For this project, you’ll need:
- A pencil sketch
- A scanner
- Some artistic understanding
- And a lot of patience
Part 1 – Prep
Firstly,
let’s choose a pencil hand sketch that we want to color and open it in
Photoshop. No part of this pencil sketch will be in the final image; it
is entirely for reference purposes and we will be tracing and coloring
over it.
Next
let’s duplicate the sketch so it is on a new layer and its layer
visibility can be turned off whenever we need to take a clear look at
how the color drawing we will be doing on top of it is progressing. It
helps to fill the background layer with a solid color because it will
give a good juxtaposition makes the image on top of it more visible.
Here I filled the background in with a dark blue color (#0A0E2B) because
the setting of the final image will be nighttime therefore the
background primarily dark blue.
If
you notice, I also made the image a little wider so its borders won’t
interfere with my drawing. I plan for the final image to be horizontal.
Part 2 - Subject
Now
it’s time to start putting the subject—the witch—together. Let’s start
with the clothes as they will be on the topmost layers and cover
everything else such as her hair and her skin. The layers in this image
will be a little tricky to order so let’s take it one step at a time.
Let’s make a separate layer for the “Hat,” “Cloak,” “Gloves,” “Dress,”
and “Stockings.”
Now
we’ll fill in each these layers with a solid color according to the
shape of each part of her outfit. First, we’ll take the pen tool (P) and
draw a path along the outline of our subject’s clothing, making sure to
keep each separate piece of clothing on a separate layer. Zoom in (Z)
and be sure to pay attention to details like the folds of her clothing
as well as which part of her clothing is hidden behind which other parts
of her clothing.
Once
we’re done the outline, right click and select “Fill Path…” and set the
Feather Radius to 0.5 to fill in her hat, cloak, gloves, and stockings
with a dark gray-blue color.
Fill in her dress with a dark orange color and we should be looking at something like this.
Let’s
color in the rest of the image while we’re at it. Make separate layers
for the “Pumpkin” that she is sitting on, “Skin,” “Hair,” “Candle,”
“Candle Holder,” “Bangs,” and “Accessories.” You should now have a bunch
of layers that look like this.
Be
sure everything is in the correct order, such as her dress being over
her body and her hat on top of everything else. Note that, since the
setting is nighttime, our subject’s skin will be darker than usual and
slightly bluish to reflect the night. Continue using the pen tool and we
should be here.
Before
we go further with coloring the rest of our subject, let’s draw in her
face so we can begin to see the emotions that the final image will
invoke. The face and facial expression of any human subject will make or
break the mood of the finished piece so this part is especially
important. First, let’s turn off the layers with her “Bangs” and her
“Hair,” which somewhat cover her face in the final image, as well as her
“Skin” layer so we can see the pencil outline that we scanned.
Zoom
in very close and trace the outline of her mouth with the pen tool.
Fill. Then trace the outline of her eyes, again with the pen tool. Go to
brushes and set the brush color to black and the brush size to
something narrow enough to outline her eyes with. Return to the pen
tool, right click “Stroke Path…” make sure the tool used is “Brush” and
press “OK.”
Repeat
the “Stroke Path…” technique and trace her eyebrows and double eyelid.
Fill in the whites of her eyes with a solid brush. Then trace the pupil
of her eyes and fill in with the same black color. Right now, we should
be looking at an image like this.
As
you can see, right now the face looks flat and lifeless (and kinda
creepy), therefore, our next step is to shade in features of her mouth
and add light to her eyes. Pick a light source—that is, the direction
the light is coming from—so you know where to draw the highlights
therefore where to draw the shadows. For this particular image, I have
chosen to have the light come from the top left corner, so there will be
more light shed on the left side of her body and less on the right.
With
this fact in mind, let’s begin shading! With a soft brush and manually
picked colors, aided by the dodge and burn too (O) to place emphasis on
highlights and shadows, we’ll add depth and life into our subject’s
face.
Now
she finally looks like a live human being! Time to start shading
everything else and bringing the rest of the image to life! We can turn
the layer with the pencil sketch off now and turn the layers with her
hair and her skin back on. Let’s start with our subject’s body and make
her look more 3-dimensional. Keep in mind not only the light source but
also the depth of our subject’s body. Parts that come more forward will
be lighter than parts that are further back. Like before, use the brush
tool and manually pick colors to use as highlights and shadows. Then
dodge and burn for emphasis. Be sure to use a more solid brush where
harsher shadows are cast by her hair or her clothes on her skin. Always
keep in mind the direction of the light source.
Repeat
the steps above for our subject’s clothing. Keep in mind that
clothing—fabric—is full of folds and creases, especially when wrapped
around such an irregular figure as a human body. Draw in a shadow on the
bottom of the fold and highlight the top. This makes fabric like more
like fabric. Also, keep in mind that, because we will later have the
moon in place of the light source identified earlier, we should put a
silvery accent in the parts that will be closer to the light source,
especially in the upper-left side of our subject’s hat.
