Butt!

Yeah, it's the best angle. I spent many an hour fixing that ass. It was either too big and bulbous or flat and lifeless. There's no tits or pecs as I'm trying to do a non-gender base. I started out doing the low-poly extrusion/inset/loop cut, etc method but it just seemed tedious. I still kinda want to do that since it's a little easier to manipulate things with fewer polys.

I just want to have all 3D art because the lighting and such is done by software and not by me. Then there's things like perspective and such that I wouldn't have to draw in. Just create environment, pose and finalize. (Generalized art process , i know)

It does look good, you should do the 3d when you feel uncompromised and you have fun.

That might have to wait until the next life. I've seen what others have done with 3D and when done well it's just awesome with lighting and other effects. I'm still wondering if I want my furry characters to either have real 3D fur or just keep the fur pattern on a solid surface like I've been painting for years.

Other than modeling characters, I'd have to also model the scenes. Natural scenes would be easy but it's interior or exterior buildings that would be the slow part.

I guess the thing about having 3D characters is that I only have to call up their files and put them together. I wouldn't have to sketch, ink and color them. Just add clothes or other modifications if needed.

I agree with  Phanton, it does look good and give it time. I envy you because I can't even draw a circle in a 3D program to save my life. That looks really good so far. Give it time, I know you'll get it. You just need some vacation time again to relax your hardworking mind ^_^

Yeah, not bad for having no sculpting experience. Drawing circle in most 3D apps is easy. Doing things to them is the hard part, though Sketchup is pretty easy for that. This actually started out as a low poly build. It's that method where you extrude faces, move vertices and edges to make the body. I would think that that thing would be easier to modify as sculpting makes a shit-ton of polygons.

I'm on an art vacation this month until I do my birthday pic at the end of the month. The first week of May, I have an actual work vacation. I may or may not go to my uncle's camp. Won't do any Kayaking since the water will be dick freezing cold. If I don't go, I might hit a lot of waterfall places nearby. Do some 'splorin!

It's something I'd hope to do. 3D art would make everything look more unified and the lighting and such would look so much better.

For your information, you should possibly sculpt limbs and toes/fingers seperately and then once detailed, join them with boolean tools.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7c0sPSy_28

Read the comment section too. Also, check that channel for more tips.

I've seen that done in other speed builds. Someone was modeling an anime character and I was wondering why they were doing things in separate pieces.

I haven't done any practice in Blender in a few days but want to get back into it. I don't know if I should keep working on the sculpture or go back to the low poly method i started the model with.

With "low poly" do you mean modeling the character polygon by polygon, instead of sculpt + retopo ? If so, do as you are comfortable. Although I haven't done any character, I'm not comfortable with sculpting (to finish) a character, because I don't have a tablet (with mouse there's much energy wasted), and because my old PC cannot handle the shear amount of polygons that a finely detailed sculpt consists of.

But if I upgrade and buy a tablet, I would create low poly base mesh with macroscopic shapes I'm after, then I would sculpt that into it's final form. I don't know if your use of "low poly" was according to this assumption, or the former one in the above paragraph.

Basically yeah. The tut i watcher started with a cube did some subdivision turning it into a "spherical" shape. Then you pull some vertices to make the chin. Then pull some faces to make the neck and so forth. When I look at the wireframe of the sculpted version, there's many, many, many polygons. I even think the tuts description mentioned low poly. I kinda got the sculpting down but I don't even know how to retopo. I guess when I did the poly by poly method, he was jumping to the next thing kinda fast that I'd have to keep backing up the video. This low poly method looks like it'd be better to make a base body model and then just adjust bits for whatever body type is needed.

The downside to all of this is I have, like, 350 characters to model. I just wish I could make a good selection of humanoid body types to fit most of the characters. I might have to hire PIXAR or Dreamworks animation studio to do the work for me.

I don't have too much of a problem with handling some things with my 2013 Mac Pro. She's got a 6-core 3.5 Ghz (per core) CPU with dual AMD D500 GPUs with 3GB of RAM each so it can handle it fairlydaily well and I got 32GB of RAM (can go up to 128). If you can get a tablet, GET one. Whether it's digital painting or 3D, once you use a tablet, you will never use a mouse to art again.

Well, I just gotta try both methods. In some ways, I think the poly by poly method probably is best because it'd be easier to shape things just by moving verts, edges and faces along with loop cuts and such. The head and torso actually started out as the poly by poly. Then I decided to try sculpting from there. It looks pretty good here but if you go into the crotch and ass crack, it isn't pretty.

The best thing I could do now, is to try and make a base humanoid form, that is gender neutral then take it from there. It basically come down to how my job goes. If we got to do 50-hour work week for months on end, then it's over.

Only time will tell.

Yeah, I do want a tablet. I wanted to start with one of the Bamboo versions, but it seems some people complain about their quality (breakage and such). Anything you know I should stay away from ?

