Fundamentals of Manga: Digital Illustration

1. Trailer: My name is Camilla d'Errico and I have been a comic book/slash manga artist for about 13 years now, and my specialty is doing Japanese style comics in North America. So, today I'm going to teach you how I do a poster image for my book Tanpopo, which is my graphic novel. I'm gonna go through how to sketch out the concept that you're gonna draw. So we're going to do the base drawing and then from there we're going to do the inking, we're going to scan it in and then we're gonna go into Photoshop. I'd love to actually see how other people draw my characters. You're going to learn how I do it and then you can do it and then you can elaborate draw in your own personal style. 2. Sketching a Concept: So, today I'm going to teach you how I do a poster image from my book Tanpopo, which is my creator owned graphic novel that's based on literature. I began it many years ago and just as like a passion, I call my passion project. Then, it got such a good following that I decided to extend it into a graphic novel series. So, the second graphic novel debuts in a couple of weeks, and I thought it would be great to do a poster for the book, for the release and to show you guys how I do that. So, that's what we're going to be learning today, from sketching, all the way to the ink drawing, to the final digital coloring. So, the very first part of the lesson that we're going to do, the very first thing you have to do, is come up with the idea and come up with the concept for your illustration. So, what I suggest you do is decide whether you're going to do portrait or landscape. Now, because this is a graphic novel, it's a portrait style. What you want to do, is just get printer paper, any kind of white paper. It could be even in your sketch book. This is the fun part where you just come up with a bunch of different ideas, and honestly I've come up with ideas in the most random places at coffee shops or just sitting watching Grey's Anatomy. I'm like oh my gosh this is the idea I would need. So, have something to draw at all times. This one what I suggest you do, is just get a piece of paper and then you draw some rectangles and they don't have to be perfect, this is just your sketching. Get all your ideas out now. I learned a lesson when I was taking illustration classes and it was, your first idea is probably going to be your worst idea. So, don't get to set on your first idea but sketch out as many ideas as you possibly can. My teacher suggested a hundred. I don't do a hundred but I will do about a dozen or so. So, I've already sketched out my ideas for Tanpopo but this is what you're going do. You're going to have your rectangles here and then come up with the concept for it. So, for the concept for this illustration is Kuro who is the Faustian devil. In this particular graphic novel, he dawns a goat mask, so that's going to be incorporated because it follows along with the story. In Tanpopo, is being tormented by the Mask of Red Death. Now, Kuro is her protector. So, I want to show that in the illustration, I want to show that Kuro he's there to keep her safe and to save her from the mask of her death. So, the focal point here is Kuro and Tanpopo. So, I want to show that tanpopo is very vulnerable in this particular instance because she's gone through a lot of basically torture by the Mask of Red Death. A very protective pose is the firemen carry or in the story is the princess carry. Like the hero comes, sweeps the girl off her feet. Very romantic and I happened to be a hopeless romantic. So, I'm going to have Kuro holding Tanpopo and what I use for my drawings is just a simple Bic pen but you could use a pencil if you want to erase and draw over. I use my Bic and so I just have the form here. As I said, Tanpopo is a graphic novel that is very free form. So, it's very different than normal comic. So, what I want to do is break the rules here and I want to just extend Kuro's body and he's just wearing this long black cloak. And want to break it up so that it's resembles blood, resembles a splatter. It's not a violent thing, it's just more of a dramatic effect. So, his cloak is going to turn into this. So, that's what I'm doing now. We want to show Kuro's face. So, there's his mask which is off to the side. I think when you're doing an illustration, you want to engage your audience and you also want to have them emote. One of my favorite sayings is express what they feel and feel what they express. So, that's what this is about. I want to show the characters expressions that's why I'm going to choose to have Tanpopo like actually looking scared and for Kuro to look a little evil grinning. So, that's like the focal point right there and you do remember that there's elements to the characters too that you want to repeat. So, if you're doing a manga and everybody here who's designed a character has elaborate things that they adorn their characters with. I'll be very cautious with when you do character designing that you don't go too elaborate. I've done work on Skype Hearts of Neuroptera and it was character designs for a game. The characters, for the game they needed a lot of tassels and a lot of extra elements to their costumes which will be incorporated in the gameplay. Then, the creator decided that he wanted to do a graphic novel based on these characters and that's when I was tormented for a good six months because the characters are so extravagant that to repeatedly draw the same outfit over and over again became very tedious and very difficult. So, you do get away with the one illustration, where you can give your characters a bit more outfits, make them more elaborate because you're just doing the one illustration. But if you're going to continue this character in a sequential story, make sure you tone it down but have the iconic imagery. For example, Kuro