Once I added the colour I couldn’t resist turning into a Little Red Riding Hood, albeit a heavily armed one. I usually scan the drawing at 600 dpi convert to bitmap mode and do all my clean up. Once thats done I re-sample it down to 300 dpi at A4 size. When I colour in Photoshop I focus on one area at a time, making adjustment layers for the base colour, shadows and highlights.
I have been doing some inking practice with a sable brush. The trick is to hold the brush as you would a pencil. Place your fingers around the ferrule (which is the metal bit between the hairs and the wooden handle). This makes the brush much easier to control and you can draw thin to thick and curving lines with one smooth movement of the hand. I also was constantly moving the paper around at different angles as i inked.
I learnt much of this from a great little video on inking by the comic artists Mark Rudolph and Jerzy Drozd on their site Art and Story. It’s an extraordinary resource for anyone interested in making comics http://www.cvcomics.com/artandstory/
Check out their inking video here
Once the Illustrator artwork is complete it’s exported as a .psd file and opened up in Photoshop where each layer is converted to an adjustment layer (a solid colour with a mask).
I use texture brushes that have a nice serrated line to soften the edges of the shadows. This contrasts nicely with the smooth edges elsewhere. The sky texture is a scan of some ink sprayed with a toothbrush.
Here it’s has been redrawn in Illustrator with the pen tool (with each element on a separate layer). I then work out the values using various percentages of grey (10%, 20% etc). This gives me an idea of the darkest and lightest parts of the illustration. The values might change once i start applying the colour but it gives me a general direction.
Then I begin thinking in terms of colour. To test out various colour schemes I sometimes create a simplified version of the artwork. In this case its reduced to four basic shapes: sky, space suit, boots and landscape. I fill these with colour and use Illustrator’s Live Color feature and try out different combinations. I eventually settled on a complementary scheme (blue and orange).
The sketch was scanned and printed out at A5 size. Placing a sheet of detail paper ( a type of soft tracing paper) over the top i redrew it refining the lines and adjusting the size. As you can see the sketch (pictured right) is pretty loose and could of been tightened up a lot more.
This is the stage where all the creative heavy lifting is done and the best time to work out any problems. Keep an eye out for tangents and awkward shapes in your design. Sometimes it’s easier to redraw elements on separate bits of detail paper and assemble together.
Get your character design as perfect as possible so once you have it in Illustrator it’s just a matter of following the lines with the pen tool. This drawing was scanned at 100 dpi and placed into CMYK Illustrator file.
My idea was to show a spaceman who has just stepped foot on another world with a look of smug self-satisfaction on his face.
First, I started doodling some ideas in my sketchbook. I knew i wanted the stylised retro look so i kept the shapes as simple as possible. I tried out various poses and at one point he became floating repair man holding a toolbox. This changed to a more traditional heroic pose with hands on hips. I liked the quick sketch at top right. It had a strong silhouette and gave a good sense of the character.
Here’s a few progress photos of the “Mother and Child” painting.
This is a shop bought canvas so it was already stretched and gessoed. I wanted a textured surface to work on so i applied a layer of modelling compound and worked it with an old metal comb giving it the appearance of heavy brush strokes.
This canvas will be rolled up and posted overseas so it was important that texture would not crack. I can highly recommend Atelier’s modelling compound . It’s flexible and can be used before or during painting.
Once i finalised the design i squared it up and transferred to the canvas. I usually use carbon paper or tracing paper to transfer designs but this is quite a large painting so the grid method worked fine. Now that the design is on the canvas i am all ready to paint.
Firstly, the canvas gets a wash of Burnt umber. Using my value roughs as a guide i block in the dark, mid and light values with a mix of Burnt umber and Payne’s grey. Then the main colours are sketched in. At this early stage i keep things very rough and don’t worry about losing the drawing underneath. I am also open about changing aspects of the design since you want to give the painting a chance to have a life of its own.
You can see some early sketches for this painting here.
For the past few months i have been wanting to buy some new acrylic paints. I fell in love with Golden heavy body acrylics when i bought a tube of Burnt Umber. They are arguably the best acrylics on the market and have a lovely rich buttery feel. Unfortunately they are pricey. I needed to chose my paints carefully so i would get the most out of a small selection of colours.
Another great advantage of having a few colours is that you learn so much by mixing them. For instance a huge range of greens can be mixed that are far more subtle and interesting than a green straight from the tube.
After some research on forums sites like Wet canvas and reading Stephen Quiller’s essential “The painter’s guide to color” I narrowed my selection to five colours.
My three primaries are: Quinacridone Red, Cadmium Yellow light, Phthalo blue Green Shade.
My secondary colours are: Phthalo Green Yellow Shade and Dioxazine Purple.
I didn’t bother with an orange since i can make a clean orange with Quinacridone Red and Cadmium Yellow light.
Out of these five colours I was able to mix the twelve colours of the wheel. It’s amazing how much you learn after doing a simple exercise like this. No amount of reading can substitute for actual practice with the paints. I now have a palette that allows me to mix a huge range of colours.
I don’t think the Golden brand is widely available in Australia but fortunately Melbourne Artist Supplies have the full range.
I have been working on a large painting (24” by 48” acrylic on canvas) for a client’s lounge room. These are the development sketches starting with quick thumbnails to a more finished rough.
I have always loved the look of picture book illustration for the 1950′s and the UPA animation style. That’s the inspiration for this guy. Wasn’t sure what to call him but he looks like a George to me.
Process
As usual this started on paper then redrawn in illustrator. Shapes placed on a separate layers and converted to compound paths then exported as a psd. When opened in Photoshop each layer appears as an adjustment layer with a mask. I then finalized the colours and added the textures.
I have been working on some self promotional illustrations aimed at girl/women’s magazines. Trying to keep the style loose and light. The sketch is Pentel brush pen on detail paper with colour added in Photoshop.
Artwork was export to Photoshop where shading and textures were added.
The final vector artwork in Illustrator.
A vector version in greyscale to show values
A more refined version on detail paper
My first rough sketch
