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.
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!
