Welcome!

[Nancydrewfan]

Moo,
Do you recognize me from the GDC forum? I luff your work! Anyway, here are my examples.

Name: Nancy, Elizabeth, Nan, NDF(that you want me to call you)
Age: 13
Program: GIMP 2.4.5
Experience: Hmm.... 2-3 months? *uncertain*
deviantArt: DA
Other Gallery: Photobucket


{y o u r s e l f

Favorite . . .
Band(s)? Rascal Flatts, MercyMe
Book(s)? Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, Trixie Belden, Boxcar Children, Saddle Club, Thoroughbred, Bloodhounds
Movie(s)? Nancy Drew, Expelled, Incredibles, Dreamer, Racing Stripes, Cars
Clothing store(s)? Wal-Mart, GAP, Old Navy

Anything else? Am obsessed with anything mystery. I want to work for the FBI when I am older. I'm a Christian, homeschooled, & enjoy using large words.

{a r t

What is your favorite picture by someone else? By Psyche
What photomanip artists do you admire? You, Psyche, Pure Sound, Opaque, Mim, Glitch, Porsche, Sunny & Bhaskar, `Sakura, Jurassic, Berke, pretty much all GDC PRO.
What is your favorite picture by you? My Fav I know the smudging is horrible , and the font could use some work, but I like how the background is put together w/ the horse.
What is your favorite style of photo manipulation? (conceptual, fantasy, realistic, etc) Hm... Probably realistic. I really don't like dark manips. I enjoy making bright cheery manips, with a horse in a field, or a river.
What is your favorite thing to do in a picture? (smudging, text, etc.) Mane & Tail smudging. It's addicting, LOL!
What is your least favorite? Font. I'm horrible at it.
What do you most want to learn? Blending BG's together, changing a horses color, creating a mane & tail, cloning out a saddle & rider w/o it appearing obvious, and less squirrelly tail smudging.
How do you body smudge? Around the stomach & shoulders: Huge brush, about 50 hardness and 30 strength. (Created a Circle Fuzzy (30) brush) For the legs & head I use the Circle Fuzzy brushes between sizes 11 and 19.
How do you mane/tail smudge? Circle (03) at 50 strength around the edges, then whichever way the wind is I use Circle (01) at 80 strength.
How do you cut? I use an Eraser brush I created, zoom in 400% and cut around the animal.

{e x a m p l e s

2-3 cutting/smudging examples: 1st Smudge ever 1st Full Body Smudge (including face) Cutting 1 Cutting 2


2-5 picture examples:
http://www.horseland.com/horseInfo.aspx?id=9880738
http://www.horseland.com/horseInfo.aspx?id=10446317
http://www.horseland.com/horseInfo.aspx?id=9951333
http://www.horseland.com/horseInfo.aspx?id=10446313

[moographics]

Hi Nancy! I recognise you, how could I not? Anyway, I'll write up your assignment later, I've got the flu at the moment and need a sleep. I hope you don't mind, I just thought I'd let you know that I know you're here!

[Nancydrewfan]

All right, sounds good! It's a bummer having the flu... I had it earlier this year. Not fun!

[moographics]

I'm all better now, which is good, because I didn;'t want to miss out on another painting and drawing lesson. Anyway, on to teaching...

First off we'll work on cutting, yours is almost perfect, it just needs some finishing touches =) It's a bit blurry and you miss out the background a little. We're using the pen tool in this excercise, later on we'll work with the eraser, as I find the pen tool much better.

Use only the pen tool! Cut out this horse, following this tutorial, then put it on a solid colour background, not too bright though! Please don't use a bright red or yellow or green or blue background, for example. Don't forget to put your copyright on and to credit the photographer. It's due in a week, which is the 5th of May. Have fun!

[Nancydrewfan]

Okay. (Me + Pen Tool = UGH!) I'll try my best. When you first posted that tut on the GDC forum I went and tried it on GIMP. The results were NOT pretty. I couldn't get the line to turn at the angle I wanted it for the life of me. I usually try just making the space in between the anchors extremely small. I know it takes less time your way though. Anyway, I'll my hardest!

[moographics]

Well,m that's the whole point of this forum, teaching people to improve! Just have a go, take your time, and do your best. You'll get it.

[Nancydrewfan]

*sigh* I guess I'm just too much of a perfectionist. Here is my cut. I used only the pen tool, & it worked much better than the lest time I tried it. It's still really choppy in some spots though.

[moographics]

Well done, that's almost perfect! Only a couple of things, you won't have to cut out this horse again with the pen tool.

1. There is the tiniest bit of background showing on the left-hand side of the right foreleg (and the tiniest, most miniscule bit on the rump), but once the horse is on a background/resized, it will be almost impossible to see. It's only the tiniest sliver.

2. On the chest, there are a couple of places where you seem to have cut little triangles into the horse's body. The easiest way to avoid this, I find, is leaving the bits of background you can't easily cut with the pen tool there, then come back with a small, hard eraser later. Or, once you are more experienced with the pen tool, you can just zoom in a bit more than usual and go very carefully.

Other than that, it's pretty much perfect! Just watch out that you're not being a bit sharp with the right-angles on those leg joints. You've improved amazingly already!

Alright, before I give you your next assignment, do you want to have lessons on cutting with the eraser? Or do you want to move on to smudging? Please keep in mind that, if at any time during your lessons, you feel like going over something from past lessons, or want to learn something like eraser cutting, I am more than happy to do so.

[Nancydrewfan]

Okay, I'll try it again. I'd like to proceed directly to smudging, as my Eraser cut just needs practice, I think my technique is perfect. (size of 30px, 80% hardness, 0% spacing, zoom to 400%)

[moographics]

SOrry, did you want to do one more cutting or move on to smudging? I'm being stupid at the moment...

[Nancydrewfan]

I'd like to do one more cutting, I was going to fix the same horse. Then I'd like to proceed to smudging. I posted a layout for critique on the GDC forum, let me know what you think of it!

[moographics]

Okay, well, go ahead and fix up the horse, and then we can move onto smudging.