This is also a great way of, hopefully, getting a slight advantage over designs that are just loaded up as plain square images where there might be some flaws in the artwork in the areas that won’t show anyway when printed yet will affect the score and feedback you get from your submission.

And while I am still waiting for my iPhone to arrive and this it the only thing I can think about now, I will concentrate on the iPhone but this applies just as well to any other rubbish phones out there… just kidding:)
I will probably loose it because of this joke. Instant Karma is not sleeping, trust me.

Ok, let us start.

As an example, I will use Infectious.com submission system and its requirements (Image size: exactly 650px wide and up to 800px high, file size – max 250kb):

Tools required:

1) Internet connection.

2) Photoshop or similar application where you can use selection tools and layers.

3) Your favorite design.

Actions:

• Start Photoshop
• Create a new file with the dimensions that’s exactly 650px wide and up to 800px high (requirements for Infectious.com submissions)

• Go to skinnit.com

NOTE read this bit only if you really don’t know how to handle online customizers

• Click: CHOOSE THE DEVICE button
• Click APPLE – or click PHONES to choose whichever other phone you are currently stuck with:)

• If you’ve gone with apple –  pick your device (this division is something I don’t quite understand as I don’t think there’s any difference in skin dimensions between the two.)

• Choose: BROWSE DESIGNS* or CREATE YOUR OWN

(*Use this only in case you’ve changed your mind about entering the competition and just want to use one of their lovely designs in which case thanks for reading this and have a good day)

• Here we go – Up loads a beautiful flash based skinnit customizer that allows you to load your own design, set background color, insert text, shapes -  everything.

• Upload your design to both sides of the device’s skin and adjust the position.
• Click PREVIEW button above your design

• Tap Print Screen/SysRq button on your keyboard or use any other way screen capture software available ( I recommend in-built GRAB for Mac users).
• Go back to your 650X800px file in Photoshop and use CTR+Alt to paste the image on.

• Position the image in the centre of the canvas (use guides if necessary)
• Pick “Magic Wand Tool”(W) from the Tools pallete (Window>Tools)
• Click on white area anywhere in the image to select the white colour surrounding the previewed devices.
• Press CTRL+SHIFT+I (PC) or CMD+SHIFT+I (Mac) or go to SELECT>INVERSE to select the devices.
• CTRL+J /(CMD+J) to copy the selection into a new layer.

• Delete the layer below this new layer.

There! You now have your pretty design placed on a transparent layer over a background layer that you can then customize with extra graphics, your original image and more to make it more appealing so people will vote, so you can make money to become rich, so people will like you even more and vote even more so you can buy yoursels more gadgets you don’t really need, like the iPhone, for example;)

Ah, Almost forgot – If you find my advise useful. Please, gimme some love by logging in to Infectious.com voting on my submitted designs here for the gangsta twitt iphone skin and here for the vector cat twitter macabre iphone skin . I want to buy gadgets too!:)

If you do do that – you’ll see the plain versions of the designs. Well, yeah – this knowledge that I am currently sharing came to me after I submitted mine and -

What a nasty surprise – once you upload your image – no editing. So make sure you get it right with yours:)

Thank you for reading.

- correct things within your software of preference, using your tool of preference (brush, selection marquee, transformation tools, etc.) and print it out for refinement,
- stay in the software to finish or;
- remember where you went wrong and get back to your sketchpad, as I will do since I do not currently have time for personal and I truly believe that you cannot spend enough time on a sketch.

Happy doodling!

If there is anything I could advise an aspiring artist this is it: Go and look for the forums that are not all about warm welcome and friendly mingling. Do not stick to ones that make you feel safe and comfortable, where, surrounded by your new “forum buddies” you’re starting to get the impression that your work is absolutely “tops”: nothing to change, everything is brilliant, your mates are giving you highest notes (in exchange for yours) always willing to bring up the good points of the image turning blind eye to errors and mistakes.

So why hasn’t SONY called yet?:) Can’t BLIZZARD guys see the email address on your profile?:)

While there’s plenty of reasonable explanations for that, one of them just might be this:
It is likely that your work needs just a little bit more push, your skills need to be “upgraded” and your hand-eye coordination sharpened.
When working/training on your own you sometimes lose distance to your art. You are looking at your piece and you see more than there is actually going on since the image’s background story is mostly still in your head. It’s alive in there, with vibrant colors, textures and convincing proportions and perspective. You need to make sure you get it out of there! If not – at least leave enough clues within the image so that the description you give it later remains secondary to the image, making it “sell” just as good without it.

By all means strive to create art that leaves room for imagination, keeps viewers entertained, anxious and excited (that, in the words of Borat is always a “Great Success!”) but do not make them guess everything! At the end of the day, you had pretty clear idea when you were going with your pic and you do not really want any misinterpretation going on here.

That’s why, to retain that healthy distance, you need to make sure you use other peoples eyes to view your painting throughout the process. Let them spot mistakes for you, suggest a more dramatic light source, color scheme, layout etc before you commit your time and effort to finishing the piece.

Log on to conceptart.org. Set up a new thread in WiP(Work in Progress) section and ask for feedback. You will be surprised how much clearer things can become with a little input from outside your “circle of trust”.

