Gemini's Graphics Tuts 3/7

[Ben]

The secret Ingredient is Love

Or Custom Graphics For dummies


GENERAL OVERVIEW:

This set of tutorials is meant to give insight on the wonderfull world of creating your own custom graphics. Before I get into things, there are some things you are going to want to get a hold of.

A Graphics Application is nice. Personally, I use a few different. Sometimes I use MS Paint, Sometimes I use Paintshop Pro. SOmetimes its Fireworks and sometimes its iDraw. All of these programs have their advantages and disadvantages. How well you 'know' the application you are using, is going to determine how easy this process is. I will try and drop tips for different apps throughout these tutorials, but in the end, you are going to want to make sure youve mastered the very basics first.

A bit of experience with art is nice. Talent is an asset here...but by no means does one have to be a Salvador Dahli to do this.

Visual Reference material. And By this, I mean look at pictures of other peoples stuff. Comics, Animations, other games, anatomy books, photography and the world around you are all great visual references.


This tutorial will be segmented into many sections.
The first few will be dealing with strictly artistic basics. Things like anatomy, Basic shapes, light shading. How to Draw things like faces, and boobs that dont look freakish, and cool swords and stuff that kicks ***.

After the basics, I will get into how to apply these pearls to different aspects of RPG making.

And after how to apply it, I will explain how to apply it well.


CONTENTS (This could be subject to change as I progress through these lessons)

1-Basic Shapes, Light, textures and shading.

2-a)Textures
2-B) The Color Wheel, and how to use it right.

3-So you want Custom Graphics? (Or how much work do you really want to do here?)

4-Picture Files and Face sets

5-Using Battle animations like the Cool Kids

6-Sprites,Chipsets And Battle Sprites

7-"Pimp my project"


Please keep in mind that platforms differ. RM2003,2000,and XP are all different. As is Sphere, Game Maker, Tactical RPG maker etc. I will be focusing mostly on use with RPG2003 and XP, but really this knowledge can be used with anything from comics and drawing cool pictures of Pegasus riding lesbians, to....um....well, the lesbian pegasus thing kindof takes the cake, but you get it I hope.

[Ben]

Basic Shapes:


Allright. The stuff in this section is pretty 'visual art 101' These are the meat and potatoes of art. If you have already taken high school art classes, and feel like skipping this section, feel free. Or read it and tell me Im wrong. Either way, this is intended for the folks who may not know these things. It would be pretty presumtuous of me to just assume you all knew this stuff.


3-D basic objects.

This may seem pretty elementray, but you gots ta know tha basics.

In Fig.1, there are 3 basic Shapes/objects

A Cube, a Egg-like Sphere and a blob of carniverous goo. For the sake of this lesson, lets assume that these are all White-ish, opaque (Not clear) Objects. You will see that they are all nicely outlined. You can tell what these are because of the nice outlines. Your brain says "Hey! Thats a Cube!"


In the worlds of these objects, there is nothing but white. A big, indistinct white room. The light is evenly distibuted. But lets say we dont live in a giant white canvass. Lets say these objects are in a room, on a table. And there is a light turned on in this room.

Now that there is a source of light, these objects need to have their shapes defined.


In Fig 2, we see the light, in relation to the objects on our imaginary table.
It looks funny though, because the objects arent casting a shadow at all.



Take our cube. Lets draw it 2 different ways.
In Fig 3.a we see the cube with its edges perpendicular to the light source. Notice the shadow. The Edges of the shadow are straight.
Now in 3.b we see the cube rotated a bit. The edges are not lined up with the light source, so the shape of the shadow cast is different.
Now, In 3.c, we see the carniverous blob's shadow. Its shape is different.


Now, lets pimp this shadow a bit. As the sadow gets further away from the object, the darkness or intensity of the shadow diminishes slightly. This is not always the case, but it looks nice on paper.
But I digress.


Now, we can even erase the little image of the lightbulb and still have a good idea of the direction of the Light source. This is because of the shadow you added.

But something is missing. The cube is unfulfilled. It feels like its missing out on life.
The cube, the Egg and the blob are severly bummed out. They need something more.



