always hoped they would use that as a basis for that last Indiana Jones movie instead of that crystal skull business...
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Griatch

Fantastic work Griatch. The humanoid in the middle is particularly well done. I can't wait till Gimp developers create a perspective tool if that is ever on the cards. It's about the only tool that makes me envious of PS users.

I thought about drawing an example, but I'm lazy, so here's something from dA instead.

http://www.deviantart.com/art/Human-Perspective-1-low-and-high-views-330431621

You can get a lot of help by adding a square or bunch of lines to find out the direction of the character, like the arrow in those images. I would add a square under feet also, so I'd know where feet would be...

There are more complicated systems, but they are too much trouble with posed character.

Me: *Plays with a program I'm not used to* aww a cute little..err..Scarecrow, how nice! YAY!
Griatch: *Plays with a program not used to* paint a full scene with perfect blue lighting and effects..

Comon! xD

Needless to say I like it. xD

Thanks Erisian! GIMP is not really focusing towards painting and from-scratch creation last I checked their plans. Whereas you can do these things with GIMP, the main focus is (as far as I know) on photo-manipulation and post processing. In the same way, programs like Krita (and certainly MyPaint!) echew much of the photo-manipulation depth for more artistic from-scratch tools. Anyway - no need to be envious of PS users anymore , now you can be envious of another open-source program.

Thanks for the nice reference! I do know about the basics of anatomical perspective but this is indeed a skill one can only improve by training, training, training. Doing advanced perspective out of the blue without any reference is quite challenging, especially in any sort of action-like pose.


Hehe, thanks Moko. I like your cute things though you know, scarecrow or not.

I have drawn plenty of non-jesterly pictures before, but I do tend to try to focus on a few characters when I do character art, in order to have a comparison (this is intentional, it's good practice to make a character identifiable across different styles). Since I toy with quite a lot of different styles and techniques it's hard for me to really judge if some overall style change is taking place in my art. You are probably a better judge of that than I am, what do you think?
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Griatch

Why in the world you want to? I mean, if all pro illustrators use reference, it's not like it's cheating. It is not even restricting.

Michael Dashow did great tutorials how to study poses in 3D. If you have seen his work, you know it doesn't look like 3D at all. But the strong and correct base is there.

Photo reference is great, but finding just correct photo can be hard. Of course you can use mannequins. But if you block out human form in Blender, it makes everything easier. It can be just bunch of cylinders, no great modeling skills are needed just to get proportions right.

And anyone who thinks it is not artistic, well, go to paint live models sometime. You'll be surprised about the similarity.

Everybody who marvels the fantastic art on the best art sites should see the process. Even real oil painters nowadays can use 3D reference, there was demonstration in YouTube (the reference was projected to real canvas with video projector).

@kimppi

You are preaching to the choir friend. As you say it's a common beginner's mistake to think reference is somehow "cheating". Of course there is nothing wrong with using reference for complex poses (or for that matter any complex real-world thing). Noone can be expected to make these things from imagination every time - basing even an imaginative piece on something real is often a good start. I was just pointing out that doing it out of the blue is challenging and requires a lot of training.

... That said, doing quick sketches and anatomical studies fully from imagination has its advantages. You work differently, looser. And the extra challenge is fun in itself. Besides, once one knows free-form anatomy drawing well (I don't) it's also a lot faster for telling a story than to prepare a 3D reference, something useful for more serialized works like comics. It's definitely something I aim to become better at.
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Griatch

...aand time for me to hop out from this soapbox... *hop*



Yes, I do freeform drawing a lot too. Also all kind of experiments, which really have strange end results, like this...



(Yes, I experimented with your characters when deciding which to use in your competition...)

@kimppi

That is a really nice little jester-study!. I like her hand fiddling with the ribbon.
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Griatch

Griatch - when Krita is suitable for Windows I'll give it a whirl. It certainly looks good.

@Erisian
There are Windows installers of Krita, for the last stable version. There are links on http://www.krita.org.

It's hard to tell (for me) if my style has changed, so it's interesting for me to hear that it might. This is a rather "extreme" image though, with nearly monochromatic colour and light etc, so it's perhaps not directly representative. At any rate, thanks for the comment and glad you like it!
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Griatch

Thanks Griatch. I have a problem though. The library won't let me download anything over 10Mb. That's life!

Ouch, that's not much. Fair enough. It's easy to forget not everyone has their own broadband connection.
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Griatch

very nice
the astronauts have a retro look, they will be not out of place in a sci-fi pulp magazine of late 50 or first 60 but far to be a defect that made more curious and interesting the composition