Mr.Bobert

New things added.

Have you ever wanted to create your very own lineart of a character and color it in, but lack the ability to wield a tablet with any degree of efficiency? (P.S., please add tablet touch sensitivity support back to PDN, kthxbai) Well, now you can do just that, all without having to attend an art school or spend years teaching yourself how to draw like a pro! Allow me to demonstrate. Whatever you do... don't ask about this one. I did not draw any of those fine linearts you see before you—But I did create them. How is that possible, you ask? All in due time, my friend... All in due time. Now, to start this tutorial. I warn you, it's going to be quite different from other tutorials you've followed. I'm going to bounce all over the place and might not make sense at all times. You've been warned. ... But first, let's turn it into a game! That's right, a game. We'll mix it up. I'd like you to click on the following link. This is the following link. 'What's this,' you ask? This is a random character description generator I like to use. It will randomly jumble a bunch of different features together into one (usually) cohesive physical description of your character. You see that one first description it came up with already? Don't click the generate button again— You're stuck with whatever you got. You now have to use that description. This is what makes it a game, what makes it fun. You must base your character upon it. And don't lose it, either. Refreshing or closing the page etetera will reset it, so copy and paste it into notepad or something. Here's mine: I think I got DA:O's Morrigan's cousin or something. Now, it's time to actually create this character you have. For that, I have another link: Another link. Thiiiiisss little doohickey is called the 'Hero Machine.' This v2.5, and there is a three... But it's more complex and lets you do lighting and stuff like that in itself, which would defeat the purpose of doing this for Paint.NET, no? Alright, it's pretty self-explanatory. It's a flash applet that works with layers, and you build your character by plopping on stuff, basically. Here's a little quick run-through of the more important functions. Spoiler tags because I'm sick of resizing things. 1. The Load/Save functions. Useful if you plan on editing the design later. And trust me, even if you don't plan on it, you probably will find something you don't like and want to go back and modify. It's a good idea to keep this right next to your generated description in notepad. 2. This dropdown menu is your friend, if you couldn't figure that one out on your own. You can't see it in the screenshot, but the second one is also your friend, perhaps the more quiet one that has lots of skills and talents that you didn't even know of. Use it, a lot. 3. These are your layer controls. Fairly simple, but I tend to forget I have them from time to time, and things get weird. 4. A useful feature, match pairs will put anything that you do on the right onto the left. Mostly only works with shoes/gloves/weapons etc. Also, I have no idea what 'Lock Current' does, as it appears to do nothing! 5. We'll get to that in a bit. Alright, now, I'll leave you to it. I won't really tell you how to make your own character in this, because... Well, I can't. It's all self-explanatory, like I said. So I didn't actually make the eyes smokey, but, well, it just didn't look quite as cool... I put smoke behind her, instead, to make up for it. And I usually abhor humanoid creatures with bird wings as well as ordinary arms, but for some reason, this worked out pretty well in my mind. She looks like a BAMF. Wouldn't want to meet her in a dark alley. You can, obviously, do whatever you want. I think it was most important in this case that I got the 'bizarre' and 'mysterious raven' parts down. Also, as a note, you can't always really do anything about the sizes the generator gives you, unless you want to go with a dwarf body pose or the muscular-fat bodybuilder poses. I usually don't, personally. Also, one more minor note: You may wish to only use one color for the skin, as the default 'shading' can make custom shading later on down the road look weird. I actually went back and changed it myself after taking these screenshots. Right, so now that you have your character designed, you may be wondering how to get it into Paint.NET. Oddly enough, there's no built-in save-as-an-image system—They suggest print screen and pasting. But that makes it quite small, not nearly as large as its full resolution is. So I suggest a different route. Remember the #5 I said we'd get back to later? Yes, the print button. Click