Digital Painting: Catch of the Day
This tutorial is partly a development of my knowledge with Painter IX program, hence this is still amatuer level. Hopefully, you can get some pointers here. Anyway read on to see how this piece is done using Painter IX with Wacom tablet.
I scanned this drawing in Photoshop in original blue pencil sketch then I clean it up to prepare for painting. Still under Photoshop, I double clicked the background layer to convert it to a new editable layer and set the mode to multiply. I then added a new layer and bring it down below the sketch layer. I do this to preserve the sketch and paint on the next layer below it. I press ctrl + shift + U to desaturate the sketch and giving me black and white drawing.
Below image are then imported to Painter. Things to remember before doing any thing (refer to red numbers on the sketch)
- 1. Always check the layer, must paint on the layer below the top layer where the sketch is to preserve it.
- 2. Pick brush style to use for painting, it can vary whenever you please, for this painting I used Oil - Bristle Oil 30.
- 3. Specify the features you may need, in this painting my brush size, opacity and feature always varies depending on the effects I want to achieve.
- 4. I constantly check my outline just to guide me along the way while I paint the drawing and hide it while working.
- 5. For this piece I picked some earth tone colors for my palette.
I start by filling the sketch with colors I want to use. I don't bother even if I stray out of the drawings; this is not fill in the coloring book after all. (refer to red numbers on the sketch below).
- 1. Preserved layer where my sketch is in Multiply mode so I can still view the painting on the next layer below. Typically I locked this layer so I don't accidentally paint on it.
- 2. This layer is where I really paint.
- 3. Bottom layer -- where I fill it temporarily with dirty white and later on I will paint over this with background.
- 4. My color palette is always on so I can pick colors quickly.
After filling it with solid colors I decided to place imaginary light on the upper right (see the red sun sketch below). Knowing where the light is I then painted some highlights on places where I assume light will hit and shadows where I assume it will lie.
Knowing the direction of my painting, here is where the real fun begins. As I previously mention the specification of the brushes is always important, it will give nice desired effects. In this painting I used normal brush size or you can press open bracket ([] to decrease brush size and close bracket ()) to increase the size (refer to number 3 on the sketch) to change the brush size. I always vary the opacity depending on what kind of surface or materials I wanted to achieve, here I normally use from 10% - 20 % opacity (refer to number 2 on the sketch). You can hit any number too and it will change the opacity by decimals. For this painting I wanted a hairy bear-like animal so I increased the feature to 2.7 or higher (refer to number 1 on the sketch). What it does is it gives you a dry or hard bristle brush, the lower the value the softer and finer the brush is.
In every drawing or painting I do I always start with the eyes. If I get the right feel it will set me in the right mood to continue, here is no exeption.
