Arowa-kun

[Arowa]

Okay, to begin my work on the art of my group's current Visual Novel Project, I need some tips. This is coming from me, a guy who has hardly any experience in Digital art. Please! I beg whichever kind soul out there who can give me any advice!

Okay, first thing's first. Now, I'm currently producing the very basic art of Visual Novels, Sprites.

And, as every amateur artist may encounter, I'm having trouble with getting the lineart done. Maybe it's just me, maybe I just think they don't look good enough. I need some tips on how to achieve those smooth lines you always see on them Sprites!

~Maybe it's because of my personality, as I'm quite the perfectionist...

[Ren]

Do you have problems just with getting the inking right (clean, smooth, nice lines) or do you also have problems with the poses?


It would also be useful to see some of your attempted sprites, to give you proper advice, but until then... I'd say that a useful thing to do to draw your sprites would be to go to sites like Posemaniacs and Character designs (warning, some nudity) to sketch a few poses.
I find this is a good warming-up exercise that helps me get on better with drawing decent and natural poses for the sprites.

The most common error I see people making is that they try to draw the right lines right away: this doesn't work, especially when you're a beginner. Get your base first, and only when it's ready, you can think of nice smooth lines.

I would start with a thick brush in your graphics program of choice (I like sketching in many: Mypaint, Paint tool Sai, Open canvas and Gimp) and create a large new file, so that you can create all the sketches - where by that I mean very loose sketches, don't get distracted by details yet - for the characters so that they look good next to each other proportions-wise. Drawing them one by one from sketch to colouring is not a good idea: you will most likely end up with sprites that don't look good next to each other. I know I did.
For this I usually use a desaturated and light blue for this and let he gestures flow, so that the poses are more natural.

This is actually related to producing the smooth lines you talk about, because getting the right poses without worrying about the lines at all gives you the base you're going to need later on.

I would then proceed by working on every sprite to increase the level of detail of each (you can take advantage of layers for this, so that if you do something you don't like, you don't erase the base sketch as well to get rid of the base itself). When you're happy with the shapes, you are ready to proceed with the inking.


For this: do you have a tablet? Or are you going to do it with the mouse? I can tell you there are many ways to achieve good results: with a tablet, I would create a new inking layer over my sketch (which is light blue, so it's easy to draw over with black without getting confused - you can also lower the opacity of the sketch layer/s to make things even easier). I usually work on the single aspects of the image (hair, face, face features etc.) on separate layers, so that I can make very fast movements without worrying about going over what I already have inked, because it's on a different layer.

If you use a mouse, you can very well use the Paths function that most programs have; it's a long process, but it pays off. I inked many things like that myself, and I enjoyed the process.

If you draw on paper with a pencil, you can even avoid inking with a nib (which is possibly something you should practice separately first) and just play with the scanning options and make your pencil lines look like inked lines.
You can use the process I described for a tablet user here, too: just use a non-photo blue pencil (I used a simple blue pencil in the past, and it still worked) and make your sketch and then go over it more carefully with your black pencil. Or you can even draw on one piece of paper, and then tape another one over it and trace your drawing placing your sheets of paper against a window or a makeshift light box to see through the sheet of paper you're going to draw on.



Really, there are many possibilities ahead of you and so much stuff to say just on inking alone.


Edited to warn about the nudity in one of the links.

[Arowa]

To answer your first question: I think I'm fine on the poses, learned about them in illustration class, probably just need more practice. So that leaves getting the smooth lines.

Whoa, I wasn't prepared for nudity! I'm still a minor...

Oh, I have a tablet, but, it's a pretty low tech one, a bamboo fun. Still, it's medium size so it should work for now.

A question, when you said to draw all the poses on one page, does it meant all the poses of one character, or different characters?

I'll try to finish up some of the lineart I'm working on and post them here if I can, man, now I know how tedious it is... One pose could take a few hours. I'll probably finish a few in two days time or so..

Actually, some research on my part, I already learned how the process work, I just can't get it to look smooth, and that fact itself depresses me so... I want to get the art for our VN done, but each step seems to widen the journey by ever so much... And, I'm the only artist for our project...

~Sorry, thank you for the quick reply and the myriad of tips.

[Ren]

I actually think you should be more than fine with your Bamboo fun tablet: I used a small (6x8) Graphire 2 (older model than yours) and learned how to get the most out of it.

I meant you should draw all the characters next to each other, just to get the proportions right: I made this error before, and ended up getting stuck trying to make one of the two male characters look OK next to the girl I already drew because I basically got impatient and finished her first instead than progress by levels with every character.

Could you tell me which program do you use as well? I used a few, and if you do and show me, when they're ready, some of your lined sprites, I may be able to be more helpful to you. I happen to really love working on the lines of my drawings, so this question was really interesting for me - and it's also why I get carried away.

Let me know, and good luck with your project!

[Fawn]

Just going to throw this out here: GET PAINT TOOL SAI!!

Sai has a vector tool that can make perfectly smooth lines that you can edit afterward (say, if you make a not so straight line, you can make it straight easily)
You can get it here: http://www.systemax.jp/en/sai/ (trial version). It's pretty cheap for such a good program, about 60 bucks (a LOT less that even photoshop elements, that doesn't even color as well as Sai) though, there are other means of getting it, if you know what I mean.

