Jon Neimeister
Atlanta, GA
2D Art Lead at Hi-Rez Studios
Peter N
added comment inWarmups to Improve Line Quality
1yr
Asked for help
Hey @Stan Prokopenko
Is there any chance you could do a short intro to setting up digital brushes for sketching?
General opinions are mixed on what kind of brush beginners should use when learning digital art and I'm having a hard time finding one that feels right.
I know the brush itself doesn't matter in the big picture, but I am just a bit afraid of getting bad habits from using the wrong one.
A few tips on things like what should be pressure controlled, what size/opacity should a brush be, etc., would help a lot.
I randomly realized just now, that even though we got a great introduction to traditional tools, you didn't talk about digital ones much.
1yr
Hey, Peter!
IMO, it does and it doesn't matter. "What brush do you use?" is almost a meme at this point, but brushes do make a difference- and I think it mainly comes down to experimentation and feeling. Like some artists prefer charcoal pencils, others prefer charcoal sticks, neither is better but one may just feel better for you and you'll get more out of it.
Generally speaking, you won't develop bad habits from using the wrong brush. Bad habits just come from process, cutting corners, using shortcuts instead of learning fundamentals, etc.
I think focusing on specifics like what brush, what size/opacity, etc. isn't super important. What's more helpful is to set a goal and experiment with brushes to get there. Like if you want to get better at more painterly styles, do some painting studies and try out some textural brushes to see what you can do. If you want to get better at hyper rendered splash art style, you can try a study with just hard/soft round brushes and see if you can nail that hyper-render feeling.
So my general advice would be:
- Set some goals on what kind of markmaking you're trying to achieve
- Get some free/paid brushes from artists that will help you get there, or make your own
- Try out your new brushes and organize them. Keep the ones you like, delete the ones you don't like. Having a massive, disorganized brush library is a nightmare.
- Learn your software's brush engine. Being able to make your own brushes helps a lot, and it will help you understand why some brushes work for you and others don't. And you can even edit brushes that "almost" work for you to make them perfect.
Show all replies (1)
Show 1 more replies
1yr
Hey, everyone! I hope you've all had a fantastic start to the new year and are excited to dig into the next segment of this course. I wanted to give a quick update on our plans for this year as there's been a slight change to our production schedule. I've accepted a new job on Hearthstone which is very exciting but also means I have to move across the entire country, which has been consuming every waking moment of the past month or so. As such, there will be a bit of a delay in the release of the next episodes until I can get settled into my new place and re-establish my recording setup.
We have a LOT of great content coming for the course this year that I'm super excited to share, and I want to be sure I give it 110% effort rather than squeezing it in between a million other things. I do apologize for the delay, but I can promise the next section is gonna be awesome and well worth the wait. Thank you so much for your patience, and I can't wait to continue painting with you in 2023! <3
Show all replies (4)
1yr
Can I use cap instead of Photoshop for this
Asked for help
I had some fun but at some point but I just hate painting backgrounds, man.
Well, to be more precise, I feel so clueless as to how to make a "nice" background (and/or props) that I get demoralised to the extent that eventually I felt like I was "rolling through punches" to move forward and "finish" the piece.
I don't want to "not do it" because I know that I want my finished artwork to have (even simple) clean backgrounds, but I clearly feel like I lack some knowledge or something.
Anyways 'nuff whining (for now)
Thanks for the lesson 🙂
1yr
Hey Tsotne! Thanks for keeping up with all the assignments, it's been great following your work. :D
Don't worry, it will get easier! The most likely culprit is that you're simply more experienced with figures than backgrounds, so you're hitting a bit of a wall where you know you can paint "better" than this, but it's not coming together the way you want for the background which can be frustrating. As with everything: practice, study, and reference is the key! Additionally, backgrounds are very reliant on perspective so investing some time into learning that can help a lot.
This is also a very challenging assignment, we've been working almost entirely with reference up to this point, but if you invented the background from imagination that's a whole new problem to tackle. Did you have reference for this background or was it purely invented?
I'll get deeper into this on the critique video, but for now I hope this helps. Keep it up, you're doing all the right things! :)
Show all replies (1)
Holy crap I am in awe!!
I've been wondering forever how illustrators make those painting look so "professional" and nice, and these are like the golden nuggets of knowledge explained in a nice and clear way.
I'm getting excited, Imma try all these things as soon as I can.
Thanks Jon! :D
2yr
Hi,
Just a question, as I am on the fences for purchasing this course. But just wanted to ask that if this course is good for beginners? I am a complete beginner in both drawing and painting but want to get into digital illustration.
2yr
Hey, Shivayan! This course is definitely geared towards beginner and intermediate artists. More advanced artists can still get value from some on the in-depth Photoshop knowledge and processes, but overall the course is designed so that even if you've never picked up Photoshop before you'll have a solid foundation by the end of the course.
The one caveat is that the course is exclusively focused on painting, which does rely heavily on drawing. It's never too soon to start learning painting, but the stronger your drawing skills are the easier it will be to execute the assignments. I think Proko's Figure Drawing course is a great place to start if you're brand new to art, but if you've been drawing / painting for a while and just want to level up this course is made for you!
In regards to the rest of the course content, we have lots more coming up. "35+ lessons" was a baseline in our initial planning, but the course has been expanding while we've developed it and the "halfway" mark is still a ways off. Once we're through this Intro to Photoshop, the rest of the course will be exclusively painting focused and will be notably longer than the Photoshop section. :)
Show all replies (1)
Show 1 more replies
Proko added a new course
2yr
2yr
At 4:08 - 4:09 in the video, how was the toning done? I'm seeing something to do with the gradient....