Fig.4.a

This is the cube. 3 sides of it are visible to us. Every side of the cube is going to reflect the light in a different way. The topmost side will be the most well lit. The one on the left will still be receiving alot of light, as it still kind of faces the light, even though its angle is different from the top side.
The side on the right, the one closest to the shadow is obviously going to be the darkest.

Because this is a cube, and its sides are all straight and level, the light values are pretty even.
But what happens when we do this with an Egg?

Fig 4.b

Well, we see that the egg is lighter, where the light source is closer. Wow. Amazing, huh?
But uh....look at the lower right edge of the Egg....y'know... right by the shadow. What the hell is that business about. Ill tell you. Its reflected light.



Now, the light is not just hitting the egg. The truth of it is that the light is also bouncing off of the table a little bit. It Slightly illuminates one edge, because the light is bouncing off of the table. This phenominon usually happens on the shadowed edge of the egg. The Shadow itself is at its DARKEST right before the reflected light begins. Ive also drawn the Egg in Chrome to Illustrate this better. Check out the Cube now too. See how subtle that reflected light is on the flat edges?

So from this you can see how different textures effect the reflection of light differently. Il be getting more into this in the next lesson.


But what about the Carniverous blob?
His shape is irregular, so you are actually going to have to visualize the dimensions of this blob.


Fig 5.

Allright. Ive drawn the Blob in a flat texture here. And then in a more shiny one. This should Illustrate, a l'il bit, how reflected light works on an irregular shape.






This may  all have seemed stupid, but its something you've gotta know before going further.

Look at different things around your house. Look at how different light-potencies reflect light differently. Experiment with different shapes, and textures. An Eggshell looks remarkable different from Chrome. And as such, burlap, cotton, skin, wood, and styrofoam all reflect light differently.




Next lesson, Ill be talking about more dynamic shapes, like people. Well, not Like people, Ill be talking about people in specific, and handy hints when drawing them.

[Red XIII]

I looked into the tut with Word's spellchecker.
Just a warning: I had to change the language to english (It's normally set to spanish) and I don't know how good its english dictionary is. So read the thingy before sending it to the wiki.

By the way, nice tut!! Easy to read, and useful for someone (Like me) with little knowledge of art.

Here's the checked version of the tut. If you like it, tell me and I'll check the other chapters when you post them!
(Oh, by the way... I didn't pay attention to Word when it pointed something like a "Ya know" in the text. Just in case....)


"Basic Shapes:


Allright. The stuff in this section is pretty 'visual art 101' These are the meat and potatoes of art. If you have already taken high school art classes, and feel like skipping this section, feel free. Or read it and tell me I'm wrong. Either way, this is intended for the folks who may not know these things. It would be pretty presumptuous of me to just assume you all knew this stuff.


3-D basic objects.

This may seem pretty elementary, but you gots ta know tha basics.

In Fig.1, there are 3 basic Shapes/objects

A Cube, a Egg-like Sphere and a blob of carnivorous goo. For the sake of this lesson, lets assume that these are all White-ish, opaque (Not clear) Objects. You will see that they are all nicely outlined. You can tell what these are because of the nice outlines. Your brain says "Hey! That's a Cube!"


In the worlds of these objects, there is nothing but white. A big, indistinct white room. The light is evenly distributed. But let’s say we don't live in a giant white canvass. Let’s say these objects are in a room, on a table. And there is a light turned on in this room.

Now that there is a source of light, these objects need to have their shapes defined.


In Fig 2, we see the light, in relation to the objects on our imaginary table.
It looks funny though, because the objects aren’t casting a shadow at all.



Take our cube. Let’s draw it 2 different ways.
In Fig 3.a we see the cube with its edges perpendicular to the light source. Notice the shadow. The Edges of the shadow are straight.
Now in 3.b we see the cube rotated a bit. The edges are not lined up with the light source, so the shape of the shadow cast is different.
Now, In 3.c, we see the carnivorous blob's shadow. Its shape is different.