It takes a little adjustment if you're used to other programs, but trust me, it's very worth it. Artists like Redjuice (http://redjuice999.deviantart.com/) and many other pros use sai, it's convenient for many forms of art.

However, with that, I'd make sure you know your proportions, coloring ect. This tutorial helps with pretty much everything (esspecially coloring) I suggest using it while you do your art, it helps alot http://www.itchstudios.com/psg/art_tut.htm#licence

Good luck, if you have any questions about Sai feel free to ask me!

[Arowa]

Well, I am currently using(And Currently only have) openCanvas, version 4.15. I chosed this program because I like the style shown by artists on their community site, the light watercolor style seems very calm and enjoyable, and I want to adopt that kind of style for my CGs.

Hey, I am done with the sketch. Took a while cause of some design changes that had to be done, I'm gonna start doing the lineart now, and hope that I can finish it by the end of today.

~I'll be attaching the sketch, if you can, please comment and critic on the poses and designs. Thanks!

[Arowa]

Right, here it is. Man, my hands are aching...

[pkt]

No one said this before but I will. Learn to vector if you want to get the professional looking lines. You can do it in most major art programs from the Free ones, like Inkscape and Gimp, to the major ones Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro, Painter, etc. They do differ in methods and use though.

The other thing I'll say is work on those hands.

[Arowa]

From what I've learned, vectoring in lineart isn't really necessary. I guess you're probably refering to the question I posted. The thing is, it get distorted when I resize it DOWN. I do understand that that is not supposed to happen. Oh, and I'm still waiting for Fawn and Ren's critic.

~Yeah, I screwed up with the second girl's right hand...

[Ren]

Well, paths are vector. :P

I'm quite fond of how all the characters look together, although it seems to me the one in the middle could use with having her proportions tweaked a bit: It seems to me that her torso is a bit too long, while her pubic bone seems to be in line with the girl's on her right (our left) which seems weird to me, considering the big difference in height. Essentially, it looks a bit as if her waist had been stretched to make her taller and as a result makes her forearms look really long, too. Her visible hand is also too small, it seems to me.

A trick that I learned for this particular style of drawing (interestingly enough, on the Portalgraphics site) is to use a different size of brush for different bits of the image (thinner for the hair, a bit bolder for the skin and particulars in the face, and bolder again for the clothes).
The thing I notice is that the lines are very thin, and don't vary a lot in thickness, considering you drew this at a rather big resolution, I'd suggest going for a bigger brush size which would give you more variation and look better once resized (I hope I'm reading what you mean by "gets distorted when I resize it down" correctly) as thinner lines sometimes lose quite a bit of visibility once resized.

I made a video to illustrate my process:



Here I'm using a 4 pixel wide brush on Opencanvas 1.1, no opacity control (aside from the mouth, that didn't look good with such decisive lines) so that I can get very dark and decisive line. You'll possibly notice I do a couple of non-strokes (right at the beginning of the video, the cursor moves slightly up and down - let's say I prepare the line a bit like golf players prepare their shots).

It seems to me this is an efficient way to do your line work when using a tablet, and drawing a computer - it's a good idea to use your medium to it's fullest. I used to draw with the tablet as I do on paper, but that's not so efficient in the end, it seems to me.

As for nitpicks: on the second maid from the right, I'd modify the line of the hair so that it's behind her apron's ribbon's line, rather than in front, I'd reference images like this to draw the frills more effectively (I could give you an example, if you prefer), and I'd work more on cleaning the line-art, I can see some un-erased lines in the area of the crotch of the woman in the middle, for example. Personally I'm not a huge fan of one-line curves to delineate the lines, but that goes down to personal taste, I guess. :) It also seems to me that the first man and the second woman from the left should look more directly into the player's eyes.

On the whole, it seems to me you're off to a good start - I'd still work a bit more on the quality of the lines, which seem to be a bit fragmented, still. I do think you made a decent job of making them all look consistent and I like how you characterised these guys.

I tried resizing your image, too. I don't think it looks blurry as such - it's just that the lines are so thin that they end up looking grey. I could be wrong though...

[Arowa]

Oh, um. Is it really better for me to finish all lineart first before moving on to painting or is it better to work on one work at a time?

~By the way, do anyone know how they paint CGs in a light style? I think it's called light CG shading or something. It is lighter than the method used by the majority.

[Ren]

Well, I suggested getting the proportions of all the characters compared to each other, but I'd say that once you have bases for all of them, and are decently happy with how they look together, you're fine just painting every single one of them. That is, unless your style changes noticeably between the sprites, which is more likely if you draw each of them at a distance, for any number of reasons.

Did you perhaps mean soft cel-style?

[Arowa]

Argh, they still don't look good enough!! Especially after I painted them! One question, for openCanvas, for doing lineart, Pencil tool or the Paintbrush tool?

~I'll try to post some of them up when I'm done...

[Arowa]

Um, testing, is anybody there? Can any kind soul who visits this thread and knows anything about the process of developing a Visual Novel, kindly list down(very briefly) the steps I'll need to take to make one(mostly the art, if possible the whole process) Or at least give me some tips that a budding VN CG Artist could use?

[Arowa]

Hey guys, you all still remember me? I'm still working, developing, learning as much as I could. As of right now, I need your critique once again! Here's a character that was one of the five posted before, please tell me how it looks!