Retopo is short for retopology/-ologize. It means creating a mesh over the sculpted mesh, where the new mesh has less faces (polygons) consisting of only quads (four sided/vertices) in important places. The reason for quads is that they make possible for artifact-free curves and bumps even when not using (catmul-clark) subdivision, and especially when USING (catmul-clark) subdivision. Catmul-Clark subdivision takes each edge and subdivides it AND it then smooths the resulting subdivided vertices based on the neighboring vertices of the original mesh (before subdivision, called cage mesh). Although a quad is broken down to two triangles by all renderers (because hardware only renders triangles), the catmul-clak algorithm operates before the mesh has been broken down to triangles for valid reasons.

Test:
1) Add a catmul-clark subdivision surface modifier (I'm assuming blender here) to a quad only object, and turn off smooth shading if you have it.
2) Zoom in on a non-flat quad face (non-flat means that all the four vertices do not lie on a (imaginary) flat plane), then repeatedly join two vertices (making a diagonal edge, which turns a quad into two triangles), and dissolve the diagonal edge. Repeat this over and over.

Having smooth shading turned off the whole time, you will see that that non-flat quad, when subdivided to two triangles by the renderer, as opposed to by you when you made two triangles yourself on model stage, will affect the catmul-clark algorithm differently, because when it's a quad, the catmul-clark algorithm does not know of any diagonal edge and hence does not subdivide that edge. It also shows that the vertex smoothing (has nothing to do with smooth shading) of the catmul-clark algorithm creates messes of bumps and creases when it works on triangles. That's why when using aforementioned algorithm, you should stay quad only on non-flat areas that have shape transitions (smooth or hard doesn't matter).

Do you use blender for everything, or zbrush for the sculpting ? Personally I think blender is sufficient for sculpting, but that's me.

Oops, I didn't hit reply. It's below!

I can't which ones to stay away from but I've always used the WACOM Intuous models. I haven't had one fail on me yet. I think Bamboo were meant for light duty especially like sketching and inking.

I've seen at least one retopo vid and I was like why do all that sculpting and then do the simple mesh over it. The more I think of it, the poly by poly method seems to be the better way especially if I want to constantly modify parts.

I basically use Blender for rendering and for sculpting, I've been using Photoshop for outdoor scene and Sketchup for indoor scenes. Though, I want to try to use Blender more for the nature scenes. I'd love to have it look real good. My plan is to do everything 3D but it'll may never happen. I keep on thinking that 3D might snow my art making down. It takes me forever to make a scene, imagine making a complex scene and do up a character.

Yea I know Intuous, but I think I'll start with a Bamboo version that doesn't have many bad reviews, just in case I decide I don't have time for sculpting, since I don't have time drawing.

Well if you get used to sculpting, you can sculpt complete characters in less than an hour. Of course you'll have to retopo after that, but the thing with sculpt+retopo as opposed to poly-by-poly modeling (for organic stuff that is) is that in poly-by-poly modeling you have to think about both shape AND topology (edge/face flow) at the same time. So if you get used to sculpting, you can sculpt and then for retopo you only need to think about topology, since in retopo phase you'll use tool(s) to snap your retopo mesh unto the sculpted mesh, freeing you from doing it manually (i.e. shaping). Since most artists seems to prefer sculpt+retopo approach (when it comes to organic modeling), I guess it must be the more comfortable one. But again, it depends if you get comfortable with sculpting itself.

Sure, 3d takes much time, but on the other hand you can do so many things with your models and scenes again and again, as opposed to 2d, especially 2d bitmaps. Besides, with 3d you can do some awesome gorgeous abstract art. Wallpapers are good motivation for abstract art as far as I'm concerned.

My philosophy when buying things is that even though I technically can't afford it, I go with the more expense just so I don't have to keep buying the cheap thing over and over in addition to having it being "in the shop" a lot.

I do need to practice more with sculpting. IN a way this was more like a poke around thing to get a feel. I gotta try and do either method and see which I like more.  ashnar suggested that unless I'm making the characters for a game, I should do sculpting which is why I started this.

Doing everything in 3D so that everything blends together in terms of lighting and such is why I started taking a look at Blender for characters. I'm not the best artist and I keep wishing each character was drawn and looked consistent. That's what I like about 3D. Just make a model of the character and they'll look the same. The sad part is that there's around 350 of them. In terms of scenes, it's why I started making the backgrounds in 3D. I first started out using Photoshop to make scenes but some things didn't seem easy to make or texture using PS. Then I started looking into Sketchup mostly for interiors. It was Blender that seemed to offer the better rendering engine. Things I made in PS or sketchup looked better rendered using Blender. Sometimes, though, the exported models weren't easy to color/texture because parts were merged as one mesh.

We'll see. Even if I don't do a character model, I wold love to at least make some scenery with Blender. I do have to revisit Blender add-on, ManuelBastioni Lab. It makes some pretty decent models and I should try and modify one and see if I can pull off the look.