Now, lets pimp this shadow a bit. As the shadow gets further away from the object, the darkness or intensity of the shadow diminishes slightly. This is not always the case, but it looks nice on paper.
But I digress.


Now, we can even erase the little image of the lightbulb and still have a good idea of the direction of the Light source. This is because of the shadow you added.

But something is missing. The cube is unfulfilled. It feels like its missing out on life.
The cube, the Egg and the blob are severely bummed out. They need something more.



Fig.4.a

This is the cube. 3 sides of it are visible to us. Every side of the cube is going to reflect the light in a different way. The topmost side will be the most well lit. The one on the left will still be receiving a lot of light, as it still kind of faces the light, even though its angle is different from the top side.
The side on the right, the one closest to the shadow is obviously going to be the darkest.

Because this is a cube, and its sides are all straight and level, the light values are pretty even.
But what happens when we do this with an Egg?

Fig 4.b

Well, we see that the egg is lighter, where the light source is closer. Wow. Amazing, huh?
But uh....look at the lower right edge of the Egg....y'know... right by the shadow. What the hell is that business about. Ill tell you. It's reflected light.



Now, the light is not just hitting the egg. The truth of it is that the light is also bouncing off of the table a little bit. It Slightly illuminates one edge, because the light is bouncing off of the table. This phenomenon usually happens on the shadowed edge of the egg. The Shadow itself is at its DARKEST right before the reflected light begins. I've also drawn the Egg in Chrome to Illustrate this better. Check out the Cube now too. See how subtle that reflected light is on the flat edges?

So from this you can see how different textures effect the reflection of light differently. Ill be getting more into this in the next lesson.


But what about the Carnivorous blob?
His shape is irregular, so you are actually going to have to visualize the dimensions of this blob.


Fig 5.

Allright. I’ve drawn the Blob in a flat texture here. And then in a more shiny one. This should Illustrate, a l'il bit, how reflected light works on an irregular shape.






This may all have seemed stupid, but its something you've gotta know before going further.

Look at different things around your house. Look at how different light-potencies reflect light differently. Experiment with different shapes, and textures. An Eggshell looks remarkable different from Chrome. And as such, burlap, cotton, skin, wood, and styrofoam all reflect light differently.




Next lesson, Ill be talking about more dynamic shapes, like people. Well, not Like people, Ill be talking about people in specific, and handy hints when drawing them."

[Dominicy]

that is one bad *** looking carniverous goo.

[DarkFlood2]

This is a good tutorial, but I would suggets splitting up the image and placing each figure next to its topic. That way you don't have to keep scrolling back and forth and it makes the tutorial much more effective.

[Linkizcool]

Agreed. ^^^^^^^^

Good job. Very nice

[Rayonius]

Good work! I hope the next ones are as good. I want to learn as much as I can.

[DragonBlaze]

Yeah, so far it looks pretty good If you get some more stuff added to it, I'll add this to the top tutorials thread.

[Ben]

Gemini's Graphics and Art tutorial. Lesson 2-A

Mastering the art of thextures.


Allright...so hopefully you have a good grasp on how light reacts to the surfaces of a basic shape.

In the examples I've shown there, I only made reference to two different textures. Matte and Chromatic...(Or Not shiny and Shiny)
Now, this knowledge is very usefull. But lets think for a moment...Lets say youre gonna draw a Grotesque Orc Soldier, wearing Shiny spikey armor. He's standing over the carcass of a bloodied Carniverous slime warrior, that somehow bled all over both his armor, and his burlap underclothing. Think for a moment about the textures involved with this.

We have the Orc's Skin.
His shiny spikey armor.
The Carniverous slime.
The blood.
The burlap underclothing.

We could treat all of these textures the same, in terms of light reflection, but in the end, it would look off. Like a Scene carved out of a piece of Ivery, sortof (Thats putting it nicely) There wouldn't be much of a textural difference, if the light reflected the same off of all of the surfaces. So in this lesson, I'd like to Illustrate how different textures reflect light differently. How to shade them properly, so they look like the textures.


Look at the Illustration Below.
You will see the following Four Items:

A Hand.
Megaman's Helmet.
A booger, that is apparently dripping from the bottom of a School Desk.
A pair of Loose fitting Pants.


