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View Full Version : (Stencils) Realistc Watercolor Presets for ArtRage



nekomata
02-27-2022, 04:28 AM
102247

✨ ✨ ✨ Google Drive folder link ✨ ✨ ✨ (https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Pam-dnOvE0dM1k-gJPG1SCBwuT0utjEk)

click "download all", unzip the file anywhere after downloading, and copy the .JPG files into a separate new folder inside of the artrage resource directory.
(you can access it by opening "stencils" panel inside of artrage, and going to the "stencils folder" context menu button.)

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why I'm sharing this:

there’re quite a few people discovering artrage in the recent months on this board coming with a background in using either traditional media, or other painting and imagemaking applications. one of the subjects I see coming up repeatedly is using watercolor brushes in artrage.

actually, a tool for that medium has been added some time ago, but in artrage it operates a bit differently from other natural media painting programs. it might feel intimidating or hard to start with for a fresh user. there’re also comparisons to the (very impressive) running water simulations that the higher end desktop applications learned to produce in the recent years.

however, the more complex and a very robust toolset to achieve realistic looking paintings in artrage is already built in, it simply relies on doing a little bit of preparation work outside of the program.

in my case, my watercolor process relies on having intermediate technical skills with the medium itself, a collection of very good art papers, and a quite awful office scanner I have at my disposal. thanks to covid, affordable art-grade scanners in my region have been out of stock for some time, and a conventional camera doesn’t capture the paper depth and edge nuance same way a scanner does.

I am sharing this set of custom stencils to assist your watercolor painting creation with artrage to show how versatile the application is when you take time to know it.

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for new users, please refer to those as your free general purpose starting tutorials for the watercolor tool:
https://www.artrage.com/?s=watercolor
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AsgwbHMaqjY

general purpose manual for using palette knife:
https://www.artrage.com/manuals/natural-media-tools/palette-knife/

a manual for using stencils:
https://www.artrage.com/manuals/graphic-design/stencils/

you can also take a look at a general, non-watercolor specific illustration process tutorial by Nick Harris (part I (https://www.artrage.com/illustrating-book-cover-one-setting-canvas/) • • • part II (https://www.artrage.com/illustrating-book-cover-two-sketching-flats-shading-tone/) • • • part III (https://www.artrage.com/illustrate-book-cover-colour-special-effects/) )

this approach works best on a desktop or a laptop with a physical keyboard, you will need to habitualize using «space», «cmd/ctrl» and «alt» keys together with the mouse to learn to skew, rotate, and scale stencils on the go. if you're using alternative input devices, such as gaming pads, in your process, you should be good too.

save your files often! stencils are fast with most painting tools, but their stability will depend on your system configuration.

real watercolor over dry paper produces crisp results when drying: export your paintings as .png, and use a sharpen filter over the result (artrage, to my surprise, does not have image sharpening) - it will make paint edges more real.
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included are a collection of 20 «blot», 5 «drip» and 10 «wash» stencils.

• «blot» stencils provide sampled watercolor dabs - single strokes, multiple strokes, clear and crisp paint blots; they are varied in shape and are the smallest in size (between 500 and 1000 px largest size; artrage will upscale them several times in a beautiful, clean way if required to.)

• «drip» stencils are tall and narrow, varying between ~1500 and ~3000 pixels tall; use them to quickly add paint drips. I feel like people get carried away by how running digital water looks in other apps - it's right there for you now.

• «wash» stencils are the largest out of them, those are used to quickly cover massive paper space with textured, thinned out, realistic watercolor washes. the biggest wash I'm providing is 4500 px. wide.


remember that stencils are invertable (you can invert them on the go with the context menu, and give fancy edge treatment to your paintings.) you can use multiple stencils in one image, and stencils support all the tools you are accustomed with - not just watercolor.

for «wash» and «blot» stencils, I recommend approaching your process in layers, duplicating layers several times (cmd+J/ctrl+J) as you paint to quickly build up paint density - they are very delicate and transparent.
locking in layer opacity after you’ve painted in the base pigment (I have cmd+L set up as a custom shortcut for layer transparency lock) will allow you to paint in color variation without displacing the painted area shapes.

you can use literally any tool that you are familiar with because stencil technology is universal.
in my examples provided here I use watercolor, gloop pen, airbrushes for watercolors, but using custom brush tools or even oil brush tool with enough thinner will produce realistic and beautiful imitation of painting in gouache. you can mix thick paint mediums together too.

