This process is the one I tend to use in my work but it is not the only one. It can be used no matter your style of illustration. I will use a couple of examples I made but keep in mind that you can draw anything you want. Each example is meant to show you a slightly different way of achieving a good end result. You must know how to use the software as I will not be teaching that in this particular post.
I'll give you tips on how you can make your drawings but can't teach you in this article all the concepts of light and shadow, painting or drawing.
The objective here is to be able to turn a handmade physical drawing into a digital format with accuracy so you may color it and add textures digitally.
YOU'LL NEED:
- Basic knowledge of painting and drawing (lights and shadows, tracing, line drawing)
- Computer with internet.
- Drawing Software (I use Adobe Suite, specifically Illustrator and Photoshop)
- Drawing tablet (not required but makes process much easier)
- Paper
- Tracing paper or vellum
- Pencil
- Eraser
- Gel pen (preferably black)
STEPS:
- Step one is to do research. Look up inspirations of styles, color palettes and subjects and keep them as references. You could save them in a folder on your computer or a Pinterest board.
- Once you decided what you'll be drawing and in what style you can proceed to do that using a piece of paper and pencil. For now, don't worry about making it too detailed. The reason why I suggest you start with a hand drawing is because it adds some personality to the finished product, it doesn't look so "computer-y".
- From here on, there are two paths you can take, a very simple line drawing or a more shaded drawing that you'll vectorize later.
PATH 1: Very simple line drawing
- After you're satisfied with the results use the tracing paper to trace over the important lines of your drawing with the gel pen.
(For the example below, I was asked to make an illustration of a pet dog using two different photos, I did a rough "collage" on Photoshop which I printed out in order to use tracing paper and illustrate over it)
- Scan the illustration on tracing paper, ideally at 300dpi so you can have a good enough resolution in case you'd like to make prints.
- Open your scan in Photoshop
- Use the adjustment layers to set the Saturation of the image to the lowest number.
- Using brightness / contrast and the levels layers, play with the sliders to get rid of all grays. What you want is to achieve a completely black and white drawing with no grays and without blowing up the image (having it look pixelated).
- Merge these adjustment layers with the image and with the magic wand select all the whites (make sure to uncheck "continuous" and set the correct tolerance to get all the whites).
- You can delete the whites
- Create a new layer and fill it with white (this will be your background).
- Create another layer and fill it with a color that will help you see any grays (I use neon green like the green screens they use for movie editing).
As you can see above, the lines look raggedy and imperfect. We want to get rid of that.
- Using the eraser start erasing all the grays and ragged edges of the drawing.
- Color the "lines" layer with black (you will see a more perfect version of your drawing).
- You can now delete the "green screen" layer
- You will be left with your line drawing in one layer and a background layer.
- Using different brushes and colors or even an image, fill your background.
- Continue coloring your drawing (I recommend using a new layer for each part and new layers for base, shadow and highlight colors). Using textured brushes will help tremendously here.
- If you think that the black lines look too harsh on top of your colored illustration, you could do what I do and color the lines with a slightly darker color than the area beside it like you see below.
And that's one way of doing it!
PATH 2: Shaded drawing and vectorizing
- Scan the illustration on tracing paper, ideally at 300dpi so you can have a good enough resolution in case you'd like to make prints.
- Open your scan on Illustrator
- With the pen tool start tracing the most important shades of your illustration (it will look a little weird at first because it will be rather flat.
As you can see above it looks very flat and severe. You can use gradients to give it a little shading but that's not vital right now.
- Open your illustration on Photoshop next (don't quit Illustrator).
- Mask out or separate your illustration from the background and color it or place an image there.
- Start copying your vectors into Photoshop and placing them. You will use these to help you mask the effects and textures you will add on top. You can use images of textures to help you layer and get the effects you want.
- You can use some of your vectors and blur them to get highlights and shadows.
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