Digital collage: understanding style and making one

1. Intro: goulash replace my like off drawing abilities. I started because I wanted to make what I thought, What artworks at that time, drawing and painting in the classical way of learning because I couldn't do it. I started cutting and pasting images from other people that already look good and it's kind of work. By that time, I only knew a couple of very basic photo shop tools, but there was enough to get things done. The cool thing about Kalash. You don't need many tools to get it done. Off course. You can go super technical, but to begin you don't need much. My name is Marcus Manal is I'm a graphic designer and illustrator, originally from Argentina and currently based in Germany. During the last 10 years, I've been working in many different projects for motion graphics, print editorial objects and scenes 2015. Having in small workshops throughout Europe, which is super fun for me. Although I like the expressive and run them side of Kalash, it's a graphic designer. I also need frames, structure and rules to work with, and to feel that what I've done is actually what I wanted to do. Another result of a random coincidence in this class will start from the empty Photoshopped campus to the finished illustration. Going through the brainstorming process contain special attention to deconstructing different styles. So you know what kind of images match together, Why and hell to find those ninth images very deep down, the Internet concept off this glass can be applying no matter what suffer you use. But I recommend that you have a photo shop as I will be using it to explain the process of making the Kalash step by step. You can later share your clash in the Project gallery and get feedback from me and other users off skill share. So, yeah, let's start with the class and get a good collection. 2. Sketching: thanks for enrolling. As I said before, I love the randomness of Kalash. But when you take collages illustration, you might find that you have to do something specific, and it can be completely up to the images you come across in might be a client's brief or just some practicing. I find it's super helpful to have something to aim to. Our first step will be to come up with 10 random elements. This a list that I made, that it will help us come up with ideas for our sketches. We have cat basketball, coffee table. Try to find elements that you can not relate to each other. We T characters. Saturn Transistor wouldn't will hard drive, as you see there, very run them once you have your list divided into two columns, and now let's connect them. They used to find something interesting in that connection. For example, these are some really basic sketches that I did for these words. The sketches for me are only to remember the idea and maybe a little bit off the composition. They help me come up with many ideas very fast. Don't hold yourself just whatever comes to your mind make a small drawing and move onto the next one. Once we have one that we like, we'll keep it on the side and move on to understanding some concepts to be able to generate this style off our Kalash. 3. Types of images: I tend to make this separation between images. It might seem very basic, but it helps you a lot, especially when you're looking for them. The more images we having one group, the easier it will be to make it look balanced and that they all belong together. The first rope, It's photos. This includes anything that has been taken with a camera. No matter if it's vintage old or very hi fi in studio mate, we group them as photos. The second group is illustrations and paintings. These are the ones made by an artist who copied reality with a certain technique. It can be vintage scientific from a kids book or a middle age painting. There are many kinds of illustration or painting styles, but let's group them all together. The third group is three. The images these air computer generated, and they have a certain look and feel. They're sharp, and although they can get very close to a photo, they still have some unreal field. You might see it in textures and Grady INTs Good and the fourth kind are victor images. These are also computer made images, usually two D, and you will easily recognize them because they're quite different from the others. You're probably used to seeing them in loggers web or more by applications. Textures are also very important. Sometimes you find a really nice texture like this one, and you want to use it in your kalash, and it might be that you don't know how to apply it because it just doesn't look right together with the images that you already have, it is a good exercise toe. Analyze elements in detail. For example, let's analyze this texture. It looks like metal. It looks machine made, and it has its crutches, as if someone has made it, made him while using it. If you would touch it, it will feel cold and heart. And now this paper texture, it feels handmade. It has natural by re ations of colors. If we would touch it, it would feel like watercolor paper feels natural. These images communicate different things and will fuse nicely with total different images . For example, if we're making a kalash like this, Avery metallic texture might be hard to mix with other elements, but here it will fit right away. Now that we have these two concepts clear, let's move on to our references 4. The frame: in this case have made three clashes in three different styles, but with the same concept. In order to make my point, you'll be so price of how simple it is to replicate a style like remembering that the metric lazing to developing a style for your own. I believe there. Once we have practiced enough, you will find yourself