Notice the differences in texture.
Look at how the Direct light, Reflected light, and shading are presented in the examples.

Lets Study Each one in turn.


The hand.
The focus texture here is skin. Skin is not usually Shiny. At least not in this example anyhow. Its soft in texture. In a regularly lit scenario, the Differences in tone are not
that dramtically different. The Reflected Light It subtle. So it the direct light. The Darkest tones are not usually, in regular light, All that dark at all.
Most of the Difference in lighting comes from the actual Musscles and bone structure of the Hand. Skin is Soft, and pliable.

Now, the Helmet.
This is a shiny, polished ,metal Helmet. Its pretty round in shape in this case. But if you look at the Darkest parts, they are dramatically darker than the Lighter Shaded parts. The lighter Shades Parts, are dramatically different then the highlighted parts. Generally, A shiny Metal surface has drastic Light differnces. The reflected light is Hard edged, and noticable. The Direct light is pretty damned noticable as well. With a polished surface, the Idea is to almost make it look wet.

Now, the booger.
Much like the round helmet, its shades are fluid.The shades are a bit more subtle than the polished steel. But its Fluidity is a bit more.....Animated(?) than the steel.
The steel looks rigid and wet, whereas the snot looks Fuid and wet.

And now, the loose fitting, comfortable pants.
This one is a bit tricky. Differnt fabrics have different textures, but generally, the biggest thing to keep in mind here is the actual shape and wrinkling of the cloth.
Notice how the Reflected light is not really detectable? This is not always the case, but generally speaking fabric absorbs less reflected light. If it were shiny leather homo pantaloons, the reflected light would be more noticable, but since these are comfy cotton pants, the texture is soft and generally non reflective. The Darkest parts of the shading are Distinct. Wrinkles in the fabric prevent direct light from hitting these areas. When you are Shading fabric its a Good Idea to Draw the darkest of the shade with the same colour as the outlining.
The Mid-tones of the shade interlace pretty nicely with the highlights. This part is subtle. Because the direct light is still hitting it, just not as directly as the lightest points.

These are very loose guidelines. When Illustrating textures like this, the type of light comes into play alot. Imagine a man in burlap robes, seen in silhouette agains a sunset. The very outlines will be very bringht, whereas the rest of the fabric would be Almost completly black. His skins Direct light would be dramatically Different from the mid and low tones.

The thing to remember is
A)The Way the Texture you are working with Reflects Light
B)The way that the source of light in your illustration is Casted, or What type of light is employed?


Now, Look at my Sketch. Its a quick Sketch of the Orc I mentioned Before. Hes got a shiny metal Shoulderpad....Some ratty Burlap, and axe,  and theres slime dripping from his weapon.

Here, you can see these textures, and a couple of others I threw in for effect, used in context.


Keep in mind, these refernce pictures are some quick ones I whipped up for the sake of this tutorial.
Below all of this stupid text, I have provided a couple of Pencil Pictures I have Drawn. They too, Show some textures.





So Now that Ive explained all of this, Lets recap.


*Different Kinds of Light Cast Different Shade Values
*Different Textures reflect Light in Different Ways.
*The type of light, And type of texture should be recognized  priory to working with These objects.
*The Low, Mid and Light tones of reflected light Differ from texture to texture, light sources, and Light directions.




I hope this one wasn't confusing.
Next lesson Ill be dealing with the WHITE LIGHT SPECTRUM, and how to introduce Colour into the whole mess.
And after that, Ill be getting into practical applications for these techniques, And  how to compose Figures like Humans and animals properly.

[Ben]

Gemini's Graphics Tutorials

Lesson 2-B

The White light spectrum, the colour wheel, Roy G. Biv, And why Hugh wears Shades



Allright. This lesson, you might remember from Science class. Or Art Class.
But if you've already learned this in art class, chances are, I havent told you anything you dont already know.

First....The white light spectrum

Now, Light, as we see it, as cast by our sun, and most artificial lights, has a spectrum of Colours within it.

White is actually all of the colours in the spectrum mixed. Black is the absence of these colours.