Btw, this tall, lanky alien woman should be the first humanoid I should try to model, https://www.furaffinity.net/view/20818285/ She's relatively simple anatomy wise.
Of course, this little guy is fairly easy, https://www.furaffinity.net/view/1519043/

First, to correct myself, it seems that the Intuous Art are the entry level tablets from Wacom now. I'm targeting a small (as opposed to medium) because of the price, and also because although some write that for 21"+ screens the medium sized ones are the smallest to grab, someone wrote (in youtube) that his newly bought Intuous Art Small fit perfectly his 24" monitor (he originally bought it for a 12" laptop, that's half the diagonal size). If the small ones are really too small for my current 22" though, then maybe I will look at Huion tablets, seem far cheaper than Wacom, and those that bought them do not seem to complain. I don't know.

ashnar eh ? cool 3d models there, very interesting. what does he (I assume a he) use for sculpting, and what for the rest ? Blender ?

Even if parts merged as one object, if you know how materials are assigned in Blender, you'll have no problem creating materials. Is there anything specific you have problem with, or do you mean that you define materials in sketchup and when you export and import into blender those some/most of those materials "disappear" because of that ? But I don't think that there is any eacsy way to export materials from say sketchup and import into blender, because they have completely different renderers with different featuresets. But if you have problems with material setup in blender itself, you can ask me. I can clarify things that you may now know. I'm not very good at that myself. Just enough.

ManuelBastioniLab is really cool. Always wanted a DAZ Studio alternative for blender. Important areas to evolve there still, such as character morphs (and bump/normal maps) like the Freak series in DAZ Studio, so that we can create whatever body types we want.
Someone made DAZ Studio character and morph importer 1+ year ago, but abandoned it.

Yeah, simple cartoony characters are the better way to start. Not to mention cartoony vehicles (cars, planes, etc), as those are artificial/man-made objects that don't require the more complex topologies of the cartoony organic characters even. So yeah, I'm myself doing this kind of modeling practice :)

Well, I got a 27" and I use the small Intuos 5 and it does quite well. I never heard of Huion tablets but I know WACOM is the de facto standard much like the Honda CR-V is to CUVs.

Ashnar used this tutorial, https://youtu.be/7aU6Wty9fvg (or the female version). It's how I started this sculpture. Got as far as the torso and then switched to sculpting. All of his work is in Blender as far as I know.

I use Cycles and have used nodes. Kinda cool and in some tutorials they look like a flow chart for an Operating System. Nodes everywhere! I need to practice with UV unwrapping, texture coordinates and other things like that. Then there's weight & texture paint as well as the particle system. I've done some work with the physics system. I've done some fluid simulations and I put a blanket on a bed from a model I made in Sketchup. It's something I always needed and wanted to do. As for sporting from Sketchup, it's the options for exporting into what ever 3D format. If I don't pick the right ones things don't show up right in Blender. Sometimes the walls and floors will have different textures in Sketchup but when exported the walls floor and some furniture are treated as one mesh. It helps for reporting i have it preserve the texture coordinates and that helps keep the meshes separate. Even though the scene had textures in sketchup, I sometimes pick better ones. It's a crap shoot sometimes. Depending on the complexity of the model, the exporting take take a loooooong time. That's why I only try a few times.

I did play with the BastioniLab last night. The normal human face would require quite a bit of manipulating to make them look like my kind of faces and the anime model's eyes are quite large. I haven't really played with DAZ but I do love the stuff I see. I watched this one tutorial where someone was modeling an anime girl by putting a cube (maybe a plane) over the front and side view and then shaping it to the character I was thinking of using this pic of mine, https://www.furaffinity.net/view/22689345/ , because the white unicorn is largely seen from the side.

I gotta be honest, when I added the forearms to to my sculpt, I started to just get frustrated and nearly thought that I'm just too old to do 3D models. Yet... I still poke at it. If only I could quite my job and learn or take classes somewhere.

If the intuos 5 is the one popping up in the first entries in YT search, then that thing is like at least an Intuos Art Medium, at least. Not sure why it's called small. There should be consistency in naming/size across the product lines me thinks. I know wacom is bigger. But wacom I think is a lttle like apple, overpriced. I'm sure they have overall best quality, but I still think they are quite overpriced (like apple). Anyway, if I choose Intuos it will be an Intuos Art small I think. I'll see.

Classes, hmm...

Topology has a not-too-many, but very important concepts. It's like math or physics except far far simpler of course. The only real way to understand them is to study, be it playfully, or "seriously". To each their own they say, and that is what I tend to do when I study things, the way I'm comfortable studying things.

Given that you are comfortable with tablet-based drawing, I say you only need to practice a few times a week, after a few months you'll be pretty good I'd imagine. I'm not exactly anywhere near to being a teenager myself, so I understand this thing with energy and time and such. Anyway, when I upgrade the PC sometime it will be nice to try sculpting with a tablet. But surely, I will buy a tablet earlier than that.

Overpriced, maybe, but worth it in the long run. Doesn't mean that they'll last forever but there's a good chance that they'll last. I still have a Powermac G4 tower that'll be 16 years old this December and she's still runnin.