having a distinctive and personal illustration or kalash style, made by all the things that you like that you have been collecting through practice. So these are some questions you can ask yourself to understand. The difference is off styles and apply them on your own work. So how this the background look set a texture ingredient, photo or a plane color? What is the most used style of images? Other photos, Illustrations? Three the or vectors? How are the elements placed in the page? Is it a two dimensional space or those? It has depth. Are the elements floating on the page and how are colors our them saturate er or the saturated? Also, how are the textures do they feel have made machine made or a computer? Here we have three examples to analyze on the 1st 1 out this the background look. Yes, we can see it's a paper texture, and it has some scratches in so marks. We can see that it's looks old because it has some some changes in the texture, but it looks like a paper on the background, For example, here, the main thing with this background is that has ingredient these color changes from here until here and these escape we want to do something similar to this we're going to trust used that great in background and on the third example is just the plain color, so that makes it easier. Now. What is the most you style of images? As we can see on the 1st 1? They're all vintage book illustrations. They look like they there are like 50 years old. There are pieces of textures and different media's, but always illustrations except from this one that it was a photo of trip there that I have reused for this other Kalash. The rest. They're all very old degraded images. What about this one? This is a photo. This is a photo. This is a photo and business photo. As we can see, there's no old administration. There's No. Three, the There's no victor, their old photos on this one. We have a photo, we have a photo of the ball, and this is a photo off a dish together with other small drawings or small textures. As you can see, this is like fabric. But again, we don't see a been touch illustration. We don't see medieval painting. We don't see a three D. They're all photos and some drawings. Okay, so how are the elements placed on the page? Does they have death, or are they floating around this one? We can see that everything looks like it's a sticked on the same toothy plane, right? There's no depth here. All the elements are one on top of the other. On this one, we can see that the Grady int, together with this perspective, makes you think that there's more space behind hand. Also, a shadow can be an indicator that there's some three dimensional thing going on, and on this one, it's a little bit tricky, because this could be an infinite background. Um, we could be just a piece of white paper on pink paper. What use is a little clues? This shadow projecting under the hand. But at least we know that elements are floating around and there's a shadow coming from them now. How are the colors? In this case, the 1st 1 colors are a little bit saturated. The palate. It's around them Brown's reddish yellowish colors. So everything looks a little bit old in this one. This big blue Grady int changes, but all the known there also a little bit de saturated and faded. Um, there's some kind of retro thing going on, and in this one, colors are very soft and creamy. Somehow they're pink ege and the saturated blues. So the pallet we won't see a very deep dark. Um, we're probably going to see more medium tongue grace and medium tone images. No, how are the textures? This one's feel really old and handmade. This one feel a little bit more computer made everything. It's a little bit sharper and this one again, everything. It's a little bit creamy and soft. Okay, 5. References: I'll show you now how I work with references. The first thing I do is to create a big file. For example, 4000 for 2000 72. Archer V and I will drop here. My references So we'll go to my hands now. Now, copy, right click, copy, image, photo shop and common Be to baste it. I'll get to more based it on, okay, and these works really well for me because I can see them all. It's a group, and I can understand which patterns repeat and how they look similar to each other so we can ask ourselves the questions. How does the background looks? We can see that it's always playing color, right? These one has a little bit of texture, but still it's one main color. What is the most used style of images? For example, Here we can see that there's a photo and this is a photo to this leaves, but the rest it's kind of drawn right. This is very interest rated, and here we can see that the hair continues and ends up as an illustration and the same with the dress. For example, here we have a photo photo of the rock and a photo of the balloon. This also can be a photo. The rest. It's just a painting. You can see the cracks in the painting here. This is also painting, and let's see this one. So the smoke, it's a photo. The towers are photos, but the's D n a chain. It's an illustration. It used to be a three D, but it repainted it and gave it some texture, so it looks a little bit more have made. What I tend to do also is to add little details, so the photo disinterested like photo. But it has a little something extra. And how are the elements placed in the page? We can see that all of them, they're centered in the page and see if we make a line here. Here, they're always in the middle off the composition. This might sound basic, but that will be key for us to make it look like one of this ones, that it belongs to the same family. And how are the colors? You can see there's there's no really saturated color. Although this is red, it's not a very hard front. The same here with the blues and the skin tones in the same here. There's no really very saturated color. Um, so yes, here we have a couple of questions answered that are going to help us make our new coal ash . 