Non-photorealistic Renders (NPR)

mmitchell_houston

Sammy_jr_mart said:

Some more characters

 

Very strong character concepts, and you already KNOW that I love your treatment of them. The hat on the Navy boy seems a bit big, but I think that's just a byproduct of the low POV. Although... it does tend to emphasize his youth, as though he's a young lieutenant just out of the academy trying to fill a roll that he'll need to grow into. If that's your intent, it definitely works. If you want him to be more competent and less green/inexperienced, I would suggest shrinking the hat a bit. The other guys definitely seem older and more experienced. Nicely done.

dreamfarmer

I guess this kind of qualifies as NPR. It's heavily filtered and I'm not trying to make it look PR, anyhow. And I wanted to share!

tkdrobert

mmitchell_houston said:

Sammy_jr_mart said:

Some more characters

 

Very strong character concepts, and you already KNOW that I love your treatment of them. The hat on the Navy boy seems a bit big, but I think that's just a byproduct of the low POV. Although... it does tend to emphasize his youth, as though he's a young lieutenant just out of the academy trying to fill a roll that he'll need to grow into. If that's your intent, it definitely works. If you want him to be more competent and less green/inexperienced, I would suggest shrinking the hat a bit. The other guys definitely seem older and more experienced. Nicely done.

Good work as always.

tkdrobert

dreamfarmer said:

I guess this kind of qualifies as NPR. It's heavily filtered and I'm not trying to make it look PR, anyhow. And I wanted to share!

Nice work and this thread is the right place for it.

Headwax

AlmightyQUEST said:

Ok, something different from the last one, but similar principles and use of pwtoon. (A lot more work compositing the final image though than the last one) Still may work on the colors a bit, but I know I could keep adjusting the colors forever and need to make decisions at some point  .

love the background in this, the lack of colour adds to the depth feeling

 

Headwax

mmitchell_houston said:

I don't know if anyone is interested in following how I actually put the comic pages together for my fairy story project (because it is a little off topic for this group), but I thought I'd mention that I'm doing it a bit differently this time. Normally (in my do-it-by-hand days), I would go through and make rough thumbnails of my pages, then go back and do the following, in order for each page, one at a time:

1. Draw Borders
2. Pencil figures & backgrounds (very light backgrounds)
3. Add Lettering (to make sure it fits)
4. Adjust pencils if I need more room or the lettering doesn't fit right)
5. Then ink each panel, one-by-one, until the page is finished.

I would then go on to the next page.

But this time, for my digital comic, I'm starting off with figures rendered in Poser 11, and they arrive with an "inked line" already on them, including a lot of the shadows and final details present. The difference is, those inked lines are set as material properties (that is to say, I use the Materials Room in Poser to define a thicker Geometric Edge line to clothing than skin (as an example)). This means that if I want to keep the thickness of the inked lines consistent from one panel to the next, I need to render each panel at the size it will be printed (otherwise, if I had to resize the artwork with the transform tool, Nirona the fairy could have thick lines in one panel and thin in the next).

To achieve consistency, I'm actually going through the entire story and setting up my panel layouts and initial lettering FIRST. Now, keep in mind that I've already hand-drawn tight thumbnails, so I have a solid idea of what goes in each panel, and its size relative to the panel borders. In other words, I have a pretty solid idea of what goes where and how big it should be in each panel. If not for laying down the pre-work, I think I would be at a loss for how to approach this.

Anyway, if anyone thinks this is off-topic, just say the word. But I know some of you are working on comics and graphic novels, so I thought this might be of interest to you.

Here's a sample of the panels laid out. As you can see, I've even added some of the background and imported the one panel that's completely finished (I might need to reapply the line tones in that panel, as I think it uses a different line frequency than I chose for the entire story). Also, the "rough border" is going to get some more love soon. I want it a lot more jagged and splattery in the final version, but everything here is a quick "rough," so I drew it and now it's time to move on to the next page. AND, the black panel borders on that first page will be completely cut off -- they are in the trim zone for the page.

 

thanks so much, always good to get a tut from a pro!

mmitchell_houston said:

 

 

Headwax

 

'The Phantom couldn't quite put his finger on it, but the face at the gate seemed a little different.''

Carrara job, used native render passes - eg diffuse, coverage, index, depth - plus the free Carrara Sandy plugin. Used them as isolation masks for post work etc.

then

about five Filter Forge filters - old photo, comic and Topaz Impression and a mild (very) dose o f carrara sand plugin, plus used Oloneo HDR for fine tweaking

 

 

mmitchell_houston

dreamfarmer said:

I guess this kind of qualifies as NPR. It's heavily filtered and I'm not trying to make it look PR, anyhow. And I wanted to share!

