Comic Art Creation. By Josh Garrett and Jordan Basaldua (RegularPeopleGaming.com)

Transcription

1 Comic Art Creation By Josh Garrett and Jordan Basaldua (RegularPeopleGaming.com) Major Steps: Pencils, Scan, Ink, Scan (again), and Color. PENCILS Don't be afraid to look up reference photos online. Every art book we've ever read has mentioned using photos and pictures to figure out poses and lighting and such for their own art. We all need a little help when it comes to figuring out spacing, light, and composition (putting everything together). SCAN Once the rough pencil sketches are complete and you are ready to ink, scan the image at 300 dpi. Open the image in Photoshop. We will be changing the pencils lines to a light blue color and then print the image. At the top of the screen go to this Path: Image Adjustments Color Balance. Take the sliders and move CYAN to left. GREEN to the right. BLUE to the right. The result is a sort of teal/sky bluish color, but it might be a little dark. So play around with the brightness a bit using the following path if needed: Image Adjustments Brightness/Contrast. Then Print the image out so we can begin inking! Explanation: Why do this? We tint the image blue because after printing the image, we will ink the picture and scan it again. Instead of the computer having to separate gray pencil and black ink, we can very easily delete the blue pencils while retaining the dark black pens lines once we are ready to color. Some folks draw with blue pencils to save themselves a step.

2 INKING Lots of people have moved to inking digitally (in fact we just did!) but there's nothing wrong with the traditional method, which we will be covering. More on technology at the end of the document. Once you have your blue pencils printed, you can begin inking. We used Faber-Castell ink pens (which you can find at Hobby Lobby in a pack- and look up 'Hobby Lobby Coupon' on your smart phone for a discount!). Start by outlining on a part of the image that isn't too vital, like the spikes. Get warmed up on areas that don't have the greatest detail, then move onto things like the face. Use a light or medium pen the first go around, then finish off with a nice thick outline around the outside of the image. SCAN IT (AGAIN) Scan it again and be sure to alter the brightness as needed. Then open the image with INKSCAPE. Inkscape is a really cool program that we use to smooth out our line artwork (it's free, too)! Go to PATH Trace Bitmap. Hit OK then drag the top image away then delete the one with the blue junk on it. Now you've got yourself a really clean ink. Export the image as a Bitmap and bring that file into Photoshop. We're going to prep the image for coloring in Photoshop, and this part is a little confusing, but just follow these steps and then we get to do the fun stuff. (^_^) In Photoshop, on the right-hand side is the LAYERS panel. You can see your image here, and probably a Lock Icon next to the Layer. Layers are your images or effects stacked on top of one another. Whatever is higher on the list is will be 'on top' of everything else.

3 Double Click on the layer and hit OK. Hit the 'W' Key for Magic Wand. Then click on the white space around your drawing, and you'll notice these crazy wiggly lines everywhere. There are called Marching Ants and they show us when we have something selected. We currently have all the white space selected, so hit DELETE to get rid of it. Do the same for any other spaces we want to get rid of. The checkerboard means that there is absolutely NOTHING there. Bonus Tip: Name Your Layers Name your layer by double clicking on the words in the layer menu. Drawing, coloring, textures, just name the item to help keep track of things. This can help you find the layer you need rapidly later on as things get hectic. Now hit CTRL + SHIFT + N to create a New Layer. Hit 'G' to select the Paint Bucket Tool and fill in this new Layer with WHITE. Then bring that Layer to the bottom of the 3 (you can drag and drop Layers to rearrange them). Next we are going to Duplicate the drawing layer using Ctrl + J. This top one is going to retain the really nice lines that we just made, while the lower one is going to merge with the solid white Layer. I know, it seems like we are just undoing our last step, but by merging the drawing with a solid white layer, we can proceed to our next step, which is altering the Threshold (which just doesn't work as well if we skipped the above step). Merge the Layers by clicking on the lower Drawing layer and while holding Ctrl, click on the solid white layer. Now that Right Click and choose Merge Layers. Now that you have merged the lower layers, go to the top and click on the following path: Image Adjustments Threshold and hit OK. Threshold will turn an image into a solid black and white picture, with no color or grays in between. This means we get a sharp, pixel perfect image to work with for our colors, while having the smoother lines stand out on top. I know all of the scanning stuff seemed kind of boring, but once you get in the groove of doing it for all of your pictures it becomes second nature and will only take about 5 minutes tops promise!

4 NOW WE CAN FINALLY COLOR! The bottom layer in the image is where most of the action is going to take place. Go ahead and make sure the bottom layer, which we should name Flats or Colors, is selected. Pick out some colors and use the Paint Bucket (selected with G) and start filling in the big areas. Feel free to experiment (for example I made the skeleton bones a pasty sand color instead of white), and be sure to pull up some reference images to get inspiration! Use the Brush tool ( 'B' ) and set it to Pencil mode (Shift + Tool Hot Key to cycle tools) and use that to color in the smaller areas that the paint bucket just isn't precise enough to handle. These simple colors filling up large areas are called your flats. Simply put, flat colors. Let's give them a little more action. COLOR: HIGHLIGHTS AND SHADOWS Click on the Lasso tool ( 'L' ) and (Shift + Tool to cycle tools) until you get the Polygonal Lasso Tool, then select areas and created a shape, then fill it in with a lighter or darker color than the flat color. For example, if we are coloring a skin tone, then select a color that's a bit darker or deeper than the base skin tone where ever you would see a shadow. Use the lasso tool to click and click and click to draw a shape. Once you create a shape, you'll see those marching ants again, and simply fill in the shape with your paint bucket or brush. Try to do one color at a time so you aren't constantly hopping back. Like for the Ogre I made all the dark green, then all the dark brown for the wrists, shoulder pad, and belt, etc. The Light Source in this image is coming down from ABOVE and slightly RIGHT of the Ogre.

