Thread: Introduction, and some Illustrator line art

Hey everyone. I just wanted to say hi and introduce myself to the great artistic community we have here at DV.

So, how about some dreamy sleepy dream art? This one's old, from when I first started using Illustrator. See, now I have an excuse if you find it sub par. ;)



Most of what I do is sketch and then use Photoshop for inking. I haven't gone back to much computer art since this picture (Kimpossible's avatar is mostly Illustrator, though). Something about it sends me into musings on the relationship between death, sleep, dreams, the soul, and robotics! It never seemed to need coloring, but I'd appreciate your input.

If you notice a resemblance to Sephiroth from FFVII, that was completely unintentional. I had barely even heard of FF then and certainly never played it. Although now that I played it just this year, I find the Sephiroth tone rather eerie.

Anyways, I thought it might amuse some of you. ;) I'm looking forward to more sharing and working with you in the art design team.

That's a really nice drawing X9. I know didly about drawing, but I do love the dreamy quality about her. And those lines give her such a buoyant quality, like she's floating or something.

Really cool man, wish I could draw.

Thanks!

Originally posted by OpheliaBlue
...wish I could draw.

You can! It's funny because a lot of artists don't think they can draw either... there's no line to be crossed where you are "someone who can draw" on one side and someone who can't on the other. All drawing is, I think, is experimenting with a pencil and paper, keeping things you like and throwing out things you don't like. And anyone can do that.

Looks pretty good, Ex-Nine.

I do see the Sephiroth resemblence, but it's not that bold. I probably only noticed it because you said something. Nice to have another artist around, though!

If you ever want to get into 3d art there is a pretty tight program called Blender 3d www.blender3d.org if you've never heard of it. It's open source (free! Woot!) and comparable to programs like Maya and whatnot. I'm still a novice at it, but here is an example of one of my characters, if you haven't seen my thread.





It hasn't taken as long as I figured it would to get pretty good at it, so I'm just spreading the word because it's a really powerful program, and might be something want to look into.

Keep up the good work, man.

Thanks, Oneironaut! Yeah, I saw your stuff in that other thread.. looks pretty good!

I've been looking at a number of 3D programs, and I can't seem to find one that will allow me to implement the aesthetics I want... like probabilistically varying outline width. I might have just made that term up, but what I mean would just make the lines look a litte bit more hand-drawn and, thus, a tad bit more "human" and less mechanical. I might have to learn to program plugins or something...

Hehe....Blender has a toon shading option. 8)

...and damn..I didn't realize my pics were so big. LOL.

Check it out:
http://blender2ch.hp.infoseek.co.jp/cgi-bi...sdata/191-0.jpg
http://www.swavely.net/cohort/blender/DesertEagle4.jpg
http://www.aifweb.com/galleries/blender/im...toon_flower.jpg
http://lintz.chez.tiscali.fr/cactus3.jpg
http://www.merlintechs.com/blender/images/...ootie_small.jpg
http://www.centralsource.com/blenderart/al...y_king_fina.jpg

Right, but do you notice how all the borders and outlines have constant widths? It's more noticable during animation. I want the width to vary just a little. And, preferably, be able to set the parameters by which they vary (max/min width, smoothness, etc.) and I want them to be able to change each time a frame is rendered. I don't want it to be the same in each frame...

Pretty picky, huh?

Lmfao. Hell yes you are.

Hey Ex Nine! Yes, I believe Illustrator is quite a wonderful tool for creating or enhancing 2dimensional work.

Originally posted by Ex
Right, but do you notice how all the borders and outlines have constant widths? It's more noticable during animation. I want the width to vary just a little. And, preferably, be able to set the parameters by which they vary (max/min width, smoothness, etc.) and I want them to be able to change each time a frame is rendered. I don't want it to be the same in each frame...

I couldn't tell for sure, but in your first post I didn't notice variation in widths of the line. One of the most useful features I find in illustrator is the amount of control you have over lines. Do you use the Brush tool/palette at all? I really recommend experimenting with that - you will be able to achieve realistic brush strokes and control it's characteristics. Below is an example - I took one of my drawings, imported it in Illustrator, traced it with pen tool, then changed the stroke appearance by stroking it with a brush from the Brushes Palette (or making my own brush)



3D programs I have a whole plethora of them: Strata, Carrera, Maya, Sketch3D, Wings, and yes... even Blender. I was least impressed with Blender, but mostly because of the interface. Of them all, I like Strata the best. Easy to work with and quick results without having to dig and search through all kinds of features you may never use.

As far as the animation part you mention - I would look into a program called After Effects (Adobe) - It is like the Flash of Photoshop. I have an older version of it, but I'm sure the effect you're looking for is probably available as a plug-in of some sort.

Good luck and keep up the good work!

Thanks a lot TJ! Yeah, I'm familiar with the brush tools and have used them (it wouldn't be much of a program without them, now would it? ). Whenever I futzed with this one, though, it always ended up looking very busy. I rather like the uniformity here. I was speaking specifically about 3D animation.

Nice work, btw!

Thank you for mentioning After Effects, but that was one of the first places I looked, and I'm not sure I'll find it there. And I don't want it to be done in post, anyways. I don't want a "hand drawn" filter, because I don't want it to look hand-drawn, really... just a little, but not enough. I want to control all the variables and experiment with them lol.

I'm just going to see if I can do it in MEL. I'll probably have to learn it someday anyways.