June / July '17 Lite Challenge: Inspired by Malacandra

[Mouse]

Is there a way to sponge off the paint?

Never realised how much I use the sponge when I'm painting a real picture (oil on canvas)!

The eraser doesn't seem to have a sponge setting.

[Chashio]

Hey Chashio

I remember now that I have good and bad painting days - days when everything just flows like a colour symphony, and days when everything just comes out like an out of tune brass band!!!

Unfortunately, I'm having a bad day with it today, so I may just give it a rest and hope I'm more in tune with the colour universe tomorrow.

I don't know what I've done to it, but the Wacom no longer controls it quite so perfectly. I may have dropped the pen. I'm not sure. Had to bomb over to mum's this morning in a bit of a rush (I forgot that I was cat-sitting this weekend!), and things got a bit chaotic...

I don't know. It might look all right later when there's not so much light glaring off the screen at me

Same with me. Frustrating, etc.

Can you describe how the Wacom is acting out?

Is there a way to sponge off the paint?

Never realised how much I use the sponge when I'm painting a real picture (oil on canvas)!

The eraser doesn't seem to have a sponge setting.

I don't think there is a direct tool for that, unfortunately. Though, someone may have worked out a good way to do it, or made a brush preset you can download, or potentially a sticker?

Not sure exactly how you use a sponge in your painting process [what effect you are hoping for] but I fiddled with a bunch of tools and tool presets and you might find something that is somewhat in the right direction.... let me know if you want some help figuring out settings or whatnot. I mainly just focused on what taking paint off with a sponge might look like, as you mentioned the eraser. If none of this looks right, I'd be happy to fiddle some more in other directions.

[Mouse]

Well...

That's an incredibly useful load of information - thanks for that Chashio

But... and LOL! I have an even BIGGER problem!

I'm having a brass band day as it is, but when I render my picture out everything is far brighter than shown on the screen, so its 10 x worse. The strange thing is that the screen shot isn't even showing what it looks like in ArtRage (which is actually quite nice, considering I don't actually like pink all that much), so I can't even really demonstrate the problem.

Here is the sample - and be careful - you might go a bit pink blind once you've looked at it for more than 10 seconds!



I'm not sure what to do about that, except paint everything deliberately muddy and hope for the best. Its almost like there's no contrast or shade in the colours on the exported image. Is there a way to improve the export so that the export actually looks like what's on the screen in front of me (and which only I will ever be able to see if I can't work out what's wrong)

The Wacom seems to be functioning normally in all other respects. I must have hit some setting somewhere without realising it. I'll find it eventually and put it right. These things happen when I'm messing with a new toy

EDIT: its clearly the colour settings between my various bits of software. Now that I can see it uploaded here at the Guild the colour seems to be more or less the same as the colour I'm getting in ArtRage.

That's just plain confusing!

I think I shall feed the cat, water the tomatoes, and come back to the desk.

[Chashio]

No problem

haha! I'm not sure exactly what you said in all of that... I'm having an off day of the sort that trying to intake information and make sense of things is causing my eyes to cross a bit. Probably lack of sleep and bright computer screens. :/ But I would guess from what I gathered that it is indeed the color space being different across programs.
I believe the internet uses sRGB and ArtRage uses RGB of some sort [ https://forums.artrage.com/archive/i...p/t-27187.html ] so they are similar, as you found. My PS color space is usually set to ProPhoto so I have to fiddle with the settings and make sure imported and exported files are converted or whatnot so it all works properly. But I honestly don't know more than a little about it.

[Mouse]

ArtRage colour, and Guild colour appear to be similar enough as to make no difference, which is good news really. It was Photopaint that was showing it all like it was painted in luminous paints and illuminated by 1 million candle floodlights

Of course I didn't know that until I already commented on the problem and posted it. Sorry for the confusion. Its been one of those days!

[Tonnichiwa]

Artrage huh Sue? I've been wondering for a long time why you haven't picked it up before now. I knew it was a program that would appeal to you because it is so friendly to people who paint using real oil paints and such.

I was lucky enough to get Artrage version 3.5 for free. It came with my tablet. I love that program but I'm just not very good at painting. I use it mainly for drawing things and trying to improve my ability to make line art. There is only one thing I don't like about it. There are no masks.

Your entry into the challenge this month is quite an unusual story. I've never read anything from C.S. Lewis. I've only seen some of the movies made from his Narnia books. So this will be interesting to see.

[Mouse]

Thanks Tony

A journey of discovery for me, just as much as it is for anyone else

When I first read this book I was expecting something like Narnia, but I couldn't have been more wrong! Out of the Silent Planet is the first in a trilogy often known as the Cosmic Trilogy, and its the one I understood the most since the other two get progressively more metaphysical, and I am certainly not a philosopher!

So why am I using Lewis's description of Melacandra (Mars) as the basis for this Challenge entry? Its because his description of a world where the atmosphere has been blasted away by a massive battle between the Gods of the worlds, such that a residue can only be found in the deep canals of the planet, seemed to fit the bill of 'oasis' - and, the description had stuck in my memory for several years after reading the book. Though Lewis's description is often vague and sometimes a bit confusing for some reason it captured my imagination back when I first read it, and was the first thing I recalled when thinking of oases.

EDIT: btw - I only have ArtRage Lite. I didn't have quite enough birthday money to get Artrage 5, which is the current full version. I think I'm missing the facility to create my own brushes, but I can upgrade at some point in the future if I decide I like what I have... and I know what you mean about masks!!!

[Chashio]

I'm not sure if it's available in Lite or 3.5 but I can make a selection and fill it, then create a new stencil from the layer contents. Not quite a mask, I know, but something.

[Mouse]

Ah.

I have a nasty feeling that this is something I can't do with Lite. So it really is just like painting a real painting - without any of the digital bonuses and tricks.

I might be wrong. I have only been playing with it for what? A day

I'll let you know if I find a way to make a stencil from the contents of a layer

[Chashio]

It would be in the Stencils panel menu