I did watch a few retool vids and it just seems like even more work. Might as well do the poly method. I did watch a few more vids on how to model a character. One guy just made a flat plane, put it along the side of the side view, shaped it, extruded and such to form the torso.. then they just extruded the faces over to give it depth. Deemed pretty simple. Yet another person uses cylinders and knocks the number of vertices to 6 and then goes to town on modeling the legs and then torso. He didn't connect the body parts together but shows how to rig for posing.

Basically, that's what I've been doing, just poking, practicing and experimenting. I want to do 3D but at my age, it probably won't happen.

I'm leaning towards an Intuos Art Small. I did also consider a Wacom One as first tablet due i's attractive price. But, no buttons (I think), no touch at all (who knows, I may like it), and the pen-holder in a place which may well annoy the right/drawing hand. Those drawbacks seem too much even though the price is almost half.

Do you use the touch functionality of your Intuos5 small ? How do you use it ?
Also, do you have your tablet's active area mapped to the WHOLE (assuming the aspect ratios match) of your display, or to a portion of it and then scroll around ? (note that I'm not talking about zoom)

Yeah, there are various techniques. For "a moment", forget about subdivision surface modifier and don't use it when practicing. First of all you have to understand topology. And before you understand topology, you have to understand regularity (which is extremely easy).
Having told you to ignore subdivision surface modifier, you may think "ok, without that modifier, basically I can have any topology I want, especially if I'm NOT going to rig and pose/animate the thing.". However, that is not correct. You see difference between something that is fully regular and something which has part(s) of it being even slightly irregular. When you create a lowpoly curved object, say an IcoSphere (since we don't use subsurf now, an IcoSphere which is made up of of triangle faces is not a problem), and do not use smooth shading, you clearly see all the polygons, so it isn't smooth. But your mind sees those polygons as approximations of a smooth sphere. This is because the polygons/faces, have regular sizes and shapes. Their vertices are "regularly" (evenly) spaced. if you take even a single vertex and slide it so it's location between two neighboring vertices changes, what has happened ? Well, beside that the face/polygon changed shape, it's size changed as well (implicitly the size and shapes of neighboring faces changed too). Even if you move that vertices (or additionally any number of neighboring vertices) along the "radius" (i.e. along an imaginary line that is perpendicular to the surface of that location) of the sphere in order to reinforce the original sphere's shape, you will never accomplish a regular appearance, due to the relative sizes of edges now destined to being irregular, no matter what. Your mind sees that, and interprets that as an approximation of a sphere that is not smooth all over and hence is irregular. This is the first principle you will learn (if you haven't already). After that comes smooth shading, which I can write about if you are interested.

I use the Apple Magic Trackpad 2 for the main input device. The tablet has those functions of touch and buttons but I'm so old school I hardly use them. Though I did see the ring be used to flip through the Photoshop layer blending modes. I think I have it mapped to the whole display but I'd have to look.

I've used the smooth shading. I just tried the remesh modifier and it changed the tris into quads and it looked much better.

I just don't know if 3D will be it. It just seems like too much work even more over just drawing and coloring. Multiply that by 350 characters all with different body types and styles and it just makes a nightmare scenario. I'd probably still use it for scenery.

If only there was a magic way to do it. I am looking at a new piece of 3D software. It came in an email from SmithMirco (Manga Studio) called Silo 2. I looked it up and it looks pretty good. I gotta try the demo sometime.

Here's the Silo 2 app, http://nevercenter.com/silo/

Smooth shading doesn't do anything else to the faces/polygons but calculating the color of each pixel by interpolating between either vertex colors (calculated through vertex normal) or vertex normals. Blender's viewport uses the former smooth shading algorithm to this day, and it's called Gouraud Shading. The latter is called Phong Shading and involves more calculations and is hence slower than the former. The latter (Phong Shading) appears to being implemented in the new viewport that will be included in Blender 2.8. The latter looks much better of and together with other realtime rendering techniques, the new viewport will look plenty better.

I have only quick-tested Remesh Modifier. But proper retopo that is proper will still require manual work.

3D is ofcourse much work, but you already know the advantages in addition to disadvantages. Maybe wait for ManuelBastioniLab to support fantasy characters. Then some artists may sculpt fantasy based morph targets and you will be able to slide some values to morph (blend) between different morph targets, and this way create interesting stuff ready to pose and render. But that will take some while.
Silo was a 3d modeling software which has earned credit for being (having been) a nice one. It's tools and also UI costomizibility is frequently mentioned. I don't know what version two provides, but I'm pretty sure it's not a magic software. If you don't want to do characters from scratch then here are your choices:

* DAZ Studio: There are plenty of full characters, and at least large number of morph targets to morh (blend) your characters into interesting ones. I'm not sure but I would assume there are fantasy creature morph targets as well.

* Blender/ManuelBastioniLab: the future may look bright, we'll see.

