Photoshop Process Post

This is the overdue follow-up to my previous process post. This is a very simple walkthrough of how I typically color images in Photoshop. Specifically, I'll be going over this guy:

I started out with three separate drawings, a line art drawing, a "shadow/texture" drawing, and a skeletal drawing.

The line drawing came first, followed by the other two that were made with the help of a lightbox. It's important to get everything lined up pretty well at this step. This is like a real world version of the layering process that one would deal with in Photoshop.

I scan all three drawings as 8-bit grayscales at 300 dpi. By scanning at grayscale, I'm saving myself from the headache of dealing with HUGE files and tedious color management issues. I would opt for 600dpi, but my limited hard drive is forcing me to skimp a little. The line art and texture drawings seen above are after I adjusted the levels.

I only made minor adjustments to the skeleton drawing, as I wanted to retain the texture of the paper. That's why you see some fuzz at the top of it. A lot of people (understandably) go for stark black and white contrast, as it makes coloring MUCH easier, but I've become a fan of the residual grit from scanning.

The above image is what those layers look like composited in Photoshop. I left the line drawing as a locked "background" layer, and dragged the other two drawings over it as multiply layers, which I employ a good deal in my digital work. Right now both multiply layers are at reduced opacities to illustrate how the layers line up.

After I'm satisfied with this part of picture, I change the mode of the picture to RGB, since it's still in grayscale. I also hide the texture and skeleton layers for now.

I used the lasso tool and paint bucket to fill in the line art layer with a base color on a separate layer. This is a multiply layer as well. As you can probably tell, I've also applied a radial gradient (USE GRADIENTS SPARINGLY!) with the base color which will help with the visibility of certain details down the road.

I then lowered the opacity of the base color layer, and began adding secondary colors on a separate multiply layer to create more contrast and to fill in areas that I missed with first round of coloring. After this step, I hid the secondary color layer and increased the opacity of the base color layer. I also bring back the skeleton drawing.

As mentioned before, I retained the texture of this drawing because it's gonna work in my favor with this next step. With the skeleton layer selected, I adjusted the color balance to make it more analogous with the base color.

I brought back the other layers, adjusting the opacity for each as necessary. The eye of the T-Rex was being obscured by the skeleton and texture layers, so I took the soft edge eraser tool at a low opacity to both layers around that area. The texture layer was also converted from a multiply layer to a soft light layer. This way, the same implied surface could be retained without overpowering the image.

Finally, for good measure, I colored the lines by adding a screen layer over the line art layer. I used a sampled color from the drawing and used the brush tool to go over the areas that I wanted to adjust.

THE END! (for now...)

Long Overdue Process Post

I've always loved it when illustrators make posts about how they create their images. If anything, it demystifies their process and reveals a great deal of work and planning that goes behind every picture- that illustrations don't just come out of thin air. Also it helps to have someone else's process to refer to when you're trying to find one that suits you. That said, I'm gonna give you a run-through of how I made this image:

It starts with idea generation, otherwise known as writing stuff in a notebook. For this illustration, I was given the prompt "too much family" and from there I was free to do whatever. That's a lot of freedom, but without any direction, it's hard to figure out where to start. So I wrote the prompt down, and from there jotted down words and phrases that I associated with it. This is kind of a stream of consciousness thing, so editing takes a back seat. The more I can "blurt" out, the better. This page is a fairly restricted version of this step:


As you can probably see in the picture, I then start circling words that kind of stick or relate more directly to the prompt, and from there I make a sentence from those words. This is my point of departure to begin drawing. How literally I interpret this sentence depends on what I'm working on (or who I'm working for).

Thumbnails come next, and I'm admittedly learning to take more time making these. Doing so helps me come up with a idea of how I am going to arrange certain visual elements and create a compelling composition.

I pick my favorite,then scan and enlarge it a bit. If I wasn't given so much freedom with this assignment, this would be the point where I would email this to see if it gets the yea/nay.

The next step is pretty cool, because I get to use a donated relic of MCA's design department: an old Artograph 1000-J projector, otherwise known as the "Lucy".

I take my selected thumbnail, already enlarged, and blow it up even more on a larger sheet of paper. From here, I get a refined sketch.

Once the pencils are laid out, I move on the the lightbox. The sketch is taped down to keep it from slipping while I'm inking. Same story for the paper that I'm using for the inked drawing.

This is where I get REALLY meticulous. I made a few attempts to record this part of the process. If there is heavy breathing and sighs, I apologize.

This is the finished black and white drawing:

The drawing is scanned in piece by piece (my scanner is too small to capture the entire image). Also scanned are some failed inkjet prints, to use as textures. I then proceed to Photoshop to color the illustration. For the sake of keeping this post fairly condensed, I will save my Photoshop process for a later post. Fast forward through hours of red-eyed labor and we come back to the finished image.