Cuthalion
2014-02-24, 06:48 PM
We're... losing our hold in the playground. The great IRL is attacking our old artists, and very few are stepping up to fill the gap. We figured we'd combine our skills to make the best tutorial we can which will help other people learn to draw in OOTS-style quickly and easily.
I'll edit in steps if people want to put them up with illustrated points.
I'm thinking first an outline of basic parts and then elaborations on said parts. For example, if we can get different people to say how they do hair, it'll be more helpful.
To start with, before the rest, if you want to get into this, I'd recommend Trazoi's Guide (http://www.trazoi.net/tutorials/inkscape/oots/). It handles a lot of the basic tools in Inkscape.
Head
Face
Line Thickness
Hair
Male Body
Female Body
Pants
Arms
Legs
Clothing
Shoes
Magic
Weapons
The order of that can be changed if necessary.
On line thickness: Some people have different thicknesses for parts of the body. They all work. :smalltongue: I just do whatever looks good because my base avatars are never the same size. All lines are usually the same.
So yeah. I'm confident in us, and any help at all would be appreciated. Thank you. :smallsmile:
ON DRAWING FIRE
http://i581.photobucket.com/albums/ss257/araveugnitsuga/Tutorial.png
http://i.imgur.com/8D5TXaZ.png
MOTION
When you run you tend to lean forward; legs and arms bend rather hard while you are running and depending on the speed any loose parts will start to pull back (hair and clothing and... anything on you pretty much).
A more graphical example:
To the right is your character; compare it to the left where there is leaning forward and more violent arms and leg bending.
http://i1230.photobucket.com/albums/ee492/araveugnitsuga1/Decorated_images/movementfw_zps24afc7c2.png
Another way to suggest movement is with a number of visual effects associated with it like blurring.
Using multiple states with lowering opacity (which you used) simulates the effect of phantom image of things going really fast (like hummingbird wings). But for this you need to change each state because the character is not moving as a whole body but as sum of parts, and in running this parts do not move perfectly parallel across a line but bend.
Like:
http://i1230.photobucket.com/albums/ee492/araveugnitsuga1/Decorated_images/Movement2fw_zps37ee2c25.png
Another option is through blurring, in your case you used gaussian, which is mainly related with focus (things out of focus will look similar to being applied Gaussian Blur); a better alternative for suggesting movement is the aptly named Motion Blur.
Like:
http://i1230.photobucket.com/albums/ee492/araveugnitsuga1/Decorated_images/Movement3fw_zps000a759c.png
PRE-DRAWING
It may be your monitor being analog or digital (analog looks clearer and colours are easier to distinguish, digital is a lot cleaner in many senses of vision, mainly anti-aliasing is more noticeable.).
Drawing real not-cosplaying people in OoTS Style normally doesn't yield spectacular results, since its based mainly in clothing and hair, both of which the standard human does not vary much from some basics (excluding certain groups of individuals and madmen/women). Hair also is hard to spruce up unless you go to anime style for a crutch and the OoTSize it.
Previously made characters are normally the test, if it looks better you've improved. I dropped pastel outlines after running Ribonis through it once.
Finally, what Tsofu said mainly, sketching is useful if you decide for it to have a purpose, it can be A->B, where you sketch to get better digital versions, or B->A where you sketch to gain practice in manual crafts, and do it before to see how digitally you would have liked it to come out. Or A<->B, were both skills augment simultaneously one thanks to the other, though it can require certain theoretical investments of time into drawing theory.
I sketch in animeish style to get better at it, and then I make a OoTS version of it by the side. Anime style forces me to abstract certain things and expressions, as well as give me a full view of posture and column flow, or gives me freedom to twist posture and make hair dynamic. Then OoTS forces me to further abstract elements and reduce it to the bare basics (which sometimes even then is too much detail). Then I scan.
Obviously I only do this for a certain number of avatars, and then its mainly in the interest of repositioning or studying posture. Otherwise it's reference simplification on screen, or template element adding (this last solution is now lost to me for good).
http://i581.photobucket.com/albums/ss257/araveugnitsuga/1-1.png
http://i581.photobucket.com/albums/ss257/araveugnitsuga/Untitled-2-1.png
http://i581.photobucket.com/albums/ss257/araveugnitsuga/Untitled-3-1.png
http://i581.photobucket.com/albums/ss257/araveugnitsuga/Untitled-4-1.png
http://i581.photobucket.com/albums/ss257/araveugnitsuga/Untitled-5-1.png
http://i581.photobucket.com/albums/ss257/araveugnitsuga/TeutonicKnightArtOverview.png
REFINING
If you aren't satisfied with your end results, analyse what's behind them (or go to the Rate an Avatar at the SMBG and hope someone else notices). The main factors are Flow, Dynamism, Technique and Colouring.