that. Now, I don't know if all computers have the Microsoft .xps document writer built-in by default. If you do not have this: ...Then find out how to get it. There's an official microsoft download of it, I'm sure. There are various properties you can mess with, but I don't know if they'll matter any. Just go ahead and 'print' with the .xps document writer, it will ask you where to save the .xps file. Anywhere you can remember will do. Now that you have your .xps file of your character, you need to open it in Paint.NET. Unfortunately, Paint.NET cannot open .xps files. So you must convert it over to a compatible format in whatever way you think is best. Personally, I suggest the following link. The following link. Be sure to change the Quality settings from 'Pretty good' to 'Best quality.' It's a very simple-to-use converter, but if you have a better alternative, do share it with the class. Now, it is a .png file! Yay, Paint.NET likes .png files. Open it up, and you can get to work. Since every peice will be individually unique, I can't really create a full tutorial on how to color lineart, unfortunately. However, what I can give you are these few tips that I've figured out in my experimentificating. 1: Lighting/Shading. Lighting is, in my opinion, the most important part of the details, and believe it or not, it's not as hard as you might first think. Blurred white on a layer set to overlay makes for great strong light. Stick it around the edges that you feel the light is coming most from. If the light is on the left, well, put more light on the left. Black on a multiply layer with a lowered opacity works great for shadows and shading. Try to make it the exact opposite of the lighting, since it's, well, shading. Also, I would reccommend covering the entire thing in a very, very low-opacity layer of black before anything, so that the lighting can seem like it's got more of its own effect to it. 2: Textures, textures, textures. Textures add a lot of realism to your character as well, especially if you have anything wooden, like a bow. Cloth-like materials can be added to clothing with low-opacities as well. I usually use Overlay on texture layers, set to varying levels of opacity. I might also mess with the color (usually just go with black and white so as not to mess up the natural colors) and change the brightness/contrast so it's higher or darker depending on what I want. The choices are yours. 3: Perhaps this should have been the first one, but here's a pretty easy way to remove the white background if it's too complex to use the magic wand tool (I just do it this way anyways, regardless): —3.1: Use Grim Color Reaper or a similar plugin to remove the white background. —3.2: Select around your character and invert the selection with Ctrl+I —3.3: On a new layer underneath the character, fill behind the character with white. —3.4: Merge the character onto the white background layer. —3.5: Apply your favorite anti-aliasing plugin as needed. 4: Touchups. You will find that the Hero Machine may leave odd little white aliased lines in the most random of places, but generally around edges. These may need some precise drawing-over with the paintbrush tool. Using the same color you want to fix with a 'darken' layer has helped me quite a bit. 5: Layers, layers, layers. I always apply a plethora of layers to my images, with all of the above methods being seperated into many, many layers. The right shoulder's lighting will probably not be on the same as the right shoe's lighting, for example. I don't do it all at once. By the time my character's done, my computer will be lagging like a brazillian playing on an eastern-european server, with anywhere from 50-70 layers. Ouch. But trust me, it's worth it in the end (so long as your computer can handle it. Or attempt to, anyways) Also, on that note: Label your layers. I never do, and I always wind up checking and unchecking and checking and unchecking each individual layer five times each just to try to figure out what it is. Wellp, here's my final product: Spooky, eh? I decided to go with really dark shading. So anyways, don't worry if yours doesn't look very good on the first try, because overall, the two most important parts of this is practice and patience. My first ones were simple, as anything you start out with, and gradually became better. So go on, practice! Make lots and lots. I have it on good authority that if you all, the community, recieve this well, this might be made into a contest type. And of course, if anything at all was confusing, I missed something or if you have a question, post it! I'll try to respond as best I can. Happy PDNing.

