Art thread of doom?

Um, this isn't a doodle so it didn't really belong in that thread, so I guess this will be a thread for my, uh, more refined pieces of art. :D

Fangcat, one of my oldest fake Pokémon, with a spiffified design

For comparison, the one I designed and drew when I was eleven looked like this. xP Improvement, much? (Also my old random n00bish information and its completely symmetrical pre-evolution included in the picture as a bonus, just to make you lose all respect you ever had for me.)

Oh, and if you're interested, the sketch from which the new one was made.

All comments and criticism appreciated. =]

On the new one, that is.

Hmmm I like them, has alot of color, you should have a fakemon like that!
~P_P

Awesome--I love how it's teeth are blood-stained, and are the slashes on the shoulder blood or a pattern? I love the coloring job, too. The only error I can see is that it looks like the wrist joint is too far up on the arm, kinda like a horse, or even a cheetah.

Now, I'm interested...how exactly do you get the linework so refined? I've been dying to Photoshop pics since forever, but I never know how to smooth out the linework.

~Chibi~

Thanks. =] Both the blood on the fangs and the slashes across the shoulder are not real blood, just coloration patterns that are meant to intimidate.

The secret to the lineart is that I trace the sketch with the pen tool in Illustrator. Then I resize it to the right size, screenshot it, paste it into Photoshop (or well, ImageReady in this case, but it doesn't especially matter), and crop it to the right size. Now, the antialiasing didn't look quite as smooth as I'd have hoped, so I invented yet another technique to refine it, namely to lower the contrast and then up the brightness, which made the lines absolutely smooth.

What I then do is put the lineart layer on Multiply so that the white parts become transparent, use the Magic Wand to select the areas, expand the selection by one pixel and then fill them in with color on further layers below the outline layer. Veeery complicated process, I know, but that's how I do it anyway.

Aaaand it's Tancat, the little kitty that's so adorable that you wouldn't believe it evolves into one of the top Pokémon used in horror movies until you actually see it happen.

I know the paws are odd, but don't look at the paws. Look at that adorable face and innocent blue eyes. It will charm you... yesss...

hmm... the desgin is great!
and Tancat is adorable. Just adorable.
I think it kinda funny that somethin that inoccent
evoles into a deadly panther-thing.

Well, that's how pokémon works, Achamo! ^_^
All I can say is I love em! An idea I had for next time is to maybe erase the outlines on the chest pattern after youre done coloring them, so itd look like colors in the fur, than something a little less natural. Looking at your pics again, I say I really like your shading style, you know its there, yet its suttle enough that it doesnt detract from the drawing! Nice works!

Yeah, I was thinking about doing something like that too. It would make the markings seem less like something protruding from the body...

I present Mementity (working title), a possible replacement for Molzapart in The Quest for the Legends version IALCOTN and forgotten fourth of the D/P legendary trio, who represents memory and imagination. More information here.

Interesting concept, and the idea of a Memory Pokémon is cool. I'm guessing it would learn Amnesia...? ;) It definitely looks like it could fit in with Sinnoh's legendary trio.

--FG

Ah, so Molzapart's finally gonna be edited out, eh? Y'know...my mind's gone blank--I can't remember why Molzapart in particular was the one who was working with Chaletwo. xP In any case, I like Mementity--I think that if it really did go with Yuxie, Emrit, and Agnome, I'd like it even better than them. ^^ It has the coolest "headress" of all of them, and those eyes are <3

The linework! So smooth and perfect!!! >< *has tried the illustrator tequnique but hasn't managed make it look good yet.* For me, I always end up with either annoying white pixels like in my banner, or lines that are too thick and dark.

~Chibi~

Amnesia would sound logical for it, not that I've given it much thought yet. x3 I drew another Mementity today, but I've yet to scan and color it.

Molzapart was working with Chaletwo because they were the two most powerful Pokémon in the world and most affected by their loss of power and thus they happened to be the ones to speak to Mew and ask about the phenomenon and agree to try to stop it. xP If you were wondering why Molzapart, it was because I wrote it into the fic before I knew what I was doing and then couldn't bear to remove it. Until now.

For my lineart, I trace it in Illustrator and then screencap the finished lineart, paste it into Photoshop, crop it and put the layer on Multiply before putting the coloring on new layers below it. It magically removes the annoying white stuff. :3

Aaaanyway.

Splash page for my site, celebrating 900,000 front page hits

I had LOTS of trouble shading the Charizard's wings. v.v I'm really not good at that. If you are, please try to teach me the basic idea. I also think the frame within the picture containing what Butterfree is doing is not clear enough for what it is. =/ But hey.

Oooh...I love the flame!!! It looks huggable. xD

Multiply? I dunno what that is... =P I always just duplicated the layer, deleted all the white on the top one, and filled in color on the bottom one...which sounds pretty much the same... but anyways, after five tries I think I've got it this time.

~Chibi~

The bad thing about deleting the white is that then you always end up with those little white pixels on the edges of the outlines. Multiply is a blend mode; it's found in the layer menu, and effectively it makes colors on layers underneath shine through or not through depending on the lightness of the outline layer. This means that all colors will get untouched through pure white, but be darkened by the anti-aliasing grays on the outline edges (just as they should be) and the black parts of the outline are completely opaque. Basically, the effect you get is exactly like you drew the outline on transparent, not white. Very useful method.

Well, I wouldn't just delete it, I'd select similar first, which I've found gets rid of most of it. But Multiply sounds a lot more useful. ^^; Thanks.

~Chibi~