AE Council -- Editing Q&A

[cynbaby]

jennia

*hops in*


Eh... Small question.


When making those Formal dresses, how do you do Folds for those? I'm still messing up a little there...

A vorty said, follow reference images - To get the shading right on things of that nature I take my dress/skirt layer and duplicate it. hide one of the layers and then go to down with the dodge and burn tools on it. I don't worry about going too heavy with the shading and the highlighting because I'm going to reduce the opacity of that layer down to about 20%. Reduce the opacity and toggle the hidden layer. You should now have nice soft highlighting and shading.
Then I make a new layer and with the airbrush tool and black I add deeper shadows to some of the areas. Reduce the opacity until everything looks right and *poof* you've got a pretty edit.  

[shocktv3]

serious avatar editing discussion to commmence..

stare  

[Lucca Ashtear]

Battousai Oni

Anyone know where I can get the Gambino base?

I don't think there is a place where you can get just the base by itself... but all the Gambino avatars are available in the plot update sticky in the GCD. That's what I used for my Ganondorf edit.  

[shocktv3]

has anyone tried editing the edmund base?  

[jennia]

Thanks Cynbaby! i'll try that out when I buy Photoshop  

[cynbaby]

jennia

Thanks Cynbaby! i'll try that out when I buy Photoshop

I look forward to seeing what you come up with!  

[Lucca Ashtear]

shocktv3

has anyone tried editing the edmund base?

Someone made an edit of Devin on the Edmund base once.  

[shocktv3]

nice, im curious to see it... who's devin tho?  

[Lucca Ashtear]

An NPC who's not here yet - he was revealed at a convention I didn't attend. Apparently, he'll be the tattoo artist, when the tattoo/piercing parlor is introduced. The piercing girl is Natasha.  

[mourning dove]

Lucca Ashtear

An NPC who's not here yet - he was revealed at a convention I didn't attend. Apparently, he'll be the tattoo artist, when the tattoo/piercing parlor is introduced. The piercing girl is Natasha.

Ooh, that sounds exciting. I want earrings!

*reads over everyone's posts on thier editing techniques*

As for me, I use the pen tool to create an outline for the peice of clothing I'm doing, and then stroke it using a pencil tool. Then I fill with a slightly lighter color than the outline and get to work. I only make a duplicate layer for the shading if i'm not exactly sure how I want it to look. When doing pixel shading, I choose a color a little darker than the outline, and start shading pixel by pixel with the pencil tool. Then I adjust the color to make it a little lighter and make the pixels right next to the darkest color that color, and so on. Sometimes from there I don't like the pixeling look and blend and smudge some. When I'm doing paintbrush shading, I lock the layer opacity and do pretty much the same thing with the brush. Sometimes I use doge and burn, but only when it has the right effect on the color, sometimes it doesn't go the way I want it to. Usually an edit takes me about 5 hours ^^;;  

[e.n.t.r.o.p.y]

How important do you think light sources are? Because I've never used them...ever. xd  

[shocktv3]

xd eek


lightsources are the alpha and omega... they dictate any and all shading on the image. 3nodding  

[e.n.t.r.o.p.y]

shocktv3

xd eek


lightsources are the alpha and omega... they dictate any and all shading on the image. 3nodding

Oh.... O_O;;  

[shocktv3]

[~Soka-kun~]

When you make avi edits like how do you make wrinkles!?! sweatdrop

 

[Vorty]

Yeah, absolutely. Lightsources are king. If all of your lighting is directed from the same position, the edit will look far more realistic than if highlights are heywire.

Though I don't take the time with every edit to plot a lightsource, I generally bear in mind that the gaia avatars are lit from a front-left position (when facing right). think of it as a big light aimed at the foremost shoulder.