Painting Types

[chaoswr]

Hello I am new here. I am a beginner and have a question:

I want to know some things about these paintings-

1-
this is a typical american comics. You can see the use of markers (I think). So it doesnt look so smothh as number 2.


2-
I want to know how smooth painting, which is more realistic and cool in my opinion, is done like in this drawing.


I mean manga and today's comics look like number 2-smooth,
not like DC comics for example which uses pens and not water color or acrylics or something like that.
So how is it done?

[Inkthinker]

Ahhh... well two things: One, I wouldn't call your first example a "typical American comic"... one reason being, it's almost 70 years old (1940), and hardly anybody uses that look anymore unless they're being purposefully derivative. For another, it supposes that there's any such thing as "typical comics".

The other issue is that nobody really uses water colors or acrylics or markers, or anything like that, not any more. Some still do, and of course people will continue to do so, but pretty much the entire professional graphics industry (not just comics, but everyone who produces commercial illustrations) has converted to digital production, which means mostly what people use is Photoshop or Painter and a tablet device of one sort or another.

As far as I can tell, you're asking how to achieve blended colors, and the solution to that is to use tools that, well... blend colors. In the digital environment, one can set brushes to do all sorts of things, but I'd say one of the easier things to do is to set one's brush opacity to something like 40%-60%, and then to regularly pick out colors that blend between primaries as they're mixed by the semi-opaque brush passing over previous strokes.

Digital painting (indeed, painting as a whole) is no less a complex task than learning to draw in the first place. And just like drawing, the best solution is usually to start simple, make a lot of mistakes, learn from them and try again. It takes a while, but you get there eventually.

[hadesillustrations]

The second piece is likely an acrylic painting (I own the Space Marines Codex and have gawked over that cover many a time). They use many peculiar techniques over at GW, so I could be mistaken about the medium, but I know it's not digital.

[Archerion]

with digital painting you cañ barley tell the diffrence

[hadesillustrations]

I met one of the artists at a Games Day in Toronto - they work traditionally with some interesting techniques.

[dfbovey]

Yeah, Today's typical American comic is more like this...

[Inkthinker]

The second piece is likely an acrylic painting (I own the Space Marines Codex and have gawked over that cover many a time). They use many peculiar techniques over at GW, so I could be mistaken about the medium, but I know it's not digital.

I expect you're right about that, but it's also a pretty old piece, if I'm not mistaken... Warhammer 40K has been around for a decade or more. The digital transition is relatively new in the great scheme of things (less than ten years since it really kicked in, I'm guessing), and it's still ongoing (I know at least a couple WotC guys who still work in acrylics and oil), and it's true that there's a benefit to sticking with traditional materials, in that it gives you an original to resell at a later date.

But for the great majority of production out there, digital painting has already taken over. It's faster, more flexible, and here to stay.

[50%grey]

Yeah, Today's typical American comic is more like this...

You meen traced photos and photo shopped backgrounds...I KEED!

And before anyone gets offended,I have no idea if that was traced or not..just making a jokey.

[50%grey]

I expect you're right about that, but it's also a pretty old piece, if I'm not mistaken... Warhammer 40K has been around for a decade or more. The digital transition is relatively new in the great scheme of things (less than ten years since it really kicked in, I'm guessing), and it's still ongoing (I know at least a couple WotC guys who still work in acrylics and oil), and it's true that there's a benefit to sticking with traditional materials, in that it gives you an original to resell at a later date.

But for the great majority of production out there, digital painting has already taken over. It's faster, more flexible, and here to stay.

Yeah for production work for sure,although seeing a painting done the traditonal way on a canvas puts any digital work to shame.

[hadesillustrations]

@ Inkthinker:

I'm not disagreeing that digital painting is the new norm, but the GW folks have kept to fairly traditional mediums in their books. I've been playing 40k since the Rogue Trader days. That painting is the cover to the latest Space Marines Codex for 4th Edition. Now 5th Edition is out and they're finally coming out with a new codex, but I'm sure they'll have more great traditional artwork.

The Toronto Comic Con had a sit down tutorial on digital coloring with Adam Hughes. I was surprised to find out that he uses a mouse (so do I) instead of a tablet and a specific method known as tiling. He paints using the lasso tool to form small blocks of color to gradually create gradients by progressively getting lighter with each subsequent tile - he doesn't use the gradient tool at all. It's a very interesting and distinct style. Just another note that there's more than one way to skin a cat.