How to work with Adobe Photoshop

I have been using photoshop for almost 4 years in a row and even though I don´t consider myself an expert since I am constantly learning new things every time, I do enjoy to use it and to see how my project takes form through the work I put in it makes me feel that everybody can do the same if they put their hearts on it.

Before I begin, you might want to take a look at my How to Draw post where I explain the steps I use to draw my characters... but for this post I´ll be exclusively going on about how I operate photoshop and maybe hopefully leave an impression on you (I am currently working with the CC 2014 version):

1- The first step is to import the drawing made on paper onto photoshop (that is of course if you decide to do it in this form), the best resolution I recommend is 300 pixels science is far more comfortable to work on the computer. If you believe your computer is not powerful enough to run this kind of res then try working at 150 or 200 pixels, you can also try going for less but the final result may not look has you might want.

2- The picture is set has a locked BG, you could unlock it to edit on the surface but I suggest you create another layer above it and fill it with white or another color that allow you to see the line when you extract it from the picture... to do this we need to select the line from the original picture: simply select the background layer, go to the selection tab (on mac) and select "Color Gamma" (sorry for the spanish on the interface).

With this tool we are going to select the line from the drawing, by simply clicking on the line you will have the selection ready, note that the "invert (invertir)" selection must be off or otherwise you will end up picking anything but the lines from the drawing; make sure you have selected the line has precise has possible to make the next step much easier.

Use the "Drop count" tools on the gamma window do increase the radius of lines you want to pick up (+ to add and - to reduce the magnitude) and the tolerance bar to select how much of the line to augment, too much will pixel your lines so watch out.

3- After you have selected the line, we must paint that area (preferable color black) with the brush tool augmenting it´s size to paint around 300 px or 250 px would be enough to cover well the selected area in a new layer. try re-bruching the same area at least 3 times to make sure you have covered the whole selected area: Remember to do the painting in a new layer not on the original picture.

With this done comes the fun part *sarcasm*...

Once you have painted the line, chances are that it´s going to look messy and not quite smooth has it should, you must re-touch the lines using both the brush and eraser tool primarily. It´s a long process to get the lines to look smooth and clean since it requires plenty of pulse and plenty of attention to detail to have this look good; I find this to be very annoying and perhaps the most tedious part to do on photoshop... but if you want the best results is important to invest time on this to make your lines look has good has possible.

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4- The colors must be placed in solid below the line layer, each color must be put separately in the respective part you want the color to go and also do each color on a separate layer to work easily with each color level when it comes to erasing over placed elements, etc...

Once you are done with each color element, you have to combine the layers of the colors you have made (be careful not to take the line layer), before that I always clone the layers just in case but is not mandatory.

Right click on the selected layers and choose "Combine Layers" (Combinar Capas), I didn´t name the caps but in case you find yourself lost on your own work do it:

The line and the color have to be on a separate layers, this is how it has to look with the line and without:

5- The next step in the shadows, this process is similar to working with the lines but before that you have to select the character elements from the color and line layers using the "magic wand" tool in the "quick selection" mode... create a layer where you can paint in black the selected area.

The layer that you painted in black is going to be your shadows, before that you have to lower the opacity (Opacidad) level of the layer (it´s located above the layer window in the top right), lower it to around 55% or lower depending of how intense you want your shadows to look.

6- You must retouch the shadows similarly to how we did with the line before, using pencil and eraser tools to make the shadows give volume to your character.

The example I am showing on the left is just how that layer that of how the shadows looks like without the character model behind it.

7- Last is the final touches: a background, color opacity using masks (completely optional but recommended to get the best looking art). For this step I really have no core style... let´s just say that is all about experimentation, see what works and what doesn't; work with separate layers and depending of what this is, for example: If you are going to do the background use layers behind the character model, if you want to work on lights sources use layers above the character model, etc...

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Thank you for reading, I hope this extremely short and simple tutorial was useful to you somehow... it´s important to practice and experiment a lot to discover what things you can do and what you can show with does steps. Again I don´t consider myself an expert on the matter but I do like to think I have enough experience to share this with other people who are interest in learning how to use this extremely useful and very good image editing tool.

I´ll have more content in the future, stay tuned!

The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya Movie Review + The Disappearance of Nagato Yuki-Chan Anime (Spin-Off) Review

The Haruhi franchise is one that's very respected within the anime fandom, I particularly like "The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya" series since it's one of does shows that incorporates complex themes and make them work so well that makes this animes one of does rare anomalies to recreate in any form of media: It has a very interesting way of incorporating sci-fi elements into it's seeming "slice of life" storyline; it's made even more clever by having it play a background roll opposed from having it take away from the spot light the lovable characters.

