Let's start this out with a Paint Tool Sai and Tablet Tutorial, shall we? Now, for this I'm using a Medium Intuos 4 rather than the larger one. Easier to work with when taking screenshots and pictures.
One of the nicer things about paint-tool-sai is that your eyedropper tool can be used directly with your tablet pen, by pressing on the nub closest to the tip of the pen. Press down, tap button, release. It's as easy as that to grab a new color from your canvas. I'll explain more about this later.
First things first, plug in your tablet. Before starting any graphic application where you utilize use of a tablet you want to make sure it's plugged in FIRST, otherwise the program might not pick up on tablet sensitivity or other little things that really make using a tablet worth your while. It's good to try and draw a straight line, with varying pressures. If you notice your program isn't picking up pressure, close the program and try it again.
Anyway, how do you create a new canvas?
This should be your screen. Simply go up to file, and click new.
I prefer to stick with the default settings for this program, however I usually start my canvases at 1000x1000. It's all up to you at this point. Remember though, the higher resolution, the more detail you can add. That's pretty much the best part about having a tablet, detail.
So, I dumped a bunch of paint across my canvas and now I'll shoiw you what all the little nifty buttons do.
Really, it may seem like a lot to take in, but it's really not so bad. The biggest tool you'll be using is the brush tool, which is your default, and the color wheel. The color wheel is simple, just drag the wheel around to the color you want and then select the tone from the center. It's really that simple.
The other tools you're going to be using a great deal are the brush settings for blending. Blending, Persistence, and Dilution. Well, lets talk about what these things do.
Blending: When using this slider, the higher up it's set, the more that the colors that you're using are going to blend and smooth together, This can make some rough edges when blending two colors like blue and orange, but for a soft look, this is where you want to be.
Persistence: When blending two colors, persistence is the slider that tells the program what color should be dominant. Consider using blue against white, when the slider is high, blue will always be the dominant color, and white will be blended into the background as if it was never there. Experiment with this to get a feel for what you like.
Dilution: Dilution is basically opacity, but at the same time not. It tells the program how light the color should be when blended.
Here is a screenshot that shows the difference between persistence and dilution. Just play around with it and see what works for you.
When playing with Sai the opportunities are endless with these three sliders. You can almost achieve any look you want just by setting one higher or lower.
Here's an example: For shading and lighting the best way to learn your lighting is to imagine a piece of folded cloth. Where will the light hit? In Paint tool sai you want to chunk out your image with quick brush strokes, and pile on your values one on top of the other to make it easy to tell where you're going with it.
Once you have that figured out.. use your colors and adjust your blending settings to make it smoother, or rougher. Give it the look you want.
This concludes the first tablet/General tutorial for Paint Tool Sai.
One of the nicer things about paint-tool-sai is that your eyedropper tool can be used directly with your tablet pen, by pressing on the nub closest to the tip of the pen. Press down, tap button, release. It's as easy as that to grab a new color from your canvas. I'll explain more about this later.
First things first, plug in your tablet. Before starting any graphic application where you utilize use of a tablet you want to make sure it's plugged in FIRST, otherwise the program might not pick up on tablet sensitivity or other little things that really make using a tablet worth your while. It's good to try and draw a straight line, with varying pressures. If you notice your program isn't picking up pressure, close the program and try it again.
Anyway, how do you create a new canvas?
This should be your screen. Simply go up to file, and click new.
I prefer to stick with the default settings for this program, however I usually start my canvases at 1000x1000. It's all up to you at this point. Remember though, the higher resolution, the more detail you can add. That's pretty much the best part about having a tablet, detail.
So, I dumped a bunch of paint across my canvas and now I'll shoiw you what all the little nifty buttons do.
Really, it may seem like a lot to take in, but it's really not so bad. The biggest tool you'll be using is the brush tool, which is your default, and the color wheel. The color wheel is simple, just drag the wheel around to the color you want and then select the tone from the center. It's really that simple.
The other tools you're going to be using a great deal are the brush settings for blending. Blending, Persistence, and Dilution. Well, lets talk about what these things do.
Blending: When using this slider, the higher up it's set, the more that the colors that you're using are going to blend and smooth together, This can make some rough edges when blending two colors like blue and orange, but for a soft look, this is where you want to be.
Persistence: When blending two colors, persistence is the slider that tells the program what color should be dominant. Consider using blue against white, when the slider is high, blue will always be the dominant color, and white will be blended into the background as if it was never there. Experiment with this to get a feel for what you like.
Dilution: Dilution is basically opacity, but at the same time not. It tells the program how light the color should be when blended.
Here is a screenshot that shows the difference between persistence and dilution. Just play around with it and see what works for you.
When playing with Sai the opportunities are endless with these three sliders. You can almost achieve any look you want just by setting one higher or lower.
Here's an example: For shading and lighting the best way to learn your lighting is to imagine a piece of folded cloth. Where will the light hit? In Paint tool sai you want to chunk out your image with quick brush strokes, and pile on your values one on top of the other to make it easy to tell where you're going with it.
Once you have that figured out.. use your colors and adjust your blending settings to make it smoother, or rougher. Give it the look you want.
This concludes the first tablet/General tutorial for Paint Tool Sai.
