Soph's Pics...

[Forest Grovyle]

I won't, Soph! ;) Suffice it to say that you guys are in for a treat when you see it! :) Soph's been working really hard on it, and it's paid off! :D

 

[Soph]

Thanks for tantalising them FG. XD. Now I will have everyone on their toes waiting for me to post it! XD.

*evil grin* maybe I can hold off just to drive yall mad....XD...

Just kidding. XD. Will be up by friday ;).

 

[Soph]

Okay, here it is! ;)

Okay I have not posted a guide in a while, or any pics for that matter. The reason for this is that I have been working on something pretty big; which is this guide I am about to post. I mentioned I might post a guide on the process I use to do my pics. This is it. Keep in mind that it varies depending on what pic I draw; I follow a different process sometimes. For instance, sometimes I will draw the picture in a notebook first and then do a computer version using the handwork as a guide. Other times I will draw the image on paint from scratch. Other times still I will find a picture online and use it as a guideline for the image I am drawing.

Anyway, this guide will follow one of the processes I use in creating a pic. Since a few people wanted to see a pic of Andy and Mewna fighting side by side I decided to put the Dodrio/Chocobo picture on hold and create the Mewna and Andy picture, and do the guide as I go. It?s been slower than usual because pics are always slow and hard to do, so creating a guide and screenshots simultaneously takes even longer. Anyway, after much work, here is the guide. I?ll do others if people like this one.


Design Process.

For this one I knew I was going to have to put my characters in poses that are different to the standard ones I use; i.e. standing holding weapon or standing with hands on hips or whatever. For the original designs of Andy and Mewna I used existing and actual Final Fantasy pictures as guides; I?ll post the two I used to show what I mean.

This is the one I used as a guide for FF Andy; see the similarities in pose and so on?

And it?s obvious I used the pose and so on in this one for my Mewna pic.

Those two images made life easier when designing Andy and Mewna. However for this pic those poses wouldn?t suffice and I couldn?t find pics of Tidus or Yuna to use as guides this time. Because I had no existing guide pic to follow I used a pen and some lined paper (from my school file, heheh) to sketch the poses I wanted my characters in. you?ll note that these are VERY messy and clumsy, they were purely to determine how I would try to draw Andy and Mewna standing, or else I would have given up in frustration trying to do it on paint. I scanned the two sketches for the guide.

I wanted Mewna standing more catlike, I wanted more of a crouching pose than I drew here, and needed her balancing on the tips of her?toes? But her feet are real long and in the end I just drew it how it was easiest. At this point I wasn?t sure if I would change aspects of her pose when I started drawing on paint.

This one took forever >_< I must have used about 4 pages before I even got this mess. I wanted him standing how Tidus does in FFX when he is waiting for his turn in battle. In the end I looked in the instruction book where there was a screenshot but it was of Tidus in his battle pose all right but naturally it had to be facing his back not his front >_<. After fiddling around for ages trying to get it right I finally got it, extremely messy. The shading in pencil is the bits of the mess I wanted to use in the final image.

Next step, onto paint! Note, you might get a shock but this is how my pics always start of looking! I let them be totally messy, and once I get the basic outlines right I start from a set point and bit by bit clean the pic up and add the detail. It?s much easier than trying to do it all neat from the start.

This part was seriously annoying. I HATE trying to get people or Pokemon to be standing right, this took ages because I swear, every time I tried to get Andy?s pose right he looked like he was dancing or something, bah! It took ages but eventually I got the legs and pose more or less right, and then tried to see what he would look like holding the sword. I am too lazy to redraw that Brotherhood as it is hard to draw, so instead I copied my original drawing and simply cut the Brotherhood out. I moved it onto my lousy, rotten, messy initial pic to see if it would look right, and the sword made him finally look like he was in fighting stance! I moved it off again until I had finished the pic, but in any case here is the beginnings of my pic!

