Art Tools

[Vela Nanashi]

I thought it would be cool if we could also discuss what tools our artists here use, I have ambition to become able to make some art from time to time, but I am really not that good.

Of course we have the traditional pen and paper, that probably will remain unbeaten for a long time for artists.

Canvas for oil and other types of paint.

Clay for sculpting.

Wood for carving.

I even count carpentry as a kind of artistic expression. Though maybe not ikea furniture, but you know those gorgeous ancient things where they are both practical yet actually gorgeous and inspiring to look at.

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Then we have drawing tablets and drawing screens that enable digital tools to sort of take a few steps toward paper and pen's perfection, but they are really not the same.

Then we have various open source programs that allow us to make art:

Inkscape for vector graphics (svg).

Gimp that can probably do most that photoshop can do, but not in the same way.

Krita with various advanced brushes, some can act like real oil pain mixing on a canvas and other types of brushes, sadly it is really bad at colour channels and transparency, as those advanced brushes are made to use a background color and existing colours on the canvas.

Blender is not only a 3d sculpting and model making tool, but it has grease pencil that 2d artists use, and it has fairly recently (a few years) upgraded its colour handling during rendering, it has more faithful true renderer and also fast rendering that is not quite as correct but works for a lot of stuff.

I am not quite so good about various commercial art tools and don't know if I missed any good open source or otherwise free tools, and I am not an artist, at least not yet, so I am curious what all of our artists use, hopefully you can all enlighten us on those things.

Also maybe we can share knowledge and discuss how to improve our art skills.

Also I am aware I am not super good at commenting on art, so I am curious what kind of input you all would enjoy for your art.

Oh and yes I am aware that AI can generate some art, sometimes that can be fun, but it does have a few ethical issues and also rarely really makes what I want, but I could see it as possible to create a kind of blending between blender and AI there you could make a 3d scene and teach the AI about your characters and make them more consistent. Also maybe help people draw with textures instead of with paints/colours, but yeah I would first like to see attribution and profit sharing be made parts of AI, so that artists get paid at least something each time their image was a part of generated art, and also give links to artists pages as well so they benefit from AI rather than it stealing from them. Anyway I guess this AI bit is a bit off topic, but someone will mention AI tools and I personally would be interested in that too, but my main interest is our real artists who actually create amazing things with their own minds and hands.

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As a writer art is a huge inspiration, and I can only hope that I sometimes maybe can inspire an artist with my writing too.

[AdmiralPiet]

Alright, lets see...

As a child I started with paper and pencil on my art journey. I remember that I searched for cool images in a PC games magazine to then copy.
I think I still have them somewhere, but they might have faded over time.

The first colorations of scaned pencil sketches I did in Paint.net. Without a tablet, just the mouse and it was quite clunky.

Later I switched over to Gimp. It was freeware like paint.net and much more suited for a digital artist. However: I don't know the situation today, but back then it had an UI that was very odd/unique.
During that time I also bought my first tablet (a Wacom Bamboo)
The first picture I uploaded to HF in 2012 was made with Gimp.

Problems with Gimp brought me to buying a software. I was contemplating Photoshop and Corel.
In the end I landed with Corel Painter. Never used PS once.
Used that for several years, until I gave Clip Studio Paint pro a look.

Even though it was much much cheaper than Corel that one had everything needed and it just felt better overall. After a few days I switched over and did not look back. A few small things I missed from Corel, but today I don't even remember what.
Just recently I updated to CSP Version 4. For those who know how to use it PS and Corel will surely be the mightier tools, but for the hobby artist: I think CSP can work for most people.

So that is my Setup today: CSP and small/medium sized Wacom Intuos.

If people are interested I could dig for some pictures from each stage of that art journey.

[Vela Nanashi]

It is good you found a set of tools that work for you, I think that is half the battle. Then lots of practice. I think seeing how your art progressed might make new people feel happier maybe about how their own art is going when they start out, at least maybe (unless your early art is way too impressive)

[AdmiralPiet]

(unless your early art is way too impressive)

Ha!
Have no fear, you will see that it was not. I will pic some to show tomorrow or on the weekend.

[Shocker]

Gimp’s UI is still very unique, and rather overwhelming. One can do almost everything imaginable in gimp, but it takes longer to familiarize myself either it tran I wanted to spend.