The Spectrum, generally speaking Contains 3 primary colours.

RED
YELLOW
BLUE.

Now, remember second grade?

"Red and yellow makes orange"
"Yellow and Blue make Green"
"Blue and red make Purple."

These three primary colours can be used to make any pure value of Secondary Colour.

The Secondary Colours are:

PURPLE
GREEN
ORANGE.

This sound pretty elementary right?
Allright then Hotshot...Whats the Equation for Brown?

Now, you could spit a bunch of different answers at me here, but the only correct one would be
"What sort of brown would you be refering to?"
Brown is a combination of Multiple colours. Usually brown contains a strong element of any given secondary or primary colour.


Every Colour in the white light spectrum has a polar opposite colour. The opposite of Red is green. Opposite of Blue is orange.
Whats the opposite of Yellow? Purple, biznatch.Werd.

Basically, the opposite, or complimentary, color is the one that sits as FAR away from the origonal colour on the colour wheel.
The opposite of any Primary COlour is Always a Secondary Colour, and Vice verca.

NOW....Any given colour can be Refered to as a "Cold Colour" or a "Warm Colour"
This is not to say that if you touch a wall with Red Paint, it will burn you....
But it refers to How much White light is reflected to create the colour....
Because thats what A Colour is....A different Value of Light being reflected. Yellow is Warm. It Absorbs A great deal of the Spectrum. Blue absorbs much less, so it is "Cold"

You may have heard on like Designer Shows, or some crap like that, some flakey guy will say "I really like the warm tones in this room."
Hes refering to the colours. In the examle an entire room, Warm colours will make a room feel warmer to the subconcious (suuposedly). And A Blue room, i guess Is supposed to make you feel cooler. But uh.....Whatever...

Lookit down below. Theres a little ghetto Colour Wheel I made for you.









So thats the Basic Idea.
Now...Those colours are painful to the eyes If used Incorrectly.
Lets take a look at our Orc buddy from the last lesson, Coloured in Nothing but Primary and Secondary Colours.



Looks like 3 pounds of suck in a two pound bag.


Here is where I introduce you to tertiary colours.....

Before I introduce you proper to them, you need to know two terms here...

A Hue
       Is a Colour that has had white added to it. Its like a Lighter version of the colours.

A Shade
       Is a colour that has had Black mixed in with it.

Any HUE or SHADE of a Primary Colour is sometimes refered to as a Tertiary Colour.

Lookit our Orc BuddyNow. And then Look at the COlour Wheel with Hues and Shades in it




A bit better now.

****************************************************************************************************************************************88
So now youve picked up the basics of Colouring.
Now lets apply this.


Lookat the following Images.

Which one has the most pure, primary, Red in it?





At a quick glance, Image two seems to have a more Bold Red in it.
But on further inspection, Youll notice that they both have the same value of Red.

In #1, there are Lighter Hues, and Colours you would find near Primary Red on the Colour Wheel.
Red appears a bit more Diluted.

In # 2, The Complimentary Colour of Green Is Surrounding Red. This makes it stand out. On top of this, the black outside Makes the
whole thing appear to stand out more.

Using Complimentary Colours Can help you Shade.....They Can Darken any given colour. They Can Turn it to a shade of Vomit Brown...
Or they can be used to make Colours stand out.
Having a Colours EXACT opposite Colour in visual range, brings a bit of Contrast. Its a Colour that the Brain and Eye will use as a Direct Comparison.






Now, Back to Brown...
Brown can mean many different things.

Open up MS paint, and Select the "Edit Colours" option.
You'll notice that at a quick glance, Out of those sixteen Million Colours, Brown dosent Jump out. You can see Red, and Blue and Yellow almost Right off...

But now, Examine Close....Brown Can be found in Many Places.
Brown has Many different Places...
But Brown is a tertiary Colour. It is not found in the Primaries or secondaries, Untill the have Shades added, and Sometimes until they are mixed up.


Heres an experiment.
Go get some Ketchup, and Soy Sauce, and Relish, And some mustard, and throw some Green Koolaid in, and then Throw some popcorn Kernels into it all. Mix that crap up. What colour is it?
Puke Brown.

