The Eyedropper Tool: In Depth

The Eyedropper tool is used to sample colors that are already on your canvas. It seems straightforward, but what happens when your layers are set to differen...

The Eyedropper tool is used to sample colors that are already on your canvas. It seems straightforward, but what happens when your layers are set to different blending modes? This video explains a bit more in-depth about the eye dropper tool, and how you might use it in a complex painting. It may seem like the Eyedropper is of only minor importance, but to a digital painter it becomes one of the most frequently accessed.

To learn more about the on-screen mixing talked about in the video, try these others:

Digital Painting 101 #3,  Brush Control Basics ,   Blending Technique

Why Practice in Grayscale?

Many of my tutorials focus on painting without color. This is no accident. If you're just starting to digital paint, color makes matters more difficult. This...

Learning art can seem like a bottomless pit of information. To keep things simple, it's important to start your drawing and painting education in grayscale - and reserve color for later. Though it's tempting to move straight into color, this video provides an argument for working slowly and methodically. After all, it's how they do it in art school.

If this is a topic that you really believe in, and want to know more, make sure to check out the Basic Photoshop Rendering series in the store! When I created this series, it was my intent to capture my experience in Drawing 1 and apply it to digital painting.

Simplifying Form

One way to get better at digital sketching is to try and better understand the forms you're drawing. A great way to do that is by breaking the object down in...

In the years I've studied drawing, "constructive form" has made the largest impact on me. The general idea is to visually reduce complex forms into simpler ones, and make your drawing challenge more manageable. Especially as a concept artist, drawing from one's imagination is essential. Teaching yourself to envision objects in this simplified manner is a key concept for improving your imaginary drawing skills.

Using a Textured Canvas

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This is a companion video to go along with the two previous texture brush downloads. Hopefully this will explain why an artist might prefer working on a textured canvas. I don't always begin with one, but it can lead to very rich results. If you didn't get a chance to see the previous videos, make sure to watch them here: Block-in Brush, and Diffuser Brush

Brush Series: Diffuser

For additional free videos, custom brushes, worksheets and more more check out www.ctrlpaint.com

Traditional painters often start with a "ground" - giving them a neutral, textured surface to begin their painting on. This video introduces a custom brush which will quickly generate such a ground for your digital painting. Unlike most brushes I mention, this one is designed to work with the Smudge Tool. To download the brush for yourself, click here!

Brush Series: Block-In

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Most painting is done with basic brushes, but sometimes it's nice to have a big chunky block-in brush to get your canvas started. This video introduces my ctrl+Paint block-in brush, and includes a free download.

To try the brush for yourself, download it here!

Sketching: Value

All images don't need to start with lines. This digital painting tutorial shows that some artwork starts with large brush strokes, and some of the reasons fo...

In the vocabulary of painting "value" refers to illumination. Light areas are high in value, dark areas are low in value. This video explores value sketching - in which a painter foregoes the line-drawing phase and skips straight to tone. If you've never done this sort of sketching before, it's a fantastic exercise!

From my experience, beginners are often taught to think in terms of line because pencils are so cheap and accessable. Working in value requires an artist to more carefully consider form and mass, which is a valuable way to think. Normally sketching in this way would require messy paints or charcoal, but working digitally makes using tone and value just as easy as lines.

Sketching: Lines

Ctrl+Paint Store: http://ctrlpaint.myshopify.com/ Full Free Video Library: http://www.ctrlpaint.com/library/ note: This video was originally created for Ctrl...

A safe approach to most drawing is going from general to specific. Large scale before details. This video shows how apply that general form to sketching line-work in Photoshop using layers. Of course, drawing is a personal process and your technique might differ. This is the method I derived over time from my experience as a Comic Book student in art school, and a concept artist after college.

Hard and Soft Shadow Edges

Realistic rendering often comes down to your ability to paint shadows. This video explores one simple aspect of shadows: hard and soft edges. --- Free Brushe...

Light and shadow reveal the form of an object. The way to create a likeness lies in the accurate depiction of shadows cast across form. So what should you look out for when painting light and shadow? This video explores shadows' tendency to have both hard and soft edges.

Note:  It's not clearly mentioned in the video, but this technique is only relevant in the case of strong directional lighting.  If you were looking at an object on a cloudy day, this principle would not apply.

Finally, if you want to know more about this topic you will enjoy the premium series available in the store: Basic Photoshop Rendering.

Brush Technique: Blending

In this Photoshop digital painting tutorial, we'll explore edge blending. The division between two areas of color is a crucial challenge for painters. Learni...