OOOOH! I'm intrigued. You just get the sense that there's a story here! I love the detail and the light touch on the feathers. This is NICELY done. My one critique would be that the bottle really gets lost in his hand because we see black on black. This is a case where a clear bottle with golden liquid would work better. But that's a TINY quibble. I really, really like it.

mmitchell_houston

head wax said:

'The Phantom couldn't quite put his finger on it, but the face at the gate seemed a little different.''

Carrara job, used native render passes - eg diffuse, coverage, index, depth - plus the free Carrara Sandy plugin. Used them as isolation masks for post work etc.

then about five Filter Forge filters - old photo, comic and Topaz Impression and a mild (very) dose o f carrara sand plugin, plus used Oloneo HDR for fine tweaking

This is a place where I think the Sandy filter is effective. It adds a nice grain that isn't overpowering. I'm taken with the scale of the set in this scene. Grandeur is something we often lose in our renders because we hesitate to make the figures small -- after all, we want to see all those details we slaved to get in. So, the smaller Phantom and Devil are really effective here. I like the multiple shadows, as it captures the carnival lighting and atmosphere. Speaking of Devil... I would suggest not running a distress line across his head. In this case, I think it detracts from the scene more than it adds to the aging of the photograph. That's just my two cents, though. I really like this, and I LOVE your use of The Phantom.

BTW: Earlier this year, The Phantom actually made a cameo in the Dick Tracy comic strip! They didn't name him, but a "mysterious traveler" with a wolf companion was at the airport where Dick Tracy happened to be. They exchanged a few words and clearly knew each other. Here's hoping that they'll do an honest-to-gosh team-up with The Phantom (like they did earlier this year when Dick Tracy teamed up with The Spirit).

mmitchell_houston

head wax said:

thanks so much, always good to get a tut from a pro!

Thank you, and I'm extremely flattered. But I'm definitely not a pro. I am just trying to find my way through this new process to make something I can be proud of. I'm just glad that people like you are enjoying hearing about my travels down this long and winding path.

Headwax

 

Another Carrara job. Couple of May Gibbs' characters (australian kid's book author) 'Bib and Bub."

 Carara's native toon render plus a few FF filters , combined with a few render passes  out of Carrara . eg shadow and coverage and diffuse

If you render a diffuse pass (? from memory) you can get a lot of the photorealist pass at the same time as gettinga native toon pass,

 

Overdid the outline around the stamens but that's okay.

Speaking of Devil... I would suggest not running a distress line across his head. In this case, I think it detracts from the scene more than it adds to the aging of

the photograph. That's just my two cents, though. I really like this, and I LOVE your use of The Phantom.

 

thanks for that @mmitchell_houston , you know I never even noticed that !! cheers :)

we have that Phantom Show on in Sydney at the moment - here is some of the art work in it (not mine tho) https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100011489293630

AlmightyQUEST

Thanks for the feedback all. I was trying to avoid going to the full black shading (in contrast to my earlier image) to keep the overall feel softer, but I can see the gray in the foreground and background being too similar. Fortunately the masking makes this easy to adjust! I've tried two different takes on this, one with more contrast in the background, one with more contrast in the foreground. You can click the thumbnails for full size.

AlmightyQUEST

mmitchell_houston said:

I don't know if anyone is interested in following how I actually put the comic pages together for my fairy story project (because it is a little off topic for this group), but I thought I'd mention that I'm doing it a bit differently this time. Normally (in my do-it-by-hand days), I would go through and make rough thumbnails of my pages, then go back and do the following, in order for each page, one at a time:

1. Draw Borders
2. Pencil figures & backgrounds (very light backgrounds)
3. Add Lettering (to make sure it fits)
4. Adjust pencils if I need more room or the lettering doesn't fit right)
5. Then ink each panel, one-by-one, until the page is finished.

I would then go on to the next page.

But this time, for my digital comic, I'm starting off with figures rendered in Poser 11, and they arrive with an "inked line" already on them, including a lot of the shadows and final details present. The difference is, those inked lines are set as material properties (that is to say, I use the Materials Room in Poser to define a thicker Geometric Edge line to clothing than skin (as an example)). This means that if I want to keep the thickness of the inked lines consistent from one panel to the next, I need to render each panel at the size it will be printed (otherwise, if I had to resize the artwork with the transform tool, Nirona the fairy could have thick lines in one panel and thin in the next).

