Digital Character Painting Using Photoshop CS3 (Charles River Media Graphics) [Paperback]

Don Seegmiller (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1584505338 | ISBN-13: 978-1584505334 | Publication Date: August 28, 2007 | Edition: 2

Digital Character Painting Using Photoshop CS3 is a brilliantly illustrated, full-color book that combines both the fundamentals of character design and the skills of digital painting. Completely updated using Photoshop CS3 as the primary tool, the book details how to create characters that elicit specific emotions and how to beautifully render those characters by applying conventional painting skills to digital tools. Written for both the seasoned professional and aspiring artist alike, Digital Character Painting Using Photoshop CS3 explores the key principles of design and reveals how to enhance traditional skills and apply them to digital art for use in games, film, animation, and other commercial productions. Using practical tutorials, the book covers basic skills such as value, edges, color, texturing, and light, and then moves on to teach in-depth techniques on specific features including eyes, face, clothing, hair, and fur. Whatever your skill level, you will discover practical ideas and techniques to apply to your craft and to help you improve and create masterful works of digital art! Features: - Presents a completely updated, beautiful, full color guide to character design and computer art using Photoshop. - Provides practical insights into how to master Photoshop CS3 as a powerful painting tool, including how to customize the brushes to achieve the best possible results. - Focuses on learning artistic skills that can be applied to a variety of 2D and 3D programs, with an emphasis on Photoshop CS3. - 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 a QuickTime movie showing how a painting is created.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Don Seegmiller is a very successful artist, author, and instructor. He has a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree and teaches senior-level illustration, traditional head painting, figure drawing, and digital painting courses at a variety of schools. He worked for six years as art director for Saffire Corporation, is a regular speaker at the game Developers Conference, and was the keynote speaker at the American Association of Medical Illustrators convention in 2003. He is the author of the first edition of this book, the Painter edition, and co-author of Mastering Digital 2D and 3D Art with Les Pardew. His work is also featured in The Painter 6 Wow Book, The Painter 7 Wow Book, Electronic Step-by-Step Design, Spectrum 7, Spectrum 8, and it has also been on display at Wadle Galleries of Santa Fe since 1981.

Product Details

• Paperback: 432 pages
• Publisher: Charles River Media; 2 edition (August 28, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1584505338
• ISBN-13: 978-1584505334
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #319,489 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Photoshop WOW, February 24, 2008

By 

DreamMaker "DreamMaker" (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Digital Character Painting Using Photoshop CS3 (Charles River Media Graphics) (Paperback)

I fell in love with Photoshop as a digital paint program a number of years ago. The effects available through Photoshop give you the versatility of physical media with no mess and much greater ability to edit your compositions as you work.

This is not a book for someone who just wants to use Photoshop for manipulating existing images. (Though you'd certainly have a chance to pick up a few pointers from this book.) This is definitely for someone who wants to create images "from scratch" using Photoshop's amazing array of tools and effects. As such, it helps if you have some previous art training (though you don't have to be an expert, the author does give intermediate level painting tips.)

It also helps if you have at least a basic working knowledge of Photoshop. However, I do mean basic. This book is so well laid out that if you have ever worked in Photoshop before, you should have little trouble following along. The author takes you through a series of exercises and gives clear step by step instructions and tips.

The author's experience as an art instructor really shows through in the clarity of the explanations. I was even able to follow the examples while sitting in a chair reading the book - not even opening Photoshop! I can't say that about some other books I've read on this topic.
I strongly recommend this book to artists looking for tips and inspiration for using Photoshop!

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Good Stuff, January 31, 2008

By 

Matthew Bayne (Arizona, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Digital Character Painting Using Photoshop CS3 (Charles River Media Graphics) (Paperback)

Great Book. Knowing some things about Photoshop beforehand will help with this book. He does give brief descriptions of the tools but his focus is on digital painting. Which is where this book shines. It is clearly written, shows different techniques and is very informative. One of the best how to books I've bought. It even beats some courses I have taken. If digital painting is what you want to learn more about, this is perfect.
Excellent book.

30 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars I returned this book, February 23, 2008

By 

Michael Sims (Los Angeles, CA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Digital Character Painting Using Photoshop CS3 (Charles River Media Graphics) (Paperback)

I returned this book it was so bad.

The title is misleading. This book looks repurposed from another book by the author with just some new screen shots. The techniques in Photoshop are dated and don't correspond with current recommendations. Instead of using Version Cue or History or Layer Comps or a host of many of the new features, the author recommends lots of saves with different names. As one reviewer said, the CS3 on the title is a joke.

Although there is some useful information for absolute beginners on lighting, chapters detailing the personality and history of the character are not necessary for a book titled Digital Character Painting Using Photoshop CS3. I wanted techniques on painting the textures and creating realistic compositions, not rehashed Photoshop basics or tutorials I could find on the web.