Digital Character Design and Painting

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Digital Character Design and Painting is really two books in one: it teaches the fundamentals of character design, and the skills, tools, and techniques needed to master digital painting. Character design is all about ideas and how to put those ideas together to create a look and feel for a character. It's about creating a character that elicits a specific emotion from viewersfear, joy, anger, sadness, etc. Character design does not have a standard creation process, but there are basic principles that can be followed. Digital Character Design and Painting explores these principles and teaches conventional artists how to enhance their skills to bridge the gap between traditional and digital art. All of the fundamentals of character design, from artistic design issues and character development to physical details of the character are explored.

Unlike character design, digital painting is not so much about ideas as it is about the combination of method, technique, and artistic theory. It is about making something that will be viewed in two dimensions imitate three dimensions. Using a variety of practical Painter 7 tutorials, artists learn how to apply traditional painting techniques with digital tools. Details on sketching, color theory, lighting, and texturing are also covered, along with specific techniques for painting trees and foliage, eyes, faces, hair, clothing, and fur.

Using these practical techniques and procedures, artists can learn how to create and beautifully illustrate their own life-like or fantasy characters for games, movies, or other commercial productions.

On the CD! Sketches, paper textures, brushes, and texture files to use with the tutorials presented in the book and to customize for your own projects QuickTime movies illustrating some of the painting techniques and other clips that support general painting ideas Shareware versions of programs available from Mediachance Software and Ransen Software Demo version of Painter 7 from Procreate
SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS:
Windows 98, Windows 2000, Windows NT 4.0, Windows ME, or Windows XP. IBM Compatible PC, Pentium 200 or higher, 64 MB RAM, 24-bit 800 x 600 Display, 2X CD-ROM Drive, Mouse or Tablet. Mac OS 8.6 or higher, Power Macintosh ￯﾿ﾽ G3 or higher, 64MB RAM, 128MB RAM for Mac OS X, 24-bit (800 x 600) color display (1024 x 768 for Mac OS X), Mouse or tablet. Users also need QuickTime 6 to view the movie clips included, and Painter 7 or equivalent program to perform the steps in the tutorials.


About the Author

Don Seegmiller (Orem, UT) has a BFA in Graphic Design with a specialization in illustration. He teaches a variety of drawing, illustration, and digital painting courses, is a regular speaker at the Game Developer Conference, and most recently worked as the art director Saffire Corp., a major video game developer. In addition, he writes for popular magazines, and contributed to a number of successful books, including Step-by-Step Electronic Design and The Painter 6 Wow book.

SYNOPSIS

Character Design and Digital Painting is a beautifully illustrated, four-color book that teaches conventional artists how to enhance their skills and bridge the gap between traditional and digital art. For artists interested in transferring their skills to the computer for Web, game, commercial, or film production work, all of the details on how to make the transition are covered. All of the fundamentals of character design, from artistic design issues and character development to physical details of the character are explored. Using the techniques learned here, artists can create their own life-like or fantasy characters for a variety of games, movies, and other projects. Once the character has been designed and sketched, they'll learn how to paint it digitally. Additionally, a variety of practical tutorials and exercises are used to illustrate how to apply traditional painting techniques with digital tools. Details on color theory and lighting are also covered to ensure that the digital characters are the highest-quality paintings possible. Key Features
Presents a beautiful, full color guide to character design and computer art Focuses on learning artistic skills that can be applied to a variety of 2D and 3D programs, including Corel Painter, Adobe Photoshop, and a number of shareware programs (Real Draw, Photobrush, Gliftic, Z Brush) and Creative Labs Poser, and Corel Bryce Teaches how to combine traditional artistic values with today's graphics software Includes a CD-ROM with the figures and files for the tutorials in the book, along with Quicktime movies