UIR: Batgirl by walley

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Comments for UIR: Batgirl by walley (http://www.comics2film.com/DCG/DispArt.php3?f_id=18938)

[effektdmentality]

First submission? Welcome then to the DCG! First off, good stuff. I like the pose, and the background has a very 2-d, animated look I like. I also like the seamwork, although I do believe that you may have gone a bit overboard with the amount. Other things to work on....in general, the image looks a bit flat. The costume lacks the necessary range of light to dark tones in order to give the illusion of form. My suggestion: Use a value scale, I usually use a scal of 5 values (highlights, light areas, midtone, darkest/cor shadows, reflected light). make sure theres a definite and consistent jump between values, and then figure out where each are of your picture you would use a certain value. As for your art, your lighter areas seem fine; just push your darks, and your art will be even better. Other than that, keep up the good work!

[walley]

Thanks for the tips! I have been studying the tutorials and I am currently reading one that details exactly what you describe. I have a few more ready for posting that are somewhat better. I also have quite a few older ones that I want to rework with these new methods. Can you suggest any other resources that specifically deal with this kind of photomanipping?

[effektdmentality]

most of what i learned came from actual art classes i took in high school, i.e my art teacher taught me all i know about values, shadow/light tones, etc. He also taught me all I know on photoshop; in other words, the only tutorials i know of are found in the dcg art school. however, I do believe there was a hint/tips thread in the dcg gab section of the forum, i remeber it having a lot of links to tutorials on the web. you may find something there, hopefully that'll help. -arjay

[B]

Welcome to the DCG, Walley. I'm not going to go into a detailed UIR, cause I think effektd's already covered the main point I'd have made, that the lack of shading makes the piece look very flat. (The solutions to that are, of course, the dodge and burn tools. If you don't know about them, find out!) However, a few words on the subject of tutorials...

There's tutorials all over the place; the trick is finding the ones you need.

There's good start-to-finish tutorials in the art school by Strangefish and Marcelo Gomes ("Britney X") that give two different approaches to basic costuming. Those're probably the two first tutorials you should look at here, so if you haven't done so yet, I suggest you check them out.

The only place I know of that specifically offers tutorials about comic book manips other than the DCG art school is the Distinguished Competition, Heromorph, but they're temporarily down pending a server move. When they come back (and I'm sure there'll be an announcement here when they do), you should check out their downloads section, which has some very good tutorials. I think you have to be a member to access it. (And you have to be over 18 to become a member.)

There's also loads of sites that offer various Photoshop tutorials. Just google "photoshop tutorials" and you get reams of the damn things. Some are listed in the aforementioned Hints and Tips (http://www.comics2film.com/BB2/viewtopic.php?t=2172) thread. On the subject of google, if you're looking for tutorials for a specific effect or on how to use a specific tool, you can usually google for that quite successfully too... so, if you want to do fire, for example, google "fire tutorial photoshop" and something good will probably come out of it, even if you need to look at a few so-so tuts before you find it. Or if you want to figure out how to use the paths tool (and you really should), google "paths tutorial photoshop."