Painting is often best done from simple to complex. This methodology certainly applies to situations where you are painting surfaces with 2D decals like an emblem on armor. A traditional painter might first paint the base surface, and then once the paint dries would be able to paint the 2D decal over top. In this video I'll explore a digital approach to this task. Unlike the traditional process, Photoshop allows us to prepare the 2D image as a flat decal and then distort it into place to match the illustration. You can use this same technique to apply existing images such as logos, or 2D images of your own.
Have you ever gotten lost in a tall stack of unnamed Photoshop layers? Naming your layers may be the proper way to stay organized, but it is extremely time consuming. This video offers a time-saving compromise. Even though I don't name my layers, there are certain ones that I don't want to lose track of - and a bit of color-coding does the trick. There are multiple ways to change the color coding of a layer in the stack, but this video shows how to use a Photoshop Action to accomplish it. I especially like Photoshop actions because they allow me to keep my stylus in the center of my painting, and to trigger commands with my left hand.
Continuing where part 1 left off, this concludes your introduction to the pen tool. This video focuses on a real-world example, creating a technical outline around a character's silhouette. If you were to attempt this job with the lasso or marquee tools you'd quickly run into trouble. The true beauty of the pen tool becomes apparent when working on a series of technical curves.
Want to make controlled, dependable, selections in Photoshop? The Marquee and Lasso tools each have their strengths, but the Pen Tool combines the best of both worlds. This is the first half of a two-part introduction to the amazingly useful Pen Tool. For whatever reason, this is often overlooked by digital painters - avoiding it for the more accessible selection tools. I encourage you to give it a chance, because you might not want to go back to the lasso tool.
Painting is generally done with basic, versatile, brushes. Sometimes however, you're better off using a custom brush to accomplish a specific end. In this video I showcase a brush pack designed to make the task of painting machine guns and muzzle flares easier. The brush pack is free, so feel free to download it!
And if you're intrigued by this concept of custom brushes, there's an entire Premium Series dedicated to it in the Ctrl+Paint store!
The goal of thumbnail sketching is to generate a large variety of design possibilities in a short amount of time. With this goal inmind, it's not 'cheating' to take a non-traditional approach. This video shows how to "built" your thumbnail sketches instead of simply drawing them. Using robots as subject matter, we'll first build a set of modular components, and then mix and match them to create a large variety of robot designs.
Sometimes the digital workflow will behave completely counter to the way you learned to draw with a pencil and paper. Though it might seem foreign and strange, I encourage you to embrace these new opportunities! In this video I'll show how to iterate through a set of thumbnails by chopping them up into pieces, mixing, matching, and contorting them. Though it's not much like traditional 'drawing', it's a lot of fun and can be a huge time-saver.
Sometimes you'll find yourself working with a repeating pattern, and want to quickly expand it. This video offers an alternative to the 'Pattern Preset' with a quick, manual, method to expand your subject. This is a technique for keyboard shortcut lovers.
One of the most important aspects of digital painting is edge control, and selections allow you to 'paint inside the lines' effortlessly. What happens when you want to use a few different recurring selections in your illustration? "Save Selection" is one option, though this video offers a quicker alternative.
If you're a traditional painter, something like a flock of birds means only one thing: lots of work. Photoshop offers some time-saving alternatives for digital painters. In this video we'll take a look at the use of duplication to quickly populate an entire flock of birds. Remember: this isn't cheating, you're simply using the tools Photoshop makes available to you.
The goal of making thumbnail sketches is speed. You're trying to get a lot of ideas onto the page as quickly as possible. This video explores the concept of symmetrical thumbnail designs. Specifically, it offers a single-button solution to create these horizontally mirrored drawings. Photoshop actions can be a huge time-saver if you know how to use them - and this 'mirror action' is no exception.
Creating an illustration which sits on a solid color background can be a challenge. If your goal is to have a nice, painterly, edge you might find yourself constantly re-working it. The method shown in this video strikes a balance between the time-savings of Photoshop layers and the painterly edge quality you're striving for.