...And I actually have some sketches AND finished pieces to show for it! So! Prepare for a bit of an art dump, taken from my DA and my Photobucket...

FIRST UP! The colored pictures from DA:



Short Explanation: An oekaki of my tiefling rogue, Calista. DnD is all consuming... >.>;;;



Short Explanation: Gambit from X-Men. One of my favorite characters from anything EVER. I got my hands on a copy of Easy Paint Tool SAI, and I am in looooove~ <333

And finally....



Short Explanation: Shippo and Kirara from InuYasha. My first attempt at coloring in SAI. I still need practice. ^^;;

THEN we have a couple sketches -- all from Pedes Obscurum, a major DnD campaign I'm involved in. All chibi... Because it's easy to draw and I'm planing on making little joke comic strips.






Much fun~ I'm in the process of coloring those chibis. We'll see how it goes. Coloring all the drow will be interesting...

So... What do you think? Any tips and tricks for digital painting are most welcome!

Pretty~ *^* I love the second one~ <3
& I adore those chibis~ >w<
I'll be looking forward to the colored ones~ o wo

Uwaaah I love the chibis <3 they are so cute! And I love how you draw hair =)

Ah, thanks so much! I'll get the colors done as soon as I can~ <333

o Ao I want to see those chibies colored !
=] There is nothing I can that you can't do ~ lineless art isn't very hard btw. If anything, it's easy and faster.
Your coloring is very lovely ~

I've got some of the chibis colored, but I need help!

I'm not sure what to do for the backgrounds. What I have right now is just kind of a space saver. Any ideas on what I should do?

Here's what I've got done:






Help please? ^^;;

Cool. I love your style. (:

Originally Posted by Veiss Wynd

There is nothing I can that you can't do ~ lineless art isn't very hard btw. If anything, it's easy and faster.

Ah! I totally missed your comment! Ah-durr~

I've tried lineless a couple times in the past but it always comes out looking odd, especially around the edges. I'm so stuck in the "coloring in the lines" stage. I really need to break out of those boundaries... ^^; So, I greatly admire anyone who can do it, and you certainly have seriously mad skills. So, yeah~ You're pretty much awesome. xD But thanks for the compliment! I'll certainly try my hand at lineless more. Color in general has never really been my thing. I've been trying to push myself to finish more, though, so... yeah. Here's hoping! *crosses fingers*

@Morbid - Thanks so much!

o Ao I'd like to see a sample of a lineless attempt. Pretty much the way I make it, is I choose the darkest tone that I'll be using and create a silhouette of the figure, then take the second darkest tone, and start building up to lighter tones o 3o I use the eraser to shape up the silhouette as well as everything else. I also use the brush of course. I go back and forwards. How have you been trying to approach it btw?

As for what should go in the background - I imagined this pattern:


The pattern itself is very generic. I don't see it filling up the whole space box, but I see it growing out from whatever side the chibi is leaning on - so basically I see those vines sprouting out from the chibi, and spreading.

This one seems a nice style too:



lastly now, I want to ask - what software do you use to color, and how do you go about coloring the faces? I ask particularly about the way you give the skin it's tones and shadows. It's so soft. Is it a certain brush or settings?

If I can find any of my past lineless attempts, I'll throw them up for you to take a look at and critique. I think what trips me up is the fact that I'm still so used to using a ton of layers for shadows. I've been attempting to break free of that for a while, but since cell-shading was my first experience coloring, I'm still stuck on using a layer for every layer of shadow. I'm not sure how you do it, but I have a hard time (possibly attributed to my shaky hand?) making sure that the layers line up or that I don't jump out of the frame I build. Err... That probably makes no sense. XD;

When I've tried lineless in the past, I've always begun with a sketch underneath and a gray silhouette as the back color, just to get the form down. Then I would hit it up with whatever color I want. Another thing that trips me up (that I've been working on lately) is that I'm so used to cell-shading and laying down the base color before adding shadows and highlights. Lately, when I've been trying my had at a more "painter-y" method of coloring, I've been doing as you say, laying down the shadow colors first. But I'm still working on getting it to look right in the bounds of lines, so lineless still scares me. Especially since I'm a sloppy colorist. XD

Ah, I dunno how to explain my methods! an example would be better, but I'm not even sure I kept any of my lineless stuff... We'll see!

AND, as for what program I used on the chibis and two of the three other arts I posted, I used Easy Paint Tool SAI. It's... It's my new color and lineart love. It rasterizes all the lineart, which makes it appear really smooth. As smooth as it can get without being vector-based. And it reads pressure nicely so the lines can vary in thickness (something I need to work on). The color lays down very nicely and blends like crazy. I don't use a fuzzy brush. Rather, I switch between the two colors until I'm satisfied with the way it blends. I add highlights about the same way, except, since these are chibis, I didn't want to blend them as much so they appear.... shiny? I guess that's the right word! xD As for the settings of the brush in SAI, I don't really stray from the default settings. Oh, I did add the boxes in Photoshop.

Also... Ooooooh! Those designs are lovely! I adore swirlies and vines. I'll play around with those patters or ones like it! Thanks a ton for that!

o Ao Well for the whole lineless thing, you don't exactly have to lay down the shadow. The silhouette itself does the work of the shadow. Just change the opacity of the brush to low, and brush away. The lighter areas of course with more layering. By layer I don't mean on a separate layer for the opacity part. Just keep the light tone on it's own layer and keep working on that same layer. What I do though is a bit different now days. Something I very recently picked up, which was laying down a pallet of colors
like in this earlier piece WIP II Shallow Seas by ~VeissWynd on deviantART
I have only a few there for skin, and basically, I just created shape after shape of lighter colors. The picture comes out more saturated and nicer when you use solid colors instead of working with opacity. o Ao Lemme know if you do ever work on another line less piece.

SAI, huh ~ I hear a lot of about, but I don't think it's free? Open canvas had a similar effect for me. Open Canvas 4 at least. Have to pay for that one though. The only free version is the stand-alone executable file that is the first Open Canvas.
But I love the color blending effects of your SAI pieces =]
Your line work is also very lovely.

you have such gorgous art!keep up the good work ;)

Pretty *-* I don't have much to critique on but maby more color ^^;; it seems to be only one shade and more flat :x

Originally Posted by Deletris

Pretty *-* I don't have much to critique on but maby more color ^^;; it seems to be only one shade and more flat :x

Ah, thanks so much for the critique! I certainly need to work on my coloring. *is still afraid of color* Do you have any suggestions on how to make it look less flat? Do you mean, like, shading with different colors rather than darker shades of the same color? Just checking! XD; Any suggestions for things I could try would be most appreciated.

=D You could use some darker values in your pieces. Like in your second piece - gambit's jacket has a lot of brown space, and barely any change in light value - show depth by adding even darker browns. Don't be afraid D:

For the hell of it - you might want to make a copy of whatever file you work on - use the complimentary color of what you're working on to create the darker hues. You see, with paint, when you mix complementaries, you create a natural "black." Since black itself is not a color, but a value, the more natural way to show something becoming duller and/or darker is by adding it's complimentary. It sort of cancels it out. Now I forget just how differently it works digitally, but it's worth exploring ~