6. Image search: I will show you now how I look for him. Interest and goal. That's a We're looking for a dog goto images and here we have tools. This is quite helpful because you have a couple more off other parameters to look for. Image is the most important. One is size. I tried to look for images that are bigger than two megapixels because in case I want to print what I'm doing, I'll need bigger images. So once you select that if you go over the images, you will see the resolution here. So now it's only showing, I mean just bigger than 1600 pixels and another interesting features that you have the usage rights. I would say that the safest will be labeled for reuse with modification. And yes, you need to have in mind that okay, there are many images of dogs, but when you're looking for something a little bit strange or more specific, you might find that your options narrow quite a bit when you start filtering. But still, it's very helpful to be able to filter with these two variables. I absolutely love flicker and I seriously recommend you to make yourself on account and to start following libraries, universities or groups off people that upload images that you know you like. So, for example, if we look for a dog here and you're following different people or universities or libraries, you will see that first you will see the results from people you follow. So if I go to beauty oh, you see that we start to have a little bit more interesting, kind off images that we didn't seeing go. That's because school, um, looks for images at any website, and here it's a little bit more curated. Even more if you start following people or groups, whatever. So the results tends to be way more interesting. So let's say I want this image I see here that on the bottom, right, we have a download this photo and you have different sizes. Always go for the original one, and the usage rights are here. No known copyright restrictions and one very interesting interesting thing is that you have all images from book. If you click here, not all of them have this option, but you will see that you have tons off images from that same book and The nice thing is that they will all have a similar look, so this could be really, really helpful. Another feature is if we're looking for a dog, you can feel terrible. The license is here so you could go to commercial use and modifications allowed, and you have all of this one's. You also have some advanced features, so you can look for small, medium or large images on also the orientation. Let's say I want this one interest go here and I have ah, image of more than 2000 big cells that could abuse nicely in a a three file. When it comes to for images, there are three websites that I really like, and you'll find the links in the resources tab. My favorite one is since plush. Here you will find a very nice decorated selection of images. They tend to have an instagram e look, shallow depth of field. The colors are quite the saturated in low contrast that still super nice. The 2nd 1 it speaks obey. Um, here you can find photos, vector graphics and illustrations and even videos. You might find that they have a little bit off commercial look as you can see here we have a mockup style image, but still they have a really nice resolution, and they can work really nice for collages. And the 3rd 1 it's pixels. This is sending between option, and you will find very high resolution images that you can download for free. I have already downloaded and placed some images inside of a PST file you can download from the resources tab and use them to follow along when I'm making the collection so we can make it together. 7. Making the collage part 1: so we have ours catch and we have the references and the images. If you don't have the references and images, you might find them on the resources stuff so you can download them and fall along. Or you can do it with your own images and references. First thing I'm going to do is to go to file on you and create the five going to go to a print presets and select a three. Make sure it's 300 in our Chevy colors. I did in a three because it's more than enough for the screen. But it's also nice print size. So I created, and the first thing that I will do east to get the main element on the page trying to select this hand. There are many ways to make this selection. I used the pencil because, um, it's the most precise to for this. But if that's too complicated for you, when I started making Kalash, I didn't know how to make how to use the mental. So what I did was to use the polygonal lasso tool that it's here and make us many points as possible. Until yes, you couldn't see the actress. But to be honest, using them, the bento take some time, some learning time. But once you use it, you don't change it for anything. Because many times when I use the magic wand or at a news it anymore. But when used them magnetic lasso tool, then you spend so much time trying to correct it. That loses all the fun for here. Just close it. Okay, So once I have my selection, I can either mask it or Aiken select it and copy Paste it. So I'm going to press common enter. And as you see now, we have the marching ends. So I'm going to so like my layer common see and common be the second element would be the bowl I'm going to drive. Hold it. Don't let go until it's on top of your campus. And now I let go. As you can see by default, I can see this points this frame around my image. This is not you don't have these and 40 shop in the