Okay. To tell you the truth traditional implements weren't easy. What's left of mine live in small box. I admire all those talented people who worked for centuries and still work today without an 'undo' button or a previous save.:cool:

wow, thank-you! I love pencil and charcoal:up: I drew this in high school, shortly after the ice age ended.
http://img338.imageshack.us/img338/6109/p1030033rj5.jpg

I recognize a certain Heinrich Lehmann-Willenbrock in the drawing, so as a portrait it definitely works. :up: The real commander of Das Boot! Was that for a class, or your own personal project? I was okay with pencil...messy with charcoal.

...Answer C: All of the above. I drew it in my art class for a German contest for German speaking students in Minnesota(which I won first place with:up: ). I need to scan some of my other drawings. In the subsim 2007, one of my other drawings is in there.:hmm:

He looks a shade younger there must be before 1941 before most of the old guard go down in there iron coffins, nice drawing. :up:

HA! Busted, I bet if I can zoom close enough, I can reveal your true identity! WHAHAHAHA!!! *evil laughter continues as Dowly runs to a wall* ZzzZZzzZzzZZzz....

EDIT: Gah, use bigger letters next time! :rotfl:

Ha, too bad I didn't sign my name in Finnish:cool:

Well, I know your firstname... I'll find you, I mean how many there can be? *googles*
808500!? Awwwww!!! :damn:

"Kilroy was here" Hmmm.....didn't know that was yor name :hmm:

Is it just me, or do both faces look too long in comparision with the real deal? It could well be a difference in monitors tho. They are both great none the less... (talking about Russell and Jürgen)

@nikimcbee: Your drawing is great as well, and your dog in that SH4 sweater is just cute

Yes, the faces are abit long-ish, but maybe that's his way of drawing things. :hmm:

That is brilliant digital work you've done there, Torpy! :rock:

I've been learning how to use Painter IX with my old Wacom Graphire 2 tablet. I can honestly say that it is slightly easier than using just a mouse, but the 4x5 working area is really too small for large work.

I've been using it to draw u-boat emblems for SH3 but it just feels so unnatural to me after using paints, ink, and pencils for 35 years. And all these weird menus with things like 'transform', 'posterize', and assorted techno-gobbledygook just leaves me absolutely bumfuzzled! :doh:

I still much prefer the feel and precision of painting on canvas or drawing on bristol board and creating an effect is as simple as the flick of a wrist. :|\\

Got any tips for an old-school artist on how to get the hang of digital art apps like Painter? Maybe you could post a few lessons for us aspiring CG Rembrandts (or at least point out some of the materials and online info you used to learn).

I'm kinda old-school myself. I got my first copy of Photoshop about seven years ago and was really intimidated by that thick gray manual. Getting the tablet made things easier since I could go back to working with something that felt like a pencil again. Got Painter about three years ago. A good book to purchase would be the Photoshop Wow! or Painter Wow! books. They're far better than the manuals for either. To tell you the truth, I've never used a lot of what is in Photoshop like masks and channels, etc.;)

Here's the quick and dirty way I learned to paint and color in Photoshop and Painter. Mostly by using layers. Let's say I want a new U-Boat emblem featuring Helga ze lovely beer frau serving up beer and tonnage . No objections? Gut!:D This is a lousy pencil sketch but it'll convey the idea.

http://neptoon.homestead.com/Helga1.jpg

First I start with the pencil sketch scanned in at 300 dpi. I usually start with Photoshop since it's the better program for cleaning things up. Once I've transferred it to Photoshop I use the Curves setting to deal with imperfections. With the white eyedropper tool in the Curves dialog, I select the grayest part of the paper and remove the grays, which makes the surface nice and white. The eyedropper removes all the shades between the selected gray and pure white. I then copy that image to a new layer in a new color (RGB) file. I then set that layer to multiply. That has the effect of making the white areas transparent and the black line work stays opaque. All the layers that will stacked under it can be seen.

http://neptoon.homestead.com/Helga2.jpg

Now I open the Photoshop file in Painter and I slip a new layer under the pencil layer for the water. ( I like Painter's airbrush tools better) I slap some blue color in using the airbrush tool. I slip in another layer over that for the sky. I just used a simple gradient fill for the sky. The nice thing about layers is they they keep your colors separated from each other. Unlike traditional painting you can work on one area without screwing up another.

http://neptoon.homestead.com/Helga3.jpg

Now I've got additional layers for the skin color, dress, etc. Still mostly slapping down colors with the airbrush tool.

http://neptoon.homestead.com/Helga4.jpg

At this point I've got most of my colors roughed in. Each on their own separate layer.

http://neptoon.homestead.com/Helga5.jpg

Now I add some drop-shadowed lettering with Photoshop in the spaces I left in the design for it. I've still got a lot of shading to do and it's still got a looong way to go before I can start easing out the black pencil work, but that's the basic starting idea. I'll try and finish it up tomorrow.:ping:

Thank you very much for demonstrating your work, Torp! :D

You do make it seem so easy!

I have found that, for now, I usually am more comfortable with doing a pencil drawing, inking it, and then scanning it. I will typically do the scan into Painter at 300 dpi for things like SH3, but I've been using 600 dpi for more "serious" work.

I also like the airbrush tool in Painter. It seems to give me cleaner lines and better control more like a real pencil than the actual pencil tool. Sometimes you have to wonder if they even have a real artist on hand during the development of these features.

I'll have to give that Photoshop process a try as it does seem Painter is made more for creating images rather than doing cleanup or finish work with existing images.

My sister has always been a big fan of my artwork. I used to draw and paint posters of her favorite anime characters for her to hang in her room and even did a "mash-up" comic once starring various anime and TV characters that she loved.

I was talking to her on the phone about my struggles with CG art and the graphics tablet when she gave me a fantastic idea. She said, "If you're so comfortable drawing on paper why not tape a piece of paper over your graphics tablet?". I did and it does feel more like using a real pen or pencil. My sis is a genius! :|\\