Painting a Spot Illustration, Part 1: The Line Drawing
Monday March 23, 2009
I created this illustration in a uStream broadcast earlier this month. You can view the archived video here.
I will be creating a series of posts explaining the making of this illustration in-depth. For part 1, here is how I prepared my line drawing for painting in Photoshop.
FYI, I’ve reviewed some techniques about preparing line drawings in a former post here. Many of those techniques will be used again.
About the Sketch
I used a simple ballpoint pen drawing for this painting. Because my style is more painterly, the quality of my sketches can vary from simple and clean, to very very rough. This type of sketch is about as refined as I get. I placed the sketch on its own layer in a new Photoshop document.
Preparing the Line Drawing
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Adjust the levels (Image > Adjustments > Levels) to up the contrast between the black pen and white paper. This sketch in particular didn’t take a lot of adjustment because the pen was already pretty bold.
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Select the sketch layer and copy it.
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Go to the Channels palette (Window > Channels). Create a new channel by clicking the button at the bottom. This results in a solid black channel with the default name “Alpha 1″. Paste the sketch here.
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Go back to the Layers palette and click on the sketch layer to select it. Now go to Select > Load Selection. In the channel drop-down menu, select Alpha 1 (the channel you just created) and click OK.
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All of the whites on your sketch layer should now be selected. Push Delete. Deselect the selection. Your layer is now just black line and transparency.
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After doing this, the line drawing tends to look too light. To fix this, lock the transparency of the layer and fill it with black.
Or you could use any other color for that matter.
In fact, if you keep the transparency locked, you can paint and color on the line at your leisure, which is the main reason I like this technique.
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Now, of course there are other ways to get rid of the “whites” in a line drawing. You could set the layer to Multiply, for example. However, this is the best method to use if you plan to experiment a lot with the color of the line drawing.
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Thanks for the tutorial. I need to try this!
This is so great!!! I have never done it this way. Thank you!
Hey Dani!
I really enjoy your blog, site updates and Ustream videos!
And because I enjoy them so much, I have a little surprise for you on my site!
(www.durbindigital.com) Please pop by and take a peek!
~TYE
I wanted to write and say I really appreciate your site and tutorials. I’m just learning Photoshop CS3 and can sure use the help! Thanks!
This I gotta try!
Hi Dani, thanks for this tip. Shall try out this method soon.
Currently I colour my drawings in photoshop using scanned sketches at top layer with “multiply” blend mode.
Oh a hundred thanks, you just saved me a lot of work.
Thanks for the great tutorial, I definitely learned something new today!
I love your tips and your work. I am having a bit of a problem trying to accomplish this lesson. I tried the first step, but every time I hit “Delete”, there is no “check pattern” transparency layer behind my sketch. It’s still white. What am I doing wrong? I have gone over your steps several times and I still get the same results. Can you help me?
Mike
Never mind, I figured it out, I wasn’t going back to the original sketch layer and selecting from there and deleting. Thanks for this tip, it is a production nugget I have been yearning for. As well as many others you’ve given!
Hey Dani
Do you find that after you colour the ’sketch’ layer, if you convert the job to cmyk the line work becomes much bolder?
Stephen – You are always going to get color changes when you change the color mode of your file. Maybe flatten the file before converting to minimize the difference.