The movie "The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya" is quite the fascinating movie and one I recommend people to watch, particularly if you are into anime in general, unfortunately it requires you to have certain knowledge of the background behind the universe and the characters... I would recommend seeing at least a few episodes if not the two seasons of the show. The movie happens to be a weird concoction of feelings despite at its core laying a story about saving the world but also how much is the world worth to others: After watching this film I can honestly say is one of the best animated movies I have seen in a long time placing among classics like "Ghost in the Shell" and "Berserk". I know that this sounds like an incredibly bold statement but I wouldn't be doing such a comparison if I wasn't feeling so sure about my thoughts towards this movie.

The movie deserves to be watched at least once, I know that it's a shame how does who want to check it out need to catch up to the anime, but it's still worth watching since it has mystery, humor, sic-fi and likable characters.

The anime "The Disappearance of Nagato Yuki-Chan" however falls into the spin-off category by taking a bold move and making a "What If" timeline: What if there were no aliens, time travelers, robots, etc... Despite the characters being the core center of the story, is the world itself that gives this characters and story it's flavor, removing these elements it's like taking away Lightsabers and starships in Star Wars.

This anime in question is nothing more than a romantic slice of life story about Kyon and Yuki, that's really all there is, Yuki is turned into a shy/weeboo-ish girl who although cute has none of the character the movie knew how to make work, in the original anime Yuki was like that one character you don't fuck with (To me is still a mystery how they managed to make her work there). The majority of the characters are still has they were in the original anime and movie though so is not like I don't recognize their characteristics but I can tell something is missing... and that is the fantastic elements the original story incorporates so well.

The romance sticks out like a sour thumb to me, the original anime and movie has non of that... it is hinted that Kyon and Haruhi have feelings but is never addressed to that level further into the story and is never touched or referred to ever again. I don't care that "The Disapearance of Nagato Yuki-Chan" is a spin off, to me it comes across has a fan fiction with a budget, no more and no less... I can say that it is harmless: regardless of my opinion I never felt like the anime insulted my intelligence or anything like that, so you can still check it out for yourself and judge it if you want, for me however is a definitive skip.

Thoughts on The Force Unleashed Games

Star Wars is a very important franchise for me, and when you put video games and combine them it makes for a great recipe for awesomeness. In the history of gaming we have gotten some great star wars games: The Jedi Knight series, Rouge Squadron, Battlefront, etc...

The Force Unleashed was an entry in the massive library of star wars games that was hyped far beyond what it really was: The story behind it is quite unique for a video game project, what I mean by that is that usually projects must start with a central focus or a central point... TFU didn't. A small group composed of six developers started brain storming ideas for a new star wars game, the ideas ranged for plenty of concepts, scripts and many ideas (with just saying that one of the ideas was a mercenary character taking place in the distant future past Return of the Jedi), eventually after researching the expanded universe they eventually got stuck between the old republic era or the (then) lesser known point between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope.

In interviews, developers said that the game was going to fill the void set between the episodes 3 and 4, that we will find out about about dark characters in the saga and that The Force Unleashed was going to be "the next important chapter in star wars"... unfortunately it also promoted itself by being a bigger game than it really was, reaching to consoles that were not meant to handle it´s visual flare, effects and other sugar coating elements (Wii, PS2, DS, etc...). So what went wrong? The awser is quite simple and complicated at the same time:

The main problem is that the promotion of the game said otherwise to what was given and another and even bigger problem is the fact they branched out to multiple systems... giving unique fetters to each and everyone of them (ex: the Wii version has a 2vs2 mode while the PSP version has a special missions mode) pretty much demanding the consumers to buy all versions of the game to acquire the maximum experience; not only is this practice anti-consumer but also very unpractical from a development point, the core team focused on the PS3, 360 and PC versions while other hired 3rd party devs where given the task to adapt that game into the Wii and the other platforms, the amount of work placed over the head of this devs must have been crushing.

Of course the game wasn't received has well has it was hyped by both critics and players... the game at it´s core is just a beat em up style action game and quite fun at it, however it´s nothing like it was promised, I can say (having played it on the PS3) that is a good fun game witch only special deliver is the story and by saying like is the greatest thing ever either but I can at least appreciate what was done here, basically what this does is explain how the rebel alliance was created... that´s really it.

Force Unleashed 2 was announced almost a year after the lunch of the first game and I was flabbergasted at it, I was wandering why  if the original gave a very solid conclusion to the story, but of course the sales had demanded that devs pushed another game out:

What are they talking about...?!