beginning eso you need to click here, show transform controls. So now I can quickly transform this Move it around and they know which layer I'm selecting . No, it's easy because we only have two layers. But when you have 50 layers and their one on top of the other, sometimes we would try to select something and move it, and you won't really see what is that your touching? So this is super helpful. I'm going to turn the ball. So this line, it's gonna be more harmonic. Okay, so I have the other images. And when I was looking for images to make them set the Jupiter ring, I decided to go for something. There wasn't exactly the trip to ring on. I started looking for photos off dishes because I knew that it's something that could look quite similar. So in order to get this dish that it's circle the fastest way possible. What I do is I use the rulers that are here. If you don't have them by default, common are will show them and a drug a guide toe Wantage and want to the other. Ah, a little bit lower. And then I go to the elliptical marquee to and ago, where the points march and while holding shift, I will get a perfect circle. Now I move it with the arrows a little bit. Select the layer. Now I copy and paste it. And if I want to get rid off this yellow part, I'll do the same. Common are to show their rulers bring one here in the one share. And now I'm going to swim in closer press B and make this a little bit more exact. And again elliptical lasso to from the edges while holding shift with a little bit with the arrows and then it I can get rid off this one's by drawing them back to the roof. So I tend to friend to press common s all the time so my file gets saved, and now what we need to do is to try to make this look as if it's around this ball. So I click on the dish and I make sure I have showed transform control selected. But I'm going to do is to press common and drug from this edges. See what happens. So now I'm going to try to match the perspective off the ring with the bowl. Let's see, once I'm I'm sure I press enter. So now we have our hand, the bowl and the rain. But I need now is to pretend that this part off the ring, it's behind the ball. So I have two options here. I can go old cape on and used. They raise her too, and tried to do this. But as I'm not sure that this will be the final position going to press common set and it undo one more time and I am going to make mask. So with my ring selected, going to press the mask, Aiken, and see that now I have another little rectangle here so that it's all white. The logic on the mask works with black. We cover parts and with white with show parts. So I'm going to grab a brush any rife this one make it a little bit bigger. And as you see by default, I have black. So look what happens when I have this rectangle selected and I paint with black Perfect. So it starts to hide. Look what happens with white. Okay, it's a multiply. Sorry, my bad. And now it shows again. The good thing is that this is nondestructive. I will always have this pixels. I will always have these information. I'm just hiding it or showing it. So what I'm going to do to make my life easier, it's I need these shape, this perfect Turkel selected so I can hide inside that shape and I don't have to try to hit exactly the edge. So what I'm going to do is I will hold, commend and click on the ball on my layers panel. See what happens when I press command. Now I have this little square next to the little hand. So once I do that, I will get the marching ants, which is awesome, because I can go to the mask, click it, get my brush, put it on black. And now, when I paint it heights once, I'm sure oppressed Common D or select the select and we have the bowl inside the ring. Use a mass, take some time. If you don't use them already, that once you do, they are super helpful 8. Making the collage part 2: So now I'm going. Teoh, use a plain background as we see on the references. So I'm going to select the background and I'm going to pick a color, not from the front one. Bob's from the background color going to go? Yes, uh, just soft grave. It's very subtle, but still it's not white white. So next what I'm going to do is to change the color of this ball. I'll do that. I have many ways to do it. I can goto image adjustments and have hue, saturation color balance. I I can do many ways, but what I'm going to do is to make an adjustment layer. I'll go to this little life being young here. Ang, go to hue saturation. The first thing I'm going to do is to click here. So we tell this properties panel that all these properties are going to Onley affect the layer below. See, now have the looter arrow And now I can change this color as much as I want and will only effect a ball going to so like some greenish bluish color. Maybe a little bit more saturated. That's fine. Yeah, No, I have the hand here And what I like to do is I don't really like having this sharp edges. So I'm going to get my pencil, make sure its path selected get really, really close, and I'm going to make it a cure. You know, the click here. I'm going to make a random shape just to get rid of that, trying to adjust it. I come to the direct selection tour a more than a little bit breast p again to continue with a pencil, and I'm going I don't care now about this election. Probably breast pay again. Make it a little bit more gracious. Okay, so once I have it, I pressed common enter. And now I'm going to just let it so I don't care about Okay, Cool. So I'm going to add some elements to these part of the clash because it's too simple now. So I'm going to use again the command enter technique. I press common, and instead of enter owl press here on the layers, I have the marching ends. And now I'm going