First, you’ll need a brand new canvas. Start by creating a document by going to File>New and create a canvas that is 210mm x 148mm, and at 300dpi. It’s better to keep the canvas rather small at this stage so that you can pay attention to the whole of the image. Fill the background layer with a light-grey tone. It’s often better to work on a darker canvas, since it’s more comfortable for your eyes. Then create a new empty layer on top – that’s the layer you’re going to sketch on next.
It’s often better to work on a darker canvas, since it’s more comfortable for your eyes
Start by quickly putting down a bunch of thumbnails. Keep them small and pick a mediumsized brush that you feel comfortable with. This is the ‘sandbox’ phase, and any idea is allowed at this stage. Focus on experimenting with pose, composition and proportions. The position of the little thumbnails is not that important, just make sure that you get every single idea out of your system. Stay very loose and feel free to play around a lot before settling entirely with your idea.
CREATE A ROUGH SKETCH
Pick the thumbnails that are closest to your idea and start arranging them on your canvas. Lower the opacity of that layer and create a new one on top of it. Keep sketching until the entire image works, and keep experimenting. It’s great to constantly ask yourself questions such as: What’s the purpose with the image? How does the story go? Which moment works best for this illustration? What style should it have? Who’s the audience? Does the composition direct the viewer properly?
REFINE THE CHARACTERS
Now you will need to create another document to implement your final design. Feel free to make it even larger this time and fill the background with a light-grey tone. Select the character sketch with the Lasso tool from the rough sketch, copy the selection and paste it into your new document. After that, scale the characters so that they fill out the whole canvas and lower the opacity of the layer, then create another empty one and start refining the sketch further. To do this, use a brush with hard edges, and with the opacity settings activated.
LOWER THE OPACITY
When the characters are more refined and you feel happy with them, copy the layer and add it to the previous sketch document. Remove the rough version of the characters and merge the sketch layers together. The sketch should only work as a vague guideline for the painting itself, so lower the Opacity to about 30% and lock that layer. Most of the other layers (except some adjustment layers that affect the entire image) created for this painting will stay underneath the line drawing.
TRY IT OUT IN GREYSCALE
It’s time to play around a bit with the values. Block everything in with flat tones just to find some suitable values that will work well with the composition and mood. Paint on a new empty layer that’s created underneath the sketch layer. A nice rule to go by is that if things work well in greyscale, then it will definitely work out in colour as well later on. In general, it’s also nice to have several possibilities to choose from before you start to colour a new piece.
COLOUR TEST
Before getting too serious with the illustration, it’s a good idea to quickly flatten the greyscale sketch and create and save a new version that will serve as a colour palette later on. On the new document, create a new empty layer and set the layer blending mode to Color. Now you can start painting some colours in without affecting the tones. This one will work well with lots of greens as the dominating hue, with a slight touch of brown, yellow and red.
♦ QUICK TIP
This shortcut that can be created through Actions is very handy when painting digitally in Photoshop. Simply create an Action that flips your canvas horizontally when pressing a specific key, perhaps F2. Flipping your canvas often makes you look at the painting with fresh eyes, and you can immediately see and fix any proportions or compositions that may be a bit off.
BLOCK IN THE BASE COLOURS
After settling on a nice colour scheme, it’s time to block everything in. This will make things so much easier when starting to paint the illustration. The base layers can be created using the Pen tool. Start by drawing the main shape to create a new path, then make that path a selection and fill it with a basic colour. Proceed by creating basic shapes for the different background elements, the wolf and the girl. Lock the transparency of each layer when done.
CREATE CLIPPING MASKS
This stage really is a true time-saver, and it’s one of my favourite Photoshop shortcuts. Start by creating new layers on top of each ‘blocked’ layer, then press Opt/Alt and hover the cursor in-between the two layers. The lower layer will become the parent of the upper one, and it will then stay within that shape, no matter how messy you paint. It also means that you only need to block in the main parts once. You can then focus on the fun part – the painting itself!
When all the base colours are added to the painting and you’re all set, it’s helpful to create a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer. Keep it on top of the entire painting and adjust it so that the painting gets completely desaturated. You can then turn this layer on and off to keep checking the values when painting. Is the painting readable in greyscale at this stage? Good! Then it’s ready to get painted for rea.