Jon Neimeister added a new lesson
2yr
2yr
How do you use and organize your layers throughout your process?
Whenever going through the painting process myself I have moments of confusion of whether or not I should be blending in one layer, or should be keeping my tones separated. In addition, I am unsure whether or not I should be incorporating my line work within the same layer as the paint over or if I should paint over on top of the lines on a separate layer. I understand that I do not have to follow a strict layer process, but it would be helpful for future paintings.
Is it possible to show snapshots of your layers in future videos?
2yr
We'll be talking a lot about layers in a lesson coming very shortly, followed by a full demo on using them from start to finish on a painting. For these initial exercises I'd keep it simple and use as few layers as necessary; for these my structure was basically Background (block-in), Drawing, Painting.
If you're comfortable adding more and want to try feel free to test it with these exercises, and we'll be showing more and more layer techniques as the course progresses. :)
2yr
How much use are you making of multiple Photoshop layers in this demo? Is it all on a single layer?
Is there a skill level you suggest we be at? I've found it difficult to follow along as I've not dont the proko figure drawing course and I'm not familiar with blending and values, especially with the digital tools.
2yr
The figure drawing course is a great place to start, as good painting relies heavily on good drawing. The stronger your drawing skills, the easier it will be to follow along with the painting course.
That said, the first part of this course is just to go over general principles and get some practice using your tools. We'll discuss values, theory, and process in greater depth in Parts 2 and 3!
2yr
Looks nice, could be useful for a lot of soft-edged things!
Are you drawing with black or a mid-gray here? You'll want to be sure you can get a full opacity stroke out of the brush in most situations, so if you had black selected and this brush is painting 50% opacity gray you may want to fiddle with the settings.
Show all replies (1)
2yr
Definitely looking into taking your course here, question for you though. I'm shopping around for a desktop computer currently, I've done the math and know what I'd be spending for a desktop. But, I'm currently taking another digital painting class and I'm getting by on my Surface Pro and I'm just now learning how to use Procreate. So with that being said, does this course require a lot of horsepower to get the assignments completed, could I just kinda get moving and then keep going after I've purchased my new computer?
2yr
Most of the course will be about theory and process, you can get full value out of the course with a Surface Pro and Procreate.
In (some) professional contexts, you'll want a computer with decent specs as you'll be working on high resolution images with lots of layers, and the faster your computer is the more you can utilize digital tools without things getting laggy. For example, the images I do for work are 8000px wide and often end up being a gigabyte in file size; not everyone needs to work this large and complicated but it's fairly common.
Show 1 more replies
@Jon Neimeister I have a question, for future assignmenst do we have to use your brush pack? I'm currently using Krita and I can't seem to import photoshop brushes, it would just let me have the same brush tip shape but that's it, the other settings would not be the same as the original. I'm a beginner at digital painting and painting in general, should I be worried about this or should I buy a more premium software like Clip Studio Paint? Or maybe I shouldn't be worry about this for now and just focus on the fundamental painting skills and do future assignments with just the standard brush that's available on Krita?
2yr
You don't have to use any particular brushes to get value from the course! I haven't used Krita myself but I've heard good things from other artists; as long as you can control opacity by pen pressure and get a nice variety of textures you'll have more than enough to follow along with the lessons of the course and learn the theories it teaches.
If you're comfortable with Krita, I'd recommend using it until you feel it starts hindering you (which may never happen!). If you do find that Krita isn't enough, CSP is very affordable and regularly goes on sale. Either way, you don't need the fanciest software to make great digital art: creativity and solid fundamentals are all that matters.
Jon I have a question for you about the lesson 4: which brush do you use it on the exercise?
2yr
Hey, it is a lovely course. I am trying to do the assignment but having a really difficult time to figure out the suitable brushes, could you give me some clues of your bushes used in the course? That may save a lot of time.
2yr
You can use any brush you like, and this is a good opportunity to experiment with some different brushes to find ones that you enjoy using.
For this lesson I actually used the soft texture brush I made in the previous lesson, and I'll be showing different brushes for each of the assignment demos that are coming soon! :)
Show all replies (1)
2yr
Hey, I love the course so far, If it's possible I would love to see full commentary on the blending of colors/grayscale on the picture itself, because on the timelapse it looks different from the example you gave. So if you could please have full commentary like "I take the darker value from here and using light pressure on the this part...." that would super helpful.
2yr
We plan to release some real-time demos that will show the process, and I may be able to sneak in a mini-lesson about blending as well. The process is the same as describes in the earlier video though:
1. Make sure you're using a brush with opacity controlled by pen pressure
2. Eyedrop one of the colors you want to blend
3. Lightly paint over the tone you want to blend it with
4. Eyedrop the new tone and repeat the process until smooth.
It takes a bit of practice, but it won't take you long to get comfortable with the technique!
2yr
Will there be a full version of that painting process? Timelapses aren't as useful for newer artists(not to me at least), even with the voice-over.
2yr
This has scalated pretty fast. :) Anyway, it there any dealine for the submissions?
2yr
We definitely hopped right in to the painting process but don't worry! We'll be discussing a LOT of theory and fundamentals in the second part of the course. For now just try to rely on your reference and use careful observation to capture the right shapes, values, and edges in your painting.
There's not a hard deadline, and I'll post feedback on as many assignments as I can, but I'd recommend trying to do each assignment within a week or two. From here on out almost every lesson will have an assignment, so finishing this lesson's assignment around when the next lesson releases will allow you to follow along over the whole course and potentially be included in the critique videos later on.
Show all replies (1)