Intoduction to Abstract Art

[Naz]

Intro

Welcome to everyone who reads this,

This is my topicthat offers you an introduction into the world of digital abstract art. If I would have gotten a dollar for everytime someone asked me; "how do you do that?" I'd surely be a bilionair now. Unfortunatly, I don't get a dolar for it every time so I figured I might aswell explain to everyone once and for all how to create abstract imagary, or atleast, I'm willing provide the techniques needed to get to that point.

So, what do you need to posess in order to make abstract digital painings? Or 3d abstract images

-Techniques, basicly, you need to know what you are doing, how to make what.
-Insipiration & Creative Mind, you need an idea of what you want to make, wether you got the ideas elsewhere or they suddenly spawned in your brains,or perhaps you just start working and see where it brings you.
-Passion % Motivation, you'll be spending hours behinds your computer trying to create things, if you arent motivated to kepe on trying even when you fail then you won't make it.
-Tools, quite simply, you need a good computer, and software, example: photoshop, bryce, cinema4d, 3dsmax. And perhaps a Tablet. The true requirement is atleast Photoshop and a decent computer.

I can help you (yes, you who is reading this right now) with the techniques, 1. By offering tutorials and 2. by offering help with the tutorials and help in general, if you need help post in this topic, other people might have the same problems as you so keep it public. I also hope I can inspire you with my gallery ( http://nessaja.deviantart.com ). As for motivation and passion, you all gotta do that yourself, don't expect me to run behind you with a 220 volt taser just to stimulate you. And finally, the tools, I can help you a bit with the software department. But that shall not be discussed on this forum, pm me, if you wish.

very good tutorials

Brush Tutorials

http://www.tutorialman.com/abstract_airbrushing_tutorial_tutorial.html
This tutorial deals with the basic technique called airbrushing, it's commonly used when making abstract art. This is used both for lightning and shadows.

http://www.tutorialman.com/abstract_walkthrough_tutorial_tutorial.html
This tutorial is a follow up on the previous, if you know how to cloud brush, but don't know how to integrate it into your image then use this tutorial, it also partly deals with making an atmosphere

http://www.tutorialguide.net/explosion_tutorial.html
Another cloudbrushing tutorial, it's important to see what you can create with cloudbrushing, so if you think you need to explore its possibilities do as many cloudbrush tutorials as possible

http://www.tutorialguide.net/fire_blast_tutorial.html
This tutorial shows a way to texture your lightning, it has its uses but it's nothing you can't do with normal brushing, very limited, but useful when you do need it

http://www.tutorialguide.net/glow_sparks_tutorial.html
Basic brushing effect for making sparks of lightning, easy to do, looks good with just about everything, experiement with sizes to gain the effect you want

http://www.tutorialguide.net/glow_tenticles_tutorial.html
Another effect for mostly lightning, but also can be used to make the base for metalic tenticles.

http://www.tutorialguide.net/airbrushing_tips_and_tricks_tutorial.html
Another examply of cloudbrushing, with a twist, as a tutorial on itsselve it's not that amazing, but the basic thing that you can learn from it is that if you experiment a lot with cloudbrushing you can get very neat objects

http://www.tutorialpod.com/tutorials/photoshop/particleblast/
Another tutorial for creating sparks, I must say, it's not the way that I do it, but it works alright

http://www.tutorialpod.com/tutorials/photoshop/smoke/
This tutorial is for when you want to create a smoke-effect in your brushing, it looks quite nice on for instance underwater scenes

http://www.shiver7.com/tutorials/22/
A tutorial on how to make smoke-like lightning effects

http://www.shiver7.com/tutorials/25/
Nice tutorial for creating a smoke effect on your l3d objects

http://www.shiver7.com/tutorials/63/
Another spark tutorial, I like this one best, though it's motionless, it just looks very pretty

http://www.shiver7.com/tutorials/69/
Pixie dust tutorial, small random sparks, it works quite nicely but don't overdo it

http://www.shiver7.com/tutorials/60/
Another take on cloudbrushing in beam-form, in most images you should do it quite a bit softer then in this example

http://www.deviantart.com/view/4171705/
This tutorial describes how to make nebulas, it's explained with a cloud-brush-type technique

http://www.deviantart.com/view/1013610/
A pure brushing tutorial, not cloud brush for a change. You can combine this with cloudbrush for a relaly nice effct, the thing with this tutorial though is that it works really small, you need to know a bit about cloudbrushing and this before you can use it to its fullest extend

http://www.idigitalemotion.com/tutorials/guest/clouds/clouds.html
Creating Clouds

http://www.tutorialguide.net/lighting_effects_tutorial.html
Another tenticle/beam tutorial, a very nice one at that

3d tutorials

http://www.shiver7.com/tutorials/36/
This tutorial learns you how to work with the freehand spline tool, this is an important tool in cinema 4d

http://www.shiver7.com/tutorials/52/
A simple step-by-step bryce5 tutotial that learns you how to create cool looking shapes in bryce

http://www.idigitalemotion.com/tutorials/guest/deluxi/deluxi.html
step-by-step tutorial on how to create a 3d-abstract image

http://www.deviantart.com/view/16536532/
Cinema 4d tutorial for making very nice looking 3d shapes

http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/12245286/
This bryce tutorial I used after being inactive for almost a year, it can be seen at my piece "Sector 7"

http://forums.keyfaithdesignz.com/index.php?showtopic=2288
Good abstract 3d tut

http://www.deviantart.com/view/9664779/
Material tut

Misc

http://gallery.artofgregmartin.com/tuts_arts/making_a_star_field.html
The creation of a starfield, this is an excellent tutorial for it. However, don't "just" make a starfield, use it as a background for a nebula or a 3d object. A detailed background only makes an image richer, also, don't overdo the lensfalres

http://gallery.artofgregmartin.com/tuts_arts/making_a_planet.html
An excellent tutorial for creating planets, this can be coupled with the starfield tutorial, making realistic planets takes a very long time if you do it right, don't rush it

http://www.surreal-utopia.com
I wanted to refrain from just simply posting sites here, but this one is an exception, it contains Video tutorials for 3d imagary, and video tutorials for brushing, and whatnot, awesome site really, learns all aspects you need to know pretty much

http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/11885274/
The BEST planet creation guide out there.

http://www.justalyn.net/nebula/conc.htm
A tutorial on creating Nebula's from a realistic viewpoint

http://www.deviantart.com/view/11793172/
An excellent video tutorial that shows how nebulas are build up

http://www.deviantart.com/view/23169700/
HOT tutorial, really HOT

 

[Optimus Prime]

Don't mind my edit, the link to your deviant-art page was broken =). (you left the end bracket ")" inside the url tags =P)

I'm sure a lot of people are really going to appreciate this.

 

[Naz]

Thanks

I aleady added some tutorials I found, note that, all of these tutorials are useful, otherwise I wouldn't be posting them. Combining all the techniques given could easily give you the results of for instance my "no regular" piece.

And if you have any questions just post em.

 

[bapplebo]

O_O. When I get the time, I'll read them all.. but this is an AWESOME post for the new people to Abstract.

 

[jp]

Awesome,

Deffinitly gonna try those tutorials, thanks allot!

 

[Naz]

Added two tutorials that I have both used frequently.

Anyone who hasnt tried them yet, and does want to learn, do try seriously. I wouldn't be posting them if I tought it wasnt worth it.