This next one is after I have been cleaning up the pic a bit. For now I?m only working on Andy; once he is done I will do Mewna separately and then put the two together once they are both complete. Working on two at once gets too confusing and the two images get in the way of one another when I?m moving them around and so on. Anyway, the second screenshot simply shows the pic taking shape a bit more; his clothes are better defined and there are less choppy lines all over the place. I had been working for the better part of an hour to get to this point.

Now, this next shot shows more detail again. I have cleaned up the pic far more now and all it?s really missing (aside from the color) is the detail on some of the clothing. As well as this, you?ll notice the lines of the pic are still rough and some are thicker than others.

Here I?ll show what I do when I?m smoothing the lines of my pics to make them look neater and smoother. Its real, real, real slow but hey, so is everything else I do with my pics! I do it all the hard way. Anyway, I?ll go onto the line-smoothing technique for a moment here before continuing with the main guide.



Line Smoothing

Okay its very easy, despite being slow. And I doubt I?m the only one who does it, I?m sure a lot of other people do this too. Anyway, in one of my guides I mentioned that if you use the right button of your mouse instead of the left in Paint it will erase lines rather than drawing them; simply doing the reverse operation to the other side. You can also assign a second color to the right mouse button and draw in a different color if you hold it down, but having it assigned to white does a lovely eraser job and is most useful. Anyway, explanations over, time for the screenshots:

if you have a look you can see how untidy the lines are now that I have zoomed in quite close. I now use the right button of my mouse and hold it down (using the Pencil tool) over the extra little black pixels to smooth the lines. This deletes all the extra pixels. It?s very difficult to explain, but hopefully the next screenshot will show clearly what I did. It?s the same as erasing all the little extra black squares that make up the lines. (There, that?s a bit more understandable.)

Understand? That?s what I do over the whole pic to clean up the rough lines. And if you take a look at the following two screenshots, you?ll see that such a small thing makes a major difference in how neat your pic looks; take a peek and see?

See? And when you do it to the whole pic it actually looks WAY better once its done. It really makes a huge difference!

Now, back to the main guide. End of line smoothing tutorial.



Now, after some line smoothing and some extra detail is added, also an edit of Andy?s right arm which was somewhat too long, we have the following result?

Now, onto Mewna. I'm not going to be as in-depth here as I already showed the process I use, I?ll just take shots and comment briefly on them. This first one shows I?m too lazy to redraw Mena?s head, at least for now. It nearly drove me crazy when I did my first Mewna pic so for now I?m just copying the original head. I may change her expression later, depending on how I feel about the pic.

Her right leg took me eternity to get right >_> darn that was hard. I had nothing to guide me so I swear I almost went crazy with frustration on that bit, other than that the pic is still very rough and clumsy.

Next shot?

Yeah, getting a little more detailed now. The skirt?or half skirt, whatever?needs to be better done, editing due on that. The rest of her is more or less as I want it, I think?I de-colored the head to make it fit better into the pic for now. Hmm?still needs line smoothing and a bit more attention to detail. This pose is very tough to do?*moans* I?m getting a headache?

After this point I stopped taking shots purely because it was not really important, you all saw how I developed the Andy pic and I followed the same process for Mewna. In a quick rundown, after I got her clothes and so on worked out and got her looking right I did the usual line-smoothing then had to think up a weapon for her. I ended up giving her Yuna?s staff from FFX, yes; I drew it myself using a picture Andy found for me as a guide.

Once I was done I moved the Andy and Mewna pics together onto the same page. The pic I am about to show is more or less the finished product, before color, however I have not yet gotten around to giving Mewna her shoes or her armbands, I forgot before and now I keep on forgetting. I WILL add them once the color version is complete. Oh, and I colored Mewna?s staff so that the pic was balanced since Andy?s weapon is in color also. So here we have the black and white version, with color weapons.

End part one of the guide!!! Part two is going to take far longer to complete, as the colouring process is going to be tedious and really annoying. It may take a week or more for me to make the second part of the guide, sorry about that but this part alone took 3-4 days to complete. Hope you all like it and don?t get totally bored of it. Anyways, school is now over for me and graduation complete, so I can at least spend more time on pics! Yay!

~Soph.

