Back to the drawing board...

So I've been taking a break, letting some of the knowledge i've amassed soak in. I think this is always good to do if you have the time to do it. Right now i'm still not feeling overly creative, so until i get my mojo working again, i'm going to try and finish up some of the better sketches i've started over the past few months. Heres what i'm working on right now...

The Tin Man...

This is a project for my friends in Quasimojo, elephantiasis meets voodoo shaman. Its still in a work in progress....

Free digital painting programs Pt II

Okay, where to start. I have a teaching opportunity that has recently come up, and I'm exploring the idea of giving some lessons locally on digital painting and 3d modeling. We live in a rural area and I'm hoping this idea appeals to a lot of kids and beginners, and for that reason i think its important to keep the cost down for people just starting out. No one wants to shell out $250 for a copy of CS6 that their kid ends up not using. So, a free 3d modeling program for beginners, that an easy solution, Sketchup is awesome. But for painting I really wasn't sure what was out there.

So after trying, gimp, krita and mypaint, I can easily say Gimp in the easy winner. Krita has MAD potential, but its still in alpha testing, and is buggy as heel. Mypaint, just didn't click for me. I hate to give a bad review of something that i only played with for a few minutes, but all I remember is it just sealed the deal for gimp with me. Gimp is still kinda buggy itself, but its really an amazing program. I don't think it could ever replace the editing power of PS, but, its really fun to paint with. I'm in love with the 1st brush i made, its just fun to use and I hope i can figure out how to get the same feel in PS.

Gimp feels really weak when it comes to editing, text, layer scaling, lots of things just seem cumbersome at best. Several features seem terrible when compared to PS, but, as I've heard people say, its not fair to compare the two programs. Gimp will work great as a free program to help people learn the basics cheaply, but in the end, anyone wanting to make pro level stuff, is going to have to work with a better program like PS or painter, in my opinion.

I'm going to keep using Gimp over the next few weeks, I still need to research somethings about it and get more comfortable using it before I try and teach others to use it, but its nice to know that for the most part, gimp and PS are actually a lot alike, and learning one, definitely helps to learn the other.

Free painting programs Gimp/Krita/Mypaint

Painted This with gimp. Will post more later, tired now. :)

update-
http://snailspacestudios.blogspot.com/2012/05/free-digital-painting-programs-pt-ii.html

Fire Ice Miner

Unfortunately, no one else entered the contest this week, but this was kind of fun. I'm getting tired of working over 3d models when painting. I'm really gonna start working on a more organic process, I'm starting to see what I need to do to get the finished result I want, so here starts the next stage of refining my style.

Painting over a render part II

So, if you've read any of my older posts you know this has been a goal for awhile. This is the first time I've successfully pulled off a piece like this. I'll try and post more on how I did it later, hope you like it!

And here.s a clean version before any painting, decaling, and adjustment.

Zombie repellant / IDW 201

This was done 100% in photoshop, using a masks to get a 3d look. This the first time I've really tried to do something like this, Its not perfect but I think its looking pretty cool. Its still a WIP, I'm gonna touch it up a bit. Got a great paint over/critique from themonet at at CA.org, so its been a really good project. I only have about 8 hours in it, so that pretty nice for me.

Also wanna give props to the site Ctrl+paint.com, they have tons of free tutorials that are excellent! Make sure you check it out if you don't already know!

Industrial design of the week 200

This was a very trasformative project, I paint better now than when I started if that makes sense. Its kind of a weird piece, But its a mile stone!