800x600?

[Sin]

All of these points are arguable. Sure, it's wrong of me to say that a particular method is "wrong", but there are definetly more or less inefficient way to do things. If you adapt to the scale you're working in then these are all non-issues. But I guess we can agree to disagree. :p

[ficedula]

I think the point is that producing artwork for a higher resolution will generally take more time than producing it for a lower resolution. If it doesn't, then that means one of two things:

1) You're putting detail into the image that simply isn't visible at the lower resolution. So you could have made the low-res image quicker by simply not bothering to put so much detail in (since it won't be visible at the final resolution anyway.)
or,

2) Your high res image doesn't take advantage of the added resolution to actually display any more detail than the low-res version did. In that case, OK, it didn't take any longer, but that's because it's not adding anything extra.


It's sort of separate from the question of whether you work directly at the target resolution, or start higher and scale down. Fine, if you want to work at a 2000+ resolution no matter what your final target res is - cool, whatever works best for you. But if you ignore the fact that the final image is only going to be 256 pixels wide, you're sort of wasting your time adding really fine detail (time that wouldn't be wasted if the target res was 1024px wide).

[Jake]

If you adapt to the scale you're working in then these are all non-issues.

If "Adapting to the scale you're working in" means that you can magically draw four times as fast and thus all that extra detail doesn't actually take you any longer to lay down, then sure.

[Sin]

If "Adapting to the scale you're working in" means that you can magically draw four times as fast and thus all that extra detail doesn't actually take you any longer to lay down, then sure.

Hey, you were the one who said that working in higher resolutions requires more work and I assumed you meant to reach a similar result. This discussion would be moot otherwise. Of course if you spend more time on your drawing then that will take longer, duh. Not that I see why spending more time on a drawing would be a bad thing..

What I meant by "level of detail" wasn't more stuff. Sorry for not being more clear. I meant precision.

Let me illustrate what I mean.
Here's something I drew earlier. The image (and amount of estetic details) is identical for both cases, but look at how much more pixels I have to work with in the higher resolution. Imagine the pain of having to draw the same eye in the constrained resolution.

Of course, if I hypothetically made the exact same strokes in both resolutions there wouldn't be any time difference. The benefit of the higher resolution should be obvious but I'll spell it out anyways: It's precision.
I would even argue that the higher level of precision saved me a lot of work (and time), because I was able to make large bold strokes rather than small hyper-precise ones.



This is a tangent, I know, but this is digital art 101 and I'm surprised I'm being challenged about it. XD

[ficedula]

The whole point is, though, if you're going to a higher resolution, you really need to actually have graphics which take advantage of that higher resolution and do display more detail. Because if you don't, it's more obvious at the higher resolution that the detail is lacking.

Sure, producing an image at 1024x resolution with exactly the same amount of details as an image at 640x res takes no more time, but in that case, there's less reason to even bother moving to a higher resolution.

(To put it another, more extreme, way: if a SNES-era image lacks detailed shading, it's not noticable, because the resolution means it's simply not noticable! But a 640x image lacking shading looks lacking. And a 1024x image lacking shading and fine detailing on the clothing also looks like it's lacking something, because it's obviously it had the capability to display extra detail - so when it's missing, it's more obvious.)

[Jake]

What I meant by "level of detail" wasn't more stuff. Sorry for not being more clear. I meant precision.
...
This is a tangent, I know, but this is digital art 101 and I'm surprised I'm being challenged about it. XD

You're being challenged about it because what you're saying runs directly contrary to my experiences working in digital art. If I draw at a high resolution - which, as it goes, I do quite a lot of the time - then I find it's not good enough zooming out and colouring in while zoomed out, because frankly, the representation I see while zoomed out to fit most of the image on the screen isn't accurate enough to colour up to the lines accurately. Given the hardware pixel limitations they're working to I'm not convinced the software can do a good enough job, in fact. So I have to zoom in more, which means I have to move my hand more, which means it takes longer to accurately block out the colour and blend and so on.

