[Sinamy]

How To Use Oekaki Guide

Welcome to "How To Use Oekaki Guide"!

I made this in order to explain common things that people ask about.
If you have any questions, or anything to add to my post, please post here or PM me.

Rules For This Thread
•

Please state your questions so we understand, thanks.

•If you just made an account on Chicken Smoothie, please post your first post somewhere else. I know that you won't read the posts on here and post non-understandable questions.

You can now continue reading on.

Rules
Before we start, I'd like you to read these:

•Oekaki Rules/Reminder
•Creativity Rules
•Competition Rules 1.
•Competition Rules 2.
•Oekaki Help
•Art/Image Posting Rules

Reminder/Rules That I Find Important

•PM a mod if you want your topic to be moved!
•I suggest you to have prizes in competitions if you want for people to enter.
•Don't spam. Example:

Omg, plz click my pets!

or

Plz plz trade with meee!!!

•Respect the mods. They know what's right and what's wrong.
•Please, don't open art shops here. That does not mean that your cover can't be drawn on Oekaki through.

Abbreviations
Here are common abbreviations that people use on oekaki.

WIP- Work In Progress
Fursona/Sona- Animal that represents you.
Charrie- Character
RP- Although it stands for RolePlay, some people use it in content: "My RP charrie."
Pic- Picture
Ref- Reference
Pg- Now, if you don't resemble that this means page...
Bump- Bring Up My Post
Spam- Senseless posts like listed in rules.
OC- Original Character [Better explanation in FAQ.]
LA- Lineart

That's all I can remember at the time, if you have something to add, post here.

Admin: Sinamy
Mod: Becca~ash
Mod: Tuike

Contents:

•Rules, Intro & Abbreviations-You're here.
•Oekaki's Content
•How To…?
•FAQ

[Sinamy]

Oekaki's Content



Oekaki has few boxes that will appear:
"Brush" Box, "Layers" Box, "Textures" Box, "Color" Box, "Misc" Box, "Stroke" Box, "Color Swatches" Box and "Tools" Box.

Brush Box

You can control hardness, size,
opacity and lots of other stuff
like scattering of brush.

Layers Box

Here you can add more
layers or delete them.
In this box is lock alpha
button, ok?

Color Box

To pick a color, you can pick from the rainbowy structure on the right, and to control its lightness you have the big square in the middle.

Stroke Box

You can choose if you want draw by hand(mouse), draw straight lines or draw curly lines.

Color Swatches Box

On here, you can currently
save colors you are using.
I say currently because they
won't be there after you save
it and leave the oekaki
application.

Misc Box

Everything is said, 100% zoom means that it
automatically zooms back to 100%.

Textures Box

Pick a texture. 'Nuff said.

Tools Box

(Tool Box) It contains:
"Select", "Move", "Fill", "Rotate", "Pencil", "Pen", "Air Brush", "Water Color", "Sharp" and "Soft" eraser,
"Smudge", "Blender", "Dodge" and "Burn" tool, "Blur" and "Color Picker".
Note: I was writing by every horizontal line.

Also, in the top left corner, you have "Edit", "File", etc.

This is clear enough, right?

Contents:

•Rules, Intro & Abbreviations
•Oekaki's Content-You're here.
•How To…?
•FAQ

[Sinamy]

How To…?
...Make Pixels?
So, I found some explanations on the forum:

I just go to pencil, then set it to size one, change round hard edge to round pixleated, then I zoom in real close o3o
Sorry if that just confused you DX

Well,you have to click the pen tool,and set it to round pixelated.Then zoom in enough so that you can see every pixel and start to draw.Pixel drawing is usually small and detailed,though I have seen people how draw large pictures with pixel lines and coloring.

...Do Shading?
Take the "Dodge Tool" for highlights and take the "Burn Tool" for shading. That's the easiest way.
The harder way is combining lighter and darker tones of the color you want, example:
I have normal blue dog. I take lighter blue and make highlights, then lighter blue to make even better highlights. Same with the shading, you just go to darker colors.

You can also use a black, or experament colour brushes to create shading. Simply start a new layer and set the opactity to around 30. This can be edited to how you like it, and how dark you like it. Draw around where you would normaly shade. It should come out looking like simple shading, you can use the blur tool, located in ''Effects" then "blur". Or you could use the blur tool to get it more accurate.

Shading-Setting Layer To "Multiply"

Basically what you do is you color your shading, any color you want (though something close to gray usually works best), then set the layer to "Multiply" using the drop-down list (Where it was "Normal") at the top of the layers box.

...Do Lock Alpha?
Add all the layers you want (Background, Color, Lines, etc...And draw lines!), take different colored pen/brush than the background and fill in the place inside of the lines. After you did that, you can click lock alpha button (When color layer is selected.) and careless go all over the place (Actually, you can color without going outside the lines.).

