At the beginning of the article, let me show you some paintings. The first one is a picture of a Bill Gates nesting doll.
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The second is a poster from a fan art exhibition contest held before the release of Star Wars: The Force Awakens in 2015.
The third picture is a picture from a novel called “Red Blood Camp”.
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As far as the works themselves are concerned, there is nothing particularly stunning about them, but in terms of the creative methods, they can only be described as outrageous – they are all painted with “painting”. When hearing this word at first glance, missionaries may not be able to react. You only need to think back to the scene where you were in the school computer room 20 years ago, wearing shoe covers, and skillfully opening the Windows XP Start menu, and you will understand that I am referring to the person below.
ah? My friend, it was difficult to write names in pictures back then. Now you tell me that you can draw like this? I know, this sounds outrageous. It's probably equivalent to the little black guy beating Schwarzenegger in a bodybuilding competition, and Daniel Wu surpassing me in the handsome guy rankings.
What’s even scarier is that the three paintings above are all from an artist named “Hines”. At first, Shichao didn't believe it, but after checking a lot of information and watching the entire 15-hour drawing process of Hines, I immediately came to the conclusion that Galen was whispering, silent and defensive – these works were not only made by people who drew pictures, but even I still use the version of Painting from more than ten years ago. The whole process was done with the mouse, without the aid of a drawing pad.
WTF! What level is this operation? Let me describe it to you. It's probably because the little black fat man used a chainsaw to trim his nose hair. Not only did he not see any redness, he also got a slanted bangs look. I'm not exaggerating. What kind of drawing software do we usually use?
Take Procreate on the iPad as an example. It not only supports layers, transparency and hundreds of brushes, but also can adjust various parameters such as hue, saturation, Gaussian blur, dynamic blur, curves, gradient mapping, etc.
On the other hand, draw a picture. There is no concept of layers in old printmaking; the only tools available are pencils, spray cans, brushes, and erasers.
Even if there are few styles, the functions are not good: the eraser cannot adjust the transparency, and everything is gone when you wipe it; the spray can sprays too randomly, and the shape is not as good as the one I sprayed after eating Wallace; the lines drawn are all jagged , just like eating it with your front teeth. The most terrible thing is that using the mouse to draw pictures is like playing basketball in eight pairs of cotton pants.
If Procreate is as powerful as a boxing champion, then Painting is as powerful as a kindergartener.
However, even with such a tool, Hines can draw decent works in his hands. At first, he would simply make a sketch. At this stage, Shichao felt that there was no difference between him and him.
But then you need a little bit of technology. Hines would lightly erase the lines of the sketch, and then depict details, such as the characters' facial features, expressions, and the folds of clothes. The skill of the old painter gradually became apparent.
Hey, wait a minute, can the eraser still be used to lightly rub the drawing? Shi Chao dares to say that you will not know the next technique even if you have played drawing in elementary school.
Just set the foreground color to black and the background color to light gray, then select the eraser and hold down the right button to apply, and the black lines will be erased to light gray. Visually, it looks like the eraser has lightly rubbed it, leaving a little base for reference.
In addition to his magic eraser, Hines also has a bunch of tricks up his sleeve. Remember what we mentioned earlier, the lines in the drawing are obviously jagged and look messy.
Hines’ “anti-aliasing” technology focuses on simple violence. Just enlarge the artboard as much as possible and start drawing pixel by pixel. As long as the painting is detailed enough, there are enough elements, and the length is wide enough, it will be difficult for people to find the unevenness on the lines at normal magnifications.
Just like your stubble is clearly visible in selfies, but hard to see in group photos.
Speaking of which, Hines also has a little-known amplification trick. The magnification tool in Paint can magnify up to 8 times. But just click on the little gap below 8x to trigger the hidden function and unlock the 10x magnification effect.
Shichao specially found an old print and actually tested it, and it was really awesome.
Once the composition is complete, Hines will switch from the 2000 version of the drawing to the 2010 version to facilitate coloring. This is another big project, usually taking 10 hours or more. In order to make the picture more realistic and three-dimensional, Hines will do light and dark effects. He first applied two colors with a paint bucket, and then continued to apply them with an eraser to perfect the details.
You can feel this animation played at 60 times speed.
By now you should understand why Hines spent dozens of hours painting a painting after 20 years of painting. If his works were placed in reality, they would at least cover an entire blackboard.
Of course, some friends may wonder: Why does Heins still use it when drawing pictures so hard? Isn’t it a more professional tool? The answer is simple.