Keep blocking in base colours with a large brush. The basic brushes will work perfectly at this stage. Use big, bold strokes in the beginning and switch between hard-edge and soft-edge brushes, keeping the Opacity at 20-50%. Stay loose and always work on the entire painting. To get a better overview, open the document in two separate windows using Window>Arrange>New window.
FLIP YOUR CANVAS REGULARLY
Go to Image>Image Rotation>Flip Horizontally on a regular basis to check the proportions, balance and composition. When you flip the canvas, you’ll see immediately if the nose looks off, or if the position of the eyes is awkward. It’s a lot easier to spot mistakes. The great news is that you get to make the changes in time. If the image is working in both angles, then it’s probably balanced.
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Decide on the direction of your light source and paint highlights accordingly. Feel free to stay a bit loose
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Now that the image has been flipped, you can check that the composition is still well balanced
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Take a step back and think about which parts of the characters need some extra work, like the fur and eyes
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Start with slightly rendering the form of the characters and tree trunk, keeping the direction of the light in mind
♦ QUICK TIP
It’s always a good idea to keep your light sources on a separate layer to your base image. This way, you can turn those layers off when you need to, and you can then focus entirely on rendering form and putting down those basic values in your painting.
ADD SOME LIGHT
It’s a bit dark here, isn’t it? To solve this, create new layers for the background and the characters, then connect them to the layers underneath as clipping masks. Set the layer mode to Color Dodge and pick an orange midtone to paint with. Use a hard brush without any opacity settings and paint in highlights, ensuring they are in keeping with the direction of the light source. Let those layers stay rough for now, as long as it looks good overall.
The image is now ready for some slight detailing and early polishing. Play around with different textured brushes to get that traditional, painterly feel. Safadi’s custom brushes will suit perfectly for this phase. Vary the opacity of the brushes to gain full control while you paint. Create new empty layers on top of the parenting layers if you feel unsure and want to redo, or remove unnecessary changes as you paint.
Turn on the Hue/Saturation adjustment layer that you placed at the very top and check the values. Is the illustration still readable? This part is really crucial, and as mentioned earlier – if it’s working in greyscale, then it will most likely work in colour as well. So it’s a very good habit to just double-check your illustration on a regular basis while working with colours. I can’t encourage this part enough. Is it still working? If it still reads well, then it’s fine.
You can see that the wolf’s fur needs some more details. Keep painting with a medium-sized brush and render the forms a little bit more. After that, pick a brush that feels more like a traditional brush that slightly imitates hair or fur. Having photo references is always a huge benefit; so don’t be afraid to search for some nice photos that clearly show what a wolf’s fur really looks like. References will always be important, even if you paint in a rather cartoon-like style.
FURTHER DETAILING
Keep adding in smaller details where they are needed. Paint them all in while keeping a careful eye on the entire illustration. Remember: less is more. Another good thing to keep in mind is to spend some extra time on characters’ eyes and faces in general. These features are one of the first things that the viewer looks at, so it’s important that the eyes and expressions read well and show clear emotions. Getting this part right definitely helps to tell a story.
References will always be important, even if you paint in a rather cartoon-like style
FINAL TOUCHES
Finally, you can add the smallest and finest details to the painting. These include the whiskers, hair
and sparkles in the eyes. Evaluate the entire painting by flipping the canvas horizontally as in Step 12, turning the Hue/Saturation adjustment layer on to check values once again, and last but not least, make sure that it reveals your story. You can also flatten the entire painting at this stage, so you don’t have to handle all the different layers anymore.
PREPARE FOR DELIVERY
Since this was made for a magazine, it’s good to make sure that all the settings and modes are correct. To start with, check that the image is scaled or cropped properly. Most publishers handle their images in CMYK, so make sure that it’s converted. You can also sharpen the image a bit. Go to Filter>Sharpen>Unsharp Mask. Play with the settings and make sure that the image looks nice and crisp, and then you’re done! Hope you found this tutorial helpful. Good luck!
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