Neat, huh? Now show your mom. Tell her "Look ma! I made brown!"

Ahh.....


And Now, a Recap:

RED YELLOW BLUE are PRIMARY colours.
ORANGE PURPLE GREEN are SECONDARY colours
BLACK added to colours Creates a SHADE or the Colour
WHITE added to them makes a HUE
BROWN is Mysterious.

WARM and COLD colours refer to the Abount of white light that is Reflected and Absorbed from a colour.


Allright.
Thats Lesson 2-B.
I think thats most of the Stupid Basic stuff done.
The Next lesson Will begin to focus more on Graphics Creation.
Less on Drawing pictures for your Grandmas Fridge.

[MrMister]

Don't colour your topic titles.
Or italianize them.

[SaiKar]

Your little example images are ridiculous, yet awesome.

I still have vague hope you might be able to teach me how to shade. i'll be lurking in here.

[Ben]

TO MM

Princess Monoke Called.
She wants her Avatar back. Heh.
Yeah buddy, Ill change it.

____________________________________________________
LESSON 3


So by now hopefully you have a good understanding of the very basics.
This was a very quick intro.
IIn a perfect world, I would have had the patience to write a tutorial on Perspectives, and all that stuff...But whatev.

So Now, before I go into the  Specifics of Making game-stuffs You gotta ask yourself a question.
How custom do you want your project to be, graphically?

Custom Sprites...they are great. They Make your game great. There is nothing sweeter then playing an amateur game and seeing that it all looks like Origonal stuff.
Im not talking generated resources here...Or RTP edits. People Spot that stuff From a Mile away.
If you're gonna Make custom Player Sprites...then you've gotta figure out wether or not you're gonna need Custom Battle Character Sprites as well.
This isnt a Big task if Youve only Got a couple of PC's in your Project, but lets say you have 8 to choose from. Thats Spritesets..And BattleChars...Multiplied By Eight.
Thats a Good Chunk of Work right there.
Also, If you're gonna Use Custom Sprites...You might want to think about making some Custom poses, for things like Cutscenes and the like.

Another thing to consider with Sprites is Consitency.
If you Make Custom Sprites...And then Your Battle Kicks in, and its RTP edits....Its lost some Consitency.
If you use Custom Battle Sprites, And You fight an Enemy that is also a human....And His monster Pic is triple the size of your sprite, even though hes a Soldier that you Will be killin 100 of before your boss, then Your Consitency is lacking.

So Now, Lets say you want to have 100% Custom Sprites, In a Side View System.
Thats ALOT of work. And allthough you may be stoked at first, theres a good chance, especially if youre a newbie and making your first game, that you will lose intrest
before you get very far into the task.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Facesets
Custom Facsets are a Great element to a Game. Especially In dialog.
Its fairly easy to make a template For a face set...And it gives the player an Up-close look at the Characters Faces.

A thing ive notices in some games, Amateur and Professional...Is that some use stock Face Graphics.
The Faceset Looks Sweet and all. Its a spikey blue haired Warrior With a  "no-Guff" look on his face. His teeth are Clenched. Hes A Force to Be reckoned with.
But now, The same Hero is in a scene with his "Fair maiden", Spilling his Heart. But look.....Hes still got that stupid Mean look on his face. It hasnt Changed.

If you're gonna make Face sets, Its a good Idea to Have a few Different takes on Each one, especially if its a Character with alot of Dialog.

Some good Variations and Emotions:
Neutral
Happy
Sad
Angry
Tired
Enraged
Evil Grin

These will, for the most part Tie you over. Used properly and in pair with Custom Sprites, this can make your game Great.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________


So now, Say you want Custom Faces....Sprites and Battle Sprites.
And lets say you have 8 Heros total in your project.
Now think about How much work is involved there.



When Deciding to start a project, its easy to come up with Ideas to make a game Cool. But its another thing completly to Actually Follow through and Finish it.



