Tuesday, October 18, 2016

Making A Masterpiece in the Art Studio: The Tools

Hey everyone!
It's me here  ^ ! ^
(Don't ask what that weird emoji face thing was!)

So today I wanted to say a few things about masterpieces. Now, in no way shape or form am I an expert on this subject. The only real masterpiece I ever did was this bird one, which I'm sure you're all tired of me talking about by now XD

However, I do sort of know my way around when it comes to making masterpieces not look terrible.

Now, when it comes to drawing digitally, I use a Huion... a Huion.. Sorry I totally forget the name of it ^U^ . However, I wouldn't necessarily recommend the Huion graphic tablets, because if your really want a top of the line one, you should really go for a Wacom.

If you can't afford, or don't want a drawing tablet, then you'll have to make do with a mouse or a track pad. Using a mouse isn't necessarily bad, but it's way harder to use than a drawing tablet.

Another way you could draw in the Art Studio is to use your iPad or Samsung or Motorola or whatever with the use of a pen on the Puffin browser. I've never actually used this method before, but if you're fed up with the shaky lines that come with using a mouse, this may be easier.

Now I'll go over the different tools in the Art Studio!

The first one we have is the regular old paintbrush:


Very coarse and pixel-y, not what I would recommend to use on a whole painting. However, for basic sketches and construction lines (stuff that you'll eventually go over anyways) it does it's job.
The paintbrush also makes an all right eraser, but when you get too far into your painting, you're going to have to become way more careful, I screw up way too often with this little bugger!

Next, we have my favourite tool: The Spray Paint!


I know it doesn't look like much, but it is probably the best tool to ever be in the Art Studio.
You can use it for shading, creating textures, painting fur, and just creating more interest in general in your paintings.

Wielding this tool can be a bit of a challenge. Sometimes it leads an impossibly light trail, and sometimes the paint it puts on the canvas is basically the equivalent of the paint brush, so be very careful.

After that, we have the basic triangle, rectangle, circle,  line tools that I won't bother talking about because they're pretty much useless XD
Well, at least to me they're useless, because I literally never use them for anything, but if you are using a mouse or a track pad they may come in handy.

The next tool is the fill tool, it basically looks like a giant bucket. I'm sure you've all seen it:



Now I use this tool a total of almost none.
The reason for this is that if I'm doing a background first, and choose a gradient, the fill tool will do this weird thing because the Art Studio is dumb:


However, if you just want to start off with a plain colour as your background, the fill tool works fine.

The last tool on this list is the smudger.


Heh heh... yeah, this is probably the hardest tool to use in the whole program.

I think where the confusion happens is when people (including me) think that the smudger blends the two colours together evenly, when in reality, it just takes the colour it's on and spreads it around the colour (or colours) that you drag it through.

However this tool is really good for making fur look a lot more realistic.
(If you'd like me to do a tutorial on how to make fur, please let me know!)