Pencil Lines in Photoshop (CS4)

This tutorial will show you how to draw pencil lines from a scan of your own pencil shading.

Step 1: Evenly shade in a dark rectangle with your usual pencil and paper (a square inch or so), then scan it at 100%. In Photoshop, use the Rectangular Marquee to make a selection within your shaded rectangle. See below.



Step 2: Edit (from the top Menu bar) > Define Pattern, and give it a name (in the example it's "My Pencil").

Step 3: Now choose the Pattern Stamp tool (it's nested with the Clone Stamp) from the Tool Panel. You'll notice that the Menu/Tool Options at the top of the window shows a thumbnail of the current Pattern. Click on the thumbnail and choose the Pattern that you just created.


Above: The Pattern Stamp (it's nested underneath the Clone Stamp) and the thumbnail for the Pattern Library

Now draw in your Photoshop image window, and you're drawing with a scan of your pencil line.

Step 4 (optional): You might try adding a little Scattering from your Brush Panel (F5). Scattering roughs up the edge of the stroke a little bit, which mimics drawing on a slightly textured surface.



Step 5 (optional): You could also set your Brush mode in Menu/Tool options to "Multiply" so that your line gets darker with each stroke (like an actual pencil). See below:



You can also check out the "Artist Surfaces" library (hit the drop-down menu in the Pattern Library; top right hand corner). I've found that some of the options in the "Artists Surfaces" library are just as good as my own scanned samples.

I.F. "Ahead"

"The elephant ran ahead ..."

Yep, I admit it: I just wanted to paint an elephant.
Done in ink and acrylic.

I.F. "Subterranean"

Yep, it's a blind mole private eye (with apologies to Humphrey Bogart) to illustrate "subterranean." Ink and acrylic in a moleskine (seriously) sketchbook.

I.F. "Muddy"

Bulldogs are just fun to draw! Pencil with digital color.

Another Train Illustration

Here's an illustration that I did for a kids' magazine. It was published last month. Done in gouache on hot-pressed watercolor paper. Love those trains!

I.F. "Unbalanced"

"Should I tell the teacher that the creature was peeking in the window again, or would she just think that I was unbalanced?"

I just finished this promotional piece. It's a new style: pencil drawing, color blocked in with Photoshop, and finished up in Corel Painter.

I.F. "Blur"

This seemed like a good excuse to make a space ship going so fast that the background is just a blur. Pencil, digital.