So for this week’s post, I thought I would take some time to go through my process as I start on a piece, from rough pencils to final coloring. For this example, I am going to go through my work on a piece of concept art for a game or comic book character. So to start, onto the fun part-
1. Pencils and Cleanup: After I work out my composition and do my best with a good old eraser (a white, a kneaded, and those small pencil toppers for tiny areas-these work a lot better than you would think. Give em a try) to clean up the image. After this I take the image straight to the scanner. I tend to scan at a pretty high resolution at around 700dpi. I can scale this resolution down in Photoshop if I need to, but I like the ability to have a very high quality image at my disposal if I need it. That and I have the room on my computer for them. Once I have the image in the computer, I go into Photoshop and start on the clean up. In here I adjust the contrast to make my lines very clear and very dark. This also cuts down on how much left over unwanted residue is left on the actual drawing itself (smudges, wild lines, eraser marks etc.). Then from here I like to go in with the brush tool and clean up anything that needs it. Maybe an area where I had to erase something and it showed up in the scan, or if there are some lines that need tidying up. Besides that, this step is pretty much done.
2. Light Sources and Shading Study: From here I really like to print myself out a copy of the newly cleaned up lines, and hit them with some Prismacolor Markers. I do this to help myself really. I am able to work out the light source for the composition and I get to see things in pure value, to see if things are working and being dynamic and dimensional and if your eye is moving around the image or if it is getting stuck on one thing. It also helps when I finally go to color, because I have a piece that I can turn to for reference. The hard part really gets done in this step. I tend to scan these as well just so I have a copy if the paper version gets boiling hot mashed potatoes and gravy on it…..which….may or may not happen pretty often….
3. Color, Final Touches, and Composition: This step I break the image up into CMYK in Photoshop and start coloring. This is something I am relatively new at and trying to improve upon all the time. I actually learned how to color in Photoshop by checking out videos on Youtube (it really is a great and free way to learn this stuff, if you are on the cheap or have a quick question about anything). Like I said, I try to follow the light and dark areas I have established in my previous step, working from dark to light. I am really trying to have more contrast in my coloring (turning on the lights as it were) in between light and darks and is something I am getting more and more comfortable with as I do more of this type of work. After all of my colors are done, I do one last check, adjusting levels, hues, and saturation, on things if need be. That is what is so nice about doing this digitally, is that all of that stuff is so liquid, even at this late in the process that everything can be adjusted still, without much hassle. I then make the line work permanent and do any very small touch ups to anything that needs it. Maybe straightening a line or removing any last stragglers of black static that may still be there. For the very final phase of this process, I arrange the image compositionally to make it really pop and look finished. In this instance, I decided that I would compose this as though I were showing it for review by an art director and included a simple contrasting background. And that’s pretty much it. Rinse, and repeat.
P.S. If you are interested in knowing a little bit more about my coloring method, or just need a good place to start if you don’t know how. Here is the link to where I learned how to do this:
