"Tiny Tug" Process

I did this illustration for an educational client earlier this year. There were ten illustrations in all.  

I started with an ink drawing on paper. I scanned in "Black & White" mode to clean it up. Many of the elements were going to be animated, so I couldn't render the reflections in the water.

The ink drawing. Click any illustration to embiggen.

I blocked in the sky on its own Layer. The line work is on a
Layer with the Blending Mode set to Multiply. 

For the water, I painted a big swatch with watercolors, scanned it,
and adjusted it for each of the ten illustrations in this book.
Please see the Layer set-up screen shot at the end of this post.

I added the clouds on their own Layer. I made a looping selection
with the Lasso for the basic shape.

I blocked in the cruise ship on its own Layer. I used a Brush with
bristles to accentuate the contour. Please scroll toward the end
of the post to see which custom Brushes I used.

Here I've painted in the rest of the boats. I block in the shapes at
100% opacity (usually with different browns), then Lock the
Transparent Pixels (see Layer Panel below). After that I render
with custom, textured Brushes.

The exhaust on its own Layer.

Here's the illustration with no line.

The client thought that I needed to pump up the colors, so I went through each Layer and made an adjustment: Image > Adjustment > Hue/Saturation; then increased the Saturation. After that I took my Brush, changed the Mode to Color (see screen shot near the bottom of this post), and painted brighter colors over some of the areas. Painting in Color Mode keeps the existing tonal values but just changes the color. You could also create a Layer, set the Blending Mode to Color, and paint on that. Because the client wanted specific elements grouped by Layer, it was easier to make adjustments to individual Layers.

Here's the final with pumped up color.

                                     

Detail. Click to enlarge.

An animated version.

The Layer Panel. Click to enlarge.

Here's where you change the Mode for the Brush.

These are the main custom Brushes that I used. They are included in the
Wet and Dry Media Brush sets. Please see the sidebar for ordering info.

Beach Watercolors

Here are some watercolors that I did in a Moleskine book during a recent beach trip to SC.

Our beach house. Click any of these to enlarge.

Paddleboarder.

Dog in the shade.

Blog Tour - "Froggie" Process

My crit group buddy Marcus Cutler has passed me the illustrator blog tour baton, so here goes:

What am I currently working on?

Right now I am concentrating a picture book proposal that is inspired by fairy tales, but it's a different spin.

How does my work differ from others of its genre?

I tend to get hired for stories that require expressive animal characters.

Why do I write what I write? (or draw what I draw?)

Hey, those stories (and pictures) aren't going to create themselves!

How does my individual writing/illustrating process work?

I'm going to detail the process for a style sample that I recently did for an educational app developer. 

I start with a blue pencil and do a loose drawing of basic shapes. I go over the blue pencil with graphite. Then I scan it in color and knock out the blue underdrawing using Hue/Saturation (cmd-U) as shown below, using the drop-down to target Cyans and Blues. I slide the Lightness all the way over to the right (+100) for each. 

Hue and Saturation (cmd-U)

I set the Layer Blending Mode for the drawings to Multiply. On a Layer underneath the drawing, I paint in the entire background. I usually block in everything with a standard Spatter Brush, then paint in detail and highlights with a custom textured Brush. I block in the frog at 100% Opacity on its own Layer (under the drawing). I carefully go over the shape, using the drawing as a guide. I usually use a brown midtown color. Next I click the "Lock Transparent Pixels" (see below) button on the Layer Panel and paint in the frog. I like to do this so that I don't have to make selections during the painting process. This will give me sharp edges, so I need to make sure to soften some edges later on. 

Here's a snapshot of the Layers:

Layer Panel. You can see that I added a Color Fill Layer to
warm-up the frog color. the Layer Blending Mode is set to
Soft Light (shown above), and I set the Layer Opacity to 45%
(also shown above). Click to enlarge.

I paint in the details and highlights with custom, textured Brushes. I often add a "Multiply" Layer to deepen the shadows (paint cool grays on a Layer set to the Multiply Blending Mode).

In this case I added an "Atmosphere" Layer to push back the background and give a foggy feel to the scene. I add a Color Fill Layer, choose a pale blue-green, then lower the Opacity. Because the frog is on his own Layer, I just have to place the "Atmosphere" Layer below the froggie Layer. 

I always add a "Top" Layer to paint over some of the drawing, redraw certain areas, and add highlights. 

