Christopher Robin

One thing that comes up frequently for me is how to make a convincing shadow. i.e. one that matches the shape of the object/hero. Bearing in mind that there are a dozen different ways to do most anything in Photoshop here is a fairly simple technique I came up with. I call it the "knock over" method. In this case I am using a reference drawing of another forumite's hero Gorm Diabhal. Step1: Select the entire object you want a shadow for. There are many ways to do this but the simplest if you have an all white background is to just use the Magic Wand Tool and click the background and any enclosed white spaces (like the space between her tail and leg and the space between her arm and torso etc). Then use "Inverse" which is {menu > Select > Inverse} or click {Shift+Ctrl+I} and this will invert the selection (instead of the background now everything except the background is selected) so only the object is selected. Step2: Duplicate the object onto another layer. This is easy in Photoshop. To "Layer Via Copy" just hit {Ctrl+J} and it should bring up a duplicate layer (Layer1) with no background. Step3: Blacken the duplicate layer. One simple way to do this is to select the figure in the new layer by holding Ctrl and clicking on "Layer1" and then click {Ctrl+U} to bring up the Hue/Saturation adjustment window and move the "Lightness" slider all the way to the left (down to -100) and click the "Okay" button. Step4: Knock over the duplicate layer. Choose the "Free Transform" {Edit > Free Transform} or {Ctrl+T} tool and then while holding down the Ctrl key on your keyboard click on the top/center control point and "knock over" the shadow layer to where you want the shadow to fall and then let go of Ctrl. Use the other control points to move the shadow's feet around until things line up convincingly. NOTE: Holding Ctrl keeps the proportions exact while you move control points, not holding Ctrl allows you to warp and stretch the shadow a bit to pull it into position but don't distort it too much. You want the proportions to stay as close to the figure as you can. Step5: (Optional)Apply a gradient. You can use the Gradient tool to lighten the shadow as it gets further away from the figure select the tool, click a point between her feet and drag the line up past her head. If you don't get it right the first try click "Undo" {Ctrl+Z} and click/drag again until you get the gradient result you want. Step6: Erase any overlap. Use the Eraser tool and remove any parts of the shadow that are on top of the figure like her tail over her leg shown here. Step7: (Optional) Soften the edges. If the edges look a bit pixelated you can soften them with a blur effect. A simple way to do this is with Gaussian Blur. {menu > Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur} or {Shift+Ctrl+B} Set the slider to the amount you like (between 0.6 and 1.0 is a good amount to use) and click the "Okay" button. Hold {Ctrl+D} to deselect and your done! Comments and suggestions are welcome or if you have another way to do this by all means share it. Cheers! Sidenote: the jagged edges you see around the shadow are more a result of the low resolution leftover from photobucket than anything wrong with the tutorial. If you work in a large enough rez and you should have no issues with jaggies.

I will kick it off with a copy of that post I made on free digital painting tools... Well the old standby is GIMP but there are several new contenders for the crown of best free app. Overall I would suggest you look into #1 Krita - Gets a lot of press as being the best of the free digital paint tools. #2 Medibang - Lightweight and more simple but still fairly robust. #3 Sketchbook Pro - Officially licensed COPICS w00t! Caveat on SBp though. It used to be a paid program it went free a while back but it makes you login and be connected to their server at all times (unless they have changed this recently) which most likely means that they are collecting information on you and selling it so while it is technically "free" in that you don't have to pay for it... you have become the product they are profiting from, so it's not truly free in the fullest sense of the word. That said it is the closest thing you can get (digitally) to having Copic Markers in all shades/colors ever made with unlimited ink and it's hard to deny the value in that. For a small upfront investment there is also Paint Tool SAI v2 and Mischief for your consideration. Many people love SAI for it's brushes and Mischief is all vector based so nothing loses quality with scaling... also they have the whole crazy "infinite canvas" thing which you kind of have to see to believe. There are youtube vids. Anywho those are my thoughts on it. There are a few others like M$ Paint (it's trying to get better) and FireAlpaca (too buggy and unstable when last I tried it but it may have improved) and the aforementioned GIMP but those are the big names as best I know. P.S. Though they are getting rarer you can still sometimes find (on sites like eBay) licensed copies of Photoshop Elements. This was the little brother to Photoshop CS(X) and had like 80% of what the full PS had. I saw one a few months back disc and key for $15. Anyone else have personal experience with free or low cost programs of this sort?

