My latest wallpaper(FLCL)

1 year 6 months ago

"The reflection in the window would be a bit darker, wouldn't it? Right now it's like a mirror rather than a piece of glass. Also, there are some jaggies around the guitar lines.

No matter how much you skew the graffiti, it's always going to look out of perspective since the graffiti is abstract. You'd have the same problem if you were taking a photo of the same perspective framed the same way. You can either take it out or leave it, if it gets rejected due to that then the person who rejected it did so out of hand. There's not a lot you can do with it.

Keep going, it's getting there. "
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This wall it's not finished So ....

1 year 6 months ago

"Three things. First, the moon in the sky needs a bit of blending. A very slight blue effect, shift the color to more blue and that might do it.

Second, the color of the scan doesn't match. You could use an adjustment layer to shift the color to a more moonlit appearance than a sunlit appearance.

Third, is that a brush or a stock at the very bottom? Either way, it doesn't match the perspective of the background. Since the line of the background is moving towards the upper left, maybe you could extend that in the same direction.

It's going to look great. It's looking pretty good now."
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My First Wallpaper- What can I do to change/improve on?

1 year 6 months ago

"The scan has lots of digital artifacting in it. That means you can see lots of little specs all over the place in the scan rather than smooth colors. You can clean that up a bit, but a better solution is to find a better version of the scan, one that's hopefully really large.

What show is it from? Maybe there's a version of the scan in the scans gallery.

http://www.animepaper.net/gallery/scans/

The background is nice, but until the scan can be improved I wont say if it matches up or not. A lot of the time things look good at the preliminary stages but later it's revealed that it just doesn't work.

"
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Vidcap screenshot blown up to 300% for vectoring

1 year 6 months ago

"That's not a difficult shot to do at all. The reason you want to use a large canvas is so that you can work on minute details that would be impossible to do otherwise. No, it would not be too difficult for you as long as you keep moving forward one step at a time and concern yourself with what your doing at any given moment rather than the final look.

Take for instance this preliminary version of a vector...



It looks terrible, but it shows how it just isn't finished until it's finished. This prelim was to drop into the wallpaper and see if the colors were balanced with the rest of the wall. It wasn't, so I went back to the color layer and redid the colors before I finished adding shadows and highlites on different layers.



The finished version is miles from the prelim version. Had I listened to myself when I said to myself "this isn't looking good, I think I'll try something else", it wouldn't have got done at all.

So keep it up, you're doing fine.



"
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Wall submission

1 year 6 months ago

"Other than it's plain. There needs to be something more there. Go for it."
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Need New Anime

1 year 6 months ago

"How about Blue Seed? That one doesn't even have a category around here.

The original Grandizer was good too. Have you seen GunslingerGirl yet? "
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luna mey wallie

1 year 6 months ago

"Well, the characters are oversaturated while the background is not. There's nothing wrong with oversaturated colors... Most of the wallpapers on this site are oversaturated because everyone follows "SHINTA'S CLEANING TUTORIAL" too closely and winds up with oversaturated colors... but I digress.

Here's what you do. In your image editor, create a new layer that is underneath the scan but over the background. On that new layer, create a yellow gradient (or any color for that matter), then set it for "forground to transparent". Then go from top to bottom to apply the gradient. Then set the layer to "overlay".

Then use filter>distort>wave, the use filter>distort>polar coordinates. This will give you an adjustment layer that you can use to oversaturate the background without swamping out the details in the process (and also prevent adding jaggies to the lines). Just adjust the opactity of the gradient layer to your liking.

Have fun."
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not very good at vectoring

1 year 6 months ago

"Searching on google doesn't help, but it's actually easy to do with the Gimp. Here's the basics from Gimps online faq.

http://docs.gimp.org/en/gimp-tools-other.html#gimp-tool-path

In fact, I have found working with the gimp to be easier than with photoshop. When you use Gimp's file format it saves every path just like it does layers, which means you can go back and work with the paths you've already done after the fact. You can even edit them days after the fact (in my case that would be months :P).

Have fun."
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Why was I rejected?

1 year 6 months ago

"http://www.animepaper.net/group/designdepot/discussions/37791/

This is where I started. If you are using photoshop you'll have everything you need to get started.

Basically vectoring is where you resize you scan to about triple in size, make a new layer over top of that, then use the pen tool to sort of "trace" the scan. The pen tool lets you make curves and shapes very easily, and when you're done you have a clean outline to color however you wish (including color it exactly how the original is.

Basically you can take something as crappy as this...



And turn it into this



add shadows



and add highlites



Just look at the tutorial on the link up on top and you'll get it. "
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Why was I rejected?

1 year 6 months ago

"

DarthManga

yea i've only really extracted...I don't know how to vector yet...and the original scan got deleted from my work computer..damn co-workers

Oh, I think you'll like vectoring. There are a number of different tutorials on animepaper that will tell you how to vector. It's very rewarding because when you look at the results you realize that you made the character yourself rather than just extracting an existing image. That and... if you're a control freak, like me, well... you get a rush and it's "Mwahahahahah!"

Keep us posted."
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HELP .jpg saves different from .psd originals why?

1 year 6 months ago

"

Exlanzer

Convert your colourspace to RGB, then export your PSD file to JPG with "Save for Web" feature on Photoshop for the best result.

Yup, that's exactly it. For the purposes of working on walls for animepaper, you need to be working in RGB mode, since you walls will be in JPG format. It might be in different places on different versions, but I think on CS2 it's Image>Mode>RGB color. The "save for web" feature will allow you to tweak the quality level to the maximum that this site will allow for a given size.

