Well some of you may have read in the squeeze bar that I recently purchased a graphics tablet -- giving me the ability to draw freehand instead of with a mouse (which I was terrible at)..

I have just completed my first image which will be some ambient imagery for my site. I want to know what you think as I have never been any good at photoshop and hope that this graphics tablet can help me.



Don't be shy at the harshness as I really want to get better at these graphics.

This post has been edited by Rakuli: Feb 17 2008, 11:50 PM

As soon as I saw it, I thought of Canada, I don't know if others will have the same thought, or even if that's a problem. But putting that aside, I really like it, the blending of the colors, the shadow cast by the big leaf, the water drips all work really well. The only criticism I would make is that the big leaf looks a bit too flat and smooth, I think it would look more realistic if it was curling up a bit more and the outline of it could do with being a bit more textured looking rather than so smooth - but I'm just being very picky here though!

I like the orange and the shades of it inside the main leaf are very nice. I'm not sure if there's supposed to be waterdrops on the leaf but they doesn't look like it to me. Too strong and sharp shadowing I guess. The veins of the leaf are a bit too thick too. Other than that I really like it.

Yeah, water drops need to look more like...water drops.

OOOO. What kind of tablet?

I've been wanting one....

Noted Need to work on the water -- will post back with update..


http://www.thewebsqueeze.com/forum/Squeeze...Tablet-t233.htm

I like it, I agree that water drops need to be more 'watery', furthermore some of the shades you have used on youe leaf could be a little more 'leafy'. These small things aside its impressive and far better than anything I can do.

GEE... I'm impressed! Your first image hand drawn? Pretty amazing in my opinion!
*Rakuli is going to be the next contributor at istockphoto.com I think!

agreed with the hole water drop thing also the vien thing maby if you shaded one side of the vein and made them a lil thiner they would look more realistic?

just a thought ?

oh and i would personaly get rid of the red outline ??


and this is just one of my DUH moments but when i first opened this thread i saw green leaves looking kinda like canabis leaves :| maby thats just a flashback to my school days ? i dno

REMEMBER KIDS, DRUGS ARE BAD!

Hey Rakuli,

Lookin' good! I like the blending of colors... was a very natural feel to it. Here's a few things that come to mind...

1. I might try adding some depth to the veins of the main leaf.
2. Make the main leaf a bit translucent
3. The edges of the leaves in the background look very rough. Did you use the marquee to create/duplicate the bg leaves? If so, try feathering the edges when duplicating. (Select > Modify > Feather) Maybe like a .5? You'll have to play with it.

You mentioned the water already... that's always kind of tricky.

Check out my first illustration, well, one I would consider "finished" anyhow. I had been using it for a little while before-hand. It's pretty much a paint over, but I painter the wings myself.

Rich

Luke, the only thing I would ads to the above is that the stem looks flat.

but it's still 10 million times better than anything I could do.

Its a nice image, but it lacks a realistic quality.
Without repeating others, The specific thing I found was the leaf's seem to be rough edged and of small quality. It would really help the image if the stems weren't so jagged.

Then again this isn't bad for your first image on a tablet, It took me a while to learn how to use mine. I drew terrible cause I kept thinking the pointer stayed where I left it (like a mouse) instead it would go to the corresponding section on the screen.

2/5 Not bad, but needs some extra work.

Funny.. that's what I thought

Thinking of Canada -- well of course this is a present for Karinne

Okay, here's the latest version. I have made the leaf look a lot more realistic now by thinning the veins and adjusting the colours. It also looks a bit more rough. I have changed the water drop to a mini pool in the middle but I think this still needs some work.

Hey mate, did you draw them by hand? How about the leaves texture?
Cool man! You might add some lighting effect on the water as well..
Check out this link:

1. Create A Water Drop
2. Water Drops

Thanks for the links, I will look at making the water more realistic.

Yes, I drew the main leaf all by hand.. The smaller one's were a stock image I had.

I created the texture by scribbling on the leaves and applying gaussian blur and doing this a few times. Then duplicated the leaf and applied a flower texture to it and blended it down to 10% opacity and taking most of the colour out of it.

Yeah.. Thanks to your tablet!

The water drops should somehow distort the color or shape, they would look way better. And the green made me think of weed. And I'm not a pothead or anything (I don't smoke), but I think others might think of that too. I actually like the first one you posted too. It has it's own style - it's good.

It's supposed to represent turning over a new leaf but I guess I can alter their colour slightly

In the latest version the leaf looks better. However the water still doesn't look quite right.