Welcome back followers of the fearsome!
Recently we’ve been streaming a lot and it’s been a ton of fun interacting with everyone on the Twitch channel. People have asked questions about how I approach artwork more and more so I thought we’d do a refresher on how we tackle art here at Slick!
Tech used: Photoshop CS3 and a Cintiq 21UX
First shot is a super broad stroke image. I draw really big, so big in fact that Nick has had to craft a crazy tool in the engine that keeps my exaggerated output in line with regimented code.
A- I start with a big ugly pressure sensitive brush and blob out the shapes, I usually have a pretty good idea on what’s going on after this is done.
B- After that I’ll clean it up with a finer brush and some more interesting detail, as you can see this part is probably the most important because I end up adding things that weren’t there before to make new shapes.
C- The flat colors come next! These are typically chosen from a swatch I have set up in Photoshop or eye-dropped from another asset. The clean lines really make coloring faster and easy with the paint bucket!
D- Shading! This process gets the most attention on the stream and has helped out a couple people make their shading process a little easier. It basically involves scooping out light from a shadow layer with the lasso tool. Super fast and easy!
Oh boy! Layers! Some people were curious as to how my layers are set up. It’s pretty basic but with the help of masking to the base it becomes super easy. After the shadows (Step D) get scooped away I tend to flatten the asset down so Photoshop doesn’t get too laggy with hundreds of assets happening.
And that’s basically it! When I tackle characters and puppets the principal is the same, the process from rough to clean lines probably gets another pass to add detail and whatnot but that’s about it!
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We’ll be sure to do another art post soon on our puppets but that’ll be all for now! Today is the Wednesday so remember to stop by our Dev-Stream at 4pm-6pm PST where we’ll be having a great time with our great followers, answering questions and working on Viking Squad! It’s been really great interacting with our community and generating interest among fellow developers, artists, and gamers so be sure not to miss it!
-Jesse
Twitter: Nick: @nickwaanders Jesse: @jouste Caley: @caleycharchuk SlickEntertainment: @SlickEntInc
Google+: Nick: +NickWaanders Jesse: +JesseTurner Caley: +CaleyCharchuk