Tool, Tip, and Technique Sharing Thread!

Questions, skill improvement, and respectful critique involving art assets.
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akemicchi
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Tool, Tip, and Technique Sharing Thread!

#1 Post by akemicchi »

Hey, guys! Let's make a Tool, Tip, and Technique sharing thread. Anything people might not know about a certain program or any tricks people know, come share! We can all try out other people's way of arting and help improve ourselves and other people as artists.

This thread shouldn't be used as an art resource since we already have a sticky for it, but is more specifically about the tools and the programs we're using. Okay? :) Let's go!

~*~

The program I'm using is painttool sai, so these are sai related stuff. I'll make a table of contents and link to people's posts so people can browse easily if there are other contributions, so please feel free to share your wisdom and experience!

Preparing Sketches for Linearting
Blowing up your artwork before linearting will help preserve the quality of your lines and colors. It's easier to maintain crisp art when you work on a big canvas then shrink to the appropriate size. Blowing up a piece will blur your work and lower overall quality. It's also easier to hide mistakes or mess up a little when working on a big canvas! Try it out!
Resizing your work.
Resizing your work.
Resize afterwards!
Resize afterwards!
1. Canvas (C) -> Change Resolution (R)
2. I use 250% pixel width and pixel height
3. When you're finished, resize back down to 40-50%.

200% to 50% is usually fine. Some people even work with 300%! Try out different sizes and figure out which one you like working on the most.

Preparing Clean Sketches for Coloring on sai
If you have sketches that you've scanned or taken pictures of, you can use sai to automatically make lineart of it. All it takes is the press of a single button!
preparing_sketches1.png
1. On the layer of the sketch, Layer (L) -> Luminance to Transparency (O)

This will make white transparent, black opaque, and all colors in-between into greyscale of various transparency relative to black and white. You can make a new layer underneath it for coloring, or check the Preserve Transparency box to change the colors of your lineart.
luminance_to_transparency1.png
It also works with images. Notice that the greyscale is transparent to varying degrees. Even with an under layer, your lineart will look like a mix of both the color and the the under layer. If your lines aren't dark enough or if you want to make them more opaque, simply make a Copy of the layer and Merge them as many times as you like.

Preserve Opacity
Checking the Preserve Opacity box makes it so that only the opaque pixels on that layer can be drawn on. This helps with coloring lines, coloring only within an area, and the sort much easier.
preserve_opacity.png
Clipping
Clipping is an easy way for coloring for lazy people like me. Basically, when a layer (A) is clipped to another layer (B), anything drawn on A will appear only on B. You can clip multiple layers on a layer, even whole folders if you want a layer in a layer in a layer! (It's a little difficult to understand, but here's a diagram with the gist of it.)
clipping_example1.png
In terms of coloring, all you'd need to do is color a base layer, make a folder with the rest of the coloring, and clip it to the base layer. Less work to do!
Clipping in action!
Clipping in action!
Make any Tool an Eraser
This is really cool. There's a little button that you press right below the color swatches. It's called Exchange Normal / Transparent Color. All you do is click it, and it lets you make any tool that you're using into an eraser. Now you can erase in different ways! Perfect for gradients.
eraser.png
Stabilizer
Stabilizer helps you set how sensitive the program is to every movement you make. At 0, the tool will take down even the smallest change in your strokes. At higher levels, the program will delay, letting you make smoother lines.

Higher levels are good for long, sweeping lines and curves, but not necessarily circles. Lower levels are good for writing. Play around with it depending on what you're doing! It might help improve your work!
stabilizer.png
Lineart tool
Here's what I use.
lineart_tool.png
The only thing that's important about this tool is that I lower the density down to 70-85 so my lines look lighter. To get darker lines, go over the line multiple times. Varying degrees of thickness, which is called line weight, will help your lineart pop out more. With this tool, pressure affects the density, so adjust the Hard <-> Soft to your liking. Tending towards Hard makes the lines thinner and lighter, while tending towards Soft makes the lines darker and thicker.

I also use 3px because 40% of that is a little over 1px once I resize it. Change it depending on how big your canvas is!

Coloring tools
Here's what I'm using right now for otome style coloring.
coloring_tools.png
The first tool is best for coloring on one layer as opposed to a new, transparent layer every time.

Using the tools
skin.png
hair.png

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SwedishJazz
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Re: Tool, Tip, and Technique Sharing Thread!

#2 Post by SwedishJazz »

Here's one small trick I've been using for a bit to make sure my transparent images don't have any unnecessary stuff outside the lineart. In photoshop, the Stroke layer effect highlights even a single pixel:
2015-10-13_02-48-41.png
2015-10-13_02-48-59.png
2015-10-13_02-49-08.png
If in any place the color fill exceeds lineart, it will show up as a bump on the stroke, letting you spot it easily!
Image

sei.chan

Re: Tool, Tip, and Technique Sharing Thread!

#3 Post by sei.chan »

omg yasss aki yasss thank you so much this thread is going to be (and is) so helpfull ovo)b

sei.chan

Re: Tool, Tip, and Technique Sharing Thread!

#4 Post by sei.chan »

Heres what I thought off tho cant say I'm any help TT.TT cuz I'm a newb

Lineart in photoshop and gimp:
0.PNG
(at least how I do it)


Fringe in sai:
Fringe sai.png
just cuz I started using it like that =-=;

(might edit cuz the size of the file #newb)

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konett
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Re: Tool, Tip, and Technique Sharing Thread!

#5 Post by konett »

In case this should help anyone;
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