Illustration advice

[Jay142]

I've written 50 stories in Literotica. I'm interested in trying to do an Illustration submission and I was wondering what programs are the best for creating R rated avatars or sketches from photos. Any other advice would be appreciated.

It would be even better if there is someone out there that would volunteer to do it for me.

 

[29wordsforsnow]

You could try some of the 'artistic' filters that come with the GIMP - a kind of Photoshop, just free. This way you can alter the image in way it looks like a drawing for instance. But I have no idea how much 'innovation' is needed to cope with the copyright owner of the photo, if that is included in your local laws.

Anyway, with a bit of work you can still have nice results.

 

[Jay142]

Which artistic filters in GIMP turn a photo into a sketch?

 

[29wordsforsnow]

To make a sketch-like appearance, use 'Detect Edge'. It will draw white lines where color areas collide, and leave areas of very similar color black, therefore you might want to apply 'Invert Colors'. But it will probably still look like a photo.

Try some of the artistic filters like 'Oil Painting', or maybe 'Cubism'. 'Cartoon' is also nice to reduce detail depth. 'Oilify' or 'Gimpressionist' leave a painting like impression.

There's a nice blog showing a 'Gimp filters cheat sheet' (your favorite search engine should find it) if you want a first impression what each filter does. There are a lot of option to manipulate your original photo...play with them.

More information is in the online-doc of gimp, in Part III 'Function reference', chapter 17 'Filters'

 

[Jay142]

Thank you

 

[GraphicNovelArtist]

I've written 50 stories in Literotica. I'm interested in trying to do an Illustration submission and I was wondering what programs are the best for creating R rated avatars or sketches from photos. Any other advice would be appreciated.

It would be even better if there is someone out there that would volunteer to do it for me.

Painter Essentials by Corel is very easy to use, affordable, and has a nice variety of automated painting and sketching styles. You open your photo, set it to "auto", see what it does on it's own, then fine tune it to your liking.

I also use Photoshop, but those are basically just simple filters. Painter is much more like "real" painting and drawing. For either program you should probably use a tablet rather than a mouse. You can get a Huion table on Amazon for $60 or so.

Hope this is helpful!

 

[THROBBS]

My advise is —

Unless they are your own photos, don't.

 

[ManlyUsername]

Reddit has some artist threads where you can sometimes find free artists, or really cheap commissions. From what I can tell at least. I would assume quality varies.

 

[WintersCaress]

Reddit has some artist threads where you can sometimes find free artists, or really cheap commissions. From what I can tell at least. I would assume quality varies.

Yeah there’s always Fiverr.com but you really do get what you pay for and $5 isn’t going to get you a lot.

I suggest OP just learn how to draw. It’s fun and exciting.

 

[KarenKKraft]

Well said!

My advise is —

Unless they are your own photos, don't.

That's right. Messing around with the "look" of someone else's photo, image, etc. does not remove any of the rights of the originator / owner.

 

[GraphicNovelArtist]

Yeah there’s always Fiverr.com but you really do get what you pay for and $5 isn’t going to get you a lot.

I suggest OP just learn how to draw. It’s fun and exciting.

I agree, you won't get much from someone charging $5.

However, don't let the "fiverr" name fool you. I purchase a lot of services there, includiing editing, retouching, design - and many others.

My average purchase is about $75, and I've spend as much as $300. There are literally thousands of very talented people selling services at all price ranges.

Like Amazon, it's easy to read reviews from their existing customers and also see numerous samples of their work.

Yes, it's called "fiverr", but as the saying goes, "don't judge a book by it's cover."