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Hi,

Firstly, I hope this is in the right place, since there isn't anything else in here... so, if it's not, feel free to move, mods.

OK, well, this is an older image I did a year ago. I was going for realism in the fur. The anatomy of the wolves is very poor, so ignore that, please ^^

Here's the pic, in "Print" version: http://koeyohte.deviantart.com/art/Twilight-and-Shadow-Print-80707422

I use Corel Painter IX, and for this image, I only used the airbrush tool, Soft Airbrush 20, modified in size as needed.

The fur, to me now, looks somewhat hard. The younger wolf, the one on the lower right, looks OK... mostly, it's the adult's fur that I cannot stand. I did the pup on one night, and the adult and BG on the next. I remember doing a poor job on the adult's fur, and being dissapointed, but also feeling unsure of how to fix it.

The pup has longer strands of fur over its coat - wolf pups have thin fur laers, which are overlayed by longer, wiry strands. That's my reason for doing that ^^

Anyway: Anyone know any techniques for fur, or something? Everyone uses Photoshop (blech!), so I can't ever get any help.

I'm so glad I found this site!

Thanks,

~Koey

I am very new to Painter and own Painter X, but have found that painting fur is much easier using a brush where you can see the bristles in the strokes but  doesn't smear other strokes into a solid blob of color (as with Painter X, I use the RealBristle Brushes).

But as to the technique of making realistic fur. . .I suppose that answer would have to be. . .layers. Keep building on the layers of colors, and vary them a bit, even by slight hues. With your wolf painting, the colors in the fur seem to be pretty much the same with the adult wolf (the pup has nice shading though).

Wolves have thick fur, and looking at some Googled pictures of wolves, so I suppose you could mimic their coats with short, dense brushstrokes.

Cher Threinen-Pendarvis has a lovely Painter painting of a collie dog that vividly illustrates a dog's (in your case, wolf's) thick coat that maybe you could look at as an example of realistic fur.

Have a varied touch to the pen while you paint and follow the direction of the wolf's fur. Studying the subject helps a lot.

Looking through and fiddling with the airbrushes (I'm still playing around with Painter), what variant(s) of airbrushes do you use? The Soft Airbrush variant (this is in Painter X) looks like it could be useful in starting to build the fur. Maybe a Soft Airbrush and then some sort of bristle-ly brush to make the fur fuller? I found some airbrushes that make a bristle-ly look, but they end up in a solid color once you start layering. . .

Not sure how much this will help, but I'm sure someone more experienced then I could offer some more advice.

Cheers and happy painting!

EDIT, 8/13/08: The painting of the collie dog isn't by Cher Threinen-Pendarvis, but Don Stewart; it's found in Cher's Painter X Wow! book though. Just wanted to fix that.

Well, in spite of you not liking the fur, I think it is a very good image overall...and welcome to the forum.

Ann 

Thank you Ednah!

All I used was the 20 round smooth Airbrush... that's all it was called.

I haven't found any bristled brushes that do what I want.

Here is a pic that shows the style I'd like to try now:

http://kesame.deviantart.com/art/Shadowalker-92577787

There is probably a brush that gets the proper strokes that this has... haven't foun dit yet.

I will try to keep working with fur. Thanks!

~Koey

Try Oils > Medium Bristle Oil with a lowered opacity for the bristle-ly-ness. . . You can blend them with Oils > Round Camelhair. I'm not sure the specific names of those brushes in Painter IX or if it has them.

You could always customize (a) brush(es) if all default brushes fail. =)

Cheers!

Koeyohte:

Hi,

 

Firstly, I hope this is in the right place, since there isn't anything else in here... so, if it's not, feel free to move, mods.

Hi Koey,

I'm the "mod" around these parts and I can move the thread, but I'll ask that you read the thread linked below first, then tell me if posting your thread in this forum fits your intention:

Play and We Learn in Spite of Ourselves

If it doesn't fit your intention, and you just wanted to share your artwork and maybe ask for a critique and suggestions, I can move the thread to the Share Your Work forum.

As I see it, either forum is fine for this thread, so let me know what you think.

Jinny

Koey,

For realistic fur, take a look at Tina Harkin's painting, posted in the Share Your Work forum:

Wolf


Then go to Tina's website, INTERPIXEL Digital Painting and if you click the Tutorials link on the left side of the home page, you can watch five videos showing how Tina painted a Lynx.

She makes it look easy!

I know it's not easy and she's a very talented artist but it helps a lot to watch her paint.

Thanks for showing my, Jinny! That really does help - I think it's pretty interesting that all she did was blend the fur, and add the spots. I thought she'd be drawing every single strand by hand! I'll have to look at her website some more. : )

Also, the link you had posted above was broken - I'll go find that thread, though, and read it, and let you know.

Ednah - I love the oils, though I've never created much of anything with them. I'll use the two you specified (IX does have both of those, I do believe), and see what comes up ^^

Thanks!

Hi Koey,

If the link you say was broken is the one to Tina's Wolf thread, it's working now, just click the word Wolf, but I'll paste the plain old URL below so you can copy and paste it into your browser in case the link in my post above still isn't working for you:

http://painterfactory.com/forums/p/490/1434.aspx#1434 

I am looking through some old Painter newsletters and found a tutorial by Don Seegmiller called Creating a Custom Brush to Paint Fur and Hair.

Hey, that's pretty neat, Edhan, thanks for sharing!

Ginny: Sorry, I meant the link to the forum thread about topics... I got that URL, it did work for me. SOrry! But thank you!

~Koey

 Koey,

 No problem. If you found what you were looking for, that's what counts.

 By the way, my name isn't Ginny. ;)

Jinny

Yeah, sorry, it was a typo I didn't fix - I had to go. Won't spell it wrong again ;D