Ron's (anything!)
tdc
Posts: 132
in The Commons
RonsFlyingDirtDebrisParticles and all his other stuff are simply amazing! Thank you, Ron, for such awesome stuff. I just had to thank you somehow.
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Ron's brushes and layers are must-haves for anyone who does postwork.
That is so kind of you it really means a lot I want to thank you for your purchases. I just had to thank you me and my family thanks you as well, and everyone.
Ron
Hey, wait! I want to thank you, too! Your brushes are phantastic. Period.
I wanted to add my thanks for Ron's brush products. Based only on the promo pictures and the comments here, I bought 3 brush packs and 2 bundles, giving me a grand total of (I think) 15 packs. I haven't regretted the purchase for a second. I spent several hours that evening looking at the brushes and painting them onto a plain black background. I've since gone back to some older renders to see what improvements I can make. Still learning to use these brushes effectively but I am really enjoying them.
Here are the bofore and after images of the first picture I completed with Ron's Brushes. I have gone a little bit overboard with the brushes on this one, like a deranged magpie surrounded by shinies, but I have a lot of fun and learned some new techniques.
To Ron - thank you. Once my bank balance recovers, I'll be back for more brushes.
I'm not really sure how to use them. I got photoshop to import them, and I found them with under the brush tool. But the scale and color I'm not sure of. And then I just kind of splatter them around the drawing?
That's not far off what I've been doing! I found that a good way to become a bit more familiar with the brushes in a set was to make a HD-size image with a black back ground, then try the brushes out there using white as the foreground colour to start with. For scaling, either change the brush size, or better still, paint on a new layer and then resize the layer as needed. With some of the brushes, it is worth painting on a new layer, then using effects such as outer glow.
Also, try painting into a mask rather than onto a layer - you can then fill the masked layer with something else, and adjust its blending mode.
Ron's brushes are indespensible. If you don't own any you are cheating yourself.
As to how to use them - experiment. Your aren't going to break anything.
Let's take this image as an example (not to toot my own horn, but toot toot). If you look close you'll see I used Ron's Dust and Lint, Steam and Smoke, and I think I used the Styles that came with his Space brushes. My typical workflow went like this:
I had the flames coming out of the spaceship, and I lucked out that they lit the side up nicely, but they looked too stark. I thought some smoke would soften it. So I made a new layer, looked at the Steam and Smoke brushes, found one that looked like a spurt of steam. I didn't know what size so I used it at full size. I used the Transform tool to reszie and twirl it around to the right direction and size and put it in the right place. But it was stark white, so I used a Layer Style to give it a nice color that matched, but still had to drop the oppacity of the layer to it didn't hide the flame. Then I had the problem of the smoke being over the railing, when it should have been behind it. So I made a simple mask, got a small, round brush, and since I can't make a straight line to save my life, clicked once on one end of the rail, held the shift key down, and clicked on the other end so the brush automatically makes a straight light between the two clicks. Now it looks like the smoke is behind the rail.
I made seperate layers for each jet of smoke. And labled them - its really annoying when everything is Layer 4, Layer 15, Layer 29 when you're looking for that one bit to adjust.
I used Dust and Lint to add to the level of haze, and make it uneven. I had rendered with both AtmoCam for iRay and Above the Fog (and it took a long time) but the haze was too neat. So I sampled a color from the scene, a dusky orange it looks like, chose a large dust and slaped it down in a few spots. It was too harsh so I used a blur filter to take some of the edge off. I think I did one with a lot of blur, then another layer with a little blur. It looks like there are particles of junk floating around, which is what I was going for. But again, put stuff on different layers to make your life easier.
I have also used Ron's brushes on masks for quick clouds, or subtle smoke. Duplicate an image, use Overlay, or lighten, or something that makes it lighter when laying on the original. Blur it, make a mask, then use various cloudy type brushes in the mask to block out cloud shapes or what have you.
One thing I've found is that for bright effects it's important to carefully dim the underlying image. Getting that right is tricky, at least for me.
I also find it important to use distance canvas to 'place' effects properly.
Ron's brushes (and backgrounds etc) are amazing. I don't own many of them, but the ones I do have I love. Granted, I am still trying to learn the art of postwork *sheepish smile* but I do love using the products, and it's fun to learn :)
Ron - You are amazing, never believe anything else!