Two things worth remembering:

1) Keep your thick skin on, if you do not have it – grow it! I suggest a good few layers of it. Do not let comments discourage you. Bend but don’t break always aiming to become better when you bounce back with your artwork improved in later stages.

2. Stick to your guns, do not let suggestions turn you away from the initial direction. Consider them but don’t blindly follow if you are not convinced or, if you have a really solid gut feeling that what’s planted in your head is a good idea. Take what you feel “works” from this opportunity but be selective about the received advice.

Having said that, do not expect the “wolves” to jump at you the moment you put your pic on the forum, and start tearing you to pieces (or offering you work in games industry). Be patient. These people are busy (creating art, accidentally) and it might take some time before some worthy advice arrives. It is probably a good practice NOT to use thread titles like plain: “Advice needed” or “Please Advice”. Give away a little more detail, make your thread more appealing by writing something like: “Space Beast Savaging Little Marmaid – advice needed”. Wouldn’t you want to at least take a look at that piece?:)

Another thing – these forums are not THAT unfriendly! More often than not you will simply receive constructive critique that you are after. According to some of my friends, the MAX3D folk can get a little “intimidating” (read: bluntly honest) because political correctness isn’t that big in Poland (yet) which I find extremely convenient and very helpful in realizing the weaker points in my art.

It is also important to go through other peoples posts/threads. You will find that a lot of your problems and questions  already solved and answered. And if you think of anything helpful – by all means leave your comment – if it’s interesting and/or to the point, someone will come back to you. That’s often how you get noticed.

So do not wait, help your skill – it’s free. Make low-res copies of your art as you proceed and post them it only takes a couple of minutes to set up the account and a new thread. Then, simply wait for the wolves to sniff out fresh prey…;)

Enough said, here is an example of my own, a matrix style, gun blazing sketch developed into a full illustration without referencing and taking care of the perspective and proportions at an early stage. Put it simply, I have kept everything to myself way too long. The issues remained unnoticed until the finished piece which now leaves me no other choice than put my love to it back to work and do some serious repainting…

Still, some things you realize once you start I found some things to bear in mind and some that might turned out helpful for less experience pen users. Stay tuned.

This one does not do greatest justice to all the hard work I’ve put in, twisting my fingers and straining my  back trying to get those crisp and juicy outlines just right but I just couldn’t help to overlay it with some colors and texture that’s, by the way, ripped directly from the original scanned  sketch. I am still trying to work out the colors and the hairdo but It is safe to say there are some wicked costume ideas here (ah, so modest;))). Anyways – here it is:

cool outfit

I have been through a few youtube videos and other tutorials elsewhere to find out how to create those really crisp and clean outlines when drawing or tracing sketches in Photoshop. I am using a Wacom Intuos 3, with a sheet of paper pasted on top to make the pen feel more natural (it works great, by the way) and I do consider my stroke pretty confident and my hand quite steady. But to follow/trace the curve of the underlying sketch and make it look elegant and effortless – it is a bitch! Actually it is a no-can-do – for me, at least. For this example I took my “babe in the sexy outfit” image 

I opened the image in Photoshop, copied the background layer (CTR + J on PC or CMD + J on Mac), created one more layer on top of the copied one (CTR/CMD+SHIFT+(ALT)+N = hold ALT if you do not want a NEW LAYER dialog box to appear, otherwise, use the same combination without ALT so you will be able to name the layer on the go, which is a good practice) and filled the layer with white colour.

There’s is a very nifty keyboard shortcut for filling the layer with background or foreground color: just make sure your background and foreground colors are set to default by either clicking the two overlapping black and white squares near the bottom of the tools palette(see image) or simply hitting D on your keyboard. From then, just CTR/CMD + BACKSPACE to fill the layer with white or ALT + BACKSPACE to fill it with black. For the purpose of this example, white is recommended;)  

Then, I changed the white layer’s opacity to the point where the original sketch showed through but remained nicely dimmed allowing my new, perfectly crisp and clean lines to stand out. In my case this is around 70% and you can either do it dragging the opacity slider (located in the top corner of the layers palette) down to 70% or simply hitting the number 7 on your keyboard (if you type 7 quickly followed  by 5, the opacity will change to 75%). 

After that, all I needed to do is to create one  more layer on top of the white one(again CTRL/CMD+ALT+SHIFT+N) to put my line-art on and I was all set for the hard work.

First of all I tried to go on about it “traditionally”, with the wacom and the brush tool tracing the lines free-hand, erasing unnecessary bits.

When you do that it is important that you first pick a basic round, hard brush(opacity 100%, hardness 100%), open up your BRUSHES palette (F5 on your keyboard or WINDOW > BRUSHES) and make sure you only tick the SHAPE DYNAMICS box changing the SIZE JITTER to PEN PRESSURE

However good this technique might be for some people, I had to give up. After a couple of hours of drawing, erasing, redrawing, erasing again I had this and was nowhere near satisfied with the result:

Worn out and disappointed I decided on the pen tool  (P on your keyboard)

pen tool in the toolbox

  To be able to use pen tool efficiently, It’s options for it as follows:

Here are first results:

TO BE CONTINUED…