Saturday, June 30, 2007

Jungle Boy: Part 2









Next I need to decide where the light will be coming from and what my basic pallete will be. On seperate layers, I start defining the areas for the dark, mid and light tones using a hard round brush (images 1 - 3). No mystery here, just use common sense or some reference photos to guide you.

The lighting does not have to be 100% accurate. The "cartoon" style of this drawing is very forgiving and you can get away with a lot more than you would be able to normally. Our eyes are easily fooled...

Adding another light source also help to make the forms seem more "rounded".

The reason the tones are done on different layers is so that I can easily adjust the colours for each. Just "Lock Transparent Pixels" on each layer in Photoshop, choose a colour and use "Alt+Backspace" to fill the layer until colour tones emerge that work together.

I also play around with the "Opacity" slider on each layer to harmonize the tones (image 4). On the last image you can see I have added some highlights and tested some pinks and greens which I may later use to add reflective light and shadows (image 5).

After this all the layers for the character gets merged to a single layer. So now I am left with only three layers - the background, the jungle dude and the line art on top of him.

This process may seem elaborate, but it helps me to solve problems early which later makes it easier to work on the final large scale version.

NEXT INSTALLMENT: Blending the character and adding detail to the background.

4 comments:

Gemini Art said...

Wow, Rudy! I love your work. I first found you on Deviant Art. Thanks for posting this tutorial. I've experimented with these techniques in Photoshop Elements but don't get the same results because "Elements" doesn't have all the features as the full Photoshop. But, you're sure an inspiration.

DrawFellas said...

(Blushes) Thank you so much! Don't worry about the limitations of the software, view them as opportunities for inventing new approaches. I have seen some amazing things done without fancy software. I suspect the trick is to keep trying and learning.

DrawFellas said...

Forgot to mention that I don't really see it as a tutorial, I am still learning about this stuff myself... rather just documentating the evolution of an illustration. Guess it is a bit of both... I love sharing and if someone else finds value here it makes me a very happy man!

Unknown said...

Hellooooo buddy! What a nice surpre]ise I've got when I saw ur blog for the first time! Sucha cool draws!!! U've got a lot of talent, huh? Congratulations!
See ya!