Flow is how lines move around your image, how a cape trails off and twists in the air, and how straight lines cut flow. Dresden Codak blog had a great blog post about how flow works and can be used. Clothing can be made to flow, to add a sense of movement to it, or forced straight to clash with some flowing element like the hair.
Dynamism is related to posture and action. Where is it looking and what is it doing, but there are additional elements. Posture is mainly the nearest you'll get to anatomy in OoTS art, torso twisting, shoulder lowering, crouching, jumping. While it is severely simplified, there still is a spinal chord in your drawing, from where appendages will come off (arms, legs and head) and from which clothing will bend around. Action is also rather important, a still character looking to the front is great if you want to study the pieces, but not as a final avatar. 3/4 simulates some movement by itself, but it isn't enough by itself most of the times. Adding dynamism is changing elements away from standing still looking to the front, to fully explain it would take a whole book, but looking at still shots from manga, anime and action movies and analysing how things are bending, moving, and looking might help to simulate dynamism on a still image.
Technique is related to software, hardware and style.
Software is the least obvious one, but certain programs will nudge you toward certain tools. Paint has less tools than most programs, so some obvious things like layering for most are not there, forcing a different approach. Inkscape is full vector, it has certain presets, for once, lines are always formed in the middle of the stroke, softening lines is hard, and using tools apart from the basic ones is risky due to crashes. Fireworks auto-softens lines, and due to being raster/vector, when you zoom, you see vectors degenerate, despite this not happening if you scale them up, meaning you either work bigger, or zooming in is misleading, also, lines auto-soften, and path extrusion is a lot more specialized and command based than a simple click.
Hardware is one of the most noticeable ones in other styles and programs, but it mainly boils down to tablet or mouse, vectors favours the last, if you do backgrounds then things get weird.
Style, apart from it being OoTS, there are certain unofficial subschools, that mainly go from Cartoony to Realistic, and have internal subdivisions in terms of what is rendered and what implied (shading or no shading, detailed clothes or shapes, hair strands or hair mass, head to body proportions, body proportions themselves...).
Finally Colouring, it mainly goes with colour theory or an unnoticed understanding of it, going on and on about colour would take a rather long while, and this post is already massive, but it mainly is about saturation preferences and combinations of hue and contrast, and vibrancy, and on and on.
http://i1230.photobucket.com/albums/ee492/araveugnitsuga1/Decorated_images/RedLining.png
MAGIC EFFECTS
http://wildwestscifi.net/Misc/OotS/OotS_Magic.png
I'll edit in steps if people want to put them up with illustrated points.
I'm thinking first an outline of basic parts and then elaborations on said parts. For example, if we can get different people to say how they do hair, it'll be more helpful.
To start with, before the rest, if you want to get into this, I'd recommend Trazoi's Guide (http://www.trazoi.net/tutorials/inkscape/oots/). It handles a lot of the basic tools in Inkscape.
Head
Face
Line Thickness
Hair
Male Body
Female Body
Pants
Arms
Legs
Clothing
Shoes
Magic
Weapons
The order of that can be changed if necessary.
On line thickness: Some people have different thicknesses for parts of the body. They all work. :smalltongue: I just do whatever looks good because my base avatars are never the same size. All lines are usually the same.
So yeah. I'm confident in us, and any help at all would be appreciated. Thank you. :smallsmile:
ON DRAWING FIRE
http://i581.photobucket.com/albums/ss257/araveugnitsuga/Tutorial.png
http://i.imgur.com/8D5TXaZ.png
MOTION
When you run you tend to lean forward; legs and arms bend rather hard while you are running and depending on the speed any loose parts will start to pull back (hair and clothing and... anything on you pretty much).
A more graphical example:
To the right is your character; compare it to the left where there is leaning forward and more violent arms and leg bending.
http://i1230.photobucket.com/albums/ee492/araveugnitsuga1/Decorated_images/movementfw_zps24afc7c2.png
Another way to suggest movement is with a number of visual effects associated with it like blurring.
Using multiple states with lowering opacity (which you used) simulates the effect of phantom image of things going really fast (like hummingbird wings). But for this you need to change each state because the character is not moving as a whole body but as sum of parts, and in running this parts do not move perfectly parallel across a line but bend.
Like:
http://i1230.photobucket.com/albums/ee492/araveugnitsuga1/Decorated_images/Movement2fw_zps37ee2c25.png
Another option is through blurring, in your case you used gaussian, which is mainly related with focus (things out of focus will look similar to being applied Gaussian Blur); a better alternative for suggesting movement is the aptly named Motion Blur.