This is all far, far less of an issue for artwork that stands alone as artwork - pinups and so on - because if you go outside of the line a half-pixel or so on the downsampled image it doesn't really matter. But it suddenly becomes very noticable on VN character sprites, for example,

(And this was the same point as with detail, really - you're not drawing more detail because you're suddenly adding the scrollwork to that cornice that you weren't bothering with before - you're drawing more detail because you're drawing the whole shape of that eye a hundred pixels across when you could have just drawn twenty. You're laying down more pixels, so either you're drawing zoomed a loooong way out and not getting the extra control over it to make the high-res master worth doing in the first place, or you're moving your hand more and being more accurate over longer distances and that will take longer to do.




Now, the resolution-independence ideal is a very nice idea, and maybe if I had a monitor capable of displaying a 4000-pixel-wide desktop, then I could paint at 1:1 zoom and it probably wouldn't be notably slower to draw at a high resolution than it is to draw at a low one. But I don't, and neither does anyone I know, so it doesn't really work so well.

Yes, it's nice to draw at a higher resolution because you get better control and downsampling tends to make the final result look nicer. I do it all the time, but fundamentally, it does take longer.

[Sin]

This is all far, far less of an issue for artwork that stands alone as artwork - pinups and so on - because if you go outside of the line a half-pixel or so on the downsampled image it doesn't really matter. But it suddenly becomes very noticable on VN character sprites, for example,

I don't get it. When you're working at a smaller scale a single pixel will have a greater influence on the image on the whole, right? So every pixel should counts. Whereas on a larger image any single-pixel mistake are lost in the downscale. Personally I find it easier to trace a line that has some width to it. You have much more wiggleroom under the lines.

(And this was the same point as with detail, really - you're not drawing more detail because you're suddenly adding the scrollwork to that cornice that you weren't bothering with before - you're drawing more detail because you're drawing the whole shape of that eye a hundred pixels across when you could have just drawn twenty.

A stroke of 19 pixels or a stroke of 200 pixels is still one stroke.

Obviously there's no need for more pixels if you don't intend to use them. If you feel a larger canvas somehow restricts you then I'm saying there's something wrong. It could be a simple matter of habit. Having to scroll is not a chore, but it definetly could be if you're not used to it.

[Jake]

This is all far, far less of an issue for artwork that stands alone as artwork - pinups and so on - because if you go outside of the line a half-pixel or so on the downsampled image it doesn't really matter. But it suddenly becomes very noticable on VN character sprites, for example,

I don't get it. When you're working at a smaller scale a single pixel will have a greater influence on the image on the whole, right? So every pixel should counts. Whereas on a larger image any single-pixel mistake are lost in the downscale. Personally I find it easier to trace a line that has some width to it. You have much more wiggleroom under the lines.

I mean that when your downsampled image has even the slightest hint of colour outside of the lines and you use that image as a VN sprite, that hint of colour suddenly becomes really noticable. It shows up against a variable background far more than it does the flat colour or gradient backgrounds commonly found on pin-up art, for example. It doesn't have to be much more than a pixel on the high-res image, but frankly if you draw on a 3000-pixel-wide canvas zoomed out to fit on a standard monitor it's likely to be more than a pixel you'll go over the lines, just because the drawing app can't display enough information on a normal monitor to show you when you have. Whatever scale you're working at, you have to be able to see individual pixels to make sure you've avoided going over the outermost lines.

So, one has to abandon this cute resolution-independent ideal and zoom in, because the monitor isn't resolution-independent. Or, you know, end up with messier sprites.

A stroke of 19 pixels or a stroke of 200 pixels is still one stroke.

And a stroke in which your tablet pen moves half a millimetre across the surface of your tablet or a stroke in which it moves thirty centimetres is still one stroke. If I drove to town or drove to the other side of the country it's still one car journey, but he longer stroke and the longer car journey will take more time.

Having to scroll is not a chore, but it definetly could be if you're not used to it.

It's not so much that it's a chore, but that it's something extra that has to be done. If you're doing things you wouldn't otherwise be doing, then it's taking more time.
You seem to be trying to frame it that I'm somehow lacking in skill or have picked up bad habits, but I honestly wonder whether you've ever timed yourself drawing the same picture in two different resolutions. It doesn't feel like it takes that much more time for me, but the clock disagrees.