 

[NiNGi]

WOW SOPH! This is fantastic!!!! Its coming up really good!!! ^_^ I like the poses too!
Now I really want to see the complete drawings.... they should be interesting.... Anyway I also like the way you show every stage with a screenshot! keep it up! ^_^

 

[Lady of the Shadows]

Thoughs are nice Soph but is that not the wrong out sift for her to usr that wepon?
*remembers FFX and FFX2.... yea that is the gun out fit....

 

[Forest Grovyle]

Wonderful tutorial, Soph! ^_^ I'm sure this will help many budding artists! :D The picture is awesome! I can't wait to see the next part! :D Keep up the good stuff, and never stop drawing! ;)

--FG

 

[Soph]

WOW SOPH! This is fantastic!!!! Its coming up really good!!! ^_^ I like the poses too!
Now I really want to see the complete drawings.... they should be interesting.... Anyway I also like the way you show every stage with a screenshot! keep it up! ^_^

YAY!!!!! REPLIES TO MY PICC!!!!

Thank you soooo much for the compliemnts! its really encouraging! ^_^.

Wonderful tutorial, Soph! ^_^ I'm sure this will help many budding artists! :D The picture is awesome! I can't wait to see the next part! :D Keep up the good stuff, and never stop drawing! ;)

--FG

Thank you soooooooooo much ^_^. I might do more pics in black and white before I color that one. at the moment though im doing so much in my life my pics are suffering...I am still doing them...I will still post them...just takes a little longer. XD.

Thoughs are nice Soph but is that not the wrong out sift for her to usr that wepon?
*remembers FFX and FFX2.... yea that is the gun out fit....

Yes I know that. But I like her FFX outfit best, but I destest guns, I HATE guns. I cant stand them.

So I gave her a staff. These are my characters, so I chop and change as I please :P.

 

[Ninja Retsu]

It's really very great tutorial,Soph. Thank you very much.

 

[Soph]

My newset pic. XD. Here be Andy the Evil Admin XD.

 

[Elite Four Lance]

The pictures are good. Keep up the good work.

 

[Soph]

Okay I would like to apologise to you all for the awful lack of artwork since I left school. I know I said I would do more when school was over and im really sorry I let you all down. I have been away a LOT and that has made it tough but there is a bigger reason. When I finished school my mom made me move my personal computer into the main room. My parents hate the Internet and are all into the whole 'dangers of the internet' thing. When I was at school I had to have it in my room because I was often up past midnight working, but after my studies were over mom insisted that it be moved from my room. Now, I cannot work on my pics the way I used too. I hate being stuck in the kitchen with all my family around, and I can't stand working with my parents or siblings watching. That's why the pics stopped coming, so im sorry. It's been too hard; I lost most of my enjoyment and creativity when I wasn't able to work in the privacy and comfort of my room. I used to be able to draw in a classroom at school, but in the home I just can't do it. My pics are personal and I only put them up on line because you guys appreciate them. My siblings just mock them, and my parents tell me off for 'wasting time'. Also, I get kicked off the computer if im on too long and that drives me nuts when im halfway through a pic and have to stop and pick up again later. It's hard to get back into it then. So im very sorry, that's why my art stopped coming.

However, there is an up-side to all this. I am currently working towards getting a Laptop computer so that I can do offline work in my room and just shift the laptop into the main room to go online. That would make things far easier and I will start working on art again when I get the laptop. So far, it probably won't be happening until after March this year, but im doing my best. Laptops are hella expensive. And I do promise this: once I start posting pics again it will be worth the wait. I will do my best to raise my standard and give you all something worth looking at. Mewna and Andy are my best work so far, and I have started writing a Fan Fiction with them in it. I have created some more characters for the fic but have only written them so far, not drawn them. These will be human. Drawing humans is a huge challenge for me; I find it exceedingly difficult to do. However, one of my teachers from last year gave me a booklet on drawing Manga characters so I will use the guides to help me. I will also front up part two of my huge guide, when I can get back to working on it again.
Finally, I am looking for an art-partner to help me with some of my work. I need some one capable of using my Mewna and Andy characters and being able to do something I cannot: drawing their faces from different angles and with different expressions. This task is totally beyond me as yet and frustrates me to tears; I need help. I don't need or really want color; black and white sketchy pics are fine. I wont be using them in my work, please note that I will simply use them as guides and examples when doing my own work. But I do need them badly. My first choice would be Forest Grovyle if she is able to do that, but I don't know if she would be willing to do it or not. If any of you would like to help me, please either PM me or draw an example of the kind of thing I want and post it here. My work and characters ARE copyright to me but I make an exception here. Just do not claim the character design as your own?even I can't fully do that since Nintendo and Square own the characters I took mine from. In any case, please help if you can and let me know if you will help me out. I will give more specific instructions privately to whoever I end up having as my art-partner?that's if anyone is willing to do it, I mean.