Some stuff I found through google:

http://www.daz3d.com/hfs-fantasy-sh.....nesis-3-bundle
https://www.daz3d.com/rumpelstiltskin
http://www.yurdigital.com/catalog/1.....genesis-3-male

If you ask me, I think you should still get better at sculpting while learning blender better. This way you can learn to create character morphs for either DAZ Studio, or ManuelBastioniLab (particularly when it gets high res meshes). You can do that by first learning what is required (be it DS or MBL), and then use your sculpting skills to sculpt those meshes into the shapes you want and create morph targets. Of course when sculpting an already existing mesh that has proper topology, you would not use dynamic topology feature of blender's sculting mode, but WITHOUT it. I think you should contact manuel and ask him if it is already possible and what is required. Else, you can create morph targets for DS (DAZ Studio) in blender and use them in DS.

I just hope they do things to make the interface a little less crowded and bloated as the Blender Guru suggested in his presentation to the Blender group. One other thing I need to figure out is how to open the mouth and put teeth and tongue in. I have no face sculpted yet so I may have a chance yet.

MB lab does have anime bodies but I'd have to seriously redesign the body to make it fit the facial structure of my style. Then there's the black areas around the "sensitive" areas. I don't know how to get rid of that.

I watched the video of Silo 2 and it looks easy to use and the interface doesn't look intimidating. The price ain't bad either. AS for DAZ, I get emails from them with sales and new offerings. I remember seeing anthropology cheetahs and such.

I would love to just sculpt the the characters I want to use in a scene but it would be better to have s tock library of every character to just pull up the ones I need. It takes me a few hours just to sketch a head and torso for one character these days. I had hoped that doing 3D would speed things up but it'll probably really slow me down even further.

I just need to keep poking around. First, I gotta try Silo 2 but I have to use the demo when I have a lot of free time as you only get 30 days.

Blender 2.8 will apparently have profiles/presets to simplify the UI for those that don't need all the bells and wistles.

the black things in MBL are materials (in this case for "censorship"). Read about materials: https://docs.blender.org/manual/ko/....._material.html
There are two things to know when dealing with materials: (1) materials, and (2) material slots. Materials exist globally in the scene. Material slots on the other hand, they are properties of (mesh and NURBS) objects. Their purpose is to assign some faces of an object to a particular material. To get rid of the black faces, you will have to re-assign those faces to the skin material slot. Anyway, you really have to learn basic things about blender before going further:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AoRlFBs7a_o
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1TkA_gGZMk

I can't wait for that. Now that you mention about the material slots, I should've known about them when I first accidentally made a bunch when I first started playing with blender. I found the one I was looking for.

I kinda started learning the basics of Blender then I jumped right into Fluid Simulations. I guess I'm the kind of person that likes to get a book and skip to the last 3/4 of the book.

I think I found a different character to try and model that's not mine. While playing Super Mario 3D world, I did a few levels as Toad. Then I thought, why not try and model Toad. He's relatively simple.

Anyway, I see that MBL has a new version but I had a hard time getting it to install despite following the directions exactly. I'll keep trying. The one nice thing about MBL is that I see where the UV seams were put.

I also found a plugin for Sketchup called Artisian. It's not free but it can be used to model organic things in Sketchup. So many choices.

Yes, toad-like characters should be among the less difficult to model. However, even with them you'll have plenty of excercise to learn and perfect your topology skills. With "perfect" I mean on that "simple" character, since as soon as you have different character, even though it may be in the same level of difficulty (to model), it's shape will probably be different enough to require different topology, at least parts of it.

Did you get MBL instaaled ? Are you on Blender 2.78c ? If not, that could be the problem.

I haven't really done anything with Blender in the last few weeks. OS X automatically unzips ZIP files. Maybe that was the reason but I did rep the files then then tried it. It was only done on my laptop. I didn't try it on the desktop yet.

There's also a couple of plugins for Sketchup called Artisan and Sub-D. Both are meant for organic modeling. I'm REALLY interested in the Artisan one.

Sub-D is short for Subdivision Surface, which is what we discussed and exists as a modifier in Blender.

Yeah, I know. Some of these plugins look really cool and there's so many on the YouTube channel called The Sketchup Essentials that I might go broke getting them all. There are free ones as well.

It's be awesome and quite funny to actually make a character in Sketchup and not Blender. While I was on vacation a few weeks ago, I treated myself to a Sketchup rendering plugin called Twilight Render. It has a free version but for just $100, the Pro version has more features available. It may nit be a super powerful as Blender's render engines but it does quite well. You should see the Egyptian themed room I made a while ago (and updated) rendered using Twilight. It looks damn good.

Upload it somwhere and give link :)

By the way, I got myself a tablet some 5 days ago, I while I have not had time to use/try it much (just a few hours since I got it) I can say it's almost worse than mouse. In fact in some ways I'm worse with it than the mouse. It's tough and hard to get things remotely right. Like the mouse, it seems I'd do very messy sketch and then for "inking" use the mouse to draw and manipulate vectors (bezier curves). Is that how you go about it, or can you draw fluidly with yours ?