to make a new layer on top that I could do like going to layer new layer or simply clicking on this little icon, and what I really like doing is drawing a little bit our painting a little bit. So I already have some brushes selected so you can see Russia selected for style I organized in folders. And if you're paying for the Adivasis encryption, you can go here and go to get more brushes, and you will get a lot off mega amazing brushes for free. Well, not for free because you're paying your subscription. There's so many. So I took the time to download them all. See which ones that liked and put them on a folder. Because this is a little bit off what happens with funds. You can't have thousands, but you'll end up using always kind of the same. So there's this one that I really like, that it's just a noisy brush. Choose, have some noise. So what I'm going to do so I will pick a color by holding out or option on mark. I tend to use colors that are already on the images that I'm using, so I'm going to get this blue and making sure I'm on my your layer, going to start painting in coloring a little bit and I'm going to pick some pinkish color and again to paint. Good. Maybe it's a little bit too saturated. Bad. Well, so I'm makes a cup of colors. Once I'm done, I press common d to the select. As you can see here we have some overlapping. So I'm going to press common click on the bowl. And just now, Yes. I'm going to use the rubber and clean it a little bit. Good. So in our references, we have peace that are kind of like like this natural movement, off lines. I'm going to do something a little bit similar. At least try. I'm going to create a new layer on top, and I'm going to hit the B or the brush. Going to get any brush. I try it a little bit first. Good. And up here we have this moving parameter. What this will do is to well, smooth my brush a little bit. I don't want to go too crazy on it, but this will help me make some nice smooth lines. I'm going to do it again. Something like that one to put it in white, maybe concede. Better do it once again. Okay. Maybe that's better. And know what I like doing this. I'm making you layer and I'll place it backwards. This line flying Phil colors. Okay, so what? I'm going Teoh do. I'm going to get my pencil. That's it. You use it quite a bit and I'm going to make a small selection. Going around here doesn't need to be perfect because it's going to be very subtle And yes, go all around it well, into close this price Coming zero To see it from outside and here with my layers selected, I'm going to get back to my noisy brush with white and I'm going to start painting inside. So I'm generating this kind of transparency and I like quite a bit. I think it looks quite nice. And let's see how that looks and depress common as to save and common d to we select. I like it bad. I think I wanted to be a little bit bigger, so I'm going to press common and select both layers. Make it a little bit bigger. Looks better. Good. Now again Common. Click on the ball and go to the line. Feel and clean the parts that are inside. Paul I would like to have ah, shadow underneath the rings. So I'm going to my rank here and to create a new layer and put it underneath the ring and again going to get a brush, pick a dark color. You can also get a nice dark blue that's going to match everything a living nice for and I'm going to start painting underneath. It doesn't matter if I go out because now I'm going to do this again. I'm going to press, come on and click on the ball. And now, as I want to the did this part, I'm going to go to select in verse and now I'm going to delete. 9. Making the collage part 3: I will keep on adding some elements around here. What I'd like to do is to get textures from places that are not meant to who use for that. So, for example, I really like these sectors. Nice. So I can take a little bit of this. I copied it and paste it. And maybe this can be a small detail here, so I'll take one more element from somewhere. We're here. A copy closed. I'm going to return it around. This being here? No. What I tend to use is to go to edit puppet work. And I started making points. Yes. You can see that I can move. This points to whatever precision I want so I can make this look like it's on top. Oops. Hopes not hitting the correct point. Other ghosts, percenter. Let's make this morning good. And I will add some details. I have a watercolor brush here. Hobica Caller from here. Start take down the a pass ity on. Put it on normals. I can make details. A six. This is going around dispensing a tire. Tell your capacity. Oops. Common click. Some kind of top. This is a matter of playing a little bit what I will do now. So select and all my holdings to be give everything a little bit smaller, and I think that everything it's looking a little bit dark. So I'm going to select the bowl, press comment and click on the ball and make a new layer on top off the adjustment there. And I'm going to give some color to the ball. So I'm going to Salix some lighter colors, and I will start randomly painting. Maybe here on top. It's going to be a little bit lighter and on the bottom, a little bit darker. So now we have, Ah, nice Grady int on top of this, then makes it look a little bit less like a photograph and more like a like a drawing or an illustration, a tool that he used quite a bit. It's the are. So I wrote Take the campus, for example. Now what I want to do is do I will repaint this lines so it makes it easier for me to paint this way because of the way my hand moves someone to make a new layer its name. This lines okay, a brush on a light color. No stirred painting the inside part of the off this lines. This is too saturated. Something to select