Tell us what you think of issue 34! (It hits UK shops on Tuesday 29 July).

Here’s what’s inside:

Legend: Simon Bisley
The celebrated comic artist behind Sláine, ABC Warriors and more speaks to us about creativity, technical ability and pro wrestling.

Artist portfolio: Michael Kutsche
Why does the talented digital painter see himself more as a problem solver than
a traditional fantasy artist?

Traditional FXPosé
Featuring the works of Ian Miller, Mark Romanoski and Wayne Antony Reynolds.


WORKSHOPS

Paint the mech cover
In this detailed workshop, join Saejin Oh on our mech cover image’s journey from concept to final rendered image.

Painting wavy hair
Marta Dahlig reveals the secrets of painting and texturing realistic wavy hair strands – follow her easy-to-follow steps.

Finishing touches
Henning Ludvigsen shows how a few tweaks at the end of your workflow can give your art a professional finish.

Creating an epic sci-fi painting
Marek Okon reveals how he creates a sci-fi painting of epic proportions.

Master figure drawing
Painter and illustrator Ron Lemen outlines what he calls the Industrial Design approach to figure drawing.
 

Lookign forward to see how this fares...

Marek Okon reveals how he creates a sci-fi painting of epic proportions.
 

Well. We have 34.

Let the ranting begin :) 

The subscriber edition, features one of the images from the CGS uplift universe 2D submission and the Saejin's mech in the rear. Meets one's approval well indeed.

The best workshops are the basics of figure drawing by Lemen, and am pleasantly surprised by Marek's tutorial. Definitely a crowd pleaser. 

A small note: In the artist profile for M Kutsche, readers may or may not know that the original designs for the viking artwork are compliments of Mr. Bjorn Hurri. Micheal did a great rendition of 3D like publicity shot of the characters based on the concepts and made some improvements.

Secondly, DPI is a tricky thing to explain even for the best of us.

I think Henning's explantion of DPI vs PPi is no much more better than the discussion we have had on the forum.
Henning has tried to show that even for a set resolution of  1008 x 720 pixels, the DPI can change from 72, to 150 to 300, accordingly but unfortunately, if he went just that one more step closer to explain the circled points it would have been perfect. 

Alas.

What probably could be very simply explained without an adjoining text is:

DPI does NOT MATTER.
Only the final resolution (pixel dimensions on photoshop) matters.

If a magazine wants you to produce a 300 dpi image, feel free to resize it to 300 dpi form any existing DPI you've started with. This is a common error even for establish publishers. They as for an image at X pixels and 300dpi (creating super bloated files), whereas....

Lastly.

Does anyone here paint a picture perfect face before painting on wavy or curly or straight hair. For comparison purposes, I'm curious to compare different artist approaches towards character design and rendering. Traditionally most artist I know etch out some basic planes of light/dark or have a simplified line drawing.  And tend to progress the overall image suited to a background as a whole. But you know, its fascinating to see different approaches

Eg. Look at Saejin's tutorial with the mech, the hair and character all get worked up together with highlights coming in last.And marek's tutorial builds it up as a whole scene pass by pass.

I guess what I'm saying is, its a bit hard to follow what marta suggests to paint hair as it feels illogical to paint the hair last after doing a super duper detail render of the rest of the body...but it does leave me ideas to fall back on simple dirty production techniques of photographing people with their poses, and with all the 3D packages being the rage these days...I wonder how hard is it to remain a purist painter in this day and age.

I promise to try to stop ranting, but martas image is really bugging me. I think I know what it is. Those hibiscus like flowers...They look squashed.  (cut and past jobbie?). I'm also not sure why there is a flower plastered above the girls left eye. Frankly, if i had a flower perched like a limp barnacle to my left brow, i'd be sneezing a giant gallump and tearing in my eyes from the pollen and long eye lashes, trying to get rid of the damn thing, obscuring vision and being unaesthetically  placed in a inconvenient location.

but you know.

beauty in the eye of the beholder...so, till next rant. Tough luv out! 

Next Issue. Good to see my old mentor seegmiller join the issue and a good look at the creator of 30 Days of night (an awesome stylised movie that has gore, blood and revitalsied the vampire zombie genre) 

Refund please!

I'm pretty darn sure you guys said there was a DS turtorial in this issue.

Hey Koshime,

Thanks for your comment. To answer your critique: Workflow organization is a personal issue. Yes, I actually finish up the face before I finish up hair - that is just the way I often choose to work. I usually sketch everything in at the beginning and then detail everything element by element.
Constant switching between the two (hair and face) absolutely messes up my workflow. It's good to paint gradually when the elements are integrated, in this case I never do so, though. I paint elements one by one.

Moreover, recording *really* slows down my computer - it was a hair painting video, not the face painting one... And so, for the sake of comfort, I painted everything in one go. I've descriebd face painting many times and as far as videos go - those are available in issue 33 (old people) and the upcoming 26.

As far as the flower goes (it's an iris, BTW), I painted them a week before painting the piece for another work, which I later trashed. Also, I don't agree with the placement problem - I do not think everything has to be THAT rational, you know? Also, If I painted the flower above her ear it would be just a girl with a flower in her hair.. I covered the eye to give it a bit of mystery. Why is she covering her eye - you might ask? etc. ;)

edits: loads of typos :) 

I totally agree with Marta concept. It is an hair tutorial, not a character/figure tutorial. So she have to show you how  to paint only the hair, not the whole face. Also, I think that something ou have to THINK about an illustration, symbolism, images and objects. If something was placed in a point of the draw there's a cause. Just not look at it and say "poor girl, the artist has put a flower over her eyes". 

Be a while before I get my hands on this mag but so far most of Marta's tutorials have been very good.

Will be surprised if this one's that different. 

well you won't be disappointed fabled!

just watching how Marta paints has been so helpful, i normally struggle with flow and opacity, should i change both etc. and i know people have different ways, but Marta keeps the flow at 100% and just reduces the opacity, well she does in this tut anyway, and i've found that's much better than the way i paint!

i can't remember who it was that i read about said to lower the flow & the opacity, but i was doing that and was forever adjusting, it just wasn't working well for me. Its much better to actually 'see' people paint and see the results too. 

Hard edged contrast method: Application Universal - Character Design, Illustration, Landscape, Transport

• Try 100% Opacity 100% Flow - Block in All the forms, shapes and colours
• Involves abit of pre planning to work out all the shapes, composition and value initially
  
• But once its all sorted in stage 1, its a matter of tuning up, adding colour, and making it all gel

• Then - for flowy stuff, reduce opacity as required