Software Battle Part II (Putting it all together)

Last time, I explained there were several tools that I use when creating work. Photoshop, Paintstormsutdio and Corel Painter 11. Note that all versions of the software that I sue are old, except for Paintstorm studio. I don’t necessarily have access to all of the latest features, but that’s ok for me. When I use the tools above, I only need certain aspects of each program.

Here is how the work flow process usually begins for me.

Ideas (Strong Ones):

It all begins with a strong idea. Most of the time I spend drawing and experimenting with ideas or themes. I am constantly drawing from life, sketching on the train, jotting down words and thoughts to save for later. This is where carrying around a sketchbook proves to be super useful. For me sketching and drawing are the basic foundations for everything. I find if the drawing is weak, then the final piece is going to not come out great either. I then go home and edit the idea and do more thumbnails to see where I want the idea to go. Thumbnail, thumbnail, thumbnail is always the key. However, sometimes I will have such a strong visual already that I only need to spend so much time in the thumbnail phase. 

Do what you think works.

Convert to Digital:

-Then I scan the drawing into my desktop Mac (I have a computer that I only* use for drawing and painting - and a few other things, but I find that the less programs that I have on it, the better the computer functions in terms of performance.)

-I bring the sketch into Photoshop first to edit the drawing before I start doing anything else.

This is especially true with the symmetry of a drawing because I tend to draw favoring the right side of an image, so my drawings look a little right side heavy (because I am right handed).Viewing the symmetry and making sure that the drawing looks that right is the first thing that I do, that way I don’t have to spend time fixing it later on.

What Style Do I want to go for?

Think about what style you want to go for. Do I want a traditional painting look? Do I want a hi-res rendered look? Do I want something in the middle? It all depends on what I want to do with it. ie. What style of painting I want to go for. I jump around from program to program depending on what I want to accomplish or use them in combination. 

Photoshop: 

Is the best for accuracy and rendering effects. This is what makes it such a powerful program. However the brush engine renderings a lot like markers on a glass table, so you wind up having to do millions strokes just to get a swatch of color down. That was my reason for moving to other programs. So…

Corel Painter: 

is the program that I am using for most of my work. I really love the way that the brush strokes render. 

[For each of the programs I try to limit my tool set to a few brushes to avoid mental overload]. 

It’s always good to experiment with different brushes and bush types, because you never know what you will get out of it. For still lifes and work that I want to capture from real life, I will use Corel painter for most work. It even has a function that lets you create color palettes from an image and this I find especially useful.  The one downside is that the brushes are not that accurate for minute details. So I wind up bringing the work into Photoshop to final render and perfect the image.

Paintstorm Studio:

This is the program that I know the least about, and am still experimenting with.  What makes this program so great are it’s drawing tools, which surprisingly Photoshop and Corel painter don’t have*. If you want to draw a straight line in either of the other two programs, you can’t naturally do so (there are tools, and such, but I like my brush calligraphy work to feel as close to the real thing as possible).  I find that in Paintsorm, it’s not a problem. Just click on the ruler tool, and go to town. You can even draw ellipses and have perspective guides for 2 and 3 point perspective drawing. It’s pretty rad.

Once I am done with the painting and I feel the I have done all that I can do in either Painter or PSS, I always bring it back to Photoshop to finish. Where Photoshop shines is that fact that is was designed for editing images and accuracy with brightness, contrast and finishing effects. I make sure to bump up the saturation and the vibrancy to make the image resonate (but not too much). 

Lastly, I deliver the final piece, call it a day, take a break and then set up another (make sure to take breaks during and between projects).  Practice is key, and with each project you can experiment with the above or ignore it and find your own methods and tools.

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Software Battle (Which Digital painting program to use?)

I would like to talk a little bit about what kinds of painting programs I use for the digital painting efforts. There are quite a few packages to use for digital painting and I have done a test of a few of them. However the three that are currently in my arsenal are as follows: Photoshop, Corel Painter and Paintstorm studio. Here are the difference between each of the three.

Photoshop: 

by far the biggest and the best program around (I think that Photoshop at this point might have been around for at least 30 years, which is kind of crazy when you think about that number vs. the time that internet has been around in existence. I rememebr first using it back in the day with Photoshop 5 or 7, and learned what a .jpg and a .gif was. Now there are so many advanced components to the program  that I am even behind the lasted version. It was mainly used a photo editing platform at first and now the possibilities and limits in terms of what you can do with it (I mainly only use it for Digital painting work). The program is super powerful, and you have the ability to accomplish any look or desgn tat you are aiming for. You even have the ability to create effects, animated gif effects, and use it for 3D work to some extent. 

What is not great about photos is the level of complexity ythat you get into when clicking options and customizing menus. You can click one set of options in a submenu to achieve one set of effectss and then hen click another set f options to archives another. The issue with this is the ability o get lost in menu navigation and options (you can save your options sing tool presets, but hat is a different topic for another day. Photoshop is the most useful of the programs, but not the easiest without a lot of time o practice using it (I am still learning it to some extent)

Corel Painter:

Corel Painter (they are up to Painter 17 at this point) is not as power as Phosotoshop , bt it also also not as expensive. The reason for this is that cereal Paineer is mainly meant to use used as a natural media imitator and that is all. You can do some effects much like in Photoshop, bt for the most part it’s really only want for creating painting and illustration using the effect of natural media to get some really nice effects. They have a number of media tools from paint brushes to pencils to crayons, to ink wash and water color. The tool selections are really endless. You also ahem glowing media effects, texture and paint effects as well as paper texture and grain options that ygive you some nice impressions of working on textured paper with your brush strokes.

I have found that the software itself can be a little buggy and not as powerful as Phosothsop.

In addition the files sizes tend to get really large (which I think is a by product of the simulated media that program tries to maintain. So if you are on a slower machine you will experience some lag as you start working and adding more and more layers and effects. Still all in all the paintbrushes included in cereal painter, render really nicely and I think that they have added 3d media effects in the latest version to make the work leap right off to the page.

Paintstorm Studio:

The program that I have the least experience using is Paintstorm studio. I happened upon it oneway via accident. The first thing that I will say about the program is that the price is significantly cheaper than either Photoshop and Paineter ($50 for Paintstorm studio vs. $400 for Corel painter or the ongoing subscription model of Photoshop which you now much pay a monthly fee.)

The price alone encouraged me to try it. At frirst it took a little getting used t, but after a few tries, I really started to take to the natural feel of the paintbrushes that Cale with the program.

What I think I really appreciate about it however are the really power drawing tools that the other two programs idon’thave. So if you are drawing things like ellipses, and straight angles, Paintstorm has a tool built directly into he interface that will help you construct those elements. Aside from that the program has a nice range of bush options to choose from (I however tended to stick to the paintbrush tool selections myself.  The downside to the program is that the way some of the brushes render can look a little standard. So the brushes will render ok, but not look as natural as say photoshop or painter even. Additionally, every once in a while the program will be a little buggy and need to be restarted, or the layer effects can tend to not render correctly. I am on an older version however so it might be worth giving the latest build a try. In the end though it’s really a pretty great program for the price, and the rendering effects can be quite nice as an easy entry level painting program.

Next time I will give a little insight into how I use the three together when creating an piece from start to finish.

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