Happy New Year!

Okay, so who was it that hit me on the head with a huge hammer and got away with it? I feel like I've used pepper spray on myself and have a vague recollection of trying to convince people I really did see a dwarf in my living room. I guess when Aliens visit our planet the most questionable thing they will never understand is the concept of 'partying'! Haha! Happy New Year!

Okay, 'nuff said. Just wanted to remind you that today Eddy Russell of Digital Tutors uploaded several new Photoshop video series on their site, including one showing the complete workflow for doing conceptual artwork and digital character designs in 2D, which can later be used to turn out a completely rigged stylised 3D character for games and animation.

Being part of one of the greatest sources for up-to-date training in CGI, Eddy frequently brings new stuff to D.T. that focusses on previsualisation and doing conceptual work in 2D, an important part in the creation of CGI. Certainly if you're working in a team, you want to make sure everybody is on the same page and understands what needs to be done. Especially, when there's a way of stylisation or branding is involved, that is typical for the product you're working on, being it a game, animation or regular 3D stills, used in ads and stuff. 'Creating Stylised Female Character Concepts in Photoshop CS5' as the series is called, is therefore really interesting as it focusses on doing characters that deviate in some form from the typical anatomical contruct (hence the title 'stylised').

In the 4 hour training series Eddie focusses on doing Comic influenced designs and manga or Anime resembling characters. He talks about creating a background or biography for your character and working with reference images while doing different sketches, varying your apporach, redefining the model up to the point that is reflects your original vision, in this case, an attractive voloptuous corporate secretary (Well, wouldn't you know!).

Lot's of interesting tips here, like using Photoshop's Liquify filter for quickly altering your character's features and creating completely different looks. He also talks about the importance of keeping your character dynamically balanced when doing non-orthographic poses, enabeling the rigger/animator to stress test the model after the character has been sculpted. He also touches on digital inking and goes into coloring using cell shading to differentiate the highlights and shadows. His other series 'Using Texture to Enhance Digital Paintings in Photoshop CS5' is also available as of today and deals with integrating different types of textures in your 2D artwork. Check that out here.