Many newbies Request resources on the forums, this we know. And Im sure most of them Intend to make the coolest Game ever.
And then, many times, they get frustrated when nobody fulfills the request. Alot of the time this is because the Experienced Game maker knows that allthough this noob has every intent to makes something they think is cool, theres a good chance, that the noob will lose intrest And then that request was for nothing.


When deciding to make custom graphics, its a good idea to NEVER RELY ON REQUESTS. If you are going to make a system like this, you have to be prepared to do the work yourself.

Not to mention..."If you want something done right, you gotta do it yourself." is a good thing to keep in mind.

If you have made 80% of your sprites yourself, its wise to do the rest as well. Every artist has a slightly different style. Consitency is Key here.


So Basically this Lesson is not so much a lesson, as me saying "Know what you're getting into"


This is not meant to discourage you. Later on, in the "Pimp your project" Lesson, Im going to explain how to make your project cool without having to Concauct entire Custom Graphic sytems. Little things, like a Heads-Up-Display (HUD) or an On-Screen Compass, or Hovering Graphics for Different Cities on a world map, can make your project look sweet, without having to devote 80 man hours to designing Sprites.





Well that concludes "Lesson" 3..Not so much a lesson, as Me saying "Bich No Yo' Role"

Im deviateing from the lesson plan.A bit......



NEXT LESSON.

BATTLERS FOR XP, And PICTURE FILES

or

VISUAL ARTS and ANATOMY

or

HOW TO DRAW A KILLER NINJA TURTLE
 

[Ben]

Allright. Lets begin Getting into the more practical Applications for all this junk Ive been talking about.

Im going to Break This lesson into a Few Parts....

This part Deals Mostly with Composition and Anatomy of a Humanoid Subject.

Anatomy is a big part of Art and design.

Ever notice that When you stretch your arms And hands Straight outward the Span from the tip of your Middle Fingers Is Pretty much the same measurment as your Height (Midgets excluded.) Well, theres a good Chance you didn't. But this Nifty Coincidence is not a coincidence at all. Its what is called an ANOTOMICAL LANDMARK.

The Human Body is Full of anatomical Landmarks.In this Section, Ill be making reference to a Few of them. For Some more, check out anatomy  books and reference charts. Or, "Man Alive" by Leonardo DaVinci (Thats the Picture of the Nekkid dude in the circle thing....this was a very early study of anatomical landmarks)

But Im not Going to rant on and on about anatomical landmarks. Im going to  Show you how to draw stuff, like people, and maybe point out some landmarks along the way.
This will help you with things like RpgMaker XP Battlers, and Picture files in general.

So Lets get started.

We are gonna Draw a Dude. Hes going to be a bald dude. Hes gonna Be Naked, and Hes not gonna have any genitals.

A big thing to remember is Not to just Jump into this. You could just lay down some outlines and hope for the best, in terms of shape and musculature...but unless you know WTF you're doing chances are, its gonna look 'off' in some way or another.

So let pretend we are actually Building this Dude. From Scratch. Not on Paper....Pretend you're God allmighty for an instant, designing human kind.

You need to make a skeletal structure First. Not an entire Skeleton, but something close to.
Before Laying out your skeletal form, make sure you know how a skeleton works.
Theres Bones....And theres Joints.

There are a Few different types of Joints in a human Skeleton. Right now you need to recognize 2 main types.
A Hinge Joint.....And a Ball Joint.

A hinge joint moves in one axis....One way, back and forth. Like a Door hinge.
Like your Knee, or your shoulder.

A Ball joint is like a Ball inside a socket. Like your Shoulder, or hip. It moves in multiple directions, and can rotate.


Now, Lets build that skeleton.






Allright. As youve seen this is a very basic Skeleton. There is a section shaped like a ribcage. A section for the Pelvis. Joints are indicated By Circles, and Bones By lines.
The Head is nothing but a big Ball sitting on top of it all.

Now, its easy for me to just Draw this up and show it to you...But you may want to practice. This is where Anatomical Landmarks are Handy to know.
Notice How the Hand/Wrists Come About 1/3 to 1/2 way down the Femur (upper leg) Notice the Elbow and that its Roughly the Same level as the lowest point of the Ribcage? These are some landmarks. Practice Drawing the Skeletals before you go further. This is gonna help you to Understand the Humanoid Form.