I used a "Color Fill" Layer filled with a warm green-yellow to brighten up the frog. I tried different Layer Blending Modes but decided on "Soft Light."

Here's the final:

The final piece. Click to embiggen.

Animated process:

Here's a detail:

Detail. Click to enlarge.

I mostly use Brushes from my two collections: Wet and Dry Media. These are the ones that I used the most in this illustration:

These are from my Brush collections. Info is on the right sidebar.

Who are you are passing the interview to?

Next up is another buddy from our SCBWI crit group, Helena Juhasz. Please click here for her post. She writes: "I am a children's book author-illustrator with a soft-spot for young children's graphic novels and picture books. I am also the Illustrator Co-ordinator for SCBWI Canada West. I love writing stories and following the characters into their worlds, through layers of paper, pencil and paint."

Return to Sender

I was recently asked by my high school to write an essay for their "Four Columns" publication. I chose to focus on an unfortunate incident that occurred during my college application process.

I remember sitting in Spanish class the fall of my senior year at EHS. My mind started to drift away from irregular Spanish verbs as I daydreamed about being in art school the following year. I had recently sent in my application portfolio to the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD). The school required twenty slides of my work, plus three original pencil drawings: shoes, a bicycle, and a subject of my own choosing. The drawings had to be done in pencil on a 16 by 20 inch sheet of paper, and then folded twice. RISD provided the envelope that all the materials had to fit in. I spent a lot of time on those drawings, trying to get the details and shading just right. It was going to be so much fun to draw and paint all day in art school …

The class bell rang me back to reality. I gathered my books and went downstairs to check my mailbox. Waiting for me was a postcard. The return address indicated that it was from UPS. I flipped over the card and saw a long checklist. The top entry read “Your package was slightly damaged in transit but was delivered to the addressee.” I scanned down the list, which got progressively more tragic. It ended with “Your package was completely destroyed in the shipping process.” That last one had a check next to it, and the address for the RISD admissions office was written at the bottom of the card. It hit me: All those slides were destroyed, but worse, so were the original drawings. The application deadline had passed. I was devastated.

I showed the postcard to my art teacher, Mr. Lisanick (Mr. L), who calmed me down and said that he would call UPS to get more information. He talked to a UPS representative and was told that the envelope had gotten snagged and shredded by their conveyor belt. All that was left was a scrap of paper that had the addresses written on them, so at least UPS was able to let me know what happened. Mr. L then called RISD and got a two-week extension for my application. I was too upset the first day to get started on the drawings, but the next day I went to Mr. L’s class and got to work rendering that pair of old shoes. Mr. L gave me a lot of encouragement and helped me through that dark time.

My drawings were better the second time around, and I was accepted to RISD. Later, when I went to RISD for a tour, the admissions person read my name and said, “Aren’t you the one who had your admissions portfolio destroyed by UPS?” Everyone in the room gasped and looked at me. At least the episode made my application stick out from all the others.

I majored in illustration at RISD, and the experience was everything that I hoped it would be. I started doing freelance illustration for magazines and newspapers right out of school, but I also had plenty of art-related jobs along the way: designing t-shirts for a screen printer, doing educational illustration at a major publishing house, working for a graphic design firm in New York City, teaching college-level art in Chicago.

Ten years after graduating from RISD, I earned my master’s degree in illustration from the School of Visual Arts (SVA) in Manhattan. I used the time at grad school to refocus my portfolio on narrative work. When I graduated from SVA I had a portfolio of work geared toward children’s books, and I started to get work right away illustrating for educational publishers. I have illustrated close to twenty books—mostly educational readers—but also chapter books and an interactive storybook app that I also wrote.

I recently illustrated the picture book Dozer’s Run for Sleeping Bear Press. The story, written by Debbie Levy, is a true tale about Dozer, a dog who slips out of his yard, spontaneously joins a half marathon, and ends up running about the last eight miles. The annual race is a fund-raiser for the Greenebaum Cancer Center (part of the University of Maryland), and, when the press reported the story about Dozer’s joining the race, people from all over the world donated money on his behalf. Dozer ended up raising more money than any of the humans. I’ve become known for illustrating animal stories, and this was a fun one to work on.

In grad school we had a required writing class. After a few weeks of writing assignments, the teacher held meetings with individual students. At my meeting, the teacher said, “You write really well. Where did you go to college?”