To achieve consistency, I'm actually going through the entire story and setting up my panel layouts and initial lettering FIRST. Now, keep in mind that I've already hand-drawn tight thumbnails, so I have a solid idea of what goes in each panel, and its size relative to the panel borders. In other words, I have a pretty solid idea of what goes where and how big it should be in each panel. If not for laying down the pre-work, I think I would be at a loss for how to approach this.

Anyway, if anyone thinks this is off-topic, just say the word. But I know some of you are working on comics and graphic novels, so I thought this might be of interest to you.

Here's a sample of the panels laid out. As you can see, I've even added some of the background and imported the one panel that's completely finished (I might need to reapply the line tones in that panel, as I think it uses a different line frequency than I chose for the entire story). Also, the "rough border" is going to get some more love soon. I want it a lot more jagged and splattery in the final version, but everything here is a quick "rough," so I drew it and now it's time to move on to the next page. AND, the black panel borders on that first page will be completely cut off -- they are in the trim zone for the page.

 

I'm definitely interested in hearing about the process, whether it's this thread or another. I think you mentioned the lines and resizing before either in your tutorial or this thread and was wondering how that would work. Seems like a unique challenge to put the pages together, so it's cool to see how you're going about solving that.

AlmightyQUEST

Sammy_jr_mart said:

 

Some more characters

 

Nice character concepts and good work on a consistent overall style. I like the texture on the hair, I know a challenge I have sometimes with modeled and transmapped hair is having it end up with a different feel or level of detail than the rest of the image when doing these styles of work, but yours all fits well.

AlmightyQUEST

dreamfarmer said:

I guess this kind of qualifies as NPR. It's heavily filtered and I'm not trying to make it look PR, anyhow. And I wanted to share!

Thanks for sharing. A very moody piece, and very effective use of bold color contrasts.

AlmightyQUEST

head wax said:

 

'The Phantom couldn't quite put his finger on it, but the face at the gate seemed a little different.''

Carrara job, used native render passes - eg diffuse, coverage, index, depth - plus the free Carrara Sandy plugin. Used them as isolation masks for post work etc.

then

about five Filter Forge filters - old photo, comic and Topaz Impression and a mild (very) dose o f carrara sand plugin, plus used Oloneo HDR for fine tweaking

 

 

I liked the composition and that angle especially just from the preview size in the thread here, but I'm glad I clicked through to the full size version. The texture on the colors is awesome, gives it a slightly watercolor effect while still being bold and vibrant. Excellent work!

Headwax

AlmightyQUEST said:

head wax said:

 

'The Phantom couldn't quite put his finger on it, but the face at the gate seemed a little different.''

Carrara job, used native render passes - eg diffuse, coverage, index, depth - plus the free Carrara Sandy plugin. Used them as isolation masks for post work etc.

then

about five Filter Forge filters - old photo, comic and Topaz Impression and a mild (very) dose o f carrara sand plugin, plus used Oloneo HDR for fine tweaking

 

 

I liked the composition and that angle especially just from the preview size in the thread here, but I'm glad I clicked through to the full size version. The texture on the colors is awesome, gives it a slightly watercolor effect while still being bold and vibrant. Excellent work!

 

thank you, that pro version of Filter Forge runs much faster - so it gives me a chance to experiment with more filters. And make more mistakes :)

 

 

mmitchell_houston

I think I finally settled on the costume for the hero from my story. I bought the top over at R'osity: Prae-Epoch for M4 by prae

I spent a little more than an hour on this, and since it's not going into the story, I'm just going to leave it as is (I see a few spots that need touch-up).

Headwax

costumes great, especially the pants and boots, they way the pants bulge at the top of the boots - harness looks good, maybe the edge of the 'gloves' could be thinner? could just be the linework? great style by the way, lots of movement , male Laura Croft for the masses ;)

mmitchell_houston

head wax said:

costumes great, especially the pants and boots, they way the pants bulge at the top of the boots - harness looks good, maybe the edge of the 'gloves' could be thinner? could just be the linework? great style by the way, lots of movement , male Laura Croft for the masses ;)

Those are actually bare skin, so I'm not sure I can isolate the hands separately. I probably just made it too thick when I added the contour lines (thicker lines along the top of the model). I'll watch out for that.

Thanks for commenting on the britches. Like you, I liked the little bulge at the top of the boots. I thought it added a bit of swashbuckler to his appearance. LOL on the Laura Croft reference! 

