Starlight Mission 0

[chronoluminaire]

Ganbatte! Go for it! This is a very cool work in its own right, and even more exciting as the opener to an ongoing series. And the characters are very cool, and Jade is immensely cute So go for it!

[rocket]

Final Script Rewrite + Game Tweaking: 100%
Acting: 10% (By acting I mean putting in all the emotion switching "show" commands in the right places of the script)
Code: 95% (6 minor bugs)
Sound Effects, Music, Foley, Scoring: 100%
Character Drawings: 95%(one character with one expression left)
Character Inking: 95%
Character Color: 30% Whew! I've learned a lot! Next time, make expression more similar! ^_^;; But I never would have gotten this far with out Deji! I think two more weeks should do it...
Event Drawings: 80%
Event Inking: 0%
Event Color: 0%
CG Events + Backgrounds: 100%

[DaFool]

Go go go rocket-san!

Character Color: 30% Whew! I've learned a lot! Next time, make expression more similar! ^_^;;

I think even the flatter style of Western cartoon-coloring will work with anime characters, as long as the lineart is the refined (read: non-bold / non-thick) Japanese style. I'm thinking even flat coloring will work as long as the colors are the correct choice. That's something I think about for subsequent projects.

[Deji]

Character Color: 30% Whew! I've learned a lot! Next time, make expression more similar! ^_^;; But I never would have gotten this far with out Deji! I think two more weeks should do it...

Glad my way to do things helped you =D

[rocket]

Glad my way to do things helped you =D

Arigatou Deji-sempai! (^_^)/"

Your system for coloring is great (and very Italian Renissance), and has saved me a bunch of time. I'd be even faster if I had started knowing what I know now about what effects to try and do on which layers. Your expression guide also helped, but alas I had already mostly commited to a bevy of expressions with very differnt body postures... Ah well live and learn!

Now what I really need to get the hang of is how to manage brushes in photoshop and what to use on what layer. I'm a big fan of the "hard edge that blurs" look first popularized in VNs, but I have found no easy way to make it in my shadow layer... (;_;) Uguuuu~

[monele]

but I have found no easy way to make it in my shadow layer

Shouldn't it work the exact same way ? Blur some of the edge and it'll blur between the shadow color and transparency... That's how it seems to me ô_o

[rocket]

Shouldn't it work the exact same way ? Blur some of the edge and it'll blur between the shadow color and transparency... That's how it seems to me ô_o

Well, I can create the effect, but only with an inappropriate level of effort (also having this issue with hair highlights). Basically I end up having to paint a hard(ish) shadow edge with one brush, then switch brushes to soften part of it. I can *almost* get away with using an airbrush (drawing hard with a soft stroke and getting the soft with a hard stroke) but I've found what I really want is an even bigger/less opaque brush for my softening edge. Now I don't really know how to manage my brush pallette so it is a huge pain to keep switching brushes. I wish I could dynamically size the brush and adjust opacity "on the spot" like I can with ArtRage, or even better keep a small set of preset brushes that I could toggle through with key strokes. Then I'd use a paintbrush to quickly block in the shadows, switch and quickly soften them up with minimumn back and forth. I then would experiment with using new brushes to make my hair highlighting efforts easier and more consistent. As it is now I have to retweak thing like opacity everytime I use the pen-button brush picker... (-.-);;

[monele]

Wouldn't the Blur tool help a bit here? ô_o (or have I dreamt this tool?..... )

[rocket]

Wouldn't the Blur tool help a bit here? ô_o (or have I dreamt this tool?..... )

Actually I planned to try that tonite... ^_^;;

[Jake]

Basically I end up having to paint a hard(ish) shadow edge with one brush, then switch brushes to soften part of it. I can *almost* get away with using an airbrush (drawing hard with a soft stroke and getting the soft with a hard stroke) but I've found what I really want is an even bigger/less opaque brush for my softening edge.

As it goes, if you mean this kind of shading, then I find the 'smudge' tool more useful than the 'blur' tool, myself. Or rather, I find it gives me more control over the blurring, on the whole.

[Ren]

I was never able to do that with photoshop:the blur tool gives me a wet paper effect and the smudge tool drags the color too much without blurring it T_T

*coughUseSaiInsteadcough*

No seriously, i find it much easier than using Photoshop(not to mention:faster!) and you can just save in .psd to switch back and forth between programs.

[Jake]

I was never able to do that with photoshop:the blur tool gives me a wet paper effect and the smudge tool drags the color too much without blurring it T_T

With the smudge tool, you really have to scribble back and forth over the part you want blurred, in the direction of the blur, which evens it out a lot more. Sometimes, over larger areas, you'll need to carefully smudge against the blur direction as well, afterwards, to neaten it up.

But yeah - fundamentally, it's worth trying more than one tool; some people will be more comfortable with different behaviour.

(I find OpenCanvas' painting options pretty good in this respect, for that matter.)

[DaFool]

Hmmm... I second the use of Smudge.

I don't usually use too many tools and brushes. For shading, usually Airbrush plus Eraser using a soft gradient brush, combined with practiced smudging, will take care of all my soft shadow needs.

[Deji]

I've seen people suggesting using a soft eraser with low opacity *nods*
hope this helps =3
http://getty.deviantart.com/art/Tutoria ... g-27544088

[rocket]

Final Script Rewrite + Game Tweaking: 100%
Acting: 10% (By acting I mean putting in all the emotion switching "show" commands in the right places of the script)
Code: 95% (6 minor bugs)
Sound Effects, Music, Foley, Scoring: 100%
Character Drawings: 95%(one character with one expression left)
Character Inking: 95%
Character Color: 55% Just a little bit further now...
Event Drawings: 80%
Event Inking: 0%
Event Color: 0%
CG Events + Backgrounds: 100%