IFX ISSUE 29

[Art-Fu]: distilled knowledge and philosophy to become one with Art. 

Dinosaurs and mankind have often had a maligned past. Often portrayed as the tyranical lizard that rampages a little village or city block, or typecast in numerous horror B flicks, which brings us to this lovely issue of IFX gone dino mad on the brain. Featuring living legend, artist and creator James Gurney of dinotopia fame, and other strong dino contributions from cover artist D Mandryk and tutorials from G broadmore, this 29th issue has in addition  sprinkles of art caveats, scattered (like a string of pearls) throughout to power your art-fu to a broader level.

The Art-Fu stuff

1/ Research and reference: established artists and proffesionals spend a good portion of the time gathering the right reference material for any illustration or project. Besides the internet, any opportunity to speak to a specialist, see a specimen live at an exhibit or study an enviroment in its natural state all add to the basic DNA of art knowledge.

It is this key fundamental that can really build a strong anchor of knowledge and databae when you paint and draw, especially when describing the forms and shapes of non existant images eg. Dinosaurs roaming in palaces. Artists who seem able to draw forms at will from imagination are often admired and at oft times, it is natural to be in awe or even feel a twinge of "I am not good enough, they are so young and good, to will I ever get better" angst.

However, do stop and think for a moment.
These artists demonstrate that in their respective field - be it character, creature, transport, enviroment or abstract art that their fundamental grasp of describing form is strong.
And yours can be as strong with that simple step, of gathering reference, studying it and then applying it in your daily practise.

2/ Texturing: How many ways do you skin a sabretooth?

School of texture, can be summarised as thus:

• Photo/image overlay
• Custom texture brush (painted in)
• Custome texture image/brush (erased out)
• Filter method

It appears in this issue, the frequent question of how to texture painting XYZ is broached, with each artist presenting their own personal faviourite spin on how to skin and overlay this cat (or lizard skin...). There is no wrong or right way, there are optimal ways and there are ways that suit different purposes for differnet occasions. Whichever school of texturing one decides to employ, here is ArtFu's take on texturing

ArtFu says: "Texture make picture look betta, but sometimes texture make painting look like hash and scrambled eggs."

Translation: When used judiciously, textures can enhance the realism or effect of a painting, but often its poor (over) use tends to look cheap, nasty, very digital and obviously textured with a phtoo overlay. A good texture effect, blends in seamlessly and is unnoticable within a digital/matte painting. A nice way to check this is to stick the levels onto high, and any poorly added photo overlays will appear with its edges unrefined, or showing through.

3/ Tricks of the Trade:

• Henning says: Wrinkles grow fasta with bevel and emboss used judiciously

4/ IFX29 Select Shots

5/ Next Issue: IFX 30

NB: In this month's issue, I have decided to take a different approach towards the review of IFX via the production of sifting through the magazine and distilling the good bits for the artists, who desire to incorporate the wisdom, philosophy, decisions, troubleshooting and appraoch of the legends and pros into their daily work practise via the incorporation of ArtFu. I hope this is more valuable as a review, and lighthearted as we take the yoda like confucious-yoda like appraoch to painting and life.