I think he's 90% finished. I may add a texture map to his bracers so they have a little more detail on the edges, but for tonight, I'm going to focus on getting the dragon right, and then setting up the scene for a two-page spread for pages 2 & 3 in my story.

Headwax

sorry, my bad. I meant the edge of the gauntlets . Looking forward to seeing the spread!

mmitchell_houston

Ugh. Too tired to make this one right. Here's my first draft of the dragon (Daz SubDragon, to be precise). Okay for a quick first pass, but the head needs LOTS of work. I need more ridges and more personality -- gotta play up that he's a wicked dragon. Right now he looks like a dinosaur with bat wings.

algovincian

There be dragons! Awesome - he needs more pixels to be displayed in all his glory.

I'm not on my main DAZ box at the moment so I can't open the scene and check, but I remember the DAZ Dragon 2 having all sorts of accessories when I made this image:

Should be able to pick it up on the cheap these days.

- Greg

mmitchell_houston

algovincian said:

There be dragons! Awesome - he needs more pixels to be displayed in all his glory.

I'm not on my main DAZ box at the moment so I can't open the scene and check, but I remember the DAZ Dragon 2 having all sorts of accessories when I made this image:

Should be able to pick it up on the cheap these days.

- Greg

Thanks, Greg! Your Dragon is stunning, of course! I do have Dragon 3, which I'm going to take a look at today and then pick between the two.

tkdrobert

algovincian said:

There be dragons! Awesome - he needs more pixels to be displayed in all his glory.

I'm not on my main DAZ box at the moment so I can't open the scene and check, but I remember the DAZ Dragon 2 having all sorts of accessories when I made this image:

Should be able to pick it up on the cheap these days.

- Greg

Very cool.  I have the subDragon but only 2 poses for him.  I've tried to pose hime manually but I find it pretty difficult.

tkdrobert

mmitchell_houston said:

Ugh. Too tired to make this one right. Here's my first draft of the dragon (Daz SubDragon, to be precise). Okay for a quick first pass, but the head needs LOTS of work. I need more ridges and more personality -- gotta play up that he's a wicked dragon. Right now he looks like a dinosaur with bat wings.

I would change his front and back legs so they aren't aligned.  Would give a better illusion that he is flying I think.

algovincian

mmitchell_houston said:

algovincian said:

There be dragons! Awesome - he needs more pixels to be displayed in all his glory.

I'm not on my main DAZ box at the moment so I can't open the scene and check, but I remember the DAZ Dragon 2 having all sorts of accessories when I made this image:

Should be able to pick it up on the cheap these days.

- Greg

Thanks, Greg! Your Dragon is stunning, of course! I do have Dragon 3, which I'm going to take a look at today and then pick between the two.

Thanks, Mike. I've bought Dragon 3, too, though 2 has always remained interesting to me - not sure I've ever met an angel/dragon/winged demon I didn't like lol (been accused of having a wing fetish). Anyway, please be sure to post a pic whichever way you decide.

- Greg

Sammagi

Big guy I did in a 3D render, but decided to go with style, and love the blue hair :)

algovincian

tkdrobert said:

algovincian said:

There be dragons! Awesome - he needs more pixels to be displayed in all his glory.

I'm not on my main DAZ box at the moment so I can't open the scene and check, but I remember the DAZ Dragon 2 having all sorts of accessories when I made this image:

Should be able to pick it up on the cheap these days.

- Greg

Very cool.  I have the subDragon but only 2 poses for him.  I've tried to pose hime manually but I find it pretty difficult.

Thanks, Robert - posing can be the hardest part for me, too (especially when 2 figures are interacting). I do remember spending quite a while working on the posing of the 2 figures. Used images of puppy dogs sitting as references for the dragon, and jockies as references for posing the rider.

The other big challenge for me was getting the dragon to look annoyed/embarrassed like he lost a bet or something, and that's why he's letting the wackado wave her knife around like it's a sword as she rides him. Giddyup!

- Greg

 

mmitchell_houston

tkdrobert said:

mmitchell_houston said:

Ugh. Too tired to make this one right. Here's my first draft of the dragon (Daz SubDragon, to be precise). Okay for a quick first pass, but the head needs LOTS of work. I need more ridges and more personality -- gotta play up that he's a wicked dragon. Right now he looks like a dinosaur with bat wings.

I would change his front and back legs so they aren't aligned.  Would give a better illusion that he is flying I think.

I didn't even think of that. The dragon is actually standing in this shot. My main effort for this quickie illustration was just to see if he would even be remotely feasible as the dragon in my story. And movement won't be an issue, since he's actually dead.