How do you take such good pictures of your art :0??
Okay buddy, this might sound super generic or maybe shocking but I just use my basic phone camera. And no, I don't even have a fancy schmancy phone or 4k camera xD
I just try to make sure that enough light it in my room through the window (by my lamp is garbage and I can barely see anything with it xD)
And then I am just trying to find the right angle for the photo. That just means that I make sure that my phone is directly over the paper (uhhh parallel, same angle yknow?? xD Like when you put your picture in a scanner.... and then I just edit the photo in a program. I use Clip Studio Paint.
Its also a good idea to make sure that the edges of your paper are parallel to your phone border if you know what I mean....
WELL I’M thinking about bringing these slightly back but with a new series name - the Crappy Tutorials. I really want to bring the old ones back
If you wish to support my work consider becoming a patron at Patreon! :) Cheers
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I wish to let you know that I’m doing SKETCH REQUESTSfor every 5 dollar (or more) Patron on Patreon, every 3 months. :) It would mean each sketch would be a 15$ priced commission. PRETTY CHEAP.
If I reach the first goal the TUTORIALS WILL BE BACK, and those seemed to be very popular back in 2014 when I was doing them.
For now I restrict myself to art tips and drawing postings on Patreon with higher res. The requests are the main exclusive prize for the Patrons.
A really crappy drawing tutorial of one of my old art style. It’s a cute and soft style in my opinon. I feel like i didnt cover everything, so if there’s anything youre unsure about please feel free to ask me!
I’m sure most people know how to do this by now, but this is how you make circle icons!
i. Start with a blank file, I usually use 100x100 or smaller for icons and 200x200 for dash icons.
ii. get your picture. after that, you change your selection too from ‘square’ to ‘elliptical’
iii. hold shift to make a perfect circle and drag to select the area you want. Make sure you don’t select off of the image because that edge won’t be round
iv. swap back to the blank icon project and paste your selection
v. resize your circle and make it fit into the template
vi. click ‘save as’ and change the format to ‘png’ so the background will stay transparent. i always save with my png options on default, aka ‘smallest/slow’ and no interlace
Photoshop CS6 (CS5 is better though because you can select a section with more precision)
import the frames via the menu tab for file then select the video you want to work with (make sure its mp4)
after the layers and frames load I click save for web and devices to check how large the gif is without any edits [the gif limits are 2mb so depending on the proportions of the original video that number can either quarter or half itself]
i hit cancel and start to work on the gif
i delete all of the frames
I resize the layers in the image tab [I keep the portions constrained] either to 500 or 250 in width
then I select either the very first layer or very last layer, and I make sure its visible
then I sharpen the gif using smart sharpen. I either use 500% at 0.3 px or 100% at 1.0 px
then i make ALL of the layers visible and i go click EVERY layer, one by one, and i hit sharpen each individually (the shortcut key is ctrl+f)
when I'm done with that strenuous task I click the menu button for the frame panel and I select to make frames from layers
then I go to the very top of the LAYERS and add any adjustments that fit my idea of what the final gif should look like
those adjustment layers should always be on the top, above all of the layers for the gifs. and you have to lock them so the effects work across all of the frames instead of just one.
ok so i got a request for a tutorial on how i made this
so here we go
(full disclosure: generally speaking i only have enough of a clue about what i’m doing to know that whatever it is, it’s being done in the most difficult way possible. it’s prolly in your best interests not to listen to me and find a real graphics maker lmao. that being said, we can carry on.)
i’ll start with this one -
because it was probably the easiest.
i’m going to assume you already know how to get to this point:
you’ve got your layers into a frame animation, you’ve cropped them, sharpened them (i use smart sharpen and this script to make it faster), etc. i’d usually add colour before text but w/e.