For all of you who view my art and comment and come back to the thread to look, thanks so much, once again thank you deeply for the encouragement and support. I really appreciate it.

 

[NiNGi]

Awww Soph! It's a shame you are in an uncomfortable situation right now =/
I just hope you can get the laptop as soon as possible ^-^

Meanwhile you can still start drawing some quick sketchy pictures, just to keep the hang of it.
I hope your parents understand your passion of drawing and stop considering it as a waste of time =/

I advise you to go out sometimes and find your own private inspiration somewhere quiet, like a park, garden etc. That way you're not supervised and you could feel at least better ^^
You know, just making pictures like that Evil Arcanine up there xD It's really cool :)

Anyway, just keep up the good job and never give up Soph... ^_^

 

[Soph]

Awww Soph! It's a shame you are in an uncomfortable situation right now =/
I just hope you can get the laptop as soon as possible ^-^

Meanwhile you can still start drawing some quick sketchy pictures, just to keep the hang of it.
I hope your parents understand your passion of drawing and stop considering it as a waste of time =/

I advise you to go out sometimes and find your own private inspiration somewhere quiet, like a park, garden etc. That way you're not supervised and you could feel at least better ^^
You know, just making pictures like that Evil Arcanine up there xD It's really cool :)

Anyway, just keep up the good job and never give up Soph... ^_^

Thanks NiNgI, I appreciate the words and advice.

meanwhile...*points to her request* can nobody help me? :(

 

[elite13kid]

Soph wow!! ur pics r fantastic!! keep it up!

 

[Soph]

Uh...a trip down Memory Lane. XD

Well, since I haven?t been delivering many new pics lately I thought I might do something different, and, for a change, show you all some old pics. As in, art from when I first started drawing for PC. I can?t find the very first Pok?mon pics I drew, (they stank anyway XD) but I did find the ones from the first art thread I started (it was on the Old PC.)

These pics are pretty lousy; please remember that they were done before I had developed any real skill in drawing. I have improved a hundred times since then, but anyway?here are some of the pics I originally did?



And for all of you who think you cant draw and who think your work is no good, just take these as an example and look at what I can do NOW. Its true?if you practice, you get there in the end. Im not saying I?m an expert (no way am I an expert artist) but I have improved from what im about to show you?so anyone who thinks they couldn?t ever be good at art?well, just look at these. A starting point, from which I improved.

As can anyone.



Now, this first one is the first one I posted on PC. I actually had a colour version, I scanned it then coloured it on the computer, but I deleted that long ago. The colourless one is below, along with a version done much later and coloured by hand and scanned. They both stink :cheeky:

Next we have several Arcanine pics I did over time. If you look at these then skip back to the ones I have posted in my thread so far you?ll see my Arcanine-drawing-style has changed somewhat from when I started. But as is obvious, it was Andy who inspired all of my earlier art?he continues to be behind most of my current art, too, in some way, shape or form. I wouldn?t be where I am if it wasn?t for him. Here are some of my earlier?terrible XD?Arcanine pics.

