Beginner's Guide to CGing

[fAB]

I couldn't help but notice Pitch's sig yesterday. It said:

Hey, I wanna learn to CG.
Any of the wonderful MMLS artists here mind sparing
some of their time to teach me a few things?
Please? PM me?

Naturally being the kind, caring, always willing to help person that I am (not to mention a "wonderful MMLS artist"), I offered my help.

I decided if I was going to do it though, I should go to the trouble of trying to do it right. So rather than give Pitch a few pointers by way of PM, I thought I'd CG a pic, document it as I went, and make a tutorial for anyone who might have need of it around here. It's actually pretty thorough I think, but still I call it a beginner's guide because it starts off with the very basics, and attempts to explain everything in simple terms with lots of visual examples of the progression.

www.legends-station.com/forum/fabcgtutorial1.zip -unzip and open index.htm

Hopefully some people will find this helpful (I certainly hope so, took enough hours to make it). If it's not clear enough or there's something that should be added to it (aside from more advanced techniques), don't hesitate to say so. I'd like to tweak this guide as much as possible so that it becomes the most useful it can be for people.

[meteorsummoner]

It should help! Even though it wasn't me that 'requested' that, I would very much like to learn how to CG art.... ^^

[pitch]

Wow. So that's how it works. Man, I was way off. Thanks fab! That helped a ton! XD I feel like such a moron. I been only using one layer. I knew I hadta be missing something.

...now I needta put something else in my signature.

One more thing, though. Is there a way to turn like a hand drawn picture into lineart like that? Because I've tried before to CG my doodles, and the outline always sucks. And I try playin with the magic wand tool and the Paint Brush to make the outline better, but it always looks all cruddy. Any tips there?

[meteorsummoner]

I knew the thing about using multiple layers but haven't got a chance to try it out.

I'm sure the program you use is Photoshop. I have Paint Shop Pro so I'm sure to muddle through the instructions somehow... XD

[Santa Melty]

Don't know what CGing is, but I've heard some people make reference to the term when showing off some fabulous piece of art, so I think I will give it a go.

Thank goodness I'm already familiar with Photoshop. However, I've been meaning to ask, but which is better? Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro? It seems like all of the best artwork (the computer drawn/colored ones I mean) I see is made in PSP, but I don't want to pay a couple months worth of income for the program if I can do everything I need in Photoshop...

Also, Pitch mentioned turning sketches into line art. Is there in easy way to do that? I usually just trace very carefully over my work with a fine pen, but it never seems to some out right... o.o

[pitch]

On the subject of PSP vs Photoshop, I personally find Paint Shop Pro MUCH easier to work with, but PhotoShop seems much more powerful to me. If you've familiarized yourself with Photoshop I don't think you should find yourself in need of Paint Shop Pro. But that's just my limited views on it, as I've made only like two things in Photoshop and a slew of them in PSP.

[fAB]

Sorry for the delayed reponse here, people. I don't have a whole lot of experience with directly coloring hand-drawn line art. However, I have done a few pieces that way, and it seems like scanner settings make a big difference. I've owned two scanners in my time, and both of them gave me options on how I wanted the scan to be interpreted, such as Color Photo, B&W Photo, Text, Color Drawing, B&W Drawing, etc. Assuming you have some control over these settings on your own scanner, experiment, and try to get one that really pours on the contrast, making the black black and the white white. Naturally, the more clear and defined your lines are on paper, the better they'll be when scanned.

On a side note, thanks to you Pitch for giving me the initial push to create this guide. Having CGed one of my characters, I had a lot of fun and ended up doing a bunch in a row before I burnt out on it! XP

[pitch]

hahah, thanks for makin' the guide. Taught me a bunch of stuff I didn't know. Course now I dunno when I'm gunna get around to actually doing any of it. <.< So much stuff to do., but I read it a bunch of times so it's permenantly stuck in my brain. ;D Hope everyone else finds it as useful.