New illustration: “Sink”
Here’s a piece I was attempting to complete for last week’s , on the topic “sink”, but I didn’t get it finished in time. I’m hoping to make participating each week part of my regular routine, if time allows! I think I’ll make it my new year’s resolution!
Anyway, I like how this illustration turning out, and frogs are one of my favorite creatures to draw!
In the spotlight at Sunshine Smile Publications
I’ve recently been featured in the illustrator showcase at , a website dedicated to celebrating children’s books, and the love and hard work that their creators put into making stories come alive! There are many talented children’s illustrators and authors featured on the site, so it’s well worth a look.
Illustrations for December issue of ChickaDEE Magazine
I recently illustrated a few small spots in the “Super Sculptures” feature in the December issue of ChickaDEE Magazine. Here are a couple of them:
Super fun step-by-step instructions on how to make your very own snow sculpture!
Click image to enlarge.
Mini comic detailing the working process of the Canadian Snow Scupture Team!
Click image to enlarge.
“Dear Human” Poster
Zach recently commissioned me to illustrate a poster based on one of his brilliant SMBC strips (). I had a great time working on the facial expressions and getting creative with the different notes.
This poster is now available to for purchase at the . It’s a whopping 19×27″ and it looks really great at this large size – especially on your wall, that one, behind you.
Gigantic 19x27" poster
Creating a Snowflakes Strip – Part 4: Colouring
Home stretch post! In the other three parts, I’ve covered the process for creating a strip from sketch, to pencils, to inking and scanning. Now I will go over my process for colouring a strip.
When I colour a strip, I lay out all of the flat colours first, picking and adjusting the colour scheme as I go. This process usually takes anywhere from 1-3 hours, depending on the complexity of the strip. Once I have all the colours flatted, I then start applying the shadows, highlights, miscellaneous details, etc. I do all of my colouring on the Wacom Cintiq 12WX. Below is an animated progression of the colouring process. This will give you a little bit of an idea how the colouring comes together:
This image may take a moment to load (1MB in size).
When I colour a strip, I like to set up my layers palette like this:
This is how I organize my layers in Photoshop
I keep all of the background colours on one layer, and all of the foreground colours (mainly the characters) on another layer. I also give the background and characters their own layers for shading. Separating them this way allows me to make adjustments easily. If, for example, I wanted to adjust the levels of the shadows on the characters, I could do so easily without affecting the colours on the characters or the background. Or, if I wanted to add some broad shadows or fades to the background, this is easily accomplished without affecting any of the foreground elements.
Separating the “shadow” layers for the foreground and background allows me to easily select the layer I want to shade. So, If I want to apply shading to the characters, I simply (Ctrl-click) on the “CLR-characters” layer to select it, basically creating a mask around the characters, then I move up to the shadow layer above it, and start shading. I set the blending mode on my shadow layers to “multiply”, and usually select a darker shade of the colour I will be shading on top of. For example, if I’m applying shadows to Enzo’s face, I would pick a darker brown or reddish tone, or maybe even a cool blue colour – depending on the lighting I’m trying to achieve, then set my brush opacity to anywhere between 15-30% depending on how strong I want the shadows. And, if I find that I need to make the shadows darker after I’m done – this is easily adjusted since they are on their own layer.
For the highlights, I set them up on a separate layer, and usually set the blending mode to “overlay”. The general layers in the screen shot above are my starting point, but I usually find myself adding extra layers as I go, mainly for certain highlights or other elements that I may want to adjust separatly later. For example, I used extra layers in this strip for the clouds, the fire, and some of the background texture.
In my blog post on inking and scanning, I went over the steps I take to prepare the ink lines so I am able to paint on them directly. The following is my process for painting the lines when I need to change their colour, etc. for atmospheric effect:
1. First, I select my “lines” layer, then I click on the little button in the layers palette to lock the transparent pixels
Here, I lock the transparent pixels on the lines layer
2. Now that the transparent pixels are locked, I choose the colour I want to paint the lines
Selecting the colour to paint the lines
3. Now I simply paint over the lines. I am free to colour without worrying about painting anything except the lines, because everything on the lines layer is lock, except the lines!
Painting the lines!
This technique is great for creating depth in your backgrounds, or background characters.
That’s the end of my 4-part series on creating a strip. I hope you enjoy it, and if there is anything you have a question about that I haven’t covered, I’d be more than happy to answer in the comments below.
Dec
23