5 BONUS TIP: Choosing a Light Source. In this image, the light comes from the fire in the bottom right, therefor 'left' and 'top' will be darkened. By picking a direction for the 'light', we can get a better idea of how to shade and highlight an image. This can be hard to imagine at first, but gets easier to make up as you go along. COLOR: Dodging and Burning Is just a fancy way of saying 'highlighting and shading', respectively, but this time we are using a sort of 'air brush' instead of a paint bucket. Hit the ( 'O' ) Key to bring up this tool. This tool is used to emphasize the shadows and highlights you just created, while at the same time smoothing them out and helping them blend together to create a more realistic image. I'll run this tool over areas I've already gone over, sometimes clicking on the same parts over and over, until I get a dynamic looking image (sometimes I go too far and have to use the Brightness/Contrast adjustment, like we used earlier, to flatten out my image a bit).

6 BONUS LECTURE: TEXTURES Once I am finished with lasso shading and highlighting of the image, I'll experiment with some textures. Textures are up close photographs of just about anything, from grass to sheets of metal or even slabs of meat (great for zombies)! They can be found all over the web at places like cgtextures.com. Try to find some images that are similar to what you are working on (or just go nuts and try out new things). Leather armor? Find a piece of leather and bring it into Photoshop. Dragging the picture into Photoshop while still working on the current image will create a new Layer. Use the move tool, V, to drag and drop the image roughly where you'd like to use it. I'm using a dirty potato sack to create a neat texture for the pants of the ogre. We use a very low exposure (look at the top bar, you'll see a percentage number) when I am dodging and burning, sometimes as low as 12%. Potato sack texture Pants before bringing the texture into Photoshop At the very tip top of Photoshop, look for the following Path: Edit Transform Warp These little dots and a grid appear, and you can click and drag these to bend the texture around your character. Try to get the general shape of what you are covering, and be sure not to leave any area exposed! Better to cover too much than not enough. After that delete everything outside of the wanted area (try clicking on your long-neglected line Layer and then use the Magic Wand on the wanted area, the right click and choose Select Inverse ). Go back to the Texture Layer and hit Delete and bam! No more unwanted texture. Next, go to FILTER at the top menu bar, and select Filter Gallery. Go to the Cutout Filter and play with the settings to remove some of the detail from the texture. This gives our texture a sort of cartoony look so that it isn't too distracting from our original picture. Warping to fit Deleting unwanted areas Applying Cutout filter/setting to Overlay

7 Currently, the texture is covering up our hard work! So let's combine the two by going to the texture's Layer. Above the Layer panel you'll see the word Normal. These are the Layer Opacity Blending Modes. Messing around with the selections in this drop-down menu can give you neat effects, but we want to pick either Overlay or Soft Light, whichever blends in more. You can also try changing the Opacity to help your colors shine through. Save that image and make a copy of it as a.png! Then make a.jpeg COPY of that as well. JPEGs are nice for ing or posting online, while the PNG is for saving a high quality version that retains the quality of your hard work. All in all, we've got something that combines physical pencil sketches, digital coloring techniques, and even a hint of photography to create a unique image. Congratulations! I'll bet your art looks way better than my first digital coloring. =) If you don't feel like you are getting the hang of it or are finding Photoshop to difficult to grasp, don't give up! Thanks for joining us today, and if you have any questions at all feel free to us or contact us with the magical powers of social media. regularpeoplegaming@gmail.com facebook.com/regularpeoplegaming twitter.com/regpeepsgaming youtube.com/regpeepsgaming instagram.com/regpeepsgaming RegularPeopleGaming.com

8 MASTER TIPS: -Learn those Hot Keys! -If you don't know how to do something, look it up! There are tutorials for EVERYTHING. -Save often and use numbers for the files! Monster1, Monster2, Monster3 or even Ogre Pencil, Ogre Blue Pencil, Ogre Ink, Ogre Flats, Ogre Lasso, Ogre Dodge, Ogre COMPLETE and so on. This way if you mess up you can always go back a couple of steps. -Give each project its own folder and be sure to back up that data on another source. And then another source! -Don't try to force your 'style', it's something that will naturally develop over time as you practice over and over. Experiment with different styles and methods of drawing/coloring to help you branch out and discover that challenges you AND makes you happy, cause that's all that matters. BOOKS WE LIKED: Color and Light by James Gurney Basic theory on painting, but translates to all art. Superb! Hi-Fi Color for Comics by Brian and Kristy Miller the most basic tool for learning to digitally color. This is the best! Master Digital Color by Brian & Kristy Miller Advanced comic coloring techniques. The Complete Digital Photo Manual by SevenOaks? - Literally everything you need on taking photos. Camera types, picking shots, and a great stuff on Photoshop too! Digital Art by David Cousens -Covers some neat digital techniques worth trying out. Digital Painting Tricks and Techniques by Gary Tonge this one is a way too advanced for me, but the art is nice, and gives me something to strive for. And who knows? Maybe your local library has some art books worth checking out? ;)