Like:
http://i1230.photobucket.com/albums/ee492/araveugnitsuga1/Decorated_images/Movement3fw_zps000a759c.png
PRE-DRAWING
It may be your monitor being analog or digital (analog looks clearer and colours are easier to distinguish, digital is a lot cleaner in many senses of vision, mainly anti-aliasing is more noticeable.).
Drawing real not-cosplaying people in OoTS Style normally doesn't yield spectacular results, since its based mainly in clothing and hair, both of which the standard human does not vary much from some basics (excluding certain groups of individuals and madmen/women). Hair also is hard to spruce up unless you go to anime style for a crutch and the OoTSize it.
Previously made characters are normally the test, if it looks better you've improved. I dropped pastel outlines after running Ribonis through it once.
Finally, what Tsofu said mainly, sketching is useful if you decide for it to have a purpose, it can be A->B, where you sketch to get better digital versions, or B->A where you sketch to gain practice in manual crafts, and do it before to see how digitally you would have liked it to come out. Or A<->B, were both skills augment simultaneously one thanks to the other, though it can require certain theoretical investments of time into drawing theory.
I sketch in animeish style to get better at it, and then I make a OoTS version of it by the side. Anime style forces me to abstract certain things and expressions, as well as give me a full view of posture and column flow, or gives me freedom to twist posture and make hair dynamic. Then OoTS forces me to further abstract elements and reduce it to the bare basics (which sometimes even then is too much detail). Then I scan.
Obviously I only do this for a certain number of avatars, and then its mainly in the interest of repositioning or studying posture. Otherwise it's reference simplification on screen, or template element adding (this last solution is now lost to me for good).
http://i581.photobucket.com/albums/ss257/araveugnitsuga/1-1.png
http://i581.photobucket.com/albums/ss257/araveugnitsuga/Untitled-2-1.png
http://i581.photobucket.com/albums/ss257/araveugnitsuga/Untitled-3-1.png
http://i581.photobucket.com/albums/ss257/araveugnitsuga/Untitled-4-1.png
http://i581.photobucket.com/albums/ss257/araveugnitsuga/Untitled-5-1.png
http://i581.photobucket.com/albums/ss257/araveugnitsuga/TeutonicKnightArtOverview.png
REFINING
If you aren't satisfied with your end results, analyse what's behind them (or go to the Rate an Avatar at the SMBG and hope someone else notices). The main factors are Flow, Dynamism, Technique and Colouring.
Flow is how lines move around your image, how a cape trails off and twists in the air, and how straight lines cut flow. Dresden Codak blog had a great blog post about how flow works and can be used. Clothing can be made to flow, to add a sense of movement to it, or forced straight to clash with some flowing element like the hair.
Dynamism is related to posture and action. Where is it looking and what is it doing, but there are additional elements. Posture is mainly the nearest you'll get to anatomy in OoTS art, torso twisting, shoulder lowering, crouching, jumping. While it is severely simplified, there still is a spinal chord in your drawing, from where appendages will come off (arms, legs and head) and from which clothing will bend around. Action is also rather important, a still character looking to the front is great if you want to study the pieces, but not as a final avatar. 3/4 simulates some movement by itself, but it isn't enough by itself most of the times. Adding dynamism is changing elements away from standing still looking to the front, to fully explain it would take a whole book, but looking at still shots from manga, anime and action movies and analysing how things are bending, moving, and looking might help to simulate dynamism on a still image.
Technique is related to software, hardware and style.
Software is the least obvious one, but certain programs will nudge you toward certain tools. Paint has less tools than most programs, so some obvious things like layering for most are not there, forcing a different approach. Inkscape is full vector, it has certain presets, for once, lines are always formed in the middle of the stroke, softening lines is hard, and using tools apart from the basic ones is risky due to crashes. Fireworks auto-softens lines, and due to being raster/vector, when you zoom, you see vectors degenerate, despite this not happening if you scale them up, meaning you either work bigger, or zooming in is misleading, also, lines auto-soften, and path extrusion is a lot more specialized and command based than a simple click.
Hardware is one of the most noticeable ones in other styles and programs, but it mainly boils down to tablet or mouse, vectors favours the last, if you do backgrounds then things get weird.
Style, apart from it being OoTS, there are certain unofficial subschools, that mainly go from Cartoony to Realistic, and have internal subdivisions in terms of what is rendered and what implied (shading or no shading, detailed clothes or shapes, hair strands or hair mass, head to body proportions, body proportions themselves...).
Finally Colouring, it mainly goes with colour theory or an unnoticed understanding of it, going on and on about colour would take a rather long while, and this post is already massive, but it mainly is about saturation preferences and combinations of hue and contrast, and vibrancy, and on and on.
http://i1230.photobucket.com/albums/ee492/araveugnitsuga1/Decorated_images/RedLining.png
MAGIC EFFECTS
http://wildwestscifi.net/Misc/OotS/OotS_Magic.png