It seems that I will keep using mouse, and traditional drawing + scanning, until I get used to the pen-on-tablet experience, if that's possible. What do you think ?

Here's that room, https://www.furaffinity.net/view/23586839/ and the pic I did using a different angle, https://www.furaffinity.net/view/23587161/

Let me tell you something. I was the same way when I first started using a tablet. After using it and using it, it started to feel more natural and I thought of using a mouse less and less for art. Basically, you just need to adjust the tablet settings until you find something that works well. Then there's setting in whatever app you're using to help stabilize the stroke. Once you get used to it you'll start using the mouse less and less.

I just set the pencil/pen settings until I find the right pressure and stabilizer settings. I haven't used bezier curves in a looooong time to do line work. Of course, I do most of my sketching and inking in ProCreate on the 13in iPad Pro nowadays.

I'd just keep playing with the tablet until you feel comfortable using it full time. Just anyone that used to use a mouse to draw and then switched to a tablet. They probably never use the mouse for art again.

To be honest, I find that 2d drawn environments fit 2ddran characters better. I know it's easier (once you have tools/plugins) to make environments in 3d, but it still doesn't look right. Have you tried using the perspective tools in whatever app(s) you're using ? Btw, what 2d apps do you use, and for what task(s) ? I did read you wrote ProCreate, but anything else ?

I've gotten a lttle bit more use to the orientation spookiness in the tablet. I'm now less disoriented and such. However, pressure sensitivity is far from optimal, probably because I have the Wacom pressure sensitivity set to the second level (from left, i.e. soft). I set it to that level because I don't like to press hard for thicker / more opaque lines; I don't like to wear the nib (and surface of tablet) too easily. Maybe if I modify the tablet pressure curve in the art application (in this case Krita) or change the pens attributes I may have a better pressure sensitivity experience. Right now my strokes are too "jumpy" and "Blocky" in the range of pressure levels.

Also, I've had constant problems with the driver not being found and stuff when I try launching the Wacom Tablet Settings application. I read some days ago that it could be due to the fact that some of us (me included) have installed windows in a partition that is labeled other than "C:\". In my case I have WIndows 7 in the "E:\" partition. It seems to be a very stupid flaw in Wacom's software. UNtil yeasterday I had the problem that each time I booted into windows, the pressure sensitivity was off, so I had to stop the Wacom services and restart them again. Then upson reading someone's suggestion in YT I plugged the usb into the back USB port of the PC instead of the front, then it worked. This morning when I booted, the driver was apparently found when booting so I didn't need to stop and restart the services. After closing Krita down /but still not shutting windows off) and after a few hours trying to get into settings, the driver couldn't be found again. Probed by launching Krita and indeed pressure sensitivity is gone again. I'm tired of stopping and restarting the Wacom service. I'll have to goggle and find a permanent solution later.

As for stabilizer. The simpler smooting modes didn't do it for me, and the stabilizer in it's default mode with the 'delay' setting enabled and set to 50px was to clunky for any romtely strong curves. So I disabled the 'delay' setting and set the 'distance' setting to around 162. Although non-rapid stroked are still terrible, more rapid ones give me quite stablized lines. IMO though, I think I slightly prefer vector inking, at least until I get more comfortable with bitmap inking.

Mouse is still (far) prefered for vector linework. And some other things as well. The big downside wth display-less tablet is that due to the fact that you have to land the nib on the surface while looking at the monitor it becomes very clickny to use it for clicking the UI elements. Indeed, I have to be very careful when landing the nib in order to draw lines at correct location as well as correct pressure.

It does take a little bit of time and adjustment. Once you get use it, the mouse will be on,y used for non-art. Windows was always finicky with a lot of stuff. It's why I chose a Mac over a PC.

I use Procreate to sketch and ink on the 13in iPad Pro. Then I take it to photoshop for coloring and final touches.

i havent worked on any 3D characters in weeks. It'll probably never happen at this rate.

I don't think it's windows' fault in this case. It's probably Wacom's software which is to blame. I bet also that the lower parts of the sensitivity range often not registering and hence resulting in an almost sudden transition from "no paint" to "paint" (i.e. almost no gradual increase of paint) is a deliberate design (be it the pen mechanics, it's circuitry, or the driver) so that we are forced to up the level (towards hard pressure) in the settings in order to wear the nibs out quicker.

I've even seen a vid where someone disassembles the pen (I don't remember the model) and tweaks a screw inside in order to obtain non-malfunctioning pressure range. I know for fact that in the last two generations (after Intuos 3) Wacom has made the tablet surfaces rougher, which of course leads to the nibs wearing out more quickly. The excuse I've read is that the rougher surface makes it feel more like paper. Well I for one prioritize longer life for the nibs (and tablet surface itself) over paper-like feel. Next time (probably in a few years, at least) I get a new tablet I'll try another brand to see how their products work in these regards.

