On Paint

There are various creative things that work on maintaining:

Writing
painting
3d Stills

Somehow I thought the list was longer. I love embroidery but I have yet to unearth all my sewing stuff. I like modeling but I haven’t had time to continue on Shade….thought for rendering I’ve been reading the manual for Vue. I’m pretty comfortable with Poser 7. I could stand to learn more about the cloth room but for what I use it for…it’s been fun.

Painting has been pretty confined to minis lately. Not that I mind. I really like painting them as much as I like playing in 3d texture rooms. It’s the same concept really. Mixing and brushing until I get that color and effect right is a lot of fun.

For straight on Painting my choice is digital…Painter 8 especially. When I first choose to learn to paint I stuck with PSP for a long time (it’s still my photo manip of choice) because it was cheap and gave me a good color range because of the bug in Compaq Aero’s. I created a lot of pixalated pieces. Eventually I wanted more. I had the chance to buy Painter 7. It pretty much languished as I struggled to learn the program. I ended up upgrading to Painter 8 with the UI change.

Then I got serious. Online help for Painter had been nil until recently. Asking for help gets you calls of “We can’t teach you to paint…just play till you get it.” That’s nice but stupid. I wasn’t asking for painting help…I have that in many forms…but rather how to use the program. The manual…as think as it was…was not very helpful. It was a large catalog list of each button. Painter 8 was the first version with a dedication to photo manipulation …so way too much breath was wasted on that. I paid the heafty sum for the Painter 8 Wow book and the Painter 8 Creativity book.

They are worth their weight in gold. Painter 8 Wow is the manual for painter. It takes that catalog list of buttons and shows you how to use them to create things. After that book I felt like I could experiment. Painter Creativity took those foundations and applied them to traditional painting techniques. This Rosetta stone translated painter speak to digital painter speak for me.

I’m still learning. And I’m having fun doing it. I can understand what folks are talking about now in a photoshop tutorial and apply that to painter. However there is still this element of “don’t you dare cheat or it’s not art” mentality that gets me rilled.

First, there is no such thing as cheating. You use the tools as given. Poser is a collage, animation and reference tool. Layers are a viable way to produce effects.

I use the color mixer palette in Painter 8. Why not? I can mix my colors in wasteful ways and still save them for later without bloating my file. I use poser for reference and to make pictures. Why not? Sure not making my own 3d mesh can limit me in creating untouched renders…but that’s what it’s for. A person can own the model and a different person can own the still that model is in. It’s two forms of data.

Of course I get inoculated like everyone else. Then I remember that I can use those layers. That unicorns can be in my fantasy, and I don’t have to put a face on everything.

Giving yourself permission sucks.