“I went to RISD, but I placed out of English, so I didn’t do much writing in college. But my high school had a great English department, and that’s where I learned to write,” I replied. And that’s the direction that I’m going in next. I have written a couple of chapter books and picture books. I plan to hone those manuscripts and contact literary agents soon, and I’ll be sure to let the EHS community know what happens.

Organizing Photoshop Brushes

Organizing your Photoshop Brushes is an important part of being an efficient digital artist. You can start by deleting or renaming Brushes. First, choose a Brush as your active tool (hit the "B" key), then go to the Menu > Brush Presets > right-click or button-click (with a stylus and pressure-sensitive tablet) and you'll get the options to either "Rename" or "Delete Brush." See A below.

A. Brush Preset Panel. Right-click for the options shown above.

But what you really need to know about is the Brush Preset Manager. To find that, make sure a Brush is your active tool, then follow the path in B below (which is: Menu > Brush Presets > "gear" icon for drop-down Menu (top right corner) > Preset Manager.

You can also load default Photoshop Brush collections that are not part of the default start-up set, and there are some good Brushes. To load those, scroll past "Preset Manager" (below) to get to "Assorted," "Basic," Calligraphic," "Dry Media," ... etc.
Please click here for my blog post about these collections.

B. Here's how to get to the Brush Preset Manager.

The Brush Preset Manager (C below) is where you can arrange your Brush Presets, create your own collections, and load Brush collections.

At first, I just selected the ones that I used the most and dragged them to the front of the list, right under "Hard Round." To do that, click the Brush that you want (shift-click additional Brushes if they are next to each other, or cmd-click/PC:ctrl-click if they are not); and drag-and-drop where you want the Brush to end up. Before you release the mouse, make sure the line appears where you want to Brush to end up. Please see C below.

C. To move a Brush, click on it, then drag-and-drop to the place where
you want to put it. Moving your favorite Brushes to the beginning
of the Presets is a good start to organizing your Brushes.

And just like in the first step above (image A above), you can right-click to Rename or Delete. You can also select certain Brushes by selecting them (shift-click if they're all together, cmd-click if they are spaced apart), then saving them as a set (circled below in D).

When you save a set, it goes into the appropriate folder, which is:
Mac:
(Your computer name)/Macintosh HD/Users/(your user name)/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Adobe Photoshop CS_/Presets/Brushes
PC:
C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop CS5\Presets\Brushes

And notice the "Load" button just above "Save Set"--that's where you go to access the different sets. Photoshop by default will go to the correct folder, but it's always good to know where that is.

I always like to save the entire set (after loading some of the Photoshop defaults, like "Dry Media," creating and saving my own, downloading some from the internet) before I start deleting ones that I don't use. That way, I can easily restore the set if I need to. To do that, click on a Brush in the Preset Manager, then cmd-A/PC:ctrl-A, then "Save Set." I usually name it something like "My Big Set."

D. Brush Preset Manager

So, now that you've renamed your Brushes, arranged them in a logical order, and organized them into sets, go paint some pictures!

Click here for my post about making your own custom Brushes.

Quick Levels Adjustment for Scanned Sketches

I like to do a quick Levels adjustment to my sketches right after scanning them. The process is even quicker if I set up an Action to perform on multiple scans, but that's for another blog post.

1. To get started, open the scanned sketch in Photoshop. Then go to Window > Info to view the Info panel (A in the image below). 
2. Now, open Levels (cmd-L, or Image > Adjustments > Levels).
3. I usually just slide the Black Point (labeled B in the image) toward the middle to make the scanned pencil line darker. (If there is something in the image that you want to be solid black, then you can click the Black Point Eyedropper on it.)
4. For the White Point (C), I like to scroll around inside the image to get Info readings for the paper white. My scanner tends to scan white paper at 5 to 6% gray, which I reset to 0 by clicking the White Point Eyedropper on a representative area inside the scan (like the top-right corner of the illustration below). Click OK. Using the White Point Eyedropper is the same as just sliding the White Point Slider toward the middle, but it gives you more control.
5. You can use a Levels Adjustment Layer if you want to be non-destructive: On the Layers panel, click on the black-and-white circle (at the bottom), scroll down to Levels.

A. (Info Panel) Grayscale value of the point in the image that the cursor hovers over.
B. The Black Point, which I slide in toward the middle in the Histogram of Levels.
C. The White Point, which I set by clicking on the paper white inside the image.
Click to enlarge.

"Evil Robot" Animated

"Evil Robot" process animated.

Please click here to read the blog post about the process.