You may be at the point of Artistry where you can draw a Human in a static pose already....Like the One were doing now. But Alot of artists, myself Included, sometimes have troubles drawing the human form in dynamic positions. A Human standing still is easier to draw than a human doing a Drop kick, or Hitting a baseball with a Bat.
The Skeletal base can help you to design the layout for dynamic poses.
Look at this now....Its a quick Skeletal of A "Bow and arrow" pose.





Practice the Skeletals. Make sure you know them. Even if youre just doodling on a piece of scrap paper, its good practice to practic Skeletal Poses.

So.....Now that we have the Skeletals, Lets add some meat to those bones.

Using Off shaped Cylinders Were going to Add some definaiton.
Now, Im pretty used to this sort of thing, so I know the proper shapes to make the Cylinders for them to look proper. Again, an anatomy book is a great tool for understanding musscle Shape....but right now were just getting the very basic form layed out.

Z and S Curves:
The Shapes of the human body can be tricky....But heres a neat trick for the basic Curves of limbs..... The Z curve, and the S curve. Im not going to go huge in depth explaining this, Unless somebody asks for it (By all means feel free to ask things about these lessons....I encourage it). Check the image below. I have Made those wacky cylidners, And shown with red and blue lines the Z curves and S curves.(In case youre wondering... the Letter reference refers to the Shapes of the Curve. One is a "Z" and one is an "S". Check it out below)



The Z and S rule is more of a reference tool for you to use. This is alot more evident on the Female Leg.

So as you can see, he's begining to look human. Hes pretty Robotic Right now though....So lets do some finishing on our Bald Naked dude.
So Break out your comics, or anatomy books. Visual reference tools.  Were going to Eliminate the "Sectioned" look of the image, and define things like the Pectorals, and the muscle form of everything. Im going to do this now, check it below. After that Im going to give some quick references to How Muscles work...wether a muscle is Relaxed or contracted is going to determine the bulges and curves of the Muscle structure.




Okay....So I made the Dude. Thats all cool I guess. Theres a chance, if youre just learning this stuff that you may be wondering how the heck I did that.
Well, mostly, Ive learned muscle structure. If youre gonna draw stuff like this, its wise to know this. Its one thing to just throw in a tittie bulge, and some lumpy arms, but it's another thing entirely to know what to put, and where to put it. Im willing to bet that if you were to pick the brain of any given comic artist, they have a firm understanding of the human body....

Im not going to teach you about anatomy. But Ill show you a picture to Illustrate how Muscles move. Below is a Overlay picture a torso, with the arm at rest, and raised high. Notice how the Shape of the Pectoral Changes....Notice how the ribcage expands slightly...
The Expansion and Contraction of Muscles is what makes Limbs and appendages move.

Heres an onorthodox method for understanding what muscles are used to perform what actions....
Google "Toribash"
Its a Fighting game....Learn to do neat stuff with it. If you cant find a demo of it, I have a trial verson I got from a PC magazine. Look harder. theres a trial out there.

So that is the Basic process involved in constructing a human form.

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So now, look at that last picture. See his face?
Im gonna show you a reference Diagram for the Face.....The various vertical and horizontal lines show you what lines up....Ill add some quick points into the image as well.



So those are some landmarks to keep in mind for faces.
These landmarks Dont really change.
They can be exagerated with some styles....
But alot of novice artists gravitate toward cartoony styles because they think there is more leeway with this. But the thing is, if you're gonna do it right,
Do it with the landmarks in mind. Check out the image below. Some landmarks can be embelleshed on with anime and non-humans, but generally, there has to be an anatomical constant.


[INSERT IMAGE LINK]

Well, anyhow Absorb that as much as you can....thats lesson 4-A
4-B Ill Show you some dynamic poses, and battlers.

Before I leave you, enjoy a frivilous picture of me.....smiling....thumbs up


EDIT Photbucket messed me up. Ill fix the last ref. later

[MrMister]

Nice tutorials, brah.