ok so the first thing i did was go to the last frame bc that’s where she held the gun most steady, and i used the pen tool to trace a path over her and the gun like this:
the extra parts of the path you see sticking out either side of the gif, i left those there because i wasn’t sure if i wanted the text to enter from the left side or exit off the right. in the end, i chose for it to enter from the left, so when i inserted my text, i inserted it starting from here:
so with the text ready to go and hidden off to the side, i duplicated the text layer, added a space before the words, duplicated again, added a space, duplicated again, added a space, la la la, right, so by the end of it my text layers looked like this:
ok, so then i just matched each text layer onto its corresponding frame, so the final result was that it moved across the gif, following along the path. if you’re confused about anything i’ve said above (you probably are) i’ve uploaded the work in progress psd to mediafire for you to play with.
i’d like to add that since making this gif set, the tweening tool has been brought to my attention lmao, and i’m sure there’s a way of using that to make this so much easier. having not had a chance to play around with it idk how well you could use it for text following a path though? but that’s for a different tutorial.
so that’s the first gif done. onto the next -
so first of all, my memory is rlly fuzzy on how i did the scribble over the face? and i’ve deleted all my earlier psd’s for this one. i think the first thing i did was create a new layer and just do a couple of quick lines with the brush tool, and then i think i duplicated that layer, added more lines, duplicated again, etc. and then just like with the text on the last gif i matched them across the frames one by one. once again, this is probably the stupid way to do it, and this was hands down my least favourite part of making this gif set omfg i hated it so let’s move onto the text.
start by duplicating the layer you’d like the text to reflect (on my gif it didn’t rlly matter which bc her face barely moves, but i think this method would be a lot more work on a gif that moves quite a bit) and use the horizontal type mask tool (right click the text tool to find it) to type out what you want onto that layer.
once you’ve decided where you want the text to show up (mine at a slight tilt right at the center of the scribble) press shift+ctrl+i to inverse the selection to everywhere but the letters, and then hit delete. you should now have a layer similar to this:
but being that it’ll have other visible layers under it, it won’t look like that. either way, with that layer above the scribble-on-the-face layers, you’ll get the effect you see in mine. i also added a new text layer in black right on top of where the words would show up and set it to ‘soft light’ with ascending opacity so the words would have a bit more clarity, but that shouldn’t be necessary for all gifs and i actually sort of regret it? lmao anyway, next one -
right so this one is fairly simple. the most complicated it gets is in these two frames:
the twisted effect you see above is filter > distort > and then i believe it was shear? so i did that on a couple of layers as well as on the text on the first frame there. then i literally just googled 'static textures’ and put them over a few frames and set them to 'screen’. and that’s pretty much it. i’ve also uploaded this psd to mediafire bc looking at the psd probably explains it better than i can.
so finally, last one. left for last bc this is where my ability to explain things is rlly gonna fall apart and i’m hoping most people will know how to do this their own way and can happily skip my bullshit -
all that’s rlly special abt this one i think is the cropping? which not only am i struggling to remember exactly how i did, but this time i’m 100% sure there’s a better way to do. either way, i’ve binned the crop psd and caps for this one as well, so just for the sake of the example i’ll show you how i’d make this:
so i’d start with a new file with the same dimensions i’d like my gif to be (245x245 in this case) and i’d use the line tool to quickly measure the length from the bottom of where i’d like the middle slice to be, to the top of where i’d like it to be, if that makes sense?? like this:
i’d round that to 354px, and next i’d go to the frames i’d like to crop (in this case just blocks of red and black) and i use the length measured above to figure out what size to crop to: the width being the same as the measurement, so 354px, and the height a third of that, 118px.
so now that i’ve got the three identically cropped slices i drag them back onto the original file and press ctrl+t to tilt them into place like so:
and then i just drag everything into place and here we are. the only other thing i did to the gif was add text and two black lines to cover the sharp edges where the slices met. nothing special, but here’s the psd for that too.
as far as the colouring goes for the whole set, i’m fairly certain this is the one i used, but altered slightly for each gif obvs.
and that’s it rlly! worst tutorial ever! lmao i hope it wasn’t too confusing, but it prolly was, so feel free to message me if you have questions. or if any of the links in this are broken or w/e.
