I have been planning on making some videos and sharing them online showing my process of how I create hand-painted textures without using a tablet. Normally, many digital artists will use a tablet and stylus as the electronic version of the traditional pen and paper to draw their artwork. As for me however, I tried to get into using a tablet many years ago but have always felt that it irritated my wrist each time. I could not picture putting myself in that sort of ongoing stress and it helped motivate me to pursue creating any kind of art that did not require using a tablet. The tablet also took up precious space on my desk and it was a hassle to switch between tablet and stylus to keyboard and mouse whenever I needed to perform certain functions in Photoshop or navigate my operating system. Instead, I would find myself simply painting brush strokes using the mouse and looking for other ways to create my textures such as layer styles, gradients, patterns, and by modifying photographic references and free texture assets. You know what they say about spending over 10,000 hours practicing something, you become an expert, and I've spent way more time using the computer than drawing with pen on paper.
After many years of trials and tribulations, I have decided to pursue the low-poly 3D models and hand-painted textures path because this line of work minimizes the use of a tablet. I enjoy creating this type of art and would like to see how much further I can push my skills without relying on one. I never have to whip out my old Intuos for any of my recent projects, however I would be open to using it once again for some final detailing if I really need those precise brush strokes. 3D-Coat is also super useful with my workflow and helps make texturing without a tablet even easier. With familiarity with specific hotkeys in both Photoshop and 3D-Coat, painting with no tablet is a breeze. Hotkeys that control the incremental sizes of the brush, colour picking, swapping between foreground and background colours, as well as adjusting opacity and flow, making selections and masks, adjusting brightness, contrast, saturation and hues, and moving layers into groups are some of the most important functions that I use for my work style. I want to show that it is not just possible but viable to create hand-painted textures without using a tablet, with a combination of the right formula, knowledge and skills. This method is good for those who are too cheap to get a tablet or think that getting a good one is out of your budget, too lazy to set it up every time you make art, have spent more time using the mouse and keyboard combination like me than drawing art the old school way, or simply want to have some fun and experiment with what they can create using unconventional ways. I will be setting up a YouTube channel soon specifically for my no-tablet hand-painting style where I will share tutorials, processes, tips and eagerly await the mixed feedback and criticisms associated with my method or my artwork. I can even share my workstation and hardware so people know I'm not joking (By the way it's this: https://ca.pcpartpicker.com/b/DnVYcf). I will use the channel to help motivate me to improve both my modeling and texturing skills and to hopefully inspire others who happen to be interested in the hand-painted, low-poly 3D style. I should just call it "HPLP3D", "HPLP" or "LPHP" for short.
After many years of trials and tribulations, I have decided to pursue the low-poly 3D models and hand-painted textures path because this line of work minimizes the use of a tablet. I enjoy creating this type of art and would like to see how much further I can push my skills without relying on one. I never have to whip out my old Intuos for any of my recent projects, however I would be open to using it once again for some final detailing if I really need those precise brush strokes. 3D-Coat is also super useful with my workflow and helps make texturing without a tablet even easier. With familiarity with specific hotkeys in both Photoshop and 3D-Coat, painting with no tablet is a breeze. Hotkeys that control the incremental sizes of the brush, colour picking, swapping between foreground and background colours, as well as adjusting opacity and flow, making selections and masks, adjusting brightness, contrast, saturation and hues, and moving layers into groups are some of the most important functions that I use for my work style. I want to show that it is not just possible but viable to create hand-painted textures without using a tablet, with a combination of the right formula, knowledge and skills. This method is good for those who are too cheap to get a tablet or think that getting a good one is out of your budget, too lazy to set it up every time you make art, have spent more time using the mouse and keyboard combination like me than drawing art the old school way, or simply want to have some fun and experiment with what they can create using unconventional ways. I will be setting up a YouTube channel soon specifically for my no-tablet hand-painting style where I will share tutorials, processes, tips and eagerly await the mixed feedback and criticisms associated with my method or my artwork. I can even share my workstation and hardware so people know I'm not joking (By the way it's this: https://ca.pcpartpicker.com/b/DnVYcf). I will use the channel to help motivate me to improve both my modeling and texturing skills and to hopefully inspire others who happen to be interested in the hand-painted, low-poly 3D style. I should just call it "HPLP3D", "HPLP" or "LPHP" for short.