~ Here's how I did that: Tips and tricks ~

[Christopher Robin]

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.

Edited July 30, 2019 by Christopher Robin

[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.

Edited July 27, 2019 by Christopher Robin

[Cipher]

5 hours ago, Christopher Robin said:

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.

Wow this is a really interesting approach that I would have never considered - very well done!

[Christopher Robin]

Thank you kindly @Cipher

 

The idea was simple enough, I wanted the cast shadow to mimic

the shape of the hero... so why not use the actual shape of the hero?

 

 

 

 

Edited August 11, 2019 by Christopher Robin

[Christopher Robin]

Okay, I have another idea for a tip. So there are still some bugs in the way images are being displayed

here so I am putting up what method I used to get mine to show correctly and hopefully this will help some

people out until they get the bugs ironed out (unless they are made of Brass and not Iron.... DOOOOOOOOOOM!).

 

#1 Pick a site (preferably not Photobucket ) and host your image.

It differs from site to site but the process is pretty self explanatory

so I am not going to address it here unless I get requests for more detail. 

 

#2. Click on the image repeatedly through whatever links

until you get to the actual image where it is being hosted in its full size.

 

#3 Right click the image and choose view image info.

 

 

 

#4 From the display window that opens in the upper window there will be a bunch of addresses but one should be highlighted or selected already.

This is the address of the image you want to display on the forums. Right click the address and choose "Copy"

 

 

 

#5. Start a post on the forums and in the bottom right corner you will see a button called "Insert Other Media."

Click it and choose "Insert Image From URL"

 

 

 

#6. A dialog box will open, hit "Ctrl+V" on your keyboard followed by "Enter" or if you prefer to use your mouse

over keyboard shortcuts right click where it says Example in the URL Box and choose "Paste"

and then click the button marked "Insert into post" underneath.

 

 

 

#7. Optional: from here you can resize the image if you want it smaller or larger.

Click the image and you should see 8 white squares appear at the corner and sides of

the image. Hover over any and the cursor will become a double headed arrow.

 

 

When you see that click and drag the white box (which will turn black) until you get the size you want

and then let go. Don't worry if the image goes off the page it will work fine once you release it.

 

Note: a handy little grey box will appear and tell you how many pixels high and wide your image is.

If you don't want to overwhelm people aim for the smallest of the first two numbers to be 700 or less.

 

#8. Now you can click the "Submit Reply" button as you normally

would and your picture should display for all the world to see.

Cheers!

 

[Cipher]

10 minutes ago, Christopher Robin said:

Okay, I have another idea for a tip. So there are still some bugs in the way images are being displayed

here so I am putting up what method I used to get mine to show correctly and hopefully this will help some

people out until they get the bugs ironed out (unless they are made of Brass and not Iron.... DOOOOOOOOOOM!).

The forums use a feature called lazy loading to reduce page load times; what this does is replace images on the page with placeholders until you scroll down and they come into view, at which time it loads the real images in their places. Waterfox has a known issue with JS based lazy loading, but there's another issue with Wix's CDN 401ing (refusing essentially) certain images that have been posted from their CDN on the forums which is out of our control.

 

If this continues to be an issue I will disable lazy loading.

[Christopher Robin]

@Cipher Ah well the lazy loading is probably responsible for the flickering placeholders I see as I scroll down.

The images do eventually fill in for me though so it's not a problem on my end. I was putting up a step by step so that

people could have at least one method that works to get images up. Some of the problems I suspect are user error so at least

the part the uploader can control will be consistent. DD for example was having problems getting her Sta.sh images from Deviant Art

to show here but mine work fine. I think she was using the wrong link so I put up what I was doing to help her and others who might be struggling.

See issue in this thread.

 

 

 

[Christopher Robin]

@Cipher

 One thing you could do that would make life easier is disable (or greatly increase the time it takes to appear or have it fade away quickly)

that hover text box that says goes bloop! and says "Enter your text; hold ctrl and right click for more options."

 

I can't tell you how many times just in the last few days it has appeared

and photo-bombed me at the exact moment I am trying to taking a screenshot

 

**/e making tutorial** okay that looks good and now to hit the screenshBLOOP!ot button. Grrrrr.

 

Or it appears and perfectly centers over the top of what I am trying to read making it impossible to see.

Here is a picture of me literally less than an hour ago trying to do a resize for the above tutorial...

 

 

the thing has infuriatingly impeccable timing.

Edited July 30, 2019 by Christopher Robin

[Flashtoo]

Not exactly the quickest of tutorials, but in case anyone's interested in my process and tool settings, I recorded a step-by-step of my work on Dalantia's commission piece of Starpiercer:

 

 

Watch this space for part 2 when I get into the actual application of colors to that.

Edited August 9, 2019 by Flashtoo

[Christopher Robin]

Awesome!

Thank you for posting that Hilary. there is much to learn here. I've not tried the gray scale to color method

yet but I know several artists prefer it (Battlewraith comes to mind). I've also not tried SAI before but I hear people

rave about it all the time (most, like you suggest, still do finishing work in PS though) so it's nice to see the

steps laid out in a good low cost PS alternative. Also it's just nice to see other artist's process.

 

"throw a blurry shadow on your background layer if you want one"

Or scroll up, cough cough... ahem.

 

/e eagerly awaits part 2

[Flashtoo]

Here's part two!

 

[Christopher Robin]

Great additions both of you!

[Darth Delicious]

  I advise downloading the image for readability (click on the image to download it from DA 🙂 ). But here goes.

[Pirate Cashoo]

Might as well post it here because it belongs here too