Let out the ARTIST in you!!!!

[Maximilianus]

Thanks Max for pointing out Revolte's songs in this thread. I didnt think we had more than visual art in here. I always admired LitNet for its talented and warm members. Although I havent been as regular myself in sharing things, all you guys have kept me returning to LitNet to simply spend time with things you share, things I like...

Welcome Like you said, it might be better to have a specific sound art thread. This one has many pictures and the sounds may get confused

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

Thankyou again Bella Beautifull (You needn't be jealous: I need a holiday - I'm jealous of people who get to have holidays)


Thanks Mutatis. So many questions...

Let's see - No pencil sketch, just pen.

They're about 2 x 1 1/2' - 3 x 2' on medium paper (about twice as thick as photocopy)

Lines are smooth by being very relaxed and with a good pen - a free flowing fountain pen with quite broad tip, and the ink is just water based black Quink. The finished result photographed under as neutral light as possible (virtually impossible to get flat lighting unfortunately, which is why some of the edge lines are faded/broken or too heavy after the next step)

Then I load the black on grey photo into paint.net, turn the contrast up about full (not the brightness) til it's sheer black on white. (Airbrush out some of the grits that remain - which I neglected in the bottom left corner above)

Finally I reduce the size to the smallest reasonable that you can still perceive the detail, and then compress it 50% jpg (gifs look too clinical), and voila!

So: good pen, good paper, good music, relax (preferably all at once)

(Actually there is another step - my camera has a copy function which reduces text and line art to a close black and white high contrast, but it doesn't work completely)

Thanks for the tips!

[MystyrMystyry]

No worries. Also the black areas are a fine sable brush fill. I use one with about four strands to about ten, going over it 2-3 times (once doesn't dry velvety black, but grey-brown)

Now you should be equipped to post something!

[Kyriakos]

This is the Khmer town, with the Angkor Wat in the center:

[Kyriakos]

And the Lighthouse of Alexandria

[Maximilianus]

To the lighthouse, chapeau! (I just love lighthouses... must be the longing for the sea )

[Beautifull]

Awesome K!

[Kyriakos]

Thank you both

[Maximilianus]

The following piece I have baptized as "birth of the fire doves"

Next was done experimenting with a few brushes and lighting effects on occasion of a friend's recent birthday.

And finally a collage I came up with after finding a few promotional photos on Spartacus, Blood and Sand (one of my fave TV shows) that gave me some ideas. I suppose it may be perceived as a tribute to the late Andy Whitfield (R.I.P.), because I don't do collages very frequently... but I just felt like doing it after realizing the many possibilities of fading and lighting that result from the combination of Paint.Net and the GIMP. I also removed some of the backgrounds and added the glares and a few blood stains.

Somebody please make a comment!

[MystyrMystyry]

Well done Kyriakos! I like the landscape effect - you'll have to explain how that was achieved


Good work Maxi - I like the first mostest, and the way it has a cool title too (evocative at that!) - the other two look are quite fine also, with the second being an accomplished greeting card thing (you could make money from similar renderings easy) crossed with a desktop wallpaper. The last is total fan wallpaper, and well-executed at that, but it could also adorn tee shirts or the side of a van, a billboard or a mural!

[Maximilianus]

Thanks, Mystyr, I'll consider everything you said (come to think of it, I could use some greeting card extra income )

For the following piece I first developed a cobblestone texture, and then I placed it under a wavy water animation, entitled as "waves on a mossy cobblestone floor." I'm just hoping it looks like the real thing.

[MystyrMystyry]

It certainly looks real, or sort of from a game.

I feel when animated gifs get toward the 1/5 meg size it's a bit elaborate. At one hundred kilobytes I'm already looking at video as being a much better ratio - at least for uploading - and I know it's probably not feasible to embed a youtube/vimeo video. I think I tried once, though I may have stuffed up by not knowing what I was doing (highly likely!). I've seen it on other forums - perhaps I should check the construct of the page next time.

Keep 'em coming! I'm enjoying the holiday

[Beautifull]

I love all of them maxi! They're awesome! I agree with Mystyr about them. I think the first is cool, awesome title and all. The second is so cute with the flowers, and the third...wow. I think I liked that one. And I could see it on T-shirts and whatnot! Great job on those three!

I also really liked the waves on a mossy cobblestone floor. I could stare at it for hours just because it's so...hm....alluring? I don't know. All I know is I like staring at it. By the way, what program do you use? I'm sure you mentioned it before, but I don't remember(excuse this old mind of mine)

[Maximilianus]

It certainly looks real, or sort of from a game.

Great!

I feel when animated gifs get toward the 1/5 meg size it's a bit elaborate. At one hundred kilobytes I'm already looking at video as being a much better ratio - at least for uploading - and I know it's probably not feasible to embed a youtube/vimeo video. I think I tried once, though I may have stuffed up by not knowing what I was doing (highly likely!). I've seen it on other forums - perhaps I should check the construct of the page next time.

True. In general, the bigger the gif the higher the quality but it's also imperative to consider carefully the program you're going to use to generate the gif, because many such programs do not really produce a high visual quality, especially considering that gifs can't go over 256 colors and if you were working with images higher than 256 colors, then the program has to reduce the number of colors in reasonably good equivalents (or the animation will look glitchy in many parts). For this reason I'm mostly using GIMP to produce animated gifs. It has a very good method for color reduction
Regarding videos, I'm afraid that all you can do here is posting external links and nothing else

Keep 'em coming! I'm enjoying the holiday

I'll make some more in a while!

I love all of them maxi! They're awesome! I agree with Mystyr about them. I think the first is cool, awesome title and all. The second is so cute with the flowers, and the third...wow. I think I liked that one. And I could see it on T-shirts and whatnot! Great job on those three!

Coming from an artist I feel honoured!

I also really liked the waves on a mossy cobblestone floor. I could stare at it for hours just because it's so...hm....alluring? I don't know. All I know is I like staring at it.

It does have a similar effect on me. I'm using it as visual therapy

By the way, what program do you use? I'm sure you mentioned it before, but I don't remember(excuse this old mind of mine)

I did the cobblestone texture on Paint.Net, by following this very cool tutorial
However, you can vary some settings as you are on it, and of course before following the tutorial you need to get familiar with the program's basics, such as installing plug-ins, but that's easy (this tutorial uses 3 of them). It's a simple yet powerful program and there's a bunch of cool plug-ins available here. You'll never stop producing new visual effects by touching all sorts of settings

As for the wavy water animation, I did it on GIMP, through its built-in wavy water plug-in, which I learned to use by following a video tutorial on Youtube that has been unfortunately removed Luckily, I downloaded the video when it was still available, so if you want it I can e-mail it to you. It's not very big and explains in detail how to use the wavy water plug-in. I had to experiment with the settings for a long while though That depends on what you want to achieve.

[Maximilianus]

Following are two experiments with floral brushes on GIMP. I was just painting in a randomized fashion, and voilà!