A look at my work process, since, uh...you were amused by the margin notes?
![[Image: herotrio-wip1.jpg]](http://i54.photobucket.com/albums/g100/acyl84/Art/herotrio-wip1.jpg)
I sketch with pencil/paper, but I do my inking and colouring in Photoshop. Getting good clean lineart is probably the most important step in the process.
I've tried scanning black line drawings, but that doesn't work as well...I'm not a very good inker with regular pens. I have experimented with vector tracing, but that's too fiddly for me to bother with...and I don't really have the right software for it.
As you can see, at this point I've only done flat colours, no three-dimensional shading or highlights. Shading is done on a multiply layer, and highlights on a screen layer. I typically use a fourth layer for extreme hilights (like gloss on hair, or little reflective shiny bits at the edge of things). If it's a single character portrait, I may take the time to set up shading/highlight layers for each colour - ie. green shades, red shades, blue shades, etc. But for more complex pictures that's kinda impractical, so I make do with fewer layers.
![[Image: herotrioprocess.jpg]](http://i54.photobucket.com/albums/g100/acyl84/Art/herotrioprocess.jpg)
I do art stuff on a laptop. It's a small screen, but I can tilt and angle it as I need to, and it's easier to squeeze my tablet alongside. More portable, too - I've done colouring work while watching TV or at the dining table, f'instance.
Of course, I'd probably have more desk space if I got that old monster of a CRT monitor off my tabletop.
-- Acyl
I sketch with pencil/paper, but I do my inking and colouring in Photoshop. Getting good clean lineart is probably the most important step in the process.
I've tried scanning black line drawings, but that doesn't work as well...I'm not a very good inker with regular pens. I have experimented with vector tracing, but that's too fiddly for me to bother with...and I don't really have the right software for it.
As you can see, at this point I've only done flat colours, no three-dimensional shading or highlights. Shading is done on a multiply layer, and highlights on a screen layer. I typically use a fourth layer for extreme hilights (like gloss on hair, or little reflective shiny bits at the edge of things). If it's a single character portrait, I may take the time to set up shading/highlight layers for each colour - ie. green shades, red shades, blue shades, etc. But for more complex pictures that's kinda impractical, so I make do with fewer layers.
I do art stuff on a laptop. It's a small screen, but I can tilt and angle it as I need to, and it's easier to squeeze my tablet alongside. More portable, too - I've done colouring work while watching TV or at the dining table, f'instance.
Of course, I'd probably have more desk space if I got that old monster of a CRT monitor off my tabletop.
-- Acyl