Overview

In this tutorial I will explain how I take inked drawings and color them in Adobe Photoshop. Once again, there are many ways to color a line drawing in Photoshop. There are many tutorials on the web and in books that will show you how. I'm going to show you the method I know and use often. Notice I said "often", I have different methods for different situations. This is the general one.

Below is a quick view on how I brainstorm an idea on scrap paper, take that idea and convert it into a piece of art on the computer. Yes, I do use a blue lead pencil (drafting pencil) when I sketch when I sketch.

Brain Storm - Sketch - Ink - Scanned

Lets get busy shall we....

Art Supplies I Use...
* Scrap paper
* Regular blank computer paper
* Alvin "Scott" B/2 drafting pencil with 2mm blue lead
* Lumograph Pencils, Staedtler Mars pencil set
* Staedtler Compact Rotary Lead Pointer
* Staedtler Pigment Liner for Drawing and Writing

1. Most of the time I like to do a quick sketch on scrap paper. These sketches does not have to be perfect. Hell, a lot of my sketches on scrap paper doesn't even make sense. What is the purpose of sketching on scrap paper? Well, to get some ideas down on paper. There were so many ways I could have drawn this image, I wanted the best one.



2. After I do couple of quick sketches and I'm happy with one of them, I move to the real drawing. I take out a clean sheet of paper (regular blank computer paper) and lightly sketch out the drawing with a blue pencil. I go again with the same blue pencil and make the drawing darker. After I'm happy with that, I use a black pen, with a thin point, and start tracing it. I also color in any black areas in the drawing. The end result is the image above.




3. Here is where the blue pencil comes in handy. If you were to draw with a regular pencil and ink it on top, you would have to erase all the pencil mark and make sure it's very clean before scanning. Well, I don't do that! When I scan the image, I tell the computer to scan the image in black and white. The scanner ignores the blue and gives me a pure black and white image of my drawings. Scan the drawing in 300dpi!