I made a tutorial if you still don't get it. It's an editable so give it a try if you want. :3

...Do Smoothing?
1.In a brush box, select the "Round Soft" type of brush.
2.Make "Smoothing" from 30-40% in brush box.
3.Draw lines. If you want more smoothness, you can eventually go to "Effects">"Blur">"Box Blur" and put "1" in the first box.
(Please correct me if I got it wrong.)

...Make Picture Transparent?
Before you even save the picture in oekaki, make sure that the "layer 1" is transparent/deleted. Then save the drawing, post it and right-click on it. Click on the "Open Image In New Tab" option. Around the end of the link, there says something like "auto&rev". Change "auto" to "png" so you see "png&rev". That will make the background transparent.

...Do The Crayon/Chalk Effect?
In the brush box, you have something called "Scattering". Raise it up to 150-300% and try to draw a little. If it's scattering too much, make it lower to level you like.

Contents:

•Rules, Intro & Abbreviations
•Oekaki's Content
•How To…?-You're here.
•FAQ

[Sinamy]

FAQ

Q: Can we bump our drawings?

A: Yes, but instead of spamming, search for a button that's on the end of the page. (Scroll down.)

This button only appears when a topic hasn't been posted on for a while. I think its something like 6 hours. When you click it and go back to the subject, it will be bumped up and you won't be able to use it again untill someone posts, then again the same cycle. But try not to always bump up topics when they haven't been seen for a while, espiecaly oekakis.

Q: I want to make a competition without lines or background! What do I do?

A: There is written in the competition rules to post the competition in "Art Competitions" part of forum.

Q: I opened an art shop in Oekaki, but it got locked! D:

A: That's because art shops don't belong to Oekaki part of forum, just adoptables. If you want to have art shop, please post it in "Pets For Art-Art For Pets" part of the forum.

Q: What's a featured drawing and how do I make one? :U

A: Featured drawing is the drawing that shows drawings of various artists on the front page. You don't get featured by asking people to like it or to comment. You get featured by mods who decide to make you it.

Picture in example was made by Rainwolfeh.

Q: What's the difference between "Intermediate Oekaki" and "Beginners Oekaki"?

A: Intermediate oekaki is where lots of good and experienced drawers post. Beginners oekaki is the one for beginners. Sometimes mods move the drawings from beginners to intermediate or reversed. Intermediate Oekaki's have much more details, shading, background, etc.

Q: What is "OC"? [Better explanation.]

"OC" just means Original Character. Like it's a character that you use often, and made up the design without looking at other people's copying other's designs, etc.

Q: I edited some one else's oekaki, so it's a color-in. But i want to make it available to all people to edit for my contest. How do I do that?

A: If you already posted, ask mods to move it to contest and it will be ok, as long as you don't claim lines as your own and have the permission of the original artist.

Q: What all the different types of layers are, e.i. "Normal", "multiply", "Subtract", "Add", "Pin Light", ect.? I don't really get any of them.

I know multiply is simply when it makes the top layer translucent and a tad bit of shine.
Screen is the oppisite of mulitply and makes it lighter c:

Note: We will get further information about this.

Q: How to get tablet pen pressure?

Could there be added a little part about how to get tablet pen pressure work in Oekaki? You probably already know, but just in case; for pen pressure to work in Oekaki, you need to download and install http://jtablet.cellosoft.com/

Q: Can I post a drawing I drew outside of Oekaki?

A: Yes, but not on Oekaki. If you wish to post it, post it here. If you want to share your characters, post them here. Just remember to read Art/Image posting Rules if you haven't already.

Q: How to rename layers?

A: Double-click where it says "Layer #" (# being any number of the layer you want to rename) and type it in!

Please have fun using the oekaki! ^^

Contents:

•Rules, Intro & Abbreviations
•Oekaki's Content
•How To…?
•FAQ-You're here.

[Sinamy]

Phew, done, finally. It's the text that made me tired, not the drawing. xD
Drawing is just a quick doodle that came up in my head. xD

Hope that it's ok with staff to have a guide like this. If no, feel free to delete it.
Ok, it's open for posting now!

[Ravenclaw<3]

What is smoothing?And how do I do it?

[west ,]

wow, this is really helpful! Could you do one on how to use lock alpha?

[Sinamy]

wow, this is really helpful! Could you do one on how to use lock alpha?

I did, but I can make a drawing as example too, but you'll need to wait little bit more for it. xP

The quote from the main posts:

...Do Lock Alpha?
Add all the layers you want (Background, Color, Lines, etc...And draw lines!), take different colored pen/brush than the background and fill in the place inside of the lines. After you did that, you can click lock alpha button (When color layer is selected.) and careless go all over the place (Actually, you can color without going outside the lines.).

RottieGirl, I'm gonna tell you for few minutes to be sure that I'm right.

[Ravenclaw<3]

What about smoothing?I REALLY need to learn how to.

[Zaroque]

Well done Sinamy, a good guide.