Hard Corg

[raizoo]

Click for bigger image with reference.

This was a fur assignment for digital painting class. It's originally a 3rd semester project, but he surprised us and gave it to us in 2nd semester. This is maybe 15hrs of work, all done with one default photoshop brush. I have some days before it's due, but I might stop here since I have a tonne of other work to do. Depends on if teacher says I should push it harder.

I actually sort of like this piece. It's not exactly like the reference image, but that also goes to show that I did the piece. And here's some images from start to finish to see the process.

It's rare I get to work on an animal right now since the general focus is on people, so I enjoyed myself here.

Edit:
updated, submitted version to teacher here.

[Curtiss]

It looks like it's smiling because you rendered it so well. The face looks spot-on and your rendering of the fur is very close to the original which I find impressive because capturing the softness of fur is something that looks difficult to me.

[Jedward]

I find it so hard to believe you only used one brush.

Great job. That's intense.

[raizoo]

Well, I used a different eraser. ;P Smudge/Brush tool were the same brush, though.

The face looks spot-on and your rendering of the fur is very close to the original which I find impressive because capturing the softness of fur is something that looks difficult to me.

You just have to think of how real fur/hair acts. There's the darker stuff underneath and the lighter stuff that the light hits. It's all about building it up. And tricking people into thinking there's more detail than there really is, lol.

but sankyuu bruhs~

[Sn1perJohnE]

I wish my digital illustration and painting class was taught like yours :\ we were just given assignments and told to make something for them, with little "teaching" in it

[raizoo]

Did some slight tweaks. This was my final submission for school.

I wish my digital illustration and painting class was taught like yours :\ we were just given assignments and told to make something for them, with little "teaching" in it

What are you paying for at that point? I'm sure there are better online resources that are cheaper/free if it's poopy. :V

[Stereo]

I'm sure there are better online resources that are cheaper/free if it's poopy. :V

You might be surprised how bad most online stuff is :/ Even on basics like "what's a good brush to use". Looking at your piece I'd guess it's something like "stroke width varies w/ pressure" combined with erasing/covering the roots and varying the colour, but it could as easily be "pressure opacity, width fades with length of stroke" and get the same result. Heck you could have just drawn one hair, set that to be the brush, and made it vary the size slightly so it looks like fur. The third of those is the only one i've seen tutorials mention in detail (like how to use the tools for that)

If I'm curious how to do digital painting the best online resource I know of is to go on livestream and ask actual artists who look like they're good at it.

[Curtiss]

I compared both images and the fur looks even more realistic and soft in the finished picture.

[raizoo]

@Sn1perJohnE
Have you seen this guy's tutorials?

http://www.youtube.com/user/FZDSCHOOL

It's fairly concept art focused, but they're pretty great.

If I'm curious how to do digital painting the best online resource I know of is to go on livestream and ask actual artists who look like they're good at it.

I remember just looking at a bunch of different tutorials and experimenting a lot when I was younger. I'm guessing the tutorial areas have become quite saturated since then. But everyone has their own techniques and things to learn from them. The first one you mentioned is one of the last things I did for the more refined strands. :3

Like, the first thing I'd probably tell someone trying to learn how to paint with photoshop would be play with opacity and flow and understand what they do to your brush. The pre-installed brushes are good enough for painting. Custom brushes can get things done faster if you know what you're doing, but you'll probably often find yourself locked into only using custom brushes when there's already a good variety provided with the program. It happened to a lot of my classmates when they did the fur assignment and they thought I was crazy when I said I used a single brush. An animal like a sheep with wool would have had to use something like one of the stock chalk brushes because of the texture.

I compared both images and the fur looks even more realistic and soft in the finished picture.

Nah, my guy just looks a lot softer than the picture. It might only look more realistic because mine might be a higher res shot. But thanks! (◕ ▽ ◕)

I kind of wish I chose a more difficult piece so I might have gotten a higher mark, but.... Digital painting is probably the least important class for Animation, lole.