it. Take it down a little bit, and this one too. So I'm going to add a little something here, going to use the mental, come to the ball. So I the pencil get really close, going to separate this layer just to repaint something again. Common. Enter. I will make a new layer on top of these colors. And now again, my beloved No, he's a brush. Start painting. Go up. It's not exactly the same as here, but as you can see, there are many small layers repeating and with some transparency. I don't like how this etch looks, so I'm going to get my blur, too. Hillary out Married haven. Here's a little bit after your razor. I'm going to do some more details front making you know you're here and get some little stars floating around so us everything. It's greenish and bluish. I'm going to use something that some other color that it's not so so similar. So this is very subtle, but I think it adds a little bit. I'm going to make the brush a little bit bigger. I do that by holding control and out or option and click and drag to the left or right that makes your brush bigger or smaller. Okay, be honest. I don't like this little guy. Take it away and I'm going to make Do you remember here, all of the off our references have a small shadow. So how I do it, it's I make a shape. Make sure it has a color, and it's a shape and no path. So I'm going toe pick long color from my composition. How? Choose the blue and make one shape off the size off the last object kind of. So now I will rest. Arise this shape, right click, rest arise. And I'm going to go to filter Lure. Gosh, Ambler, that's your C No so blurted out. So when I give it okay, make it a little bit bigger. And now I'm going to duplicate this layer common J or right click duplicate layer, and I'm going to make this one a little bit smaller. Let's get closer. So see this one? It's a little bit smaller. Um, there it goes. I'm going to take their passivity a little down to see that the shadow on the outside. It's a little bit lighter and a little bit darker in the middle. Okay, so let's do it one more time calling change this time. Think I'm going to make this one all merchant them now and filter noise at night, so it just at it's very, very subtle. But I would just add a couple a little bit of nice. Everything looks a little bit more human with noise and not so computer made. This one's and okay, good. I'm going to save it and let's move to the next part. 10. 10 Final touches: I went ahead and changed a couple things. I changed this guy that I wasn't convinced off. I added this to little pieces of texture to make it look like it's going around. And I took the opacity down from the shadow because I thought it was a little bit too much . So I'm going to add the last touches. I also organized the layers because at some point they become a mess. So I'm going to grab any pencil style brush, and I'm going to make some wide lines here just to make it look like there's something moving race. These are just little details, and I'm going to add a new layer in between the hand and the background. So I separated a little bit more going to get the noise brush and the nice. Yeah, nice magenta color. Just a little bit. A little bit too much. I'm going to take capacity, hide it a little bit. Okay, Maybe one more of this ones, I'm going to use the close time to press all. Then click what I want to clone. And so the last thing I would do to this is to make an adjustment layer with the color Look up. As you see here, you will be able to choose a three D left file through the left. Files are used for color correction. You can now love them. That's a brush or as a pattern, or it's a swatch for photo shop. So you just type three. The lads don't load and you'll find many, many online. So I have some download it, Um, and this is what they do. They affect all the layers below because I didn't tell it to effect just the one below. So it will affect all of them. And as you see, they might be a little bit too much. But the trick is to use them softly. For example, I'm going to use this one that makes everything looks a little bit more creamy, you know, softer, and I'm going to take it down almost to 20%. It's very subtle, Bud it this make to change on the final look. So, yes, I think we're pretty much there. I'm going to say this one last thing that I would do is to go back to my references and check. How does it look together with the other ones. So I'm going Teoh, get the Mike Ito and press shift common see, So I cup emerged all the layers. Otherwise, how would you select one layer? I'm going to paste it together with my references. And as you see, let's think this one away. As you see, it kind of matches the style of the other ones. There is one element floating around. There's one plane background. There are things floating around the main elements, and it's, ah, mix off photography and illustration. I could have tried to start using other textures for the background, adding elements over here or over here. But I knew that what I wanted to accomplish had to stay on the same family as this one's. So as this is just for practice, this works just fine. Now I can move on and grab another style. I will be uploading to new classes where I showed to other styles, so if you want to check it in the next month, it will be probably up. So let's move. Do the last video 11. The end: So we go to the final part of the class. I hope you liked it. This process is really help me. When I started making Kalash and it really helped me to understand style and to try to come up with my own. So I hope you keep on making collection. You can post it here in the class projects and get feedback from me and from the other students so help to see in any future skill shirt class.