Arena Tips & Techniques

Ok, so this particular image got is hairy tail whooped in the tournament, but I thought some of the people who were newer to the arena might still benefit from seeing other people's techniques. The following is more of a general overview than a specific tut, but it will give you a good idea of the basic process. Other people should feel free to post their own.

http://home.comcast.net/~mudabir/fla...TheBeast01.jpg
http://home.comcast.net/~mudabir/fla...TheBeast02.jpg
http://home.comcast.net/~mudabir/fla...TheBeast03.jpg

Questions, comments and critiques all welcome. :)

Great tutorial Rush. It's amazing to see the effort that goes into these images. Although you didn't get my vote, seeing how you put this together may have swayed my opinions.

Edit: Now that I look at it again, I think the typographical arrangement at the top of the tutorial for 'Unleash the Beast' would have been the way to go in the image.

Honestly the only reason I didn't vote for your image was due to the font choice. Other than that awsome. It was the flip for you oponent. I felt the design lacked slightly but the font choice pulled it back together. Great tutorial and wonderful job.

I have to agree. Amazing job Rush, I had no idea you put that much work into the image...i think it all fell down to font choice/layout. Awesome tutorial too.

Thanks guys...something to keep in mind for the next one. I appreciate all the feedback! :D

And don't worry, I can take it as well as I can give it, so don't think I'm going to get all whiney because you tell me you didn't like it. I honesty appreciate you guys taking the time to give me something real I can work with. Thanks! :thumbsup:

Once again, excellent tutorial, good attention to detail :)

Should no doubt inspire some people to battle in the arena, also good to show others how you put several images together, to create something quite different.

well done :)
bp

Once again, really appericiated. Just Kool....//

Here's another one for ya. :)

Dodge & Burn: A 2D Artist's 3D Primer

It was marvelled at recently on the forums that a hole in an object could be created where once there was none. Much of this simply has to do with the depiction of 3D space or depth, and all that is comprised of is light and shade. When you apply a Bevel Layer Style to an object all it's doing is overlaying a light color over the parts of the image that would receive highlights and a dark color over the parts that would be in shadow. You can do this yourself...far better...with the Dodge and Burn Tools, but in this case what you are doing is either lightening or darkening the pixels that are already present in the image.

To start out, let's take a look at this simple example. The circle in the corner on the bottom is solid red. The circles that go up to the left have been successively Burned and Dodged to create a shaded sphere. The circles to the right show spheres that were created using the Gradient Tool. That ugly thing just above the first circle is the same solid circle with a Bevel Layer Style applied to it. This is here only to serve as an example of how much better the other methods work for achieving realistic shading. There is a time and place for each of the techniques shown below. Even the Bevel Layer Style has it's uses, but using it for creating a sphere is not something I would recommend.

http://home.comcast.net/~mudabir/fla...ng_Spheres.jpg

Ok, so that's all well and good, but you're saying to yourself "That's neat, but I've seen red balls before. What's the big deal?". Part of what I want to convey is that 3D form is just light and shade. You can take something that is flat and give it depth and form simply by lightening and/or darkening certain parts of the shape. The other part is to show you that there are different ways to go about creating that depth and there are different ways to think about the tools you have at your disposal.

You can use the Gradient Tool, but not only will this give your work a more 'mechanical' appearance, it's not nearly as flexible as the brush-based tools. You can see with the gradient spheres on the right that using successively more colors will give you a more detailed and shiny sphere, but this technique will be mostly useless on a more complex form.

So that's a simple example of what you can do with the Burn and Dodge Tools. Let's move on to an example that will be more relevant to what you might be doing for an image in an arena battle. This one shows how you can use the Dodge and Burn Tools to re-shade pixels in order to restructure their dimensionality. We're going to add a recessed window and aside from the copying and pasting of the window itself, this entire operation will largely be accomplished with by just burning and dodging the existing pixels. Let's get to it, then...

http://home.comcast.net/~mudabir/fla...ding_Page1.jpg
http://home.comcast.net/~mudabir/fla...ding_Page2.jpg

Wow, that is comprehensive. Not only does it completely articulate how to do that type of thing, it really is useful. I will most definately use that in the future :).

Great work as always Rush, you truly are an asset to the forum. :thumbsup:

Thanks, DaVulf. :)

thats a great technique, thanks for sharing.

but i heard the new photoshop already has a perspective tool that can just copy and move the window along the correct perspective already!? I havent touch PS for a looong while....

I couldn't say...I'm using PS7. How does it go about determining the correct perspective? Does it just scan for concurrent lines and make a guess or do you have to set it up yourself?

I'm using CS2 and I've never heard of that. Sure would be nice though.

CS2 does have this capability. It's clunky and hard to work with though. I've only messed with it a few times, but with no success.

This is amazing stuff, i've never been able to quite get the jist of photoshop like this but tutorials like these break it down in a very logical way.

Where could i find more?