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a common sense request: feel free to use what I share for any artistic purposes of your own, but link back to this thread, not the direct download link, if you plan on sharing my content, to bring more people to the website.

I would love to see your art posted here if you have found my effort helpful for what you create, and if you are active on social media, please give artrage a shout-out and show some new art of yours.

markw
03-02-2022, 03:36 PM
Hi nekomata :)
Now these look very interesting and thank you for sharing these with the AR community:cool::cool::cool:
I can see that a lot of time and effort has gone into not only the making of them but also your notes on ways in which to use them.
Once again thank you:)

nekomata
03-06-2022, 01:31 AM
markw,

you're welcome!
I hope you enjoy painting with them as much as I do - I've never really paid attention to watercolors in artrage until it clicked with me that I can make my own stencils. it was interesting to see how well they are suited for each other.


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I added twelve more "blot" images to the google drive folder - mostly some wet-on-wet paint edge samples, and some dry brush markings for people who prefer to add some crisp little marks with their brushwork, like this:

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I'll see what else I can do with the real media in the meantime, maybe there're some other ideas that could be brought in that I haven't figured out yet.

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Mellian
09-15-2022, 08:42 PM
Thanks Nekomata,
This is the first time I have looked at anything on the Forum.
Your images were amazing and I have never thought of using Stencils like this
Thanks again for your generous support and inspiration.

Pop Alexandra
09-27-2022, 09:48 PM
Really cool and realistic work.
How long does it take to finish one of these pieces?

nekomata
10-03-2022, 04:26 AM
Thanks Nekomata,
This is the first time I have looked at anything on the Forum.
Your images were amazing and I have never thought of using Stencils like this
Thanks again for your generous support and inspiration.

you're very welcome, and I hope you find a way to integrate those into your own art! introducing stencils really makes the artrage watercolor shine.


Really cool and realistic work.
How long does it take to finish one of these pieces?

thank you! not very long, they're small demonstration images created for web-use in a fairly small image resolution. I would say between a quarter hour and an hour for those.

nekomata
02-03-2024, 12:25 AM
I'm slowly working on a follow up for the first stencil pack, this time done with better variety of papers, different watercolor and brush set-up, and I'm finally using an artist-grade scanner that captures exponentially more depth in the gradations of paper texture and paint washes.

I hope to finish it by 15-ish because it's fairly a lot of work, and I can't commit a lot of time at the moment.

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depending on how this year goes there might be another update later on since I have an interest in making more of those, but we have massive import troubles with art supplies over here, and I'm not sure when this will get resolved, so it's hard to make any specific plans given the so and so.

markw
02-03-2024, 12:14 PM
Oh, now that’s exciting news!:D
Thanks for the update nekomata! Loved the first set so really looking forward trying the new ones when they’re ready:cool::cool::cool:

nekomata
02-09-2024, 01:20 AM
Oh, now that’s exciting news!:D
Thanks for the update nekomata! Loved the first set so really looking forward trying the new ones when they’re ready:cool::cool::cool:

thanks, Mark.

I have 15 large-sized wash scans scanned and cleared-up for this now, but I'll see if I can bump them up to 20, or so...

still a bit on the fence as far as future plans go, we only have regular restocking of the local Russian brands here, and while they're higher grade and better pigment purity than whatever I own right now quality-wise, I'm iffy about supporting... they also don't really granulate that well, which is something I think a lot of digital watercolor engines tend to put emphasis on, the running, gritty pigment look.

in the worst case scenario I'll just wait until the autumn with paint stock purchasing, and will plan from there on.

nekomata
02-11-2024, 07:59 AM
103346
A Frosted Forest - semi-abstract sketching exercise with watercolor, gloop pen, glitter, and inking pen tools to show some of the scanned samples in action

my plans for the rest of the month got reshuffled a bit, so here we go - 20 new paint wash scans to enhance your watercolor process with artrage tools

