Some questions...

[Tightpantsarecool]

Ok, first off....Im new here and at mattepainting. I've seen a lot of artists' work, and I have been trying to learn. But, without a tablet, it's hard. I dont even know where to start! I tried just painting without any reference, but it looked like some 5 year old's painting. And, I have a few questions...

1) How do I use a grid? I saved the ones from the post under me, but Im not sure where to start.

2) Is it possible to make realistic, or at least good matte paintings using a mouse and Photoshop CS2? (without any use of a tablet)

3) I've watched the previews of Dylan Cole's dvd, and on the landscape preview...he has an all brush landscape piece....how did he do that!? To me, it looks realistic(in a way), but whenever I try to do mine, they turn out like crap.


Any help is appreicated. I've done 2 matte paintings using pictures too. But, please dont give me the link to thegnomonworkshop, or tell me to buy the dvds...I plan on buying some whenever I get the money. Thanks.

[RiKToR]

Yes it is possible to create a matte without a tablet, just difficult. I have done a few paintings without out a tablet and they have turned out ok. The trick is taking advantage of both the opacity settings and the selection tools. For example, if you have a rough idea of the shape you need then you can use the polygonal lasso tool to rough out the shape so that you are only painting into the selection. Then by using the opacity controls you can work with like with tablet by building up paint, instead of solid strokes.

Take a look at my web page www.blurred-pixels.com (http://www.blurred-pixels.com) in the second page of my portfolio are my digital works, all but two are done without the need of a tablet. It can be done but the time need will be longer, for example the orange tower painting took about 5 hrs, if I had used a tablet it would have been about 30 - 60 minutes at most.

If you want a cheap tablet, look on ebaY for a graphire 4x5 it will be cheap and worth it, don't go with anything but Wacom brand though, they are the best!

[Tightpantsarecool]

Okay, thanks. Im waiting for your page to load now. But, what about grids? Dylan used one in his cityscape DVD preview, and I've read that some people use them. Is there a certain way to align the painting on the grids...or what?

[RiKToR]

Yeah you can either take a grid from the below post and layer it above your painting, I thinks it's multiply setting that will make the white disapper. Or you can photoshops line tool to make a series of straight lines and skew them in to perspective.

[Tightpantsarecool]

Thanks.