Mechanically, painting is very simple: add paint to the canvas, and blend it with the paint that you've already applied. That said, blending technique is a subtle art and can be a lifetime pursuit. This video shows some basic blending techniques for photoshop. And if the brushes aren't working the way you want them to, watch this video on brush controls.

Choosing Hardware

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What type of computer should you use? Is it ok to draw with a mouse? What about the iPad? I answer these questions and more in this video. It's worth noting that these are my personal views based off of personal experience, and we'd all love to hear additional viewpoints in the comments!

Edges & Bevels

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What happens where two faces of a cube meet? I'll give you a hint: it's not a a razor sharp divide between the two surfaces. This video zooms in on edges and bevels and explains their importance in painting. Additionally, industrial design lives and dies by tiny details like the radius of a bevel or corner - so this is valuable information for aspiring designers of all stripes.

Draw 100

There's a difference between 'spending time' drawing, and being intentional about your studies. Whenever I find a particularly tricky subject to draw, I like...

Is there something you normally avoid drawing? Hands, faces, cars? Here's my challenge to you: draw 100 of them. There's no better way to improve at something than to dedicate yourself to it. It's natural to avoid drawing the things that you're weak at, but you should fight this urge. Are you up to the challenge?

Basic Perspective

Many beginner artists are reluctant to learn perspective drawing. It is often thought of as 'technical' and 'scary', but it doesn't need to be either of thos...

Many beginner artists are reluctant to learn perspective drawing. It is often thought of as 'technical' and 'scary', but it doesn't need to be either of those things. If you want to be a concept artist or illustrator, you need to learn perspective. In this video I'll show a very basic exercise that you can practice for beginning to understand perspective. This is an observational drawing assignment, and should be done with paper and pencil. Have fun!

Glossiness Pt. 3: Imagined Objects

The previous two videos explained how to observe and paint glossiness from reference. What happens when you are painting a glossy surface from your imaginati...

The previous two videos explained how to observe and paint glossiness from reference. What happens when you are painting a glossy surface from your imagination? In these cases you'll need to have a strong mental texture library, and apply what you've learned in your studies to the imagined forms. This video explains how to approach this task by using appropriate reference materials and doing a bit of mental extrapolation.

Studying Glossiness

One of the tricks to making your digital paintings more realistic is a solid understanding of glossy highlights. In this Photoshop tutorial we'll look at stu...

Improving your painting is often a matter of depicting surfaces realistically. One component of a surface is the glossy highlight, or, "specularity" and it is explained in this video. If you're interested in learning more about surfaces and improving your rendering techniques, you will enjoy two of the series available in the store: Basic Photoshop Rendering and Creating Realistic Surfaces.

How to Draw (Anything) in 3 Steps

Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.

Visit any large book store and the 'art technique' shelf will be filled with titles like "How to Draw ___ (dragons, zombies, vampires, cars, etc.)" -- this is deception. Instead of useful instruction, this is merely a scheme to sell books. Want to learn the real secret of how to draw anything? Observe, and practice. This video shows a versatile approach to learning any kind of new subject-matter. As you progress in your art career you'll find that drawing isn't a set of individual recipes, it's a single way of working. When I set out to draw a dragon I use the same techniques that I would use to draw a fire hydrant. Hopefully this video will empower you to tackle the subject matter your're having trouble with - and to ignore the "1,2,dragon" shelf at the book store.

Ergonomics and Hardware

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Why are console video games played with a controller or a touch screen, and not a keyboard? Because those are the best-suited input devices for the way most users interact with their device. Guess what? Being a digital painter means you're no longer included in "most users". Now you've got a different set of needs, and will most likely be spending longer at your computer than the average user. With this in mind, a standard keyboard might not be the best input device for you. Just like using a stylus instead of a mouse, you might want to consider alternative keyboards or controllers for your other hand.

When it comes to ergonomics, re-mapping your keyboard shortcuts is a great start - but it doesn't need to be the end. Over the years I've radically changed my input scheme and the results have been very clear: expensive, but worth every penny.

Custom Keyboard Shortcuts

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Like the buttons and dials in your car, keyboard shortcuts are the "user interface" with which you control Photoshop. Have you customized these commands yet? The whole point of keyboard shortcuts is to save you time and avoid wasting energy. With this in mind, it's worth considering your personal needs when working with keyboard shortcuts. In general, shortcut keys are designed for easy recall: ctrl+s = save, etc. In this video I suggest that a better scheme for assigning keys is based on the position of your left hand. Re-mapping the keyboard shortcuts with this new prioritization will reduce your hand strain and speed up your painting technique.