All I can say is that it works fine on Mac OS in whatever app I use. Is this the most current driver? A lot of the time the CD people use to install the software is a little out of date.

My nibs last but I often forget to change them when they need to be changed. One time, I wore it to a point that it was shaped like a chilled marker tip.

I think I gotta get more nibs as well. Probably have the last regular one in the pen now.

Yes, I never installed the in-CD driver. However, I did read some suggestions in internet, and since I have win7 in the third partition of the HDD and that patition is mapped to "E:\", I did as suggested and created the directory symbolic link "C:\Program Files\Tablet\" that points to "E:\Program Files\Tablet\". The wacom software package is installed in the latter. But as suggested some parts of the Wacom software package is supposedly assuming the files are in the former location ("C:\Program FIles\Tablet\") and somehow seems to bypass the linked target ("E:\Program Files\Tablet") and tries to access the "C:\Program Files\Tablet" without it redirecting/linking to "E:\...", so the driver won't get found because it doesn't exist in the "C:\" drive. And that is the reason I created the link.

But the thing is that the suggestion was to first uninstall all wacom stuff, THEN create the link, and finally (re)install Wacom stuff. I merely created the link without uninstalling, and that didn't help much. But a few days ago Wacom Desktop Center notified about an update, and I updated. I think beside only one time immediately after the update, every time I have booted the driver was found and everything has been operational without me having to stop and (re)start the Wacom Professional Service. I take it that they either fixed the issue (less likely) or that since I updated and update flow was very similar to the install flow, the software followed "C:\Program FIles\Tablet" which linked to "E:\Program FIles\Tablet" and hence configured itself correctly (more likely).

I have a question, what happens if one wears the nib such that it becomes too short for the removal "device" (located under my Intuos Draw tablet) ? This is another annoyance, why is there no machanics in the pen to "open" the fron area and easily remove the nib ? WHy should people be stressed and rush to remove the thing before it gets to danger zone ? I guess because people then will buy nibs faster :D
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I've understood that if the nib gets too short it will be very problematic to remove it ? Am I correct, or have I misunderstood ?

Just when I was satisfied with the driver working immediately after reboot and remain working (i.e. being found), tonight something (whatever that is) decided to cause trouble again, so I had to restart the darn Wacom Professional Service again.

I remember reading that the old driver should be removed and pretty much goes for any OS. It just seems that Windows is a pain for drivers.

As for the nib, it's best to not let it get that far but you'd have to use it for an excessively long time for it to get down to the point you can't grab it. Mine are on for a while but the worst that happens is it gets a c chisel point.

The end of the pen (cone part where the nib comes out of) unscrews. At least on the pen I got. So you can still grab it. The nibs aren't that expensive, so I doubt it's a big money maker.

Well the first time I installed the driver I downloaded it from the site, and I didn't have any driver before it to uninstall, and yet I hadthe problems I wrote earlier.

Four standard nibs cost around $11.37 (just konverted from native currency) here. Artists that use these tablets for frequent sketching seem to waste one nib from less than a month to 2 months. It may not be BIG money maker, but profit maximizing is about making ANY extra money, hehe.

All in all, I like that the pens are not on battery, but some observation of pros and cons of current gen "Bamboo" (now called Intuos, I have Intuos Draw) compared to ther older Bamboo:

Pros:
* Double the amount of pressure levels

Cons:
* Thinner pen, and hence not a comfy
* Less tablet area (for hand) around the active area
* Shape of the area (i.e. tablet edges) is kind of sharp, compared to some older Bamboo which had smooth fallof from tablet surface to table surface

Take a look below. First is the older Bamboo, second is the Intuos Draw.

https://www.amazon.com/Wacom-CTL460...../dp/B002OOWC3I
https://www.amazon.com/Wacom-CTL490...../dp/B010LHRFM2

As you can see, one or two of the Bamboo generations had this large area around the active area, with a smooth falloff. Very Intuos 3/4/5/Pro like. Those properties make your hand much comfier. And notice the thicker pen in Bamboo. I don't complain regarding the pen, but I do like the thicker ones more.

Hey, I know you mostly use ProCreate now. But I'm interested in what pressure sensitivity you have configured in the Wacom driver, and also what curve you have defined in whatever application that provides you with costomizable pressure output curve. Take your time, but I'm really curious what custom settings for the pressure makes you workd better. This helps me better understand how important it is to customize.

I just chose the Intuous just because they are the more "professional level" tablet. I see the Bamboo is more for just hobbyists and not meant for heavy duty. I'm not saying they're rubbish, probably just light duty tools. Who knows, maybe it's the same with the software. Just doesn't get as much love. Could there be something wrong with Windows? It's always a possibility.

I gotta get more nibs. I only got one standard nib. I never used the other ones.

Well Procreate is just for the iPad and not the desktops. Someone I watched once had a journal describing the settings they used to get good pressure and such but I can't remember who. For most people, it's just dragging the curve around and keep experimenting until you find something that works.

I think I dragged the center of the curve in the Wacom app a little bit towards the lower right corner, not a whole lot but some.