Let’s take a look at where we are.
Now
for the hair. First, we’ll draw in highlights and shadows where they
should be using a large, soft brush and manually picking colors like
before.
Next,
choose a very small smudge tool (R). Because we will be using the
smudge tool to smudge these highlights and shadows in the direction of
hair flow to create texture, we’ll want to set the strength to a high
number. I have chosen 85%.
Now
we will return to the pen tool. Using the anchor points, draw a line
along the hair in the direction of hair flow. Right click “Stroke Path…”
and chose to stroke the path with the smudge tool that we just set.
With
this albeit time-consuming but nevertheless very effective method, we
will drag the highlights and the shadows back and forth in the direction
our subject’s hair is flowing. This makes the hair actually look like
hair with movement rather than a big formless blob. This is the sort of
effect you should be getting.
I won’t lie; this will take a LOT of time but I guarantee the results will be worth it. Take a look.
Our subject is almost complete! The last step is to add several minor
details, to her brooch, her nails, the candle that she is holding, and
the pumpkin that she is sitting on. The same techniques as used before
apply for the pumpkin. Make sure to draw in a more solid shadow cast by
her legs where they touch the pumpkin.
With
her nails and her brooch, we want the material to seem glossy therefore
we’ll add more sudden rather than gradual shadows and highlights.
Finally,
for the candle and the candleholder our subject is holding, shade them
in using the same techniques we have been using the entire time, making
sure to give the candleholder a metallic finish, the candle a see-though
shimmer where it is closer to the flame, and the flame a warm glow
about it.
And our subject is complete! (We won’t worry about her left foot as it will be covered by long grass).
Part 3 – Background
Let’s
merge all of the layers used for creating our subject so they don’t get
confused with the layers we will use to create our background. We’ll
create a new file to finish off our image so we can keep a file with all
of the subject’s layers as well. Because the plan for the background is
to be a landscape, let’s make the new image horizontal. Paste the
subject in, and then create a layer for the sky and a layer for the
land.
First,
to give the hills in the background some depth, let’s use large, soft
dodge and burn brushes to add in some highlights and shadows.
Now
let’s work on the sky first. To begin with, let’s go online and chose a
large, clear image of the moon to import it into our picture. With the
Elliptical Marquee Tool (M), draw a selection around the moon. Go to
Select-->Inverse and press the delete button on your keyboard. You
should have a moon without any sort of unwanted background that came
with the original image you pulled off the internet, only the background
of the image we are working on. Make sure the moon is in the top left
corner of the image where we had previously decided would be the
location of our light source.
We
want to add a glow around the moon so it seems like it is shining in
this dark night. Let’s go to Layer-->Layer Style-->Outer Glow… and
a window like the one below should open. Adjust your settings as I have
here, making sure that you choose a light blue color for the glow, and
press “OK.”
Now our moon should have a halo of light around it.
On to the clouds! For the clouds, let’s choose a large brush and set the opacity and flow both to 50%.
Then,
take the brush using a pale blue color to draw circles in the shape of
clouds. Because the opacity is not 100%, we can layer the color more in
places we want the clouds to be thicker, and less where we want the
clouds to be translucent and wispy. Make sure the parts of clouds closer
to the moon are brighter.
Now
let’s add in some stars. Set the color swatch to white, choose several
small brushes of slightly varying size, and manually dot stars
throughout the sky.
Remember
how we set used the “Outer Glow” layer effect to give the moon a
glowing halo? Use the same techniques to make the stars glow.
We
are almost done! Let’s add in a field of grass that our subject will be
sitting in. Go into the choices of brushes and chose the “Dune Grass”
brush. This should be a Photoshop CS3 preset.
Go
to the two choices of color swatches. Set one to a medium green and one
to a very dark green. Now drag the grass brush horizontally across the
page several times, starting at the level where the grass just covers
our subject’s feet up until the bottom of the image. Make sure that the
brush used for the layer in front is somewhat larger than the layer in
the back to give a sense of depth, in that things that are further from
the foreground will appear smaller than things closer to the foreground.
Repeat
the same procedure for the grass further behind our subject and her
pumpkin. Make sure that the grass closest to the hills in the distance
looks very distant, therefore the blades being very small. With a
semi-transparent brush, draw in several soft horizontal lines of white
for some ominous-looking mist.
LAST
STEP!!! Take some small to medium size brushes and let’s dot in some
fireflies hovering above the grass in the same scattered fashion as we
dotted the stars. Choose a slightly yellowish color for the fireflies,
as they are warmer-colored balls of light compared to the cold stars in
the distance.
And
we are…okay so I lied, we’re one more stop from being done. Let’s throw
in a bit of text (also with an “Outer Glow”) wishing everyone a very
Happy Halloween, as well as a watermark in the top right corner so no
one tries to steal our hard work and…NOW we are done! Congrats!!!
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