News, commissions, updates, sales, hardware/software and other stuff you need to know about. Wanna show off your latest commission? Know of an artist whose work deserves more attention? Heard about a sale others might want to take advantage of? This is the place to share info and content with the community. Have questions about what hardware or software you should get for content creation? What common pitfalls you should try to avoid? Ask away. Your fellow artists, art appreciators and collectors probably have relevant experience and wisdom they can share to help you out. While I was typing out (for seemingly the gazillionth time) my thoughts on what the best free and low cost art programs are at the time it occurred to me that we should have a thread for all those common questions that come up periodically and a place to pool our collective knowledge and share our recommendations. So lets talk art!

Well the old standby is GIMP but there are several new contenders for the crown of best free app. Overall I would suggest you look into #1 Krita - Gets a lot of press as being the best of the free digital paint tools. #2 Medibang - Lightweight and more simple but still fairly robust. #3 Sketchbook Pro - Officially licensed COPICS w00t! Caveat on SBp though. It used to be a paid program it went free a while back but it makes you login and be connected to their server at all times (unless they have changed this recently) which most likely means that they are collecting information on you and selling it so while it is technically "free" in that you don't have to pay for it... you have become the product they are profiting from, so it's not truly free in the fullest sense of the word. That said it has the closest thing you can get digitally to a full set of Copic Markers (that never run dry) and it's pretty hard to deny the value in that. For a small upfront investment there is also Paint Tool SAI v2 and Mischief for your consideration. Many people love SAI for it's brushes and Mischief is all vector based so nothing loses quality with scaling... also they have the whole crazy "infinite canvas" thing which you kind of have to see to believe. There are youtube vids. Anywho those are my thoughts on it. There are a few others like M$ Paint (it's trying to get better) and FireAlpaca (too buggy and unstable when last I tried it but it may have improved) and the aforementioned GIMP but those are the big names as best I know.

Welcome home to our game reborn and the (new) best part of the forums Philotic Knight and I love that song! Welcome back to you as well Zemya (I am still tempted to call you Temerous Nox cuz that is how you signed your art ), did your new tablet arrive?

Trying to think what else this section of the forums could use to help get it off the ground. I'm thinking a welcome thread might be a fun add. This thread is pretty much what it says on the tin... are you just finding your way here? Say hi and get welcomed. 🖐️🙂

Oh good catch StJ. It is a small distinction but an important one. You should enter bind_load_file (with underscores separating the words) into the "find what" field. The bindloadfilesilent in the "replace with" field is fine as is. Running a search as I had it above would find no results and you would then need to open one of the files to find the correct syntax. Updated my post and thanks. 🙂

Heya Zumberge, welcome home... and to the best part of the forums! :D Neat story, it's almost like one of those movies about D&D where the camera switches between the action and the players bickering with the DM except they appear to be roleplaying City of Heroes instead of Dungeons and Dragons. Hah! That bit got a laugh out of me.

Happy another successful rotation of Terra about Sol as it relates to your annual day of uterine expulsion remembrance Tem/Zemya! May it be filled with cake and presents!

Coolness! I remember all of these. Welcome home Tem/Zemya, it makes me happy to see other artists making their way back here to the game and our shiny new art forums. Said it before in another thread but now that you have your own... I was lucky enough to get two of these back in the day, Chloe Macomber and Xllusya are both my heroes. I really enjoy how they came out and props for making Sapphy look all innocent (hah!) while there are loose bird feathers falling in her vicinity. Oh and Square W00t (I remember that web comic!) and DD and Layla Rei (maker of teh plushiz) are great too and Amerikatt makes me grin (anyone seen that little furball of wonder around here?). Long story short these were great, thanks for including me! **/em bigwave** Me Me Me! I am sure everyone else will once they find their way here so you may as well rescan all the originals you can find. Scan early and often to avoid heartache. You could always try digital inking once your new tablet arrives. Non destructive and you can try as many times as you like and of course you have the mighty undo button. Unless you are looking to do these all traditional start to finish?

Was that song "Tub thumping" by ChumbaWumba or was it Aces High by Iron Maiden?

Got any helpful hints or quick tutorials for your fellow artists? This is the place for them. I have a few ideas that I will post up soon(™) to get the ball rolling.

Back during the "Live" days of the City of Heroes forums we used have an Art Request Thread so I figure we should have one for homecoming as well. Essentially it's a place where you can post a reference shot of your hero and a brief note or two about them and maybe have a chance to score some free fan artz and who doesn't love gift artz? That said here are some thoughts: -------------------------------------- #1 Be polite. If you are rude, demanding or repeatedly pester the artists your shot at getting artz goes down to nil so bear that in mind. Don't expect anything, that way you will be pleasantly surprised if you are chosen. #2. Be patient. Sketches and line artz can take anywhere from a few hours to a few days and fully colored/rendered stuff can take weeks. 3. Make it easy for the artists. If your refs are too dark, blurry or taken from far away it makes it more challenging for the artists to attempt your character. I understand not everyone has a computer beefy enough to turn up all the detail settings to max but do try your best Alternatively ask someone to take a screenshot for you ingame or name any unclear pieces you use. Here is a example of good, clear reference. Click the image below to see the larger version. Any other points people think of? Let me know and I will add them in later.