[Sin]

I mean that when your downsampled image has even the slightest hint of colour outside of the lines and you use that image as a VN sprite, that hint of colour suddenly becomes really noticable.

But that's wrong. I drew two samples in different resolutions with the same error and downsampled one of them. This is the result:


I fail to see what's so noticable about the downsampled version. Or did you mean nearest neighbour (ugly) sampling?

So, one has to abandon this cute resolution-independent ideal and zoom in, because the monitor isn't resolution-independent. Or, you know, end up with messier sprites.

Yes I zoom in. Actually I work in several levels of zoom. It depends on the level of precision I need at a given moment. That's part of what I meant by adapting to scale.
I use Open canvas and it has tools that really lets me pan, zoom and rotate efficiently so that's not really a problem.

And a stroke in which your tablet pen moves half a millimetre across the surface of your tablet or a stroke in which it moves thirty centimetres is still one stroke. If I drove to town or drove to the other side of the country it's still one car journey, but he longer stroke and the longer car journey will take more time.

And my wrist is moving at a constant speed of 4 km/h.. give me a break.

[Jake]

I fail to see what's so noticable about the downsampled version. Or did you mean nearest neighbour (ugly) sampling?

No, I meant any kind of downsampling, bicubic included. But you either totally missed or totally ignored the point. It's not that it's more noticable when you downsample it than when you draw it at display res - it's that it's noticeable at all, in either version.

(And personally, I find the error in the downsampled one pretty noticable over your neutral-grey background.)

Specifically to avoid errors like that, you have to abandon the resolution-independent notion you seemed to be pushing earlier on and zoom in to see individual pixels in order to obtain the accuracy to not make mistakes like that.

And look!

Yes I zoom in.

Shock! You zoom in!

Because you zoom in - in order to not make mistakes like the one in your example above - you are colouring in a physically-larger area. That is, an area which needs larger physical movements of the hand and arm to complete. You pan around, you colour neatly up to the edges and no further, and you have to do this zoomed in enough to be able to see individual pixels so that you don't make mistakes. You have to zoom in to about the same document-pixel:monitor-pixel ratio in both high- and low-res in order to avoid mistakes, so the area you are painting in the high-res image is larger. Larger areas take longer to colour: science fact. Sure, you're only likely to be painting particularly carefully around the perimeter, but it's still more time.

Actually I work in several levels of zoom. It depends on the level of precision I need at a given moment. That's part of what I meant by adapting to scale.
I use Open canvas and it has tools that really lets me pan, zoom and rotate efficiently so that's not really a problem.

Ditto, ditto, but this is all totally beside the point. OC doesn't grant you magic resolution-independence, because it can't. It does a fairly good job of reducing the extra work as much as possible, but it can't eliminate it totally.

And a stroke in which your tablet pen moves half a millimetre across the surface of your tablet or a stroke in which it moves thirty centimetres is still one stroke. If I drove to town or drove to the other side of the country it's still one car journey, but he longer stroke and the longer car journey will take more time.

And my wrist is moving at a constant speed of 4 km/h.. give me a break.

Oh, sorry, sure - I'll stop pointing out the holes in your argument now.

Seriously. Draw a sketch of a VN char at a high res - say, 800x2400px - then make a copy and scale it down to 25% of the original size to make it a decent on-screen VN sprite size. Then, time yourself inking and colouring each version separately. Try it for yourself! You'll find that finishing high-res pieces of art takes longer than finishing low-res ones! It might not feel like it at the time, but it honestly does. (Your example earlier doesn't look like it counts since the colouring suggests you used exactly the same colouring for both versions and just scaled one down.)

I am frankly stunned that you're still trying to argue that it doesn't take any longer to colour larger things in. If you want that to be the case, then you have to work with vectors, but then you miss out on all the nice blending toys digital painters get.

[Sin]

Oh, sorry, sure - I'll stop pointing out the holes in your argument now.