never shows all of his face. He's hidden it behind black hair and Tanpopo has wings on she wears and also her bangs are like a bad haircut but I don't know, I just drew it and I thought it looked really good and it defined the character. So, she's got like half cut bangs on the side. So, I want to have that included in the design 3. Sketching a Concept Continued: I have now drawn my focal point which is Kouro holding tampopo and that's it's dead center, but you want to add other elements to make it really interesting and to also make sure that your characters, I mean, illustration you're doing has a lot of life to it. So, you want to have elements that flow and ebb. So for example, her wings. I want to have them length, I'm going to have feathers coming off of them. So, it shows movement. Whenever you're doing a drawing like this, you want to show that there is flow and then there is some movement to your characters. Because it sort of brings your illustration to life, and I want him to be a pillar. The elements of his designed are not going to flow because he represents strength and I want him to be very still in this particular instance. But I want the things around him to be chaotic. So now, that we've got Tampopo's feathers flying off. Her hair too, I want it to flow down. You know when you're drawing, this sketch just draw on top, erase, do what you like. There's nothing wrong with giving up on the one drawing and then moving on to the next. As you can see from my previous drawing, this is what I did. I started to eliminate some of the elements that I wanted to get to the one that I'm actually doing right now. So, there's going to be smoke rising because I want to show battle and so they'll be smoke. Then in the background, I'm going to have the mask of read depth shadowing them and I might even have it coming in the front here. These elements are going to be faded when I color them because I don't want them to detract from Kouro and Tampopo, but I do want them there. I want them present so that it fills the space and draws the eye in and you feel like they're fighting for their lives. So, this is the sketch that I am going to do, and you are welcome to do add in different elements that you like, but that is that's the sketch portion. As you can see from this previous concepts, it was like, "Should he just have his mask on, should Tampo will be passed out?" So, I've already eliminated what I don't want to see, and to get to that point, right there. So now, we can move on to the next step. 4. Tools: I'm going to show you the tools that I use. So, this is a Pilot Color Eno pencil and it is what is called a non-repro blue pencil, and this is what a lot of architects use. It's not something that most artists start with. In the industry, there is people are pencilers and then there's the inkers. Now, I'm unique in my field because I actually function as both. Because of my line work, it's very organic, it's very flowy. So, over the years that I was working as an artist, I decided that I would become my own inker because a lot of times when you have an inker, they have their own style and then they go over your artwork. Basically, erasing what you've done and drawing their image on top, and because of the nature of how I draw, which is a lot of flowy lines, a lot of hair, that sort of got erased and I never really feel it complemented my art very well. So, I think when I was maybe three years into the industry, I switched on how I did things, and that's after I found out about this pencil. The beauty of using the non-repro blue is that it is your under drawing, and they call it non-repro blue because it does not scan. So, once you scan your image, if you scan it in grayscale, the blue pencil is invisible and it's just really neat and not a lot of people know about that. So, it almost eliminates the use for an eraser. If you don't have this, you are more than welcome to use a pencil. I'm going to actually draw with a pencil today because the non-repro blue pencil is really difficult to pick up digitally. I mean, that's the purpose of the pencil, is that it is invisible ink. So, it doesn't really register that well on camera. So, for today's lesson, I'm going to use just a Pentel pencil, mechanical pencil, and we're going to do that today. But when you're drawing this, if you'd like to draw the way I do, normally you just go ahead and get your non-repro blue and just work on it at home. I work on a 180gsm Cougar paper, it's almost a poster paper. I pick it up from PacBlue Printing, and you can go into your local printer, and I really suggest that you find a paper that you like working with because an artist tools are very important, but they're also very individually. What I like to use works for me, and I've learned this over the years that I've been doing comics and drawing manga. But for yourself, if you're first starting out, you want to get your tools together that make you feel comfortable and make it easier to draw. So, these are my tools. I've got my white eraser, this is a massive one because I do erase a lot, and then there is a brush, and a lot of people ask me what's the brush for, and it is to wipe away all of your pencil shavings or your eraser shavings. So, it just keeps it clean and you don't use your hands, which have a lot of oil in them, so they'll smudge your work. To avoid that, I've got my brush, and you can get just like the cheap brush. I happen to really like the feel of this one, so I've had this one for years. There we go. I'm not a fancy artist, so I don't have a lot of really expensive pens. I work with what I have, and that's these guys. I worked with BIC pens, it is my go-to pen and it is just your average everyday pen that you find everywhere. I love it because the way and when I draw with it, it actually resembles a pencil and I can adjust the thickness really easily, which