[AdmiralPiet]

It is good you found a set of tools that work for you, I think that is half the battle. Then lots of practice. I think seeing how your art progressed might make new people feel happier maybe about how their own art is going when they start out, at least maybe (unless your early art is way too impressive)

Alright, here it is.
Lets embark on this art journey. As I have stated elsewhere: My output is not high, I don’t spend that much time on art (at times more, other times it lays dormant for months) It is true that some natural talent is required, but a lot depends on honing the skill over time. In hindsight I should have focused more on learning the fundamental basics. To this day they are lacking, and that costs me (Time mostly)

No 1: Beginnings
There is more and worse art that I've done, but these are some examples I have on my PC right now.


From left to right:
Uma Thurman, from the cover of our TV-Guide. Far eye too big. Face is skewed.
Seven of Nine from the cover of a Star Trek comic. Face has issues too.
A futuristic soldier. Lots of wonky anatomy, and you can tell I had no clue how muscles work.
Two Fallen Sisters of Battle from when I first got into Warhammer 40k. Neck like a bull, but the body does not match.

No. 2: First steps with coloration in Paint.net


Again from left to right:
One of the first colorations. Must have been around 2006, because that one is inspired by the movie adaptation of Frank Millers “300”. Might have been later since it might also have been influenced by the comic.
The same soldier as before, as well as the Fallen Sisters
Warhammer inspired amazon, powered by more wonky anatomy

No. 3: The introduction of the tablet
Here you can see some difference to before. Still very limited, but it was a huge leap to be able to use a tool like a pen, not like the mouse.


The one on the left is somewhat special as it is a character that was played by a good friend in a text-RPG. Felt good working together to bring her to life.

No. 4: Gimp
From here on out we need the "Hidden"-filter.

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This was the first artwork published to Hentai Foundry in 2012. Huge step forward to go full into porn territory, and odd fetishes.
I will link to that gallery here, and just pick some examplse/important milestones.

Linkt to Hentai Foundry

The gimp journey ended after just two pictures I think.

No. 5: Corel Painter
A mighty software that was surely worth its money and more than PS targeted towards artist. Its main selling point was the fact that it had lots of tools that where meant to realistically emulate real brushes and pens. You could work with pencils, oilpaint, sponges…etc.

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As you can see: Backgrounds were not my strong point back then, and they are not to this day.

No. 6: Clip Studio Paint pro
I don’t know what the thing that lead to trying out CSP was or where exactly the switch happened. I converted the old .psd files to .clip, but there is one WIP screenshot for the Halloween pic from 2017.

It too has lots of realistic brushes, tools geared for manga/comic artists, some animation capabilities, downloadable tools. Custom brushes you can create yourself. You can even use basic 3D figures to help with anatomy and scene creation.
I felt it was more enjoyable to use and much cheaper than Corel. Important lesson: A sophisticated tool will help you, but more expensive does not equal better. And no matter how good the tool: It still needs the craftsman to use it.

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I think by now you can see how, bit by bit, I improved and learned new things. Sometimes you fall back into old mistakes though. And second guessing myself happened often.

On this next piece I worked for ages. At first her colour scheme was silver, I changed to gold and retroactively changed the older artworks. The armour was shifted more towards blue in the beginning. In hindsight I wish I had kept that.

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For me the process is often: After a frantic phase in the beginning I refine the sketch bit by bit. Sometimes in one go, sometimes on and off. After that I start blocking in the colours and then begin shading. During this time it becomes more of a grind. The course is layed out, I know what I have to do. If the second guessing rears its ugly head however...
At first you see huge leaps, but they get ever smaller. And mistakes keep popping up like mushrooms. Towards the end I tend to rush things, because I want to get it over with and publish already.
Sometimes I spot a mistake a second after uploading, fix that, upload again and find another…

As I said before: Take a look at the HF gallery for more insights. I also colored a few sketches/B&W pictures from other artists. Among the latest pictures you will also find some experiments with workflow and style.
But my two proudest achievements to date will be these two (three, depending on how you count)

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There is always room for improvement, but I was very happy with the way this one turned out, and I still like it very much

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This one was very directly influenced by the Artist Janrock, known for (very) muscular characters. This was as much a tribute to him as well as a challenge to myself to work more “painterly” and use less layers than usual. Working on it felt quite good.
Also perhaps the most scenic lighting I have achieved.