🎨🖌💦 download here (https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/164YOKcYB2T7scN6YHiZSy3-FWsX1OJAU?usp=drive_link)

those are mostly very large images, averaging between 4 and 6 thousand pixels wide, and they can be scaled up even more once placed inside of an artrage document

there’s a lot of crisp paper texture (which sort of was the point), and a lot of captured pigment detail all around, but some of those are done on pretty texture-neutral paper, too.

painting tip # 1:

stack stencils for even more variety, see image:
103347

when using large stencils that overlay the screen, pull up the canvas positioner tool, it will make things like panning canvas around easier - when stencils get too big, you can't use the "space" shortcut over the canvas area occupied by the red stencil boundary.

painting tip # 2:

if you are painting with the watercolor tool in wet mode, I recommend using low thinner values (0-20 %) and high pigment load (70 - 100 %), but if you’re using dry watercolor brush setting, the reverse proportion (under 20 % loading and 60 - 80 % thinner values, or higher) would look more natural.

I still can't believe how fast stencils are from performance standpoint. I hope they'll enhance your painting experience, and will help you create more organic looking art easier and faster.

Perendale
02-11-2024, 06:13 PM
Thank you Nekomata, that’s very generous of you!

I haven’t worked with these yet but I will start experimenting soon. I love to experiment!

Brett

nekomata
02-12-2024, 03:20 AM
Thank you Nekomata, that’s very generous of you!

I haven’t worked with these yet but I will start experimenting soon. I love to experiment!

Brett

you're welcome! I hope they'll find some good use in your art.

markw
02-12-2024, 12:51 PM
Yes! Been really looking forward to these:D:D:D
Once again nekmata, thank you for your time and effort in putting these stencils together.:cool::cool::cool:

nekomata
02-13-2024, 06:05 AM
Yes! Been really looking forward to these:D:D:D
Once again nekmata, thank you for your time and effort in putting these stencils together.:cool::cool::cool:

you're welcome!

I hope to come up with some other ideas how to improve the watercolor experience in artrage meanwhile. hope it won't take me another two years, too.

nekomata
03-19-2024, 06:26 AM
in progress...
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got some new art supplies recently, including a pan of Japanese tinted ink/watercolor hybrid - layerable, semi-transparent soot-based medium with amazing contrast (so easy to scan and clean-up...like...wow) that seems to bloom and run like crazy over wet thick watercolor paper (scanned sample is from 300 gsm cold press paper, like most of the previous scan pack)

don't really have a lot of time this month, but I hope I'll find some to play with it and scan later. it makes fantastic background base with lots of pigment diffusion, something my regular paint set doesn't really do well, and I have a couple other ideas for later that will need time and preparation.

nekomata
04-09-2024, 03:57 AM
✨✨ ink stencil pack - 7 large scans — download link (https://drive.google.com/file/d/1--o7Hndr8yZdbkFGQRo_dKcHoLZRB1A5/view?usp=drive_link)

with lots of granulation, pigment pick-up, and lots of paper interaction, those are very convenient for making fast, but very artistic background block-ins for further refinement and painting over,
and they're excellent for texturizing over existing artwork with series of washes on semi-transparent layers and layer combinations of various blending modes...

a sample of texture variety this stencil set can achieve really quick:

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when combined with previous stencil packs, it makes creating some pleasant watercolor compositions even faster and more relaxing than before.

markw
04-09-2024, 09:52 PM
A very pleasant surprise to see this this morning! Thank you once again nekomata:cool:
Now all I need is some free time to paint and experiment with them...:rolleyes:

nekomata
04-18-2024, 11:43 PM
A very pleasant surprise to see this this morning! Thank you once again nekomata:cool:
Now all I need is some free time to paint and experiment with them...:rolleyes:

you're welcome!

I have a new batch of painting supplies in transit, and one of the paint sets has promising pigment granulation judging by what I see on youtube from other artists who paint with traditional media fulltime;

not sure if I'll be able to reproduce the result, but it will be something to consider through the summer, along with some other ideas.

I tried experimenting with salt, but it does not look too good when scanned at high resolution, and the effect just does not translate well with monochrome washes.
maybe i need different salt, idk, but so far it looks like throwing digital glitter speckles inside of artrage and going over those with a wet blender does a better job replicating the effect, much faster too.

likewise, having spare time has been an issue, but I hope I'll find some eventually.