Here are some examples of collaborations I have done with other artists in the past plus a few guinea pigs for anyone who wants to try inking/flatting/coloring/tinkering with them. Note: You can click through any of the images below until you see the Magnify click again to see them in the largest size available. This was a triple collab I did with DD and Europa777 in memory of Lady Judgement/Bobby Aquitania. Europa did the sketch and inking, DD did the flats and I did final colors and punch up work. DD also gets credit for the cute Chibi design which was a gift to me that I clipped and turned into wrapping paper for the outside of the box she is holding. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This was a Quadruple collab between myself DD Ransim and Henri-1. Originally it was just a line drawing that I put up as a prize in one of my forum contests. Goblin Queen won and I drew her hero Storm Dragon thusly. ...which got added to the old collab thread from live. IIRC DD came up with the lightning bolt for the iris and flats, Henri-1 came up with the shoulder plate armor, Ransim did the scale pattern and I did the initial sketch, final colors, punch up work and the background lightning. This was the final result. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- This one was a prize (I believe it was for a contest I held) This time it was DD who did the pencil drawing, which was this... I laid on the flats which resulted in this... and CatiC did the final colors and punch up, which turned into this... -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Finally this one saw two different concurrent collaborations happening. The pencil drawing was a birthday gift I did for SupaDee of her eponymous hero. Then DD saw it and wanted to color it up which resulted in this... Then SupaDee asked if she could color it and this was the result of her work. I think they both came out great and it was cool to see my lines get colored by two different artists in two different styles. As for stuffz to get the collabs started I have some quick and sketchy type stuff like this... In case someone wants to try cleaning it up or digital inking to start. Or I have some more clean line work I can post up if someone wants to try flatting/coloring. Stuff more like this. If someone else has line art they don't mind people tinkering with by all means post them as well.

Thank you Widower!

Heya Hilary, welcome home! :) Nice to see you found your way here and that you are open for business again. You may want to edit your OP just to be a bit more clear on what you are offering, what you are not taking on at this time and at what prices. Full length and full color $120 and up (depending on complexity). Half length, full color $70 and up (depending on complexity). Extra characters available, cost TBD, up to double price. Also Is there a Bust/Head and shoulders option??? Other coloring options available or B&W??? Line art or sketch options if any??? Something to that effect.

A place for artists to collaborate! Got some linework you'd like to see in color? Want to try your hand at inking, flats or detailing? Good with power FX or perhaps adding a nice background? Then this thread is for you! This is the a place to experiment, practice and use teamwork to create new art. Some thoughts from experience ------------------------------------------------------- 1. Keep it polite: Kinda goes without saying but everyone is coming from different backgrounds and skill levels, it's not about perfection, it's about working together and learning from each other. 2. Communication is key: If you are unsure about anything, just ask. A quick post to announce what you are working on is helpful (i.e. "hey I'm going to ink these lines") just in case multiple projects spring up around the same piece or more than one person wants to try the same thing. 3. The goal is addition not subtraction: Try to add something to the existing piece without taking too much away. Some adjustment and tweaking should be fine but ground up redraws or complete paint-overs are for another thread. 4. Credit where credit is due: If you contributed something by all means add your symbol or sig (of reasonable size) and if you're the one adding a background or anything that needs to cover them please keep the other sig's intact (if there are many they can be shrunk to make room). If you need help with this or anything else just ask. 🙂 Besides the above points, speaking for myself, I will go ahead and say people are free to color the linework I post here but if you post the finished work on another site somewhere else kindly credit me as the penciler or provide a link to here or DA. Others may have different ideas, which is fine, again if you are not sure just ask!

The art forums certainly kept me going through the gap years... also I think I recognize that last one. Thanks Zemya. :) Fiddleback: The obvious followup is who's department then? And is there anyone who would know for sure if everything will be wiped? If yes, I would be willing to wait but if all the stuff that already exists will find it's way over to the new forums then I would prefer to have an art forum sooner rather than later or "Soon.(™)" Indeed.

