Prochnow Portrait in Painter

[Torplexed]

Originally Posted by Graf Paper

Got any tips for an old-school artist on how to get the hang of digital art apps like Painter? Maybe you could post a few lessons for us aspiring CG Rembrandts (or at least point out some of the materials and online info you used to learn).

I'm kinda old-school myself. I got my first copy of Photoshop about seven years ago and was really intimidated by that thick gray manual. Getting the tablet made things easier since I could go back to working with something that felt like a pencil again. Got Painter about three years ago. A good book to purchase would be the Photoshop Wow! or Painter Wow! books. They're far better than the manuals for either. To tell you the truth, I've never used a lot of what is in Photoshop like masks and channels, etc.

Here's the quick and dirty way I learned to paint and color in Photoshop and Painter. Mostly by using layers. Let's say I want a new U-Boat emblem featuring Helga ze lovely beer frau serving up beer and tonnage . No objections? Gut! This is a lousy pencil sketch but it'll convey the idea.



First I start with the pencil sketch scanned in at 300 dpi. I usually start with Photoshop since it's the better program for cleaning things up. Once I've transferred it to Photoshop I use the Curves setting to deal with imperfections. With the white eyedropper tool in the Curves dialog, I select the grayest part of the paper and remove the grays, which makes the surface nice and white. The eyedropper removes all the shades between the selected gray and pure white. I then copy that image to a new layer in a new color (RGB) file. I then set that layer to multiply. That has the effect of making the white areas transparent and the black line work stays opaque. All the layers that will stacked under it can be seen.



Now I open the Photoshop file in Painter and I slip a new layer under the pencil layer for the water. ( I like Painter's airbrush tools better) I slap some blue color in using the airbrush tool. I slip in another layer over that for the sky. I just used a simple gradient fill for the sky. The nice thing about layers is they they keep your colors separated from each other. Unlike traditional painting you can work on one area without screwing up another.



Now I've got additional layers for the skin color, dress, etc. Still mostly slapping down colors with the airbrush tool.



At this point I've got most of my colors roughed in. Each on their own separate layer.



Now I add some drop-shadowed lettering with Photoshop in the spaces I left in the design for it. I've still got a lot of shading to do and it's still got a looong way to go before I can start easing out the black pencil work, but that's the basic starting idea. I'll try and finish it up tomorrow.