[a saurus1]

awsome, man, i really cant believe it. ill have to try it and see how good i am.

[ArchGoat]

@ Griatch

Good to know, that I have a partner in paleness, haha. Thank you for your comments. The thumb on the picture is indeed to short and it could use some more work. I never thought about the base of the fingers and it's slope. I'm not very good at anatomy, but I'll keep it mind for some other time.

More people should try this. Once the initial sketch is done the rest is not so bad, and very educational.

I've bought myself a cheap drawing tablet, so this tutorial also helped me getting used to it.

[Griatch]

@Archgoat

Yes, as said in the tutorial, the hand is a suitable subject to draw like this, not the least because it can be placed in so many different shapes and positions. Training on drawing your hand over and over can be extremely useful for your skills.
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Griatch

[vero]

Hi everyone!

i'm new here, it's Griath's fantastic tutorials that brought me. I've been using Gimp for quite a while but this is my first attempt to actually draw something, so thank you for this step by step tutorial.

and that's my hand, well sort of...




see you!

vero

[Griatch]

@vero

Cool! Welcome to GIMPtalk. This is a rather complex tutorial (at least considering the relatively low amount of people that tried it compared to some of my other tuts), so kudos for trying it out -- and doing it so well!

I'm especially impressed by the texture of the hand you drew-- it really looks like you have painstakingly tracked every little line of your hand -- it looks very realistic. Well done!

As mentioned, out hands look so different that it's hard to judge how anatomically correct your image is compared to your hand. Possibly the thumb is a little straight for a thumb compared to the other fingers. Also the tips of some of the fingers are a little too wide, they look a bit swollen here and there. Just working a little more with the eraser along the edges to trim away some flesh here and there would help improve the hand even more.

For a first try this is really great. Putting it up in the first post for people to be impressed by. :-)
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Griatch

[Kavukamari]

it seems my cloning tool is broken (can anyone help me) *cries*

[Griatch]

@Kavukamari

(my first reply got lost after the downtime)

First of all, this is the wrong place to ask general GIMP questions. There's a much higher chance of you getting help asking this in the GIMP general help forum.

But anyway -- your clone tool is probably not broken, you just have to read the manual on using it. ;-)

First you have to tell the clone tool what it should clone but Ctrl + clicking in the image at a good spot. After that you can paint as normal and the brush will clone from this area in the picture. Hope that helps.
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Griatch

[vero]

thank you very much for the encouragements Griatch ! I'll keep working :w: !

[Griatch]

Good. Keep it up! :-)
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Griatch

[Ecci]

Griatch,

I wanted to thank you for creating such useful and inspiring tutorials for those of us who are just starting up. Below you'll find what I have created using the tutorials. I have attempted to render my hand in a low light environment. The anatomical errors that I can see is the enlarged ring finger and the miniature thumb.

Again, thanks for your hard work,
Ecci

PS. If you know/remember any tutorials that have helped you to develop your technique please share them with us as well.

[Ecci]

Here is the hand.




Here is the URL:
http://img459.images...age=handqp0.jpg

[Griatch]

You must have copied the wrong link, because I don't see the image ... :-(
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Griatch

[Gargoyle]

No, the link is correct (in Firefox right click and view image opens it in a new tab). Don't know why it doesn't show here.

[Griatch]

@Gargoyle

Ah he updated it, before it just said "handqp0.jpg" inside the IMG tags. I think the problem is linking directly to the huge original image with the IMG tags. It would ruin the layout of the board and is thus rejected. Just a guess.

@Ecci

I changed your post to show the thumbnail instead.

First of all, I like that you have tried a complex anatomical pose for your hand -- the fingers are bent, placed in front of one another and so on -- this makes wonders for realism and I think it's brave of you to try this -- and pull it off well indeed. As all people have hands that looks very different, it's sometimes hard to say what is "wrong" with the anatomy of images like this -- but proportion-wise the thumb is indeed looking unusually small, as you yourself point out. As you also mention, the ring finger extended would be the longest finger of the hand and this would be a very unusual configuration. That's the difficulty with choosing a complex pose -- one has to constantly cross-reference with surrounding reference points to make sure they are to the same scale. As it is I would think the middle digit of the ring finger is a bit too long.