Thank y'kindly, folks. More additions added.

One minor addition, more to come soon.

Hmmm... This is a hard one. I really love the 3D, firey, almost sort of Mass Effect-type thing you have going there, Drewdale. I also love the simplistic, Metro-ish style AGJM's has, and that's a very, very cool font. But I think it would look better on a different sized canvas, like Sasha said. So my vote goes to Drew. Drewdale - 3 (Winner) AGJM - 1 Now, I'll enter with this: (100% PDN) I'd thought about copying the whole clicky version from my actual sig but... Nah... Would a four-part sig with a url for each part even be enterable, anyways? Lawl

Thanks a bunch, guys, means a lot to me And yeah, Helen, I did, I'm just going to continue throwing more stuff in as I find it on my hard drive(s) and photobucket account, lawl. I'll mark it all with those 'Addition' tag thingies.

Some cool things happen when I mess around, and I figure I might as well share some of them with the rest of the class. I'll throw some more stuff in from time to time (so it'll start of small--for now), and you'll notice that they generally all follow the same theme: Sci-Fi and Space. You can click 'em all to enlarge, too. Wellp, so, here they are, in no particular order: EDIT: Links fixed. (Original Image here) Whipped this up in a little while too much more time than it should have taken, the engines were particularily troublesome, but I finally wound up with something satisfying. Made using the same general technique here, but with a whole lot of modifications. Again, using the same basic technique above, but I just threw in some random Sci-Fi-looking holgraphic HUD-type things, and added a sort of vortex effect. Quite satisfied with it. (Original Image Here) Had quite a bit of fun with this edit, very satisfied with how it came out. The 'flashlight/eye' glow in particular. This one's kind of unfinished, but I still rather like it. Made with the same basic technique as some galaxy tutorial somewhere here on the forums, too lazy to go find the link. A dual-monitor wallpaper with, obviously, lightsabers. The galaxy on the right was taken from somewhere in the Hubble gallery. Addition 1 Old sig, and new sig--Though this version doesn't have my fancy-shmancy links in it. Addition 2 An icey planet exploding with volcanic activity. I really love the center of the thing, it's just the weird edges in some areas that don't look firey, and just look kind of... Desaturated, or something. Maybe I'll get around to fixing it someday. An... Eye. I can't remember where I found the original photo, but I'm pretty sure I just searched Google images for 'Blue eye'. I made it look cybernetic, quite satisfied with how it turned out. Addition 3 WhiteSpace Did this as an assignment in my Photoshop class, had to make a believable magazine cover. It could be whatever you wanted it to be--So, of course, I made it Star Wars. And even though it was Photoshop class, 95% of this is all Paint.NET, rofl. The only part that was really made in Photoshop was the 'EMPIRE' text. But what she doesn't know won't hurt her (Or my A+) I had always thought lineart would be extremely hard to color in PDN (especially with a mouse) but I finally gave it a shot--and it was rather easy, actually. And a ton of fun. I have more around here somewhere, it's just on one of my (several) lost flash drives... Also, [nerd] the lightsaber is indeed longer than it should normally be, but it's supposed to be a 'dual-phase' lightsaber, making it nearly twice the length of an ordinary one. [/nerd] Original lineart here. Addition 4 After too long of not really making anything (due to my computer's insides melting and becoming progressively slower) I've fired up PDN on a brand new rig. Not much to show yet, but here's what I've been told is one of my best pieces yet. All 100% PDN as usual, aside from the original ship itself. If you recognize the silhouette, you're awesome. If you don't, this might refresh your memory. It's amazing (to me, anyways) how such a low-poly/low-res model can look great when it's that small and not the focal point of the picture. Addition 5 A friend asked me if I did snow/ice worlds. I said they were easy to do and pretty boring, but I got to work on one anyways. As it turned out... It was, indeed, very boring. So I was going to add lava to it, make it a newer, better version of my lava-explody-ice world, but it somehow wound up getting inverted into cyan. From then on, it was crystal. Made glowy, crystal rings of the same design. Don't think it's quite as 'advanced' a design as my previous one, but it has a certain allure to it. So the next couple are based on a little hobby I've picked up. With a combination of this and this, I create some character lineart. Then I get it into Paint.NET. The first one's random character generation was this: Into the Hero Creator I went, and created this: Now, that's all well and good and all, but it lacks detail... Lighting/shading, texture, that sort of thing. So then, you take it into Paint.NET... Mmmm, much better now, yes? Lighting/shading, textures, a more overall realistic feel. The next one's description I have since lost, but it was basically this: 'An elegant, dark-skinned man with beige hair and a fine long beard. His style is odd and based on a color scheme of yellow and orange.' Also, cba to revert it back to its original, undetailed form, this was the first one I made. Next: ... Dear heavens. What... Did I do? I think I took the 'brilliant inventor' and made it into 'mutant mad scientist.' Uh.... Well. Moving on... Addition 5 Today, I decided I was out of practice, so I thought to myself, 'I'll make a planet to get back in practice!' So I made a planet. (Too lazy to crop properly, just click it to enlarge) So, I think this may be the best one yet, and I think I know why: The clouds. Y'know why? Because I cheated. I can't make clouds. I still have yet to find a way to make clouds that I actually like. So, these are an actual photograph from a NASA satellite that I messed around with. Still looks good. 95% PDN's still good, right? But don't worry, I made something 100%... (Again awful crop just enlarge) So... Generic names, sure, but it was fun. Note it's the same planet. And yes, 100% pdn.

