Maeza Digital but Natural Colour Violeta Savannah and Lions Conor McAllister Nikola Werner
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boost your art with natural media brushes
digital
My foundation in arts was pretty classic; without
ate custom brushes and modify the bundled set.
computers or even internet; I grew my abilities us-
With that in mind, it is extremely useful to know
ing oils, pastels and acrylics, I began illustrating
what can be done in the brush panel modifying
using water colour, pencils, pens, etcetera... but one
behaviors by tweaking the options, a sort of
day, on my professional path I decided to move into
exploration and game. This can be a great way
digital, that saved a lot of time in process and money
of achieving that personal look for our own
on papers and art stuff. Only one thing bothered me:
work based on previous knowledge on tradi-
I didn't want to lose the “human touch” in my art,
tional media.
that “organic look” only the brushes and paper texture, and errors too, gives. That became my struggle during the initial stages, long ago.
On the other hand, so many creatives and artists have done the work for us. We can find, on the internet, stocks of custom brushes trying to
Photoshop may have been created for photo re-
emulate the classic look of painting. I think you
touching and editing but it has become a powerful
must first explore natural media by your self;
and versatile tool for illustrators since you can cre-
then look to simulate the look on the computer
This and next page:Early work in acrylics
in order to understand the technique. Starting from zero can be difficult, since some artist think that only what they need to make digital art would be to make or find the right brush!
Eearly work in acrylics
A long time ago; I found a wonderful set of
shop brushes don t work like real brushes, they
brushes and that was my start. David Nagel, ex-
only emulate the “look”. You can do a wide range
pert creative made a series of brushes for both
of strokes like charcoal, pastels, crayon; it was
Painter© and Photoshop@ users. It was great to
hard to get some water colour or wet media effects
use them on a bunch of projects in my early digi-
digitally.
tal stages, they gave me an opportunity to explore new results and understand the custom brush world in despite of the many default brushes Photoshop offers. Just one thing: no matter how customised, Photo-
Things are changing for better; Actually, we can buy or find sets of professional brushes that work great; I work actually with two nice experts: https://gumroad.com/kyletwebster and Nicolai on: http://grutbrushes.com Just remember: this is
Early digital work
not only about to “get” the correct brush, you
have a lot of useful textures, are all for free and
must to know how to use it!
updated!
So, here is a little process; this scene is about a
Sometimes I do this in a greyscale in order to try
kid and his lovely pet; part of a book about the
with colours later; I'm looking for texture and the
real love on which I'm working, actually.
correct “noise” without a colour palette on mind. Once you have the background done; try to put in a
For this, I've used Kyles Brush Megapack. The new layer some colour and play around with the full pack is literally packed full of nice brushes blend modes on the layers window of Photoshop, the that are worth a try. I recommend using a tablet set “colour” is a nice start, if you need to see options and a pen with pressure and inclination sensor, try with ctrl+u for Hue and Saturation Values. I use an Intuos Pro L. Before that, here is my way to do some textured areas that can be used for backgrounds or so: I have some textured inks sheets, or large ink brushes made for me or downloaded from the web; to add some “natural noise”, always in combination with others in order to create a new background every time and prevent a “mechanical” look along the book. Play the video to see my process
With this technique I am trying to get the same effect of my previous works with acrylics and Gesso. I frequently make my own textures, but I also look for them on the web, here is a great place to check out: http://inkandtexture.com they
First attempts using scanned images to improve my work
Ok, I'm trying here show you how to get the textured “organic� look in an illustration piece with this kind of resources more than a step by step of a process. Grut Brushes and Kyle Webster offer you premade brushes to buy; but if you don t want to spend money for now or want to know what I'm talking about before investing, you can see this websites with a bunch of free brushes. (Yes I use them too) http://pixelstains.net and
http://
digitalbrushes.tumblr.com Now, if you want to know about digital painting, here is one of my favourite place for starters: http://www.ctrlpaint.com Ok, with all of this on mind, I do a simple
background. The scene with the kid doesn't have a background scenery because the brief asked for it; the client wants to keep the readers attention on the characters interaction, so instead we do flat colour or gradient background, let s keep this more attractive: You can build stamp brushes from scanned stains files and play around
with
the
brush
presets.
http://
www.photoshopessentials.com/basics/ photoshop-brushes/make-brushes/ Use the blend modes to achieve effects and new
options:
http://photoblogstop.com/
photoshop/photoshop-blend-modes-explained In this scene, a kid is welcome for his loved
pet; (based on real events). Over the previous sketch, I ve worked with two great brushes from Kyle s pack: “wet charcoal” on the big areas of colour and “Wet pencil” for details. Both have a great water colour look! Watch the second video to see how I set the base colour for the characters.
For the final tone, I think will work fine a
a short sample and we are close to the end.
brown base, so I draw the silhouette. Keeping in Finally, details! In the last video I show how I mind that this is a “transparent” brush so, we give the picture that organic feel. Again, all is need take advantage of this during the next not about the brush you use; but about to comsteps. I define things along each stroke over the pose, colour, and drawing skills how you can do picture, by varying the pressure and inclination the difference... and happy accidents of course! of the pen. This gives a random concentration of “ink” and visual effect of color. Since the behaviour of this in particular is transparent; we can see the initial brown base colour. With the light source on mind, we can work on bright (try to Screen and overlay blend modes on the layers panel) and Shadows, this is
John Joven www.johnjoven.com Instagram: @jjovenart Twitter: @JohnJoven_ills
This page, top: Mandy Wiklund, bottom: Jetzyey. Next page, top: Catarina Oliveira, bottom: Leila Nabih
藤色
藤色 (ふじいろ,
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wisteria color)。 Color Violeta: Violet color.
藤色 ́
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My Tapir
Top: „Bahn Streik“ (Train strike) "98 % of all tapirs are against strikes on public transport because they can't show up on time for work at the zoo!" (fineliner and coloured pencil on paper) Left: “Tapir Shopping“ The tapir on his way home from a shopping spree. (pencil on paper) Right: „Toiletten Tapir“ My first tapir illustration: the toilet tapir
The Tapir and me Photo credit: Nina Chebbi
Right top: "Oh no! We missed the train to GondwanaLand!" (pencil on paper) Right bottom: Foto of „Easter colouring page“ available for free download Left: Coloured pencil on wood
Nikola Werner www.nikolawerner.de Instagram: @IAMNIKOLAWERNER Facebook: iamnikolawerner
Lions
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(1992)
)
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/ /
Varietykiller
Footlight MT Light Lora italic
Komika Axis
el&font gohtic!
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Published on issuu under Maeza