makes this my favorite thing in the world. I also have a Pilot G-Tec, and this is for when I want to do really solid black lines that are thin. So, because the BIC pen, like I said, it does the harder you work with, you press the darker your line to the lighter, but this is a very solid black line. So I use this when I want to do some outlining. Then, I've got my Sharpie pen. Again, it's really inexpensive and I use the fine tip, and this is for when I want to do a solid line but a little thicker than the G-Tec. Like I said, you're going to have a whole lot of materials, and this is my pencil case, which happens to contain a lot of various pens. I've got super thick Sharpies, I've got pen tipped markers. Again, it doesn't really matter what you work with as long as it works for you. 5. Underdrawing: So, now picture this, but blue. So again, you want to start with the simplest shape which is a circle, and that indicates the head. My Pop Manga book, I mentioned that this is the way I draw a head. There was one person who said, there is no new trick. It's just a circle for a head, because it works, because that's how it is. Don't try to reinvent the wheel, just use shapes when you're drawing your character. So, that's what I've learned over the years is that I just draw simple shapes, and I draw mass first. So, here I've got Kuro's body, which he's cloaked, so I don't really have to worry about proportions and because he's a shape-shifter, I don't have to worry about his hips or his shoulders here. He's suppose to be almost like black ink that has just poured down and is splashing on the ground. That's what I'd like to have here, so that the top half is really read like solid, but then it hits the ground and this pedal of like energy. So, that's what we're going to do. So, you got his head. Because you're drawing two characters, and they are interacting, you want sure that you draw them so that they Tanpopo is actually smaller than Kuro because she's a girl, and caries the larger element here. So, it is going to be a little tricky, but you want to, again use your reference if you're not sure of how somebody is held. But I start again with Tanpopo's head, just smaller than Kuro's so I've already got that mapped out. So, I've got her shoulder here, and she's going to be like curling into Kuro's chest. So, and to show body movement, study in the mirror and look in like, when you're curled up, your shoulder comes up. So, that's an element here. There's also exaggerations you can do when you're drawing. So, maybe in real life your shoulder wouldn't go that high up, but for dramatic purposes, and because it is a cartoon, you can get away with that. So, now I've got Tanpopo's body shape pretty covered here, I wanted to curl her in, and I know that Kuro's hand is going to be underneath her knees, holding her up. So, I'm just going to put a little shape there which indicates his hand, and then one underneath. Basically her wings are going to be like in the smaller back, so he's holding her, and the he needs to look like he's not struggling to her up, because he's so strong. When you're drawing a very strong character, he needs to look effortless. So, his shoulders just going to be straight. He's not going to be slumped over. It's like she's light as a feather. So, I wanted to be clutching onto him. So, she won't be wrapped around him. So, then you've got her knee and then you've got the joints here, and that's triangles for feet. Super easy. The way that you draw their faces, you're going to want to show how their head is like or it's tilted, and when you're drawing a face in particular, there's cross hairs, and they represent the middle down by two lines. One is a line that goes straight down from your chin to the top of your head, and the other one is from your ears, especially your eye lines, so from your ears to your eyes to your other ear. I'm going to, that's the one line that indicates where her nose is going to be, more her chin is and this is her eye line. 6. Underdrawing Continued: So, now we've drawn which way Tanpopo was going to be facing, and so we've got the crosshairs already set, and now we're going to do Kuro. So, in our sketch, he's got this kind of goat mask that's half on and half off, and so I want to start drawing that element and I'm a big fan of asymmetry as well. So, despite the fact that it's a very central composition, I love the fact that the mask is going to be sort of off in a three-quarter position and then Kuro is going to be looking down. So, there we go. We've got the sort of goat, and then we'll loose goat idea here because it's just a mask. So, there we go. Then, I want Kuro to be facing down. Again, Kuro gets his crosshairs too even though most of his face is going to be not seen, but I want to make sure that when you're drawing a sinister character or like an angry character, tilting their head down and making them look up makes them more menacing, so that's something important. If you just have them head on, it's scary but it's way more sinister when they're looking down and staring at you and their hair is covering their eyes a bit, so it's kind of that this mysterious quality. So now, if you need reference for Kuro, that's when you get the book, and Kuro has his own distinctive features. So, his hair covers one eye almost at all times and then you see his glaring eye. So this page in particular, I'm going to use for reference. So, we get a good shot of Tanpopo, and like I said her hair is kind of poorly cut, and then we've got Kuro with his hair flipped. So, use reference when you need it, so we've got it there. So, Kuro, I'm going to give him his hair flip right there. Again, because this is the underdrawing, I realized that my initial circles a little too big and I don't want to make them look like a bobblehead, so you can tone that down. Now, when you're drawing manga