Hey, I'm drawing again

Despite homework that indicates to teh contrary, I'm getting back into the art thing. So, expect me to be using this thread to unload recent developments and the like.

First up, I finally inked and scanned Jerod's Mech. Featured by link is an in progress shot that shows a bit of my actual photoshop stuff. Not that it's very interesting. Awaiting approval on my choice of green and otehr input on the color scheme. If anyone's curious, I do tend to be this careful when drawing or coloring something for someone else. I happen to like getting their opinions on stuff that's for them.

As for the gun it's holding, I have no clue what it is; it just looks neat. And yes, it's got an attached bayonet. No clue on that, either. I also removed the "caution/attention" emblem. Maybe it'll be repaced with something else, but for now we'll get a blank mech.

Gun kinda reminds me of the uber-laser in the original Armored Core. Think it started with a K, and it was nice.

Looks good. I like the shade of green you used, and how you didn't oversaturate it. Yay subtle colors!

The line weight is really consistent. I'm more a fan of varaible weight myself, but it still looks good. If you dont mind, I'd suggest coloring the lines a darker shade of the color under 'em, that would look nice, and i think single-weight lines are particularly well-suited to that. But that's just me spouting my opinions over here.

I really like the level of detail you put in here, and the armor has some really nice perspective to it. Can't wait to see the finished version!

Glad the color looks good. I've only got "light green" to go on, so that's sort of what I chose.

I'm not sure why, but line weight/value just isn't my strong suit. I guess I should practice with it, considering I've got thicker pens. I just worry that I'd mess things up. Hmm...methinks it's time to take advantage of photoshop and a scanner so I can play with things without messing with the original image. Scan, print out in light blue, ink.

I'll try the colored lines, though. I usually just leave them all black.

Other random notes:

I did cheat a little and use a reference to get some of the armor looking right.

That big beam rifle from AC's the Karasawa. I've got it in AC3/SL. Very nice little toy. Lot bigger that the gun I've drawn, though.

I'm fairly certain some of the perspective's technically off on things, but it looks good, so I'm not going to agonise over how or how to fix it.

Refs aren't cheating. Now tracing, that's cheating. (Unless you're a tracer, then it's "practice" and they're totally not comitting plagarism. Of course.)

Yeah, line wieght can be tough. If you got the obscene amount of time it takes to learn to use it, the Pen tool in Photoshop is a nice way to do weighted lines. Though I'm not sure if you have a version of Photoshop that supports the vector stuff... GIMP 2.0 has a vector tool that's pretty similar to Photoshop's, if you don't mind importing between different apps.

And I noticed you're using Multiply or some other blending mode on your lineart. You might want to separate the lines and use Normal if you color the lines. In the Channels palette, click the Load Channel as Selection, that selects everything that isn't black. (You'll also have to hide all your color layers and whatnot first) Then just hit Delete, and it clears out the white. Then you can just lock the layer's transparency and paint over it.

Man, that's a lot to swallow, innit?

Refs feel vaguely like cheating to me, is all. I actually do know better. And plan on making liberal use of them in the future. Well, I should say using them when I get stuck or until I'm confident I can get poses and stuff right without them. and now i'm seguing out of the realm of mecha.

Nope, PS Elements lacks a pen tool. Knowing me, I might as well just use real pens. Probably easier in the long run. Although, I do have GIMP lying around on my hard drive. Probably worth grabbing the most recent version before I use it, though.

Well, sicne I usually don't color the lineart, leaving it as multiply works just fine. I've seen other techniques for cleaning off all the negative space from lineart, so I knew at least a way to get it by itself for coloring purposes. Yours seems a bit better than the one I've seen, though. I'll give it a try.

EDIT: Hmm...Elements doesn't do channels, either. And I never figured them out in GIMP. Good thing I already know a way to trim lineart down to just lines and transparent stuff...

Further edit:

Come to think of it, the whole colored lineart thing might sort of be why I sometimes find leaving things uninked to look nice. A little color tends to show through pencil lines naturally. Problem is I still have to go voer everything and make it really dark so the scanner can pick it up.