You weren't pointing out anything. That was just a bad analogy that didn't make any sense in the context of what we're talking about. A stroke is a stroke. A long stroke doesn't necessarily take longer to draw than a shorter one. My wrist does not have a speed limit. That's the hole in your argument.

I am frankly stunned that you're still trying to argue that it doesn't take any longer to colour larger things in.

Because for me it doesn't. It's simple. I use a bigger brush! I zoom in and out. I (say it with me) adjust to the scale I'm working in.

So far I've yet to hear a single convincing argument from you why it would be worse to draw in a higher resolution that's based in reality other than your own personal experiences. I trust you that it takes you longer to work in higher resolutions but trust me when I say I don't have that problem. I colored the Franziska drawing above in roughly 30-45 minutes. I highly doubt I would have done it any faster in a smaller resolution. Even if I did, it wouldn't have been a comparable result. Because of the smaller margin for error it's not as straight-forward as to count the distance of my strokes in pixels. The smaller scale requires a more delicate approach to reach the same result.

If you adjust to the scale you're working in you should be able to draw and color just as fast regardless of resolution, or are you saying that's impossible? You must be or else this debate has been a waste of time.

[Jake]

OK, sod it. You've been incredibly condescending through this entire conversation, maintaining your arrogant "you just take longer because you're not as good as me" position, so I don't have the patience to even try and be polite any more.

Oh, sorry, sure - I'll stop pointing out the holes in your argument now.

You weren't pointing out anything. That was just a bad analogy that didn't make any sense.

No, it was an analogy that you apparently didn't understand. There's a difference.

I highly doubt I would have done it any faster in a smaller resolution. Even if I did, it wouldn't have been a comparable result.

*sigh*

I have never said it would have a comparable result - that would be stupid. I said it would be quicker, because it is.

Simple example: I freehand-draw a circle 10-pixels wide, it's easy to get it looking circly-enough because it's so small, and it takes less than a second to dash a 6-pixel brush around the inside of it. Freehand-drawing larger circles is notoriously difficult, so that will probably take pretty much anyone longer. The larger a brush you use, the harder it's going to be to move it so that you stay completely inside the lines so - as you've admitted doing - you're going to have to zoom in and be careful around the 100-pixel circle. This will take you more than three seconds, which means it takes longer than the tiny 10-pixel-wide circle because it's larger. Sure, you could use a draw-a-filled-circle tool, but I've yet to see a package with a draw-a-lit-and-shaded-anime-girl tool, so it's hardly a general solution.

You clearly haven't actually tried it and actually timed yourself, and apparently haven't any intention of doing so, so you're in no position to argue, frankly. I've talked to a number of digital artists over the years, and you are literally the only one who has ever tried to tell me that drawing large things takes no longer than drawing small things. So either you're some kind of digital art god, or you're delusional.

Your art is nice enough, but it's a long, long way from godlike, so I'm forced to conclude you're delusional.

[Sin]

I have never said it would have a comparable result - that would be stupid.

Stupid? How? How can you even say one is faster if you can't do a valid comparison?
Yes it's quicker to draw something simple rather than something complex. Duh! But it doesn't make any sense to compare them unless they're at least similiar.

PS. Arrogance is an ugly quality.

[Jake]

*sigh*

I have never said it would have a comparable result - that would be stupid.

Stupid? How? How can you even say one is faster if you can't do a valid comparison?

Now you are playing with semantics.

You are the one who used the phrase "a comparable result", and the sensible interpretation of it both when you used it and when I used it would be "a result which compares equally" - that is, an image which is not noticably less-good.

Now, you are trying to use "comparable" in exactly the same phrase to make it sound like I'm suggesting you can't even perform a valid comparison between the two results? Grow up.

[Sin]

That's not what I'm saying.
I said that to reach a comparable result in either resolutions, there wouldn't be any major time difference. Or at least with that drawing I probably wouldn't have finished it any faster had I drawn it in a lower resolution.

You then said you never claimed the two drawings had to be similar and called it stupid. This is where you lost me. If the images are not similar, how do you compare the different resolutions and how do you know which is faster?