Awestruck

[lokinet]

Just looking through the battles and the entire site on its own has me awestruck. I look at the art and can't believe how awesome most of it is. I would just like to ask, have most of you gone to college or gotten some kind of education on this stuff. I mainly ask because I am a senior in High School and feel quite "behind the class" when looking at the art. I jsut feel like I am not up to par with you guys, and I won't be.

Thanks
loki

[Jubba]

hey! Welcome to the forums. :) I personally haven't gotten any education in anything that is design/art related. I also haven't done anything the battle forum yet. Too busy with my clients work and my school work. Some people have gotten an education but some haven't. It varies from person to person. Then there are people like Edwin who are just naturally amazing at everything they do. If you want to see some great art work check out the Design & Draw forum and look for posts by vts31.

Cheers,
Jubs :cowboy:

[vts31]

Thanx JUBBA :). im not sure about other memebers but for me 99% of everything ive learned i learned on my own. A lot of reading and A LOT of practicing. As far as art goes its aactually a pretty complicated subject...you'd think it would just be about draiwng and coloring things but making something "look good" requires a lot of knowlege. d suggest drawing a lot and learning about why things look the way they do. For example, Why is it that we see a sphere as a sphere instead of a circle? When you are drawing a sphere you have to take into account the physical attributes of a real sphere and translate it into a 2d drawing. You have to understand how lightsources will create shadows on the sphere, Where the highlights will be and how the shadow will spread on the surface the sphere lies on. EXAMPLE:

http://www.edwinrosero.com/spherecircle.JPG
-Sorry i Kinda drew this fast


as you can see the amount of complexity of a sphere is a huge leap from that of a circle. And things become even more complicated when you reach more complex objects like for example the Human Figure. My best advice is start from the begining, get a good foundation and work your way up. Id recommend taking some drawing courses in College,( a community should do fine). The first class you take will be pretty lame but after that class id suggest you take: Perspective drawing, FIgure drawing, Design Theory and a Painting Class.
There is much more to talk about thats it for now. Happy Drawing.

[Soul]

Wow Edwin, thats really good for 'kinda drew it fast' lol! :P

Will you draw me an egg? :beam:

- Soul :s:

[Alex]

haha VTS, even though it was a fast drawing, it still looks good.


Welcome to the fourms lokinet, enjoy your stay here, and if you need help, just ask.

[lokinet]

Thanks a ton for all of the advice. I am very , well, surprised with the warmth of this place. It was suggested by a teacher of mine while we were going over actionscript. Now, another question.

What would be some good books/website that you guys could recommend for Flash, Fireworks, Photoshop, Illustrator, Dreamweaver, or Freehand that would at least get me going in the right directior, albeit baby steps.

Thanks a ton,
lokinet

And alex, you have blwon my socks off wiht that flash intro to your site.

Another thing, what hardware do you guys use, if any. Such as a tablet like the Wacom Intuos 2, which I am getting.

Last thing then I will shut up. Windows or OS X,9,8,7,pi,e...

[lokinet]

to give you an example of where I stand in lack of talent, here is something I made for a previous Counter-Strike Clan:
:::Talentless::: (http://www.teamriotsquad.com/images/potd_1_lg.jpg)

[vts31]

Needs color?

[lokinet]

I just need a ton more practice I assume so I am going to go out and get some and just sit down and learn as much as possible

[lostinbeta]

Check this thread out lokinet. It has a list of tutorials for all sorts of programs...

http://www.kirupaforum.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=13133

Might be a good place to start.


As for me.... I don't submit much work here so I doubt you saw any of it. I am not that good, but I don't think I am bad either.

All I have under my belt is practice pratice pratice practice. Oh, and experimentation. It is good to experiment with your own effects instead of reusing ones from tutorials all the time. Even modifying tutorials to produce your own effect can be fun. It also teaches you a lot.

A few other things you should look up that might help you out are...

Color Theory
Rule of the Thirds

Try a www.google.com search on these subjects, they will be very useful.


Oh yeah, and remember... Filters don't make an image, you make an image ;) i've seen a lot of people who create images do nothing but filter filter filter filter, it tends to look bad and it becomes obvious what they did. Subtle smaller items and effects can make an image just as much or more than filters can ;)


Although its not really my place to give advice on the subject :tb:

[mdipi]

yes it is lost! :P but i think you covered everyting i was gonna say....well welcome!

btw is your teacher Dexa 007? i think thats his handle here...well that guy (if its the right name) is a teacher so i donno if it was him...

[lokinet]

awesome guys, I don't think that I can expect better responses from complete strangers. I think that the only way I can repay someone is if they need hardware help, as I am decent in that area. Here is a link for my beast of a college computer.
:::loki-comp::: (www.lokinet.com/lokicomp.xls)
I am n3rd with a capital 3.

[lokinet]

I must also say thank you for the link to the font site, as I now own 1700 more fonts.

:P

[Kitiara]

I think Edwin has summed it all up before with just one word: Practice. The more stuff you do, even if you think it's rubbish, the better you will get.

When I first started drawing anime people, the faces looked more like Picasso had done them, and it was certainly not intentional. But hopefully now thanks to a lot of practice, I can draw a person without them looking totally back to front. :)

If you want to get to know Photoshop, then as someone has already mentioned, there's a masive range of tutorials out there. Try them. You can learn a lot. :)

[lokinet]

I am working with photoshop and I must say again how thankful I am for the friendliness of these forums. he is one logo that I whipped out in a few minutes for my Counter-Strike clan.
I didn't use the emboss feature for this one, so i have a sense of pride that it looks as well as it does for it being one of my "first" solo works.
http://www.lokinet.com/images/logos/dmt_new.jpg