How about the relationship between Hua Tu and Heins? Even if Hua Tu gets sick one day, Heins would be willing to watch a 60-second commercial to resurrect it. ▼
In 2002, Hines was doing the job most young people dream of – security guard. When working the night shift, Hines would kill time on the front desk computer. Because I didn’t like playing Solitaire or Minesweeper, I got married to Huatu.
During that time, Hines would stay up all night painting, and his technique was getting better and better. He thought that once he became technically proficient, he would switch to software such as PS, but somewhere along the way, Heins got used to and liked drawing, and he has been drawing for more than 20 years.
For Hines, drawing is not only a hobby, but also a good friend who has been with him for many years and spent countless nights with him.
Do you think he is willing to change his painting? Hines “Mad Eye vs. Voldemort” ▼?
There are many other drawing contestants like Hines, and their stories are also wonderful in their own way. There is a designer named James Murray on Facebook. Netizens make requests and he makes them with drawings.
Because of his superb skills, he not only has 800,000 fans, but was also invited to make posters for the “Monument Valley” series. There is even an artist on TikTok whose traffic has skyrocketed since he used drawings to recreate superheroes. The video below, which recreates Spider-Man, has been viewed 3.2 million times.
Among these enthusiasts, there is an old man with a very special story. The old man’s name was Hal Lasko, and he was a typography designer. After graduating from high school, he began to create various artistic fonts and learn traditional painting techniques.
As he entered old age, Rasko developed wet macular degeneration. This is a chronic eye disease that causes the center of your vision to become blurry, making it impossible to see clearly where you are drawing.
Later, Lasko came into contact with drawing software. He was delighted to discover that drawings could be magnified eight times. Just paint pixel by pixel to make sure you're painting in the correct position.
From then until his death for 13 years, the old man would spend 10 hours a day drawing. People are curious as to what kind of painting takes so long.
In fact, the answer lies in the painting.
Having written this, Shichao also understands why people like Hines and Grandpa are called “pixel painters.” After reading these stories, you may be surprised, or you may be happy. It turns out that such an old software is still needed and loved by so many people.
But this user base is ultimately dispensable to the giant Microsoft. They only focus on generating income, not feelings. “Painting” Reddit community has 200,000 fans▼?
In July 2017, Microsoft previewed the new version of Windows 10 as usual. As a result, people found that “Paint” suddenly appeared in the deprecation list, which means that Paint “is not actively developed and may be deleted in future versions.”
What Microsoft didn't expect was that this triggered an Internet campaign. Whether they are ordinary netizens or illustrators, they have labeled RIP MS panit (Microsoft Paint) on social platforms and used Paint to draw as a final souvenir. Others spontaneously shared their stories, saying that they would never forget the scene of them hiding in front of the computer and drawing in their childhood summers.
Seeing that something was wrong, Microsoft quickly sent a message the next day: There might be a misunderstanding. It’s not that I want to kill Paint, but if you want to use it, you have to download it from the app store in the future. After that, Microsoft also learned a lesson and added new features to its drawing tools from time to time. Now drawing not only supports layers and transparency, but also has AI drawing capabilities.
You may be wondering why everyone is reluctant to part with this software when they no longer use it. It's not hard to guess why. When the first generation of Windows was released in 1985, Paint became the default application and entered thousands of households.
The biggest advantage of drawing is that there is no threshold. It's not like Adobe's PhotoShop, nor is it like Mac Paint (Apple Paint), which has an initial price of $195. It doesn't require money and learning costs, so everyone can enjoy the addiction of an electronic painter by opening it.
Over the years, it has opened its arms to welcome generations of people who came into contact with computers for the first time, allowing them to run wild in the novice village and leave unique traces.
For everyone, drawing is like those old houses and buildings in childhood memories.
I usually don’t think about it or care about it, but when I learned that it was going to be bulldozed, I felt a little bit reluctant to let it go, as if I had thrown away a paper airplane from my childhood.
Perhaps as the version iterates, the classic elements of Painting will be replaced, the familiar UI pages will be abandoned, and children will no longer open it when they touch the computer. Everything about it will gradually fade away like the smoke of the past. But for a generation, those jagged lines, the pixels scattered by the airbrush, and the names of themselves and the girls they like crookedly written with the mouse are proof of the existence of drawings.
No matter how much you dislike it. It is the same as the Windows XP desktop and the smeared Shuangfeiyan mouse. No matter how heavy the rain is, it cannot be washed away in your memory.