Some pro-like users of bamboo (and it's modern descendant the Intous Draw/Art/Comic/Photo/3D (among them only Draw has no touch functionality and is hence considerably cheaper)), whether working 2d or 3d, say they are good (enough). These bugdet tablets simply don't support tilt, are made of plastic, and have cheaper pens (probably break sooner), and not comfy for hand top rest on. I think those cons should be the most important for their price range. Heck, the Intuos Art Medium costs some some $229 over here. That's twice the price of it's Small brother. The reviews I've seen do not mention anything negative about pressure qualty/consistency.

Why NOT try the other nibs ? Some of them are supposed to be better than the standard nibs.

I know ProCreate is not for desktop, which is why I wrote:

"Hey, I know you mostly use ProCreate now. But I'm interested in what pressure sensitivity you have configured in the Wacom driver, and also what curve you have defined in whatever application that provides you with costomizable pressure output curve."

I had done that previously (resulting in lowering the output corresponding to the lower part of input range). Right now I have reset it so that I keep using with this flat curve and later conclude if it is working for me or not.

I haven't really tried the other nibs because of my original Wacom. It didn't have the fancy other ones that I can recall. So I've developed a "fondness" for the regular nibs.

Sometimes the best thing is to get what you can afford. My philosophy is to go a bit higher in price and hope the extra cost pays off. So far, I haven't had one fail.

The best thing I can say on the pressure curve is just keep fudging it until you find one that fits. Most of the time I just move that slider that says firm ---- soft. Most of the time it's in the middle but occasionally I do move it over one way or the other.

Also, I haven't played with Blender in a few months. I just haven't had the time and 3D character modeling just seems like too much work, especially since I want to make the models myself. I've also started the 10- hour work days so that's basically kills my 3D learning.

I saw someone making a thread on a blender forum about pressure curve. There it was mentioned the program "Tablet Pressure Curve Tool". If you need it, I can find give you link.

With it I can edit the curve that the driver applies to the pressure before sending it off to programs using the tablet api. After editing it, the driver now applies that edited and better curve (which takes into account ALL pressures - before it ignored the lowest ones) and gives me a somewhat better experience. Not perfect, but better. Does your Intuos 5 driver provide the editable curve ? because it seems that the Intuos users (not 4, 5, or Pro) do not have any UI for that curve to edit. Therefore we have to use an external editor like in the link I provided.

I know what you mean by not having the time modeling. It's still pretty fun creating things from scratch. Next year I plan to likely make a female head :)

I'm pretty happy with what I got. Besides, it probably doesn't have a Mac version.

There is a setting in the Wacom software for editing the curve.

I still want to make a character model but work has been picking up in terms of hours. It's settling down now but that'll be short lived. Halloween/Fall stuff is going to be going out and Christmas will be right behind. So I'll probably never get into blender. I have gotten an organic modeling plugin for Sketchup. You can use it to make landscape and even people. I still haven't played with it but it as on sale for half off.

O yea I forgot you were on mac.

I see, so Intuos 5/Pro users do get a curve editor ? Why the heck does Wacom hide it away from the Intuos NonPro users ?!?! (I'm not asking you of course)

Well, you can use whatever software that makes you most comfortable. Considering my familiarity with Blender, and it's price, that is what makes me most comfortable :)

I don't know. Maybe the lesser tablets aren't meant to be customizable. It does show up on mine.

I kinda wanted to learn blender but it's so complex and I just don't have the time or energy to learn it. Hell, I don't even know Sketchup super well.

The curve preset exists in the preferences file though, and changing it will result in behavior according to the new settings, so it's whereabouts is only a "political" one apparently.

Well I guess you may or may not pick blender up again depending on your future moods for organic modeling. No matter what, good luck in your future art adventures :)

That's basically the one i used but i didn't modify it much.

I would love to learn Blender more but my job just gets in the way. Sketchup does have plugins that help with organic modeling. Some are pretty cool.

I still gotta play with Poser and DAZ. I bought poser last December and haven't really touched it since. That's how much free time i have.

If the company goes under.... then I'll have time.

I haven't tried Poser myself, but it sure looks cleaner and clearer than DAZ Studio I must say. If you bought it watch a few videos and try it. Would be a waste otherwise.

Whatever you do, good luck !

I played with poser in the early years when I worked at a local community college computer lab but the machines had the base of everything. I still wanna give DAZ a shot.

Anyway, I need luck but more importantly... time!

Yeah. I need to lengthen some parts but I don't know how. I'm trying to make this kind of gender neutral because it's a base model.

I might try and to the other way of modeling where you start with a cube, subdivide it and then start extruding, loop cutting and other things to build a low poly one instead. Most of my characters have a human form which is nice because I wouldn't have to modify it much. Then theres the other body types like dragons and humanoids with various animal heads.

There are times where I get frustrated and nearly stop making a 3D character model. Yet, I still persist for some reason.

I'll definitely use 3D for scenery regardless.