Then you will have much success! "
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Why was I rejected?

1 year 6 months ago

"Can you show us the original scan? It would go a long way to helping us see if its the scan itself that's the problem or something that you've done. It could be that mabye all you need to go back to the original elements (your layers) and rework the effects. If the scan itself is not so great it can either be cleaned up or vectored. If you've never vectored before this scan might be the scan where you learn how.

After you've learned to vector, you almost never want to go back to extraction. ^_^;"
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How to make Wallpaper

1 year 6 months ago

"Well, I know how to extract, but I really hate doing it. For one thing, it doesn't seem to matter how hard you work on an extraction, someone is still going to come along and say "you need to improve your extraction"... So I started vectoring everything.

Get the Gimp. It's an open source (read:free) program that has nearly all the features of Photoshop, but it's pen tool can actually be more useful than the pen tool in photoshop. "
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"Bloody Nightmare"... unknown scan (need help!!!)

1 year 6 months ago

"Whoa... That's a nightmare alright.

The filter over the Character, maybe that needs to go. The reason? Because the question the character asks is "are you real?", but right now she doesn't look real... not as scary as the plain scan was at first glance.

The halo effect around the character is a good idea, just make sure you didn't do that instead of extracting the character. If you have a separate halo effect, you not only can control the effect, but you can apply the same effect to different elements working toward the nightmare effect.

The lightning the background should be sparling blue. That way the color can contrast with the red and up the intensity of the "nightmare". I would also use this as an opportunity to put in a self portrait along with the dead dog. A caricature of myself would be dead on the ground near the dog.

It's coming along nicely.
"
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What does everyone think of this?

1 year 6 months ago

"

fragola89

The second version is very nice...the leaves are a bit too bright in my opinion...and I don't like the grass: that's too plain in my opinion...here's a good tutorial for the grass http://ningen.nattoli.net/tutorials/grass ...good job! ^^

Hadn't thought about grass. I tried it, but I'm not so sure I like it. Maybe I need to use different colors for it, but I also wanted it to be subtle.

"
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What does everyone think of this?

1 year 6 months ago

"

Z3R0

something about it disturbs me and i cant put my finger on it... either way its a good start...

Well, when you have an idea what about it disturbs you, just let me know."
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What does everyone think of this?

1 year 6 months ago

"

Great suggestions! I'd actually forgotten to skew the sky layer, it was practically flat. I'd used a temporary cloud pattern I generated using an old tutorial, but forgot to distort the perspective.

About making all the trees Cherry trees... I tried that and the petals seemed to disappear in the background. That was no good because I'd worked so hard on getting the swirling appearance, so someone suggested I use green in the background to make the petals stand out. As to the glow of some of the petals, I've adjusted that about a billion times it seems... I'm at a point where I say, "they are what they are" and not worry about it anymore.

I added a bit of blurring to the background to of varying degrees. I blurred Hatoko (the girl on the right), but now I'm wondering if, when I submit this, they'll ask "why is the scan on the left not the same quality as the scan on the right?" Sometimes you just can't win, although I do like the look of that now.

So I'm calling it "catching the dream is half the fun". That's what came out of it, because it seems like Misaki is trying to catch that one petal in front of her.

"
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What does everyone think of this?

1 year 6 months ago

"

I recently reworked this one. The vectors are actually done from screencaps of the show. The characters on the right are from the show break first 12 episodes, the cap on the left is from episode 23, near the end. Both were vectored on transparent layers using the Gimp, and color, shadows and highlights were added in photoshop. (I just like the gimp better for vectoring, what can I say).

The background was down using brushwork, some brushes found on DevianART, some were just brushes on photoshop. I tried to recreate the background style from the show without directly copying, using the same color palette. "
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drawing on your computer...

1 year 10 months ago

"

dobbytheweirdo

goulnova

I cannot draw well in the computer, always leave deformed to me

LOL, same here. However, I use Paint, so I guess that is to be expected, and I really can't be stuffed to go out and buy a neat uber-expensive drawing program 'cause I think it'd just be a whole lot cheaper if I just used pen/pencil and paper, and the scanner we have at school. =)

I know about the money problem. Use the GIMP, it's free and does way more than paint does."
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Spirited Away

1 year 10 months ago

"It's a screencap, right?"
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Possible submission worthy wall. Critique needed.

1 year 10 months ago

"

Ok, I redid the background. No trees yet, I'll have to paint one. The shadow mask isn't complete on the main scan, but that's going to take more time.

"
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Possible submission worthy wall. Critique needed.

1 year 10 months ago

"

Inuspal

No no, not the right, the left...and i'm not sure if it's a guy or a girl I thought it was a guy XD and I also think it looks better now =)

LOL. I didn't even realize what character you were talking about. My mind is shot. Oh well.



Here is a version without Athena. I had to make some blending corrections to the work I did to blend her in."
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Possible submission worthy wall. Critique needed.

1 year 10 months ago

"Nope, the "girl" on the right doesn't have to stay at all. I actually added it because some said there should be another scan in there.

I'm guessing you mean by "Stroke" the lines around the petals. I thought that myself, but depending on who I talk to they either like it like this or they don't.



Face is still there for now."
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drawing on your computer...

1 year 10 months ago

"What does everyone like to use to draw on thier computer?

I recently replaced my old drawing tablet (which never worked right) with a new wacom. I've been putting this off for a while, using paper and pencil then scanning for my other work. I'm glad I picked it up, it works so much better than my old one."
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