On Sat, 24 May 2008 18:46:13 -0700 (PDT), Prisoner at War
<prisoner_at_war@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>Hmmm! How so? Any examples? Easily create designs that can't be
>printed?? Wow, I've never even heard of the concept, "designs that
>can't be printed"....
I think it'd be more accurate to say designs that can't be reproduced
exactly as the original. On the flip side though you can scan a
non-digital design which would then make it digital and you could then
do various forms of color correction and what not at that level...of
course, again, it wouldn't be even remotely as flexible or precise had
you simply started digital.
>Sure, it's always good to just know "A-to-Z"...but it almost appears
>to be *absolutely necessary* now. Which sounds weird since it seems
>that things are getting more and more "specialized" instead...like how
>video games used to be designed and programmed by the same one person
>back in the '70s and '80s, and now it's several people involved in the
>art department alone....
Not necessarily, in fact rendering engines and cookie cutter graphic
forms are quickly starting to turn things back to the way they were.
Just look at my character sprite generator for a good example:
http://www.backwater-productions.net/RMXP_CSG/
>Are illustrators trained to use graphics software these days? I'm
>just puzzled 'cause it seems like such a learning curve for something
>which is so much more quickly and easily done -- with more "soul," if
>I may say so -- by hand!
There are software titles that cater SPECIFICALLY to illustration,
like Adobe Illustrator. The advantages are nothing short of
incredible. For one, your drawings are done via vectors, which means
your line illustration will become infinitely resizable. Two, every
single line you make can be redrawn, moved, and manipulated in just
about every manner you can conceive of. To that extent you can
actually easily create multiple versions of a drawing, one with say a
different face, one with say a different outfit. Further, in paint
programs like Adobe Photoshop you can paint on digital layers, so
often what artists will do is draw the model form and then paint the
skin tones on one layer, the shadows on another layer, the clothing on
another layer, the lighting on yet another. The advantage obviously
is that you can go back to any point in the pieces creation and alter
some specific element without having to recreate the whole thing from
scratch. Modern paint programs also include hundreds of different
brush styles that can digitally simulate any sort of real world medium
whether it be chalk, colored pencil, paint, water color, you name it.
There is a downside to all of this though...the learning curve is
steep...REALLY steep. Pretty much unless it's something you want,
that you want so badly that you're going to pour every ounce of your
will into experimenting, playing, practicing, researching and
testing...yeah, yer not ever gonna get very good at it...at least not
to the point where you could recreate digitally what you can already
do "by hand".
The digital world has incredible advantages, but it's not as simple as
just doing what you do by hand with a graphic tablet and pen. You
have to understand file formats and encoding schemes, you have to
understand how layers work, layer blending, masking/selection
techniques, color composition (it's reverse digitally), filter
effects, color correction techniques, the list goes on and on.
If you're willing to invest the time though, the rewards are simply
unbelievable...so long as you can see them, and I guarantee that in
your current mindset there are many you can't, many you haven't ever
even considered. It's one of those things that once you learn it and
use it, you'll wonder how you ever did without it.
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