Okay that?s all with Arcanine for now. The next two were requests from an online friend, from the old PC. He asked for a pic for him and his pair. Originally he wanted one with Pichu. Later he asked for one with Numel. (His pair was the Dragonite) These two pics were quite far apart; I guess that next to each other they showed I was improving slightly at the time. Here they are:

The next two I?ll lump together, large pics, so sorry for those of you with rotten Internet speeds since they?ll take forever to load. The first is awful?I was trying to draw Charizard in flight but its pretty miserable XD. The other is Scyther and Kabutops fighting?bleh, it stinkies. Here:

I never did do a Zapdos to go with the next two. I liked trying to draw the legendary birds, and I like action pics?unfortunately, im not so hot at them, so they don?t looks exactly impressive. Oh well. XD. Behold?Moltres, Articuno.

The last three are kind of funny XD. I also happen to love Star Wars, and I came up with the weird idea of drawing Jedi Pok?mon. My FF Pok?mon are better, but these three Jedi Pok?mon are quite cute. We have Evil Meowth, Darth Gengar (XD) and just a Master-Padawan pic of Marill and Mew. Funny. XD.

That?s all of the old ones. That was what my old art thread on the Old PC contained. Not very good, meh. But drawing back then aided me in drawing pics now. Now you?ve all seen my old, lousy art. *Shrugs* I just thought some of you might find it interesting, that?s all. And maybe one or two of you who actually admire my art (new arts, not old ones) will find it encouraging to see how much art can improve with time and practice. ^_^.

 

[Soph]

I had a reason to edit the content of this post out. There was originally a pic here.

 

[kohei]

Scyther VS Kabutops!
Thats cool! I knew that the two Pokemons with scythe-hands will have a final showdown someday... and lol to the Poke-Wars!

 

[Wombat!!]

--Edited out for spamming/flaming--

--FG

 

[Soph]

Okay yesterday on MSN some one complained to me that they didn't know how to edit sprites. I told her I would make her a guide, and for the heck of it I will post that guide here. I assume that a lot of you know how to do all this anyway, but I was really grateful to a friend who taught me, long ago, so maybe this will be of use to some of you. I added screenshots and an example of one of my sprites, too ^_^. Hope it?s all of some use :D.

The process is pretty simple and the following is a guide of how to do it.

​

• The first step is to choose the pics you want to use. Choose ones that can have parts of them taken off to create one like the example at the top; otherwise it will be too difficult to create a realistic sprite. One of your pics will be your Base Pok?mon, which will be the one you add things too from the others. In this case, my base Pok?mon was the Arcanine.
• Your next step is to choose the parts of your other sprites that you want to put onto your base Pok?mon. To move the parts onto the base Pok?mon, you use the Free Form Select tool, which looks like a star and is at the top left hand corner of your toolbar:
  
• REMEMBER: BEFORE YOU CAN USE THE FREE FORM SELECT PROPERLY, YOU MUST TURN OFF ?DRAW OPAQUE? IN THE ?IMAGE? MENU. IF IT HAS A TICK NEXT TO IT, CLICK ON IT TO DE-TICK IT AND TURN IT OFF. THIS IS VITAL, OR MOVING PARTS OF THE SPRITE WITH FREE FORM SELECT WILL NOT WORK! I will provide two screenshots to show what to do:
  
  
• One you have your free form select tool ready, use it to select the part of one of the Pok?mon you want to move to your Base Pok?mon, for example the Ho-Oh wings I selected to move onto the back of the Arcanine. Just draw around the part you want with the Free Form Select tool and drag it off the Pok?mon it belongs to so you can move it to your Base Pok?mon.
  
  
• Erase the Pok?mon, which you took the part off and move the part to your base Pok?mon. Remember to save often because MS paint does not allow you to undo any more than your 4 previous mistakes, so if you mess it up too much you'll have to start over. Now you have your first part added to your base Pok?mon you can start on the next bit, for example my first part to the Arcanine was the wings, then I moved on to doing the legs.

I have only provided a visual guide for part of the sprite I did, but what I have showed is the basic process you need to follow to make the sprites.

There. Easy, no? ^_^. Anyone who actually makes use of this tutorial, have fun :P.

 

[Flygon trainer]

Oh, soph, thank you SO much for teaching me how to fusion sprite, I was having SO much trouble!