No. 7: AI?
I am not against the use of AI in general, but I oppose it in art.
Someone calling himself an artist for ordering a piece from the machine is like calling yourself a chef because you ordered at McDonalds.
I could see some artists that know their stuff use it to maybe do easy, but repetitive tasks.
I can also see its use as an idea giver. Like you are stuck, and don’t know where to start: Ask for pictures of “female elven archers” and go from there. But no tracing over or using those pictures as base. Use it like if you search for ideas on Pinterest and take a look, maybe take the pose, take cues form several pics and then do the rest yourself.
I experimented with that as well.
But using a machine that operates on stolen art and moral ambiguity to do the work for you and then call yourself an artist? Especially if you act all high and mighty and then get mad if your own stuff gets stolen without regard for your wishes?
No, siree!

So, that’s it. I know I my have strayed a bit from the original theme of the thread which is more about the technical aspects of making art. I hope it is forgiven. I would like to answer any questions on how certain things were done. (If I can, sometimes I don’t know myself how I did it )

[Vela Nanashi]

No I love your reply, will reply when next I have proper keyboard, but even your early art it great, way beyond my attempts

[Vela Nanashi]

I thought I would share this video that shows that sometimes math is a tool artists can use, I feel like there is a good reward of the art at the end if you don't want to watch the whole thing, but there is definitely beauty and inspiration in the math part too:

[AdmiralPiet]

For the last few days I gave two AI tools a try, to see what it can do in Art. (and writing, but that is another topic)

It is actually impressive how well it can handle some things, but on the other hand it just affirms my belief that the "AI Artists" that publish "their" works are leeches.
There is certainly some finesse to the crafting of a prompt, but even that can be reduced by asking the AI to optimise the prompt.
As Impressive as the end product may be, it is nothing to be proud of, because there was so little effort compared to what you get. Feels improper to call it your own work.

A comparison I once read comes to mind: "You can't call yourself a chef just because you managed to order at McDonalds"

The tools I gave a try are: Grok and KrawAI
I wanted to use Grok before, but it would't do anything NSFW. When I tried a few days ago it did without problems.
Within seconds it gave dozens of iterations of the picture I asked for.
Sometimes it would not react to a changed prompt, always sticking with the same pose or interpretation now matter what I did.
Othertimes the same prompt would lead to wildly different stuff.

Grok went through some changes in a few days:
Got censored to hell and back. A bit of an up and down but now stuck at very restrictive.
When I first tried Futa characters with errect cocks where possible, later it forgot the cock (but not always the balls), now it just blocks everything. Naked breasts are the most that is possible.
"Fotorealistic" stuff went away quick, but illustrations artwork worked.
Uploaded pictures for editing and video creations similar: More and more restricted.

The model itself changed too.
For writing stuff it is still pretty unrestricted, even for very explicit fetish scenes, but sometimes it got very dumb, being barely coherent, at other times it got some nice ideas.
In between NSFW pictures always reverted to an anime style, lately the faces got worse.

KrawAI only generates one picture, with limited prompt length. The free access version uses the same model as Grok aparently. Sometimes in seconds, sometimes in minutes. Same prompt still has quite a lot of variation with every try. Some are pretty nice, others just don't work. If I say I want a "NSFW dark fantasy illustration of..." and reference artists like Frazetta, Vallejo or Royo it produces a quite consistent style however.

Even though I would never publish any of the many many pictures I had it create in very short time (like i said, minimal effort on my part) to any of my galleries I still see a use as an idea giver.
Like if I have an art piece idea, but only roughly, unsure about pose and lighting, I can see plugging the rough idea into the AI instead of serching pinterest or google, and work from that visualisation.
I have a WIP on my PC that falls flat in terms of pose and dynamic. I had different iterations of the basic idea made, and some of them had nice elements in it that I could adapt. It would be a combination however, and I would need to curate the ideas to not oversaturate...

But I think it needs to stop at the idea stage. No editing or painton the the AI generated picture, no tracing, no exact recreation (minus the typical AI mistakes)
Take cues and inspiration, but do the hard work yourself if you want to be called an Artist.