Wow, a sticky! Thanks, EER, that's awesome I'll see what I can do about PDF'ing it, though I'll admit I don't know the first thing about how to even go about doing it. Never too late to learn, though. (And yes, 'tis quite an interesting Windows theme. Custom XP theme, forgot where I got it, though I believe it's called 'Concave Dark' or something like that.) And no, I haven't tried Alpha Masking it... Hmm, that just might work. To the Batcave! Drawing Board!

Yeah, the shores are in the top three of the things that I still want to improve upon. I can't seem to emulate realistic shores without it looking weird. The other two are the general shape of the planet (In comparison to, say, pr0 photoshop planets, it looks a lot smaller) and the clouds. The clouds never look perfect. But, hey, looks cool anyways, even if it's not completely photo-realistic. Gettin' there, too, I hope.

This excellent tutorial is available for free download as a PDF. Click here to open or download the PDF So, I was looking back at my old Advancedish Planet tutorial, and I realized with a start that it is two years old. Wow. It seems like only a couple months ago. Where did all that time go? Well, wherever it went, I spent it advancing, improving, and otherwise adding more realism and/or coolism to that planetsculpting technique. So, since it's become a quite a bit better, I figured I'd share it with the rest of you. I hadn't realized how much work it would be. If they did one thing, those two years made me forget how kriffing long it takes to make these tutorial things. And this one has over two hundred images, if you take into account the fact that each image has a copy of itself. And the coding--oh, man. I'm not even going to go into detail on how blasted confusing that was. But, anyways, how, exactly, did I improve it? Well, take a look for yourself. I'd say that's improved, no? This is what we'll be creating in this tutorial. Well, enough of my rambling. Onto the tutorial. If you're considering undertaking this long planetsculpting quest, I would recommend that, if you haven't already, you do the old tutorial, first. Maybe even a few times. This one will be much easier to understand if you do. Even then, it might get a little confusing at parts. And if it gets too confusing in any part--namely, if I put the wrong pictures with the wrong text, which can be really confusing-- tell me where I dun goof'd and I'll try to fix it as best I can. Alright, plugins! Required: Shape3D Recommended: (Just get them anyways, really, it'll save you a bunch of time) Random Lines Single Hue Color Filter AA's < no swearing >istant Smudge Gaussian Blur Plus (Not necessary but just better and cooler) Right, then! Let's begin. Oh, and by the way, every single image on here can be clicked to be viewed at full size. Yes. All one-hundred-and-thirteen of them. Ugh. You're welcome. This excellent tutorial is available for free download as a PDF >>

I've been experimenting with this same technique recently, I didn't know someone else had already thought of it Nice work, though I would suggest setting the lights layer to additive, you won't see those black dots on the bright side.

Very nice tutorial. I dunno why I'd never thought of using the transparency gradiant thing or making the inner glow big and the outer one really tiny. It looks really great. Anyway, here's my result: Used my own texture, and threw in some more stuff as I went along. xD The glowing dots on the planet are s'posed to look like cities.

Wow, this is great. Here's my go: There's a noticeable line through the midsections of the trees on the left, I've no idea how that got there. I'll fix it next time I use this technique (which I definitely will be xP)

I have to agree with the others. I really like the picture, yy10, but it looks like that's all it is: a cropped picture. Add a border, maybe do a bit of resizing, and some text, and that could look really good. Sfifer, it's simple, and elegant, and I love turtles. xD Sfifer: 3 yy10: 0 #winner Sfifer

I made the original version of that like two years ago, but recently remade it for better quality. I use it for everything, even converted it to an .ico to use in my quick launch xP