Art for MTG, digital medium

[Atreides]

Here's Matt Cavotta's recent article on how a digital medium (as opposed to traditional sketch/oil/water colour) can be used to create art for Magic the Gathering. It's possibly similar to what the artists at Obsidz do.

 

I learned a lot of new stuff, hope you find it interesting too

[Blank]

interesting article. artists have always amazed me with their works.

 

that rt3000 thing is really disturbing though

[Kaftan Barlast]

Working digitally is great but it does spoil you a great deal so that you will have a hard time going back to traditional media. Simply put, you dont have the option to undo, save or use layers in reality.

 

 

But painting digitally also makes you evovle faster since you can experiment relentlessly without spending several hundred

[Weiser_Cain]

Eraser

[Kaftan Barlast]

Since Mr Weiser seems to be sceptic I can say that digital painting is just another medium, it doesnt replace traditional means. Therefore you shouldnt be reluctant to try it out because youre feeling conservative.

 

Apart from all the nice brushes etc. just take the ability to move thing around on the canvas. If im painting a scene and I dont like the composition, I can just move the parts around. And if I run out of canvas I can just make it bigger in an instant.

 

I should get provision from both Wacom and Corel based on the amount of people Ive made go digital. All you need is a good tablet and PainterIX and someone to show you all the amazing things you can do and youre sold.

 

 

The problem is that you cant produce and sell fine art because you have no original material canvas. You can send it to print, sign and number the copies and then permanently delete the sourcefile but that will still reduce the value of your work significantly compared to if you use real paint on a real canvas.

[Atreides]

I've always wondered how artists achieve the traditional look and feel digitally. How's the stylus and pad compare to a brush (say different sensory texture while "painting")?

[Kaftan Barlast]

They achieve it by using a good ainting program that can emulate traditional media like acrylic, gouache, oil and so on. I use Corel PainterIX and it does this extremely well. It requires a bit of getting used to how the brushes work but you can do paintings which are indistinguishable from real paintings.

 

 

The differance between a brush and a tablet is huge. I use a Wacom Intuos3 A4 (previously I used a Graphire A6) with a sheet of paper taped over the tablet for extra friction. It feels like using an ordinary lead pencil on paper.

 

However, as the brain learns to disregard the fact that youre not drawing where the picture appears, you look only at what happens on the monitor and your hand moves on auto. Youre no longer aware of what happens down there as your hand scribbles on the tablet. At that stage, it doesnt matter that it feels like youre using a pencil while painting oil on the screen because youre completely focused on the screen.

 

 

 

I think the brain making this connection where the hand moves on auto helps a lot when drawing normally too because your eye-to-brain-to-hand coordination improves significantly

Edited January 19, 2006 by Kaftan Barlast

[Atreides]

Makes sense. Does switching between stylus painting and switching to a mouse to select options take a lot of time?

[Kaftan Barlast]

You dont switch between the pen/stylus and the mouse. The pen works just like a mouse, you move it over the tablet to the thing you like to click on and then you either touch the tablet with the tip of your pen or use the buttons on the pen to click.

 

The tablet is mapped 1:1 over the screen so if you put the pen in the topleft corner of the tablet, the cursor will be at the topleft of the screen.

 

 

Also many Wacom models have programmable hotkeys on the tablet so you wony need anything but the tablet and pen to control what you do. I use these hotkeys to change brush size, zoom in/out, move the canvas around, sample colour and toggle fullscreen mode

Edited January 19, 2006 by Kaftan Barlast

[Blank]

You dont switch between the pen/stylus and the mouse. The pen works just like a mouse, you move it over the tablet to the thing you like to click on and then you either touch the tablet with the tip of your pen or use the buttons on the pen to click.

 

The tablet is mapped 1:1 over the screen so if you put the pen in the topleft corner of the tablet, the cursor will be at the topleft of the screen.

 

Also many Wacom models have programmable hotkeys on the tablet so you wony need anything but the tablet and pen to control what you do. I use these hotkeys to change brush size, zoom in/out, move the canvas around, sample colour and toggle fullscreen mode

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

i don't even do art and you have me considering buying the tablet and pen

maybe you should get that provision from Wacom and Corel after all...

[Atreides]

How's the stylus interpret a brushstroke that starts heavy/thick and tapers off?

[Kaftan Barlast]

That is controlled by the pens pressure sinsitivity. If you press hard, you get a wide stroke and if you ease up you get a finer stroke. Of course, it can be set to regulate tons of functions like opacity or how much "paint" will be on your brush etc. In painter it comes preset with the most realistic function assigned already.

 

 

and with the Wacom Intuos3 series you get 1028pressure levels which allows for very fine control of what youre doing.

[Atreides]

That's interesting. Is there anything traditional medium can do which digital medium can't do that you wish may be adressed later?