e-Pulsar - Jun

e-Pulsar Jun - Jul 00

DIGITAL ART TIPS

From The List Server

Recently there was a great discussion about digital art on the list server. Here are the basics. Don Dixon started with these comments:
    "All right, then ... Here are some hopefully helpful comments about digital art from a generally traditional artist. Before anyone lays a finger on their mouse or graphics pad they need to know how to draw, they need to know at least the rudiments of perspective and they need to know how light and shadow works. While there has been some extraordinary digital astronomical art--that of Don Davis and Pat Rawlings comes immediately to mind--there has been at the same time some extraordinarily awful digital astronomical art. The latter primarily due to an apparent assumption by the artist that whatever the computer does must be right. I can't think of how many times I've seen a raw Bryce landscape with a sphere stuck in its sky presented as a finished piece of artwork. If Don and Pat's work is successful it's because they've realized that the computer is a tool, no more nor less than an airbrush is, and not an end product in itself. The best digital artists among us knew how to draw and paint expertly before they touched a computer. That can be no coincidence."
    Pat Rawlings followed with this: "Every time I get a commission for a new piece of art I agonize over whether to produce it digitally or traditionally. It usually ends up being digital for several reasons. In the case of space hardware art, I find it much more interesting to spend my time designing detailed spacecraft as computer models and then have the computer deal with the reflections and shadows that I used to carefully mask and airbrush. The tedium of multiple precise airbrushed friskets defining the geometry of a spacecraft is about as far as you can get from one's right brain. After the computer does its thing with the raytracing (shadows, highlights, reflections) I almost always have to go back in and enhance or detail the image.
    "I also usually have to deliver the image to the publisher as quickly as possible and by doing the art digitally it cuts out several day of shooting transparencies and scanning which can demolish work if done poorly. You also do not have to worry about FedEx losing your original in transit.
    "The digital approach is also very helpful when you are dealing with a very professional art director, like Ed Bell or one of his minions, at Scientific American, that want everything to be just perfect and have a number of subtle changes that turn a good piece of art into a great piece of art. The program that I have used for 95% of my images, Strata Studio Pro, can now be downloaded for free at: http://www.3d.com/flash4.html. This program is one of the more intuitive 3D animation programs and has some high-end features such as metaballs and inverse kinematics.
    "I also would recommend to anyone wanting to paint directly on the computer with a program like Adobe Photoshop or Metacreations Painter that you get a 6"x8" Wacom lntuous Tablet. The cordiess stylus that is provided with this tablet allows you to sketch or paint, or airbrush your images directly into a scene on your computer."
Paul Hoffman spoke up too: "I further agree wholeheartedly about learning your craft by hand first. And definitely do not rely on the computer to do 'it's thing 'without a great deal of personal intervention. I can't emphasize too strongly the usefulness of a tablet and stylus. Certainly a high-end drawing package is essential - the product of choice being Photoshop or PaintShop Pro. A consideration not to be lost in this conversation, is that 3-dimensional computer-based art (using output from Strata Studio Pro, 3D Studio Max, Bryce, etc.) relies also on the user's experience with photography and lighting. Setting up lights and cameras is the secret to getting good visual effects which are much harder to generatelrender after the fact in Photoshop.
    "A Photoshop technique which might be a bit unusual is to bring in an image and then use it simply as a guide to paint over. The layering capabilities in Photoshop make it easy to take elements and not only reposition them against a background, but to let them be viewed or not viewed. In fact, with the varying transparency and compositing techniques, you can paint over an object very broadly, and then pull back in some of the detail from the underlying image.
    "For artists just starting out in the digital realm, there is definitely a learning curve involved. In fact, the first skill to be mastered is simply the hand-eye coordination between moving a mouse or digitizing stylus and seeing the results appear up in front of you on the computer screen.
    "Color mixing might throw you for a loop at the beginning, also. Artists who are used to applying paint by brush might find it difficult to get effects similar to what they're used to (for instance, it's hard to apply multiple tones at once, which you might have been able to do with a broad brush on board or canvas).
    "But then again, there are some things which are *infinitely* easier (frisketing becomes a matter of either separating things into different layers, or creating custom selection areas.)"
    Chris Dawson also chimed in: "Digital is a choice of media. Not an easy fix to, or work-around not knowing how to draw, sculpt or paint. "With a very formal education in the Fine Arts, I never thought that I would, ever, give up a paint brush. But in 1994 1 bought a computer and pursued digital painting at the behest of a VFX colleague. I began compositing some of the many photos I had taken for painting-reference purposes. None of them had been taken with lighting and color in mind to be composited together later. So I quickly learned a few things about how to digitally color correct. Matching shadows is another thing.
    "My point is to echo what has been said here that without basic drawing and form-rendering skills, the best CG programs are glorified paint-by-numbers kits.
    "Digital creation can save time and make for efficient workflow. That is a good reason to use it, but maybe not the best for everyone. I use it only because I seek to create an illusion of fictitious worlds in a photorealistic manner as best I know how. Digital compositing of photographic material allows me to do this, but I have to know how to match lighting. The computer won't do it by itself. Objects that do not exist are often needed and that's where 3D CG modeling comes in. But, again, I have to know how to model and how to match lighting. I couldn't do it, however well or realistic, without knowing light, shadow, and form. Not to mention why we place shadows where we do for drama.