Sorry, neither the color scheme nor the SG symbol is ringing a bell for me and I hosted a lot of costume contests on Liberty. Good luck though I hope someone recognizes it for you. :)

Us creative types need a place to talk about and post game related art (and costumes/contests/videos/cosplay/collabs etc etc etc) or we wander off. Bonus points if you can assign it 606 as it's URL designation (like roleplaying is 41.0) for nostalgia's sake (or perhaps 60.6 if a number in the hundreds would ruin your page count). I haz artz and needez a place to stick it. =p Thanks in advance for what you guys are doing. Many many thanks!

Yeah I noticed there were some updates that is why I asked. Oh very well, one boring normal title coming right up. Thanks for the suggestion Justicebeliever, I will do so.

General question here, and do correct me if I am wrong here, isn't adding a new page to the forums like a 10 minute affair? I've put up webpages before and they never really took that long to add new sections. It was adding all the content that was time consuming but since the users here will be doing the content addition it should be a quick and straight forward kind of thing right? Granted those websites were a long while back and did not include forums but that was my experience anyhow. It's certainly not on the order of adding a new power animation to the game or anything like that. Zemya: Okay here a smaller version of what I have. The original is 3250x850. I can send it to you if it is better than what you have backed up and then take it down from here. You can post it full scale or do what ever else you like when we actually get an art forum. These were so fun. I was never good at Chibi artz so I was happy anytime one of my heroes got rendered this way. Xllusya is my favorite here but props for making Sapphy look all innocent (hah!) while there are loose bird feathers falling in her vicinity. Oh and Square W00t (I remember that web comic!) and DD and Layla Rei (maker of teh plushiz) are great too and Amerikatt makes me grin (anyone seen that little furball of wonder around here?). Long story short these were great, thanks for including me!

Nice. My global on live was from my first hero (before anyone told me that whatever you make first becomes your global permanently heh) and I was on a WWE wrestling kick at the time so I became BigPoppaPump. I had a half dozen or so mains and a serious case of Alt-itis. Not sure if I will remake them or make all new stuff... sigh. Don't get me wrong I am thrilled to be here and return to CoH but starting all over from scratch is a pretty daunting thought. Thanks! I can post the one I have later and see if it is the same or better than what you have, or you could rescan them if you have the original artz somewhere?

Once you get used to these they are kind of hard to live without. It just feels like your hero is broken heh. Yes there is a way. I made a modified version for myself that addresses this and a few other things but the simplest way for people to fix this issue on their own is to grab a free copy of a mass search and replace notepad program such as Notepad++ https://notepad-plus-plus.org/. Install it and point it to the folders where you have binds for a character (you may have to open each folder separately AF AR BO etc etc) and once all the folders with files are open just do a search and replace (binoculars icon IIRC) and put in bind_load_file in the search field and bindloadfilesilent in the replace field and in a minute or so it will replace all 930 or so instances where it's found in each document. Then do a save all command and it will save all 930 instances and then close all or close the program and presto! Enjoy your non verbose binds. 🙂 Extra Awesome Bonus! You can also use this to swap out any power as well (i.e. take out sprint and replace it with PrestigePowerSlide or swap Ninja Run in for SS or whatever you like). Cheers!

Well, there was quite a thriving art request thread on the 606. Heck I drew more than a hundred people heroes myself and I am not even close to being the most prolific artist to do CoH fan art. Most were B&W like in the o.p. but we also had a collab thread where other people would come along and color the line art and that led to to some truly epic pieces. Guess I never saw that one back on live, it wasn't part of the art section that I remember. Sounds like a good idea to have a place for pop culture outside of the game itself though. FTW? Geez that Barney Stinson is huge... Goliath you might even say. w00t! What did I win??? You used Temerous Nox IIRC and you sometimes mentioned a Gwendolyn Diego. The only Zemya I remember was briefly on the SoH forums... which was also probably you. Yeah I remember that one. It was a beautiful Silverstone case that I did a stealth mod on so you could have a DVD-ROM drive without breaking up the black mesh front panel it had in place of the usual plastic slot covers. I believe it had a blue LED ring around the front power button too didn't it and a silver snowflake badge on the front? I'm glad to hear it is still in use to this day. :) Congratulations! There's nothing quite like building something for yourself just the way you want it while everyone else has to buy "off the rack" is there? It's almost like a nerd rite of passage. I have the page that you had 21 of them together saved if you do not. And a solo one you did of Chloe Macomber. I would love to have the high rez versions of Xllusya and Chloe to add in with all their other fanart if you still have them. Yes you should definitely make a thread and post them when we get a new 606! Not all of us are on Discord or know how to use it though, oh mighty King of the Frost Giants of Jotunheim (I'm guessing?).