Why make Starkiller the most powerful Jedi/Sith ever? It warps the concept of the force almost completely! Is Starkiller Kratos? I don´t mind playing a powerful character but this is ridiculous... no other character in the star wars universe has a chance against that guy.

This game was clearly rushed, just by looking at the game itself in terms of mechanics, there is no depth to combat unlike in the first entry... I heard that some of the developers who worked on the original game moved on, where they the brains of the gameplay department? It makes me sad because not only is the gameplay worts but the story also is, Starkiller is turned into an unlikable jerk who is blinded by his desire to find Juno that the most important events that lead to episode 4 are ignored entirely, there is no character development and Vader is turned into a wimp!

TFU2 is not very good, it was clearly rushed out into the marked has you might be able to tell... is sad indeed when this happens in gaming.

Quoting Miyamoto "A delayed game is eventually good, but a rushed game is forever bad"

A little update

Hello ladies and gentlemen:

Sorry for not having any content in the recent days but I have been very busy with work and plenty of other things that have been happening, you gotta understand I don't like posting content that does not motivate me to talk about.

In terms of my work, I haven't been slowing down but since summer ended I noticed some of my skills went rusty so I have had to practice a lot to get back on my feet before even daring to touch the comic again.

In terms of what's to come, I'll probably have plenty more content related with my work to share instead of reviews, does will still come but maybe not with the same rate has before since I really want to give full attention to this project.

Stay tuned!

EDIT: Oh right, the photoshop tutorial is still on the works BTW ;)

Blackfish Movie Review + Update

This documentary is quite interesting more because of esthetic reasons thus boosting the information it provides.

When it comes to a documentary I try to think about what the director wants to tell us and picture the story they are telling has if it was a fictional work how it would measure up, I gotta say that it manages to fulfill the number one but not so much the number two but I can't blame the film for it. Seaworld is a big park with plenty of tourists from all over the world coming over to see the great Killer Wheals in their glorious trained spectacle, the movie basically tries to shawn light into the behind the scenes of the spectacle, the history behind the park, the animals and some of their ex-trainers.

I think is very smart how the movie decides to pick a moment so powerful and very serious moment like the death of one trainer by Tilikum (one big male killer whale), the entire movie is centered on not only on the whales's nature, habitant, behavior towards humans (both in the wild and in confinement) but also of their trainers, how they work with the whales, what is it like, explaining the bond they share, etc... Blackfish is indeed a highly informative documentary about the nature of these mammals and also how humanities own desires can drive to the destruction of nature; all learned by the story of Tilikum.

The editing in this movie is extraordinary, the clips the filmmakers putted to make their points are spot on thus conveying exactly the kind of information us has viewers should get out of the movie to understand what the creators are trying to tell us... however the problem with the movie is it's the lack of unity in the information conveyed; I know that not everybody is going to get what is going on in a movie the same way has somebody else, but the point I am trying to bring is that because of it's unbalanced way of conveying information it leaves plenty in the air for a long time leaving a lingering question with no answer until much later and by the time it comes it may have slipped the mind of some people... for me it was quite distracting, is almost like the movie has so much to say but is not organized in how it conveys that information.

Blackfish is a very well polished documentary with very well focused directing, interesting information delivered and great editing making it one of the most informative documentaries about man and nature, I highly recommend checking it out if you can.

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Few... with summer finally over I can get to work in peace jeje... it's been quite relaxing I'll admit but it's time to get things back in working order has well has get back into drawing to get my skills back into shape.

Next on the blog will probably be that long over do Photoshop post, if not I'll probably be making another series review...

Thank you again guys for reading, I know the contend has been coming in slow but I hope to be able to bring more reviews and have more updates coming

Stay tuned!

Fantastic 4 (2015) Movie Review

The best way for me to talk about this movie is by talking about my experience in the theater with friends, so just chill and read this story:

So this friend of mine says "Hey I wanna go to the theater to watch Fantastic 4", I was aware of the films reception but I still wanted to check it out not because I was in anyway interested but because I just wanted to see how my friends would react to it... I did coddled them into watching it before but not forcing them at all.

So we go to check it out later that day at like 10 pm to see the movie, I get there early to buy the tickets, we go in and the first thing I notice was how perplexity empty the place was... I knew that could´t be a good thing but I wasn't quite ready to laugh at the absurdity of it just yet; has you probably guessed the company I brought there wasn't quite that into movies like I am, the main reason we were there was because THEY wanted to see it... If it was up to me I probably would have watched it alone later or wait for a DVD release.

