Tutorial

First of all I just wanted to say that this is my personal technique for making digital art and I in no way claim it to be the "only" way. I use Photoshop CS2 though any version of photoshop should be about the same for the purposes of this tutorial. I also use a Cintiq 21UX to draw my images directly on the screen because I never could get the hang of drawing with a Wacom tablet. It doesn't matter what you use though as long as you are comfortable with it, I know plenty of artist who make amazing art with a mouse alone, though I think that's a good way to get a whooping case of tendonitis. Some people find that they rather draw with pen and paper then scan the images in to color with photoshop and I used to do it that way too. That requires that you know how to clean up your scanned sketch/linework and I'm not going to go over that here. Drawing on the Cintiq 21UX. Definitely has its advantages, but it's a big expensive toy and not necessary. Next to me is an Intous Wacom tablet, and they fit people's price range a little better and work really, REALLY well, I wouldn't hesitate to recommend them to anyone. My current setup, Cintiq powered by a laptop. The sketch: I like to use blue for sketching, but that's just the way that I do it. I start sketching on a layer above the background and never directly on the background because then you'll have to do things to get it transparent again and we are not going to go over that. So just be sure to draw on a layer over the background. Digital Inking: I do this by hand as me and the pen tool do not get along well at all. Once again, be sure to do the inking on a separate layer, one above the background and above the sketch layer. I'm sorry if this is pretty basic stuff and I'm annoying some people but I don't know what knowledge level folk reading this might be at. Putting down the flat colors: Okay now this is what I consider the laborious and most none-fun part of the process. It's coloring book time, color in the different parts of the picture, being sure to put each part on it's own layer. For example skin on one layer, hair on another, toe nails on another, basically if it's going to be a different color then put it on it's own layer, because next we are going to start shading, locking down each layer so we can shade with out worrying about going out of the lines. But to get there we have to finish putting down the flats, things usually look the most blasé during this stage and it's easy to get discouraged because everything tends to look so flat and crappy. That's why I often cheat a little and will go ahead and shade the eyes so it looks a little prettier and I don't loose confidence. Also, don't worry so much if it's the exact shade you want or not, you can always change it easily enough later, that's one of the nice things about digital medium it's so very forgiving and lends itself well to experimentation. There are many different methods for laying down the flats, I personally simply use a hard round brush and go at it coloring book style, some people like to select areas with the lasso tool then fill it with the paint bucket tool. You just have to experiment around and find what works best for you. Okay, are you bored yet? Sorry. Now lock the layers as demonstrated by the red arrows and we can start shading. This is where a lot of the real artistry starts to come in and it just takes experimenting around with the brushes and colors. For this image I only used the hard round brush and changed the opacity to achieve gradations in shading. The airbrush is nice too, though I didn't use it here, it just depends what style you are going for. The finished piece. I added the background after the fact which is the exact opposite of the way you are supposed to do it, so do as I say and not as I do children…always do the background first before you color subjects! Your lighting will turn out better and it will be easier for you tell where to place shadows and highlights. The other thing I did here was color the line work, which is easy because you inked on it's own layer, all you have to do then is lock the line work layer to color it. I also added a little bit of blue backlighting on the shadow side as an after thought. Again these things are easier to decide if the background is already finished. So I hope this was helpful, maybe it was too simple maybe it wasn't simple enough, whatever the case I encourage you to look at many different tutorials and practice to find out what works best for you. Best Wishes, ~Jessica December 14, 2005 Site and it's contents are © Jessica M. Sanders 2003-2008.