I am working on collecting tuts from the great people here at FK. Rush has graciously donated some and I've put a bit in and hopefully there will be a great deal more soon (when some of the guys get there butts into gear). But you can check it out here:
http://www.jwinmedia.com/forum

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Pure_5aban

This is amazing stuff, i've never been able to quite get the jist of photoshop like this but tutorials like these break it down in a very logical way.

Where could i find more?

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DUH.... i've just noticed the sticky at the TOP of the board. excuse my blonde moment... its been a long day

its called vanishing point and basically u create a perspective plane(s) by selecting 4 perspective points. then use the clone stamp to clone the area.

like this, i think

Cool, thanks for the info. :)

From the looks of it though, I think I'd probably continue to do it my way even if I had that tool at my disposal. That grid looks cool and it makes you think something good is about to happen, but that cloned result looks like it would need a fair bit of cleanup before you could use it. And for some reason the perspective doesn't look quite right, either...maybe it's just me. So yeah, neat tool, but I think it might need some refinement before it's ready to take on every perspective-related task.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by RUSHVision

Cool, thanks for the info. :)

From the looks of it though, I think I'd probably continue to do it my way even if I had that tool at my disposal. That grid looks cool and it makes you think something good is about to happen, but that cloned result looks like it would need a fair bit of cleanup before you could use it. And for some reason the perspective doesn't look quite right, either...maybe it's just me. So yeah, neat tool, but I think it might need some refinement before it's ready to take on every perspective-related task.

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Exactly...it's not perfect yet....maybe CS3 ;)

i dunno, i just quickly mock it up. perhaps expert could have done better.

but i agree with u, you will definately have more control using your way.

Is that perspective grid something that you can see all the time and turn on or off like the regular grid or guides? Having that to use a reference that you could snap to might come in handy.

this vanishing point is a generator, so after u've done it just disapears. ...not sure how to keep the grids

no, it's a transform tool in CS2, nothing you can keep on or draw on...yeah, i agree if i could draw some freehand lines rather than relying on the unflexible horizontal and vertical guides would be awesome. it's hard to get a different perspective than just face front with the guides.

Yeah, I really glossed over the whole topic of perspective in that window tut. I said you want to determine and use the perspective already present in the image, but that's a LOT easier to do if you already know a bit about perspective. (that's a lot of perspectives...lol)

Rush, I know we talked about this via PM, per request, allow me to make some comments/critiques about your image. But not in such a verbose manner as you tend to do. Just my personal opinion about your image...

http://board.flashkit.com/board/

Ok, from your earlier tutorial, before you added the texture, you had a higher contrast image with great shadows on the mask, hair, nose, and areas around the mask and eye. However, you added a rather opaque pattern overlay that robbed you of that clarity. Without it, you automatically have a better image.

Now, with the type... definitely the weakest portion of the image, imho. The placement of the text leads to false tension... you're forcibly leading the eye down and right; however it's the opposite of the image, which is down and left - from eye to nose is usually a natural progression of viewing somebody. Also, the choice of font... I would have rather have seen Enigma or Bliss as a thicker serif font to create a bit of balance. A san serif font would have been a featureless addition to the image. Even Dalliance (Omni) or Kurosawa would have been a better choice... the weight of the font makes it get lost too easily.

Given that, you don't have a natural progression for the image... it's not one continuous look. It's a look from middle to down left to the image, and then it's a look from middle to down right for the text... an inverted "V" basically where the strokes are opposing. Most layouts are actually "Z" format... upper left to right, diagonally down, then back across... the eyes then cover the most distance on the same image with a bit of redundancy/overlay - meaning that the person will see parts of the image more than once, so it sticks in their head.

The type of font you used... also a problem for me. It's too thin and got overlaid with the pattern. It doesn't contrast enough - a simple white or almost white would have opposed the image enough to force the person to read, and not to force tension. The eyes would have followed a half "Z" at least that way if the text were condensed and placed in the lower right where it would have had more contrast.

There's a bit of dark grey that's on the right side of the face. It doesn't come off as a shadow, not under the pattern overlay at least. It looks like a bit oversaturation from an edit. That should have been cleaned up.

Good points... your brought that eye forward and that centers the object and focus. You should have played more from that. Choice of colors - before the pattern overlay - is a tight palette and works great. Composition is great... you put stuff together in a manner that works. Your overlaying some of the hair over onto the shoulder and nose is done very well.

Have to add that on the left hand (their right hand) of the person coming out of the mask has some fringe pixels on the lower portion of that hand.

All in all, it's a good image, but a few missed steps hindered it from being that image that it could have been.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask. I probably didn't make too much sense in some areas... but I hope that the whole layout thing makes some sense. It's pretty much the formula I use to create tension and make the eyes see the whole image. A "Z" is actually one of the best ways to get that done.

Sweet...thanks, gerbs. :thumbsup:

Yeah, I hear ya about the font. I was actually trying to contrast the 'beastial' part of the image with a more refined looking font, but that didn't really come off quite right. And yep, that 'greyness' happened when I burned that area to tone down the highlights and I was just being lazy and hoping the overlay would mostly cover it up. :)

Good points all around that I'm sure I can use to my advantage in the future. Much appreciated, my man! :D