Jagella
03-23-2009, 03:28 PM
I originally studied illustration as a possible career move, but lately I seem to be focusing on graphic design and have put illustration on the back burner. Nevertheless, I find creating illustrations to be a lot of fun. It's a release for me and is a way of expressing my inner artist. You can have fun too.
Although I've dabbled in illustration for years, what really inspired me was a DVD by Nils Osmar entitled simply “Cartooning.” Nils does a good job of demonstrating that cartooning is easy, and if you have a PC and Photoshop, you can really express yourself in ways that will amaze you if nobody else.
Anyway, the first step in creating your artwork is to come up with an idea for your subject. A subject can be anything you can envision including people, landscapes, animals, machines, buildings, or maybe something abstract. I find other people's artwork to be inspiring, and if I see a good illustration that I think is within my ability to emulate, then I may use it to get a good idea of how to create something that incorporates the same techniques.
Once I've decided on the basic concept and the subject of the work, I grab a pencil and a sheet of paper and get to work. I don't bother using any fancy tools or equipment at this stage. I just concentrate on what I'm trying to do and don't fuss over the details that much. When I'm done drawing with the pencil, I ink it with a marker to create the lines I wish to save.
When my preliminary sketch is completed to my satisfaction, I scan it into Photoshop. The inked lines become very useful in Photoshop because they are usually dark enough to help me make selections and apply color to parts of the sketch with the Paint Bucket tool. I can make arbitrary choices of colors using the swatches or the Color palette. If I want to be a little more “realistic” with color, I may use the Eyedropper tool to sample color from another illustration or photo. Skin color and lip color from photos are especially useful when applying color to parts of a human face or body.
Once the basic colors are applied, I tweak them to produce the effects of light. I may select a subject's throat, for instance, and use the Paintbrush tool to apply a darker hue to the top of the throat creating a shaded area under the chin. The Dodge and Burn tools are handy for creating highlights and shadows, respectively. If I want an eye or lip to look shiny, a tittle dab of white with the Paintbrush tool can do wonders.
Photoshop's layers can be very helpful to isolate a part of the image for editing and for creating transparency effects. If I don't like an effect or I'm not sure if it's an improvement, placing it on a layer makes it easy to compare the image with and without that effect. Layers can also be used to adjust the opacity of part of an image creating the look of glass.
Finally, if I want to share my masterpiece with the world, I save it as a JPEG to my website's graphics folder and then send it to the remote server using Dreamweaver. The rest, I trust, is self-explanatory.
http://freeforalldesigns.com/graphics/girl-with-glasses.jpg
Jagella
Although I've dabbled in illustration for years, what really inspired me was a DVD by Nils Osmar entitled simply “Cartooning.” Nils does a good job of demonstrating that cartooning is easy, and if you have a PC and Photoshop, you can really express yourself in ways that will amaze you if nobody else.
Anyway, the first step in creating your artwork is to come up with an idea for your subject. A subject can be anything you can envision including people, landscapes, animals, machines, buildings, or maybe something abstract. I find other people's artwork to be inspiring, and if I see a good illustration that I think is within my ability to emulate, then I may use it to get a good idea of how to create something that incorporates the same techniques.
Once I've decided on the basic concept and the subject of the work, I grab a pencil and a sheet of paper and get to work. I don't bother using any fancy tools or equipment at this stage. I just concentrate on what I'm trying to do and don't fuss over the details that much. When I'm done drawing with the pencil, I ink it with a marker to create the lines I wish to save.
When my preliminary sketch is completed to my satisfaction, I scan it into Photoshop. The inked lines become very useful in Photoshop because they are usually dark enough to help me make selections and apply color to parts of the sketch with the Paint Bucket tool. I can make arbitrary choices of colors using the swatches or the Color palette. If I want to be a little more “realistic” with color, I may use the Eyedropper tool to sample color from another illustration or photo. Skin color and lip color from photos are especially useful when applying color to parts of a human face or body.
Once the basic colors are applied, I tweak them to produce the effects of light. I may select a subject's throat, for instance, and use the Paintbrush tool to apply a darker hue to the top of the throat creating a shaded area under the chin. The Dodge and Burn tools are handy for creating highlights and shadows, respectively. If I want an eye or lip to look shiny, a tittle dab of white with the Paintbrush tool can do wonders.
Photoshop's layers can be very helpful to isolate a part of the image for editing and for creating transparency effects. If I don't like an effect or I'm not sure if it's an improvement, placing it on a layer makes it easy to compare the image with and without that effect. Layers can also be used to adjust the opacity of part of an image creating the look of glass.
Finally, if I want to share my masterpiece with the world, I save it as a JPEG to my website's graphics folder and then send it to the remote server using Dreamweaver. The rest, I trust, is self-explanatory.
http://freeforalldesigns.com/graphics/girl-with-glasses.jpg
Jagella