Overall the shape of the hand and the colours look good. What you might want to work with more is your patience. Working with the airbrush like this will create excess colours all over the place. Take your time to prune away this excess around the hand with the eraser, to sharpen the focus of it. "Inside" the hand you can of course not use the eraser, there you use the smudge tool. If you check out that bit of the tutorial you will find that blending highlights into the skin is a considerable part of the time taken to finish the painting. As it is, the whites come across a lying on top of the skin and not as a reflection on the skin's own structure. Some work with blurring and smudge tools will bring forward this effect a lot more. I'm also not sure what you mean about the "low light environment", as bright white highlights like this would logically be coming from a close by source of bright light ...?

You have a very promising image here, something to build on, just as was the intention of the tutorial! :-) Just remember that spending a little more time on "sharpening" the image will often enhance it a lot. (It should be mentioned that one shouldn't overdo details though; a common mistake is to continue to sharpen and sharpen and thus never be truly done. The gains will be diminishing for each iteration.)

Thanks for taking the time to try this out, hope you got something out of it.
I'm putting this up in the main post. :-)

Quote

PS. If you know/remember any tutorials that have helped you to develop your technique please share them with us as well.

Good question. There are many good tutorials here on GT that show how to achieve certain effects or operations in GIMP, but for developing a technique of one's own, I have had most help by listening and expanding on critique from people seeing my works (here and elsewhere).

A tutorial is a fast way to improve your craft. Critique is by far the fastest way to improve yourself.
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Griatch

[Ecci]

Thanks for the encouragement.

I actually used the monitor as my light source, late at night. I think the hand should have been darker but I was not sure how to drastically darken a part of the hand (should I just go over it more times?). I am not sure how to make very dark darks and very light lights.

Also, I am going to finish this paining when I get some time by cleaning/sharpening the outline of the hand and working on the detail (I will try to fix the thumb as well). I will post it on here later.

You are right about me losing patience. I was struggling using the smudge tool (it took me a long time to see any change while using it, should I have increased the opacity?).

Thanks for the help.

[Griatch]

@Ecci

The main thing to remember when shadowing skin is never to use pure black, skin is often shaded in dark brown ochra colours (at least when it comes to fair skin like yours and mine). The easiest way to apply shades is to do it on a separate layer -- one set to a low opacity and possibly another mode, like burn. An indication (at least of how I do it) is here: http://www.gimptalk....t=12898&start=1 (look at how the face is done and shaded). Apply the shade with the airbrush, then smudge it to blend it into the colour of the skin.

The smudge tool truly is an exercise in patience. Thing is, the lower the opacity of the smudge tool, the subtler and better will the effects be, with more and more control -- but less will also happen with every brush stroke. This is a situation when zooming in might really help psychologically since then you'll see the effects of your work more easily. Since smudge operations are not so concerned with form and shape, but rather about texture, it's usually ok to zoom in and work at a high zoom-in for long periods of time (still remember to zoom out now and then of course). Otherwise, increasing the opacity of the smudge tool will make things happen faster. The risk with that is that you'll ruin all your hard work, smudging away all details.
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Griatch

[Jamals2fat]

Yeah.. I didn't do the scratchy part..

[Griatch]

@Jamals2fat

You have a good start here; the skin colour works well and you have put good work in the folds of the hand. :-)

I have a few points of critique. The most prominent one is that the wrist is as thick as the hand. This is not anatomically correct, the bones in the hand is expanding out from the wrist which is actually relatively thin compared to the hand. Also, take a look at the palm of the hand; usually it is not that straight on the edge where the fingers connect to it.

That said, it's a good start here, thanks for trying out the tutorial. If you would supply me with a thumbnail of your image, I will put it up at the top post for everyone to see. .-)
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Griatch

[elfdaughter]

Another great tut. I'm certaintly going to be busy trying these out this afternoon!! :w:

[Griatch]

@elfdaughter

Glad to hear it. Looking forward to seeing the result. :-)
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Griatch