Anyway we sit there and the movie begins, I yawned... a lot... the movie was painfully boring, with drawn-out scenes that lead nowhere, the action scenes were a joke, bad acting and unfocused directing made this movie a total chore to watch... is almost like nobody involved cared about making a good movie at all, what happened here? Well I guess with just saying that nobody in my group liked the film is enough to say it wasn't very good, the moment it ended I felt a simultaneous face palm by everybody around me and all I could do was laugh... everybody started to complaint about everything wrong with the movie, so much that the moment they asked for my opinion I had nothing left to say at all.

Fantastic 4 was not good, I can say I liked the final battle against Doom for the little it lasted has for the movie itself was completely devoted of any kind of fun action to distract from the unfocused writing, I can´t believe that the movie went on for so long and having so little happening... I mean with that amount of run time it should have been enough to have the characters developed (well developed) and then having them discover their powers by doing heroic things, saving people and stuff... and if you want to have them working for the government when they are learning, fine do that but show us their struggle, what they are going through not jump cutting events out... save that for stupid things not for relatable moments.

I cannot recommend Fantastic 4 to anybody... if you want to watch it than I salute you my friend, you are very brave I suggest bringing friends or family along, I bet it´ll make your movie experience better!

Inside Out Movie Review (Retackled)

This is going to be an extended look at the story of the film Inside Out; unlike my first review I will give full spoilers for the entire film, so if at this point you haven´t seen the movie yet, I suggest you do before reading, If you want a spoiler free review feel free to check my previous review of the movie:

In my first review of the film Inside Out I seemed negative with the majority of the issues that for the most part are just annoying and takes away from my immersion in the story; I still feel like according to the movie itself, Riley is a robot and all the other humans are robots... however I can´t take it out on the whole movie because of that fact has the movie has a whole has plenty of effort, creativity and care to make something good.

The beginning of the movie is well thought but not well executed, allow me to explain: the film´s start is the birth of Riley with Joy being the first emotion she "gets", I guess the movie had to start at some point in the story but I feel like the only reason why it did was to establish that Joy does not like Sadness... is so bold that it pretty much left no room for the imagination; it basically stablished very early on "this characters are gonna get along by the end" (I think Pixar does very often in it's films), I may be in the minority by saying this but it's how I feel about Pixar's formula witch they have abused since "Up".

Joy is pretty much the only character with any kind of depth to lash on to has she is the only one with an arc (and a good one to be fair), the rest of the emotions particularly the ones who stay in HQ (Disgust, Fear and Anger to be more specific) don´t, witch is a shame because the characters and their personalities are actually kinda cool... I can't think of any characters who weren't unlikable (except for maybe Riley's "imaginary friend" character), the problem lies in their lack of focus by the writers side where they pretty much give no focus to this characters aside from their stablished personalities.

The point of the story is to talk about growing up and how this affects people particularly when moving to a brand new place... and has someone who has had to move and live in different countries I know all to well how difficult this can be, having to adapt to a new place with new people and in some cases a brand new way of thinking and culture... that the movie shows well from Riley's POV, is not so visible from the emotion's though, it would have helped if in the movie Disgust and the other's who remained at HQ did the best they could but the writers one dimensional interpretation of the characters forbid such a think; example? take a look at the scene where Riley is having dinner with her parents, Disgust is supposed to try and make Riley act like Joy would, but instead her response is bunkered with a brats answer, I am not trying to say that Riley should act exactly like joy would, but there are many ways around it and this would have also been a great opportunity to give Disgust more character development; is almost like the writers didn't saw the potential they had.

I am sounding way to negative again I know, but why am I you ask? well because the movie is already being praised everywhere by everybody... and I think that looking at the flaws of something helps us see all the right angles instead of just remaining comfortable with what we saw and keep in mind that I did liked this movie and if for some reason you decided to read this without seeing the film I suggest you do, who knows? you may notice something I didn't.

After so much negativity I want to end on a high note... Inside Out is one of Pixar's best work since Up, the creativity and imagination put into this movie is a testament to the work this guys put into their projects, the characters are great, the management of the idea is very good is a soft look into the complexity of human thought in a way many of us can somehow relate; and for this reasons and more Inside Out is worth the watch, even with all of it's problems.

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Sorry for the long delay on content people... but this summer in particular has left me with very little room to work on anything. I hope you like this review, I think I have manage to cover the essential issues I particularly have with the movie.

Hopefully I'll be able to get back on perfect track with the content on the blog.

Stay tuned!