I thought I might describe my way of drawing pictures in a little more detail here. This is what the tutorial section is about after all, right?
I also made a picture showing the steps I go through in the past. You can find it in my gallery or directly by clicking here:
Before we start, it's important you know how to work with layers in a drawing program like photoshop. It's one of the basic and most important things to know:
http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/adobe-phot ... yers-work/
1st step - Decide on what to draw:
Sounds like a no-brainer, but it's better to go from a concrete idea of what to draw than just deciding to do "something" and startign right away. At least think of a few general things like what characters to draw, what position etc. If you have a more complex setting in mind, even better.
2nd step - Skeleton sketch:
I find this step very useful, though some people can do fine without it. What I do here is make a general sketch of the picture with characters represented by stick-men. Using circles for joints and lines for connecting them, you can get a general handle on proportions and the position of body parts. It helps to get a better understanding of what to draw where.
3rd step - Detailed Sketch:
Basically sketch out a more detailed version of how your final picture should look. Using the skeleton from step 2 as a basis you will find it a lot easier to get your character to look right and well proportioned. This is also the time to decide on more details like clothing, hairstyles, etc. if you haven't already. Sketch stuff out to your hearts content and don't worry about overdoing it here. This is not yet the clean lineart after all.
4th step - Paths:
Working with photoshop has made me a fan of using paths for clean and smooth lineart. Some people like to draw by hand or drawing pad better than this, but I personnally aren't that good with making clean lineart by hand. Thus Paths are my answer if you suffer the same problem. Some good tutorials on them can be found here:
http://www.elated.com/articles/photosho ... explained/
http://sashas.deviantart.com/art/The-Li ... l-32788129
Takes a bit of getting used to, but the result are worth it if you are unsatisfied with your hand-drawn lineart.
5th step - Clean Lineart:
If you used paths like I do, this step is easy. Using the path tool you can simply use the option "Fill path" and the lineart will be done with the currently selected pen and size. It's also easy to correct mistakes by erasing the lineart again, editing the path as bit and then redoing "Fill Path" again. Quick and easy.
If you draw per tablet and hand, I can't give any good tipps at this stage. If you can draw lineart well enough, simply do so with your method of choice.
6th step - Basic Coloring:
Next are the basic colors. Make a layer below your lineart layer and draw your colors on there. That way you won't accidentially draw over your lineart. If you want to use the "Fill" Tool you will probably be left with undesired white spaces between lineart and color. There are two ways to avoid that:
1. Draw free hand and don't use the "fill" tool. Erase color parts where you went beyond the lineart later on.
2. Use two lineart layers, one your real layer and one with smaller and thinner lineart. Using the "Fill" tool on this smaller lineart layer will only leave white space between the thin lineart and the color region. The thick lineart layer on top of it will conceal these bits and the drawing will look a lot better.
I usually use the second method ^^
7th step - Shading:
Copy the color layer and call it shading. Move this shading layer over the color layer. Now select the colored area you want to shade with the "Select of same color" tool, select a lighter or darker color and shade away. Alternatively you can use the "Burn" & "Dodge" tools in photoshop to lighten or darken an area.
I won't go into gret detail here since there are plenty of good tutorials on shading. There are other methods than what I mentioned as well, so you should just look around and try some until you find one you like.
8th step - Details:
Now its time to add some more details. Use black and white to detail eyes, use red with 15% occupacy to draw bluch and red bottoms, etc. Drawing with 15% on a spot serveral times gives you a good control on how the red should look and a nice color progression.
9th step - Final Touch:
To finish off your drawing set some highlights. Make a new layer on top of all other layers and draw white in sereral key spots. On hair, exposed skin, red bottoms... Look at your favourite artists and see where they set the shiny spots and do the same. Now use the "blur" tool to blur the outline af the white a bit. After that you can reduce the opacity of the layer as much as you want to dim the white, until the image is to your taste.
Hope that was somewhat helpful or interesting to you. If you have questions ask away, and I will try to answer as much as I can.
CM_Zero Drawing Process
