Don Tell
Work is done for the day, and there are two temptingly unplayed NWN expansion packs waving at me from my Program Files folder. So what do I do? Naturally, spend the next few hours playing in Photoshop:
(Apparently now I procrastinate on gaming by drawing. This is a confusing development.)
Anyway, I was inspired by an exceptionally pretty and cheerful coloring tutorial on deviantART, and decided to try some lineless digital painting. The Don is neither cheerful nor pretty, but I’ve missed drawing him, so he got to be the lucky guinea pig subject. 
June 8th, 2009 at 11:37 AM
Neato! I’m loving his hair here.
I really need to try my hand at this sort of thing… Thank you so much for linking to that tutorial! It is stunning!
June 11th, 2009 at 1:05 AM
Thanks. ^^ And you’re welcome! That’s a very inspiring tutorial.
Since you mentioned hair, that reminds me: I also found a great brush to use for that while I was working on this. If you use Photoshop, you can modify the “Rough Dry Brush” (the one that looks like a cluster of dots, in the Wet Media Brushes presets) to work really well for hair. You just need to play around with the settings in the Brushes palette so that the width and opacity change with pen pressure. (Setting the Minimum Diameter to around 25-50% seems to help.)
June 13th, 2009 at 12:13 PM
Ooooooorly? I’m actually struggling with coloring some hair right now as a matter of fact! I shall try out this new brush eagerly! Question for you though–did you turn off the “Texture” and “Dual Brush” settings on it? Those seem like they’d be counter productive to getting smooth strands. (I don’t have my tablet out to poke around with it yet, but I’m setting up the brush before I forget!) XD
June 13th, 2009 at 11:21 PM
Yarly!
Oh yeah, those are off. XD Actually, my exact settings are:
Brush Tip Shape -> Angle: 135°, Spacing: 1%
Shape Dynamics -> Size Jitter: 0%, Control: Pen Pressure; Minimum Diameter: 50%
Other Dynamics -> Opacity Jitter: 0%, Control: Pen Pressure; Flow Jitter: 0%, Control: Pen Pressure
Airbrush -> (checked)
Everything else is unchecked/turned off/set to 0%. I also use a second brush that’s almost the same, except that the Minimum Diameter is set to 1%, which is good for finer strands. (Single hairs still just get the plain old round brush treatment.)
June 15th, 2009 at 1:25 AM
Muhahaha! Little by little, I shall learn your secrets–and then I shall take over the world! XD
Okay, not really…maybe.
Oddly enough, I played around with leaving the Texture and Dual Brush settings on and it worked remarkably well in the picture I was working on!
(Granted, that picture does not have nearly so much of a close up on the hair as our dear Don here…but still…)
Thanks for taking the time out to share what your brush settings were! I’m going to have fun playing with them. ^_^
June 15th, 2009 at 9:44 AM
You so funny! But the Don is reminding me of some Star Wars bounty hunter… I think it’s the hat and the sour expression.
July 17th, 2009 at 5:13 AM
OMG OMG OMG latest comic page (‘whats a ponce?’) made me FALL OFF MY SEAT laughing. Great work Aja
July 18th, 2009 at 9:59 PM
Hee, glad to hear it!
(I hope you didn’t fall too hard, though.)