Black Horse Photoshop 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: Typically I use a light blue for sketching. I drew the horse first but then I used a light purple to sketch the tack over that otherwise, it would have just been a bunch of messy blue sketch lines and inking would be difficult. Digital Inking: I do this by hand as me and the pen tool do not get along well at all. Be sure to do the inking on a separate layer, one above the background and above the sketch layer. 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, tack 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. Taking the time to do this now, is going to make shading a whole lot easier and the piece will turn out clean and crisp. 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, but don't give up! While laying down flats 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 usually use a hard round brush and go at it coloring book style, sometimes I'll use the lasso tool then fill it with the paint bucket tool. You just have to experiment around and find what works best for you. This is the Celtic knot that will go in the background. So here I've placed the knot in the background and finished laying all the flats. 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 is my favorite part. Now we can make things really start to come alive. Shading just takes experimenting around with the brushes and colors. Remember your basics like keeping your light source in mind to help you determine where the shadows and highlights should go, For this piece I used the airbrush a lot. And, the finished piece. 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 May 22, 2008 Site and it's contents are © Jessica M. Sanders 2003-2008.