Hey gang,

I would like some feedback...

Could this pass for a hand-drawn/hand-colored piece?

I was going for the look of "a pencil drawing that was colored using grease stick-colors"...

Hmmm...

Hanz

It could be just me, but the outlines seem to be too well-defined. Iwan

It is a nice image, but it doesn't have the look of something produced by hand for a few reasons which might not be that obvious. By "grease stick colors" I'm assuming that you mean oil pastels. You can not sharpen them to a precise enough point to get that immaculate and mechanically accurate detailing in rug or trousers. Even if you use good colored pencils, built up in layers for the density of color, it won't be that precise. You have to blend layers, and wipe the waxy "bloom" off them, so edges will smear. Paper texture. Unless you build up in layers, the texture of the paper shows through everywhere. Pencil won't stick unless there is some "tooth" to the substrate. Even if you work in layers, there is evidence of the surface underneath peeking through. The hand of the artist. Certain lines curve more naturally to a left hander and certain ones will flow for a right-hander. The oval chairback and the curve of her body suggest a left-hander... but a left-hander could never do that rug in that way! There should also be hand-strokes for fur-ruffling and hair high-lighting (these can be done in PhotoShop). The level of detail is the same no matter what the importance of the object. A real live artist will not anally lay out every last whorl on every last paisley on its gridline (even somebody like me who loves paisleys)... the rug has no shadows, no indication of weave, but the pattern is sharp all the way back. Wouldn't an artist put the most time and care into her face, followed by the hair and jewelry which call attention to her face... and then merely indicate the carpet pattern? A human artist working by hand will put high-lights in the eyes and wrinkles in the clothes and shadows where surfaces meet. There are some filters and plug-ins which will help with over-all texturing... but level of detail is something you will have to fidget with to get right. If you have PS, try adding a bit of noise (for paper texture)... and then fade it back. (I would do this selectively with more noise in the furnishings.) You can set up gradiants in PhotoShop, and I think you could select the carpet and gradually blur the back, leaving the front edge sharp. You might want to lighten the padding on the chair arm so that it moves a tiny bit forward in space, and a little shadow where the girl's arm touches it. If you start with the faces, and get them detailed a bit more and then ease the detailing in the less-important areas (such as the back leg under the chair), you'll come a long way towards making this look hand-drawn. Hope this helps! Carolly

ilike it. how did you get this efx?

Firstly, thanks to you guys for responding... => Carolly: Thank you for a very thorough and inspiring feedback! I must say I'm thankful for you taking the time to reply in such a way. Your suggestions will be studied and tried out while I continue my experimentations...Thanks again... => Lelionx Glad you like the pic. As for how I got the effect, see next post.

=> Lelionx Three different renders: One Firefly P5 render with a good global illumination, one P5 sketch render with settings that take care of the overall colors and a different lighting setup, one P5 sketch render that creates a black outline of the scene. Stir in a hot pot, and... Merge,Layer, Blend, postwork, postwork and postwork in your favourite imageprocessing software. Cook for half an hour. Post it on a cool graphics-community forum and get cool replies from cool people! :-) Hanz

I'd clear up the lines on the girls face, they're currently doing something nasty. The cat and chair look great, and I love the rucked up rug :) Carrolly has a point about oil pastels - nasty messy things. The effect you have right now is more similar to colored pencil work, specifically with the very waxy Prismacolor Pencils (my preference). Personally I'd add a 4th layer in shop - take the full render, desaturate it, beef up the contrast and set that layer to hard light at about 30%. That should get you stronger highlights/shadows which is charctersitic of most handdrawn illos of this type. Nice work :)

Thanks Lyrra, Especially glad you like the rug, since I modelled it myself...:-) Thanks for the feedback. Hanz