Liquid Metal Tutorial

Liquid Metal Plug-in

Metacreation’s Painter 5 is a unique artist’s tool that duplicates many of the features of an artist’s studio, and conjures up tools that artists could only dream of. Or, that only artists could dream of.

One of these tools is the Liquid Metal Plug-in..
If you can imagine painting with mercury, then you would a sense of what this tool does and how best to use it.

Overview

The Liquid Metal plug-in is a one of the new plug-in palette tools that comes with Painter 5. With it, you can create a liquid metal image on it's own floater, edit it until you are satisfied with it, and then commit it. This then floats on it's own, transparent layer.

 

Demonstration — Liquid Metal

Note: you can do this with only a mouse instead of a pressure sensitive device, but this technique certainly uses a pressure-sensitive device to the best of its advantages.

1. Start with a new file

Create a new file. File, New

I am working with 500 x 500 pixel images, which, for me and with my set-up, is a nice size to draw on. It doesn't matter too much what you choose, but the liquid metal gets bitty if you scale it up, so try to work at your final, intended size.

I use a black paper color because I still like it, but any color you like will do.
2. Open the plug-in floaters palette.

First, you will need to locate the plug-ins palette. If it is not already showing, you can bring it up with Window, Show Objects

This will open the objects palette. Click on the plug icon to show the plug-ins.

And then select the liquid metal plug-in from the menu list.

For the purpose of this demo, we are going to make a dragon, because I like them, but feel free to do whatever you feel like.
 

Building the dragon

When you are ready to roll, click on the apply button. The dialogue box inevitably comes up in front of your picture, or somewhere annoying. Click and drag on the title bar of the dialogue box to drag it out of the way.

Now you’re ready to draw.

There are a few things to remember when using Liquid Metal.

  • First of all, most of the other feature of Painter do not work while you are creating the liquid metal floater. Most notably, no undo. Don’t panic, however, you can erase metal as well as build it.
  • This works a whole lot better with a pressure-sensitive tablet.

Let’s start. Ensure that you have the paintbrust tool selected (as above), and draw on your canvas.

You will notice that the pressure-sensitive stylus gives you lovely sweeping lines and delicate tips. Using a mouse gives you this.

Not necessarily a bad thing, but certainly more limiting

Now, here’s the fun, creative part. Remember, you can do your own thing

We'll start with his snout
And the topline of his nose, in profile
An ear. Remember, this is a serendipitious process. Let go. Have fun. Flow.
A jawline
Let's build up the jaw, give some weight to the face
Build the crest over the eye

Well, we could go on like this all day. If you want, you can click here, and another browser window will open, you can watch the blow-by-blow. You will have to wait a little for it to load.

 

Next, we'll go to page 2.

 

 

 

Galleries

Resources

History — A brief story about dragons

 Here be dragons