characters, there's a particular style and that they look very young, and Tanpopo and Kuro are teenagers. Kuro looks like he's about 15 and Tanpopo was about 13 in this scene. Actually, in graphic novel 2, she's 14. So, what good indicators of age and keeping characters looking young is that you want to give them thinner necks and also bigger eyes. So, their heads are going to be larger than their body in proportionately. Now, Kuro being the Faustian devil, he's going to have a very long and inhuman mouth with the sharp teeth. So, when you're drawing this, and again it's an exaggeration. People smiles, they don't go that wide. But it's okay to do that because, again, he's a character here, he's just an illustration. So, now we've established Kuro's face, the mask, now I'm going going to start drawing Tanpopo's features and her hair is also going to be flowing and pressed up against his chest. So, she's going to have her bangs and they're going to be covering her face here. But then, when I draw her hair in, I also wanted to look like it's pressed up against him. Again, she's much curvier and smaller, and so there's going to be hair flowing everywhere. An important thing to note to you when you're drawing is to take a break because you can get really tired and it's a long process. I know that the video, the lesson isn't long, but it takes about a few hours to get through all of this. So, take a break, come back after you've refreshed yourself, get a coffee or surf then get an inspiration again. When you come back, then you can see your artwork in new light. So, for example, you might see mistakes that you didn't catch before because our eyes tend to have tunnel vision. So, in order to not get tunnel vision, you actually need to separate yourself and actually leave the room for a little bit, so you come back with fresher eyes. 7. Underdrawing Continued: All right, now I want to draw in, the where Tampopo was looking. That eye line, the cross-hair, is an indicator that, the ear as well as the eyes, and the ears are always on the eye line. So I draw in her ear. Again, I might change it if I don't like the position it's in. Now, draw in her eyebrows. So she has this kind of pinched worried look. Then I draw in her eyes on the eye line. Her nose is going to be a little up, turned here, and her mouth, again falls on that cross hair. Okay, so this being the underdrawing, I can change things a bit here. I can step back and see if I'd like that or not or I can change it. So, not such a big fan of how her face is tilted. Again, if it gets too messy, you can't really make out the face, you can just erase it a bit and use your brush. So I'm just showing you here that you can actually, change how you can change the face where it's tilted. So, I want us to see that she's looking sideways, and in order to do that, I had to change size very slightly and that's the game here is like, it's so minute. All right. Now, I can draw her hair in again. Where curls hair is hiding his face, to show that he's menacing, Tampopo's bangs are going to cover her eyes a bit. It's actually going to show vulnerability in this particular instance. Now, Tampopo has an outfit. As you can see in this drawing here, she has a tanktop and little black shorts. So, when drawing where her tanktop would be, since her shoulder there's coming up, and the strap to her tanktop comes over the shoulder. Here just like that. I know a lot of people have trouble with fabrics and clothing. So we want to do is practice this. What I like to do is put is draw lines where the fabric is going to bunch. I know a lot of artists that have sketchbooks that are full of noses and our hands and feet. Whatever is the most difficult thing for you to draw whether it's fabric, or hands, it should be the one thing that you're drawing the most because you want to get better at drawing it. The only way to improve is to constantly and repetitively draw the same thing. So, I've got my bunches where the fabric is going to be. Her shorts over here, just kind of curve them in. Now, I think I'm going to extend her knees. Okay. So, Tampopo is almost finished with the underdrawing. Now, I'm going to do her and when you start drawing her wing in here. As you can see, she's got black tips on her wings. Make sure that you use the proper wing shape because there's a lot of different types of birds. So, I modeled Tampopo's wings after a sparrows. So, I want to make sure that contrast her sparrow wings. That can help you with your reference if you'd like to draw the sets of wings that I do. Okay. There's two sets of wings. So, this is a really important thing, that you make it very distinct that there's two sets. So, that adds depth to the drawing as well. So, we've her fan growing out there. They're probably going to be a little curled into. So, it seems like they're curling in as much as she is. Okay, so that's sort of where I'm going to stop, with Tampopo right now. Because, again, you're drawing two characters, so you need to make sure that you don't focus completely on one because the other one is involved in the pose. So as you can see, I have to now focus on where Kouros's hands are here. To understand where his arms are going to be, or his hands are going to be, you have to understand where his arms are. It's good that if you look at anatomy books or take a few life drawing classes, you can understand that, even though things are hidden, that you actually, you need the anatomy to be correct, in order for it to look realistic. His hand will be here. If you're confused again, go into photo booth, take some pictures, get your friends involved. Over the years, I've had my father actually pose hands a lot because he's got man hands, I don't have man hands. So, the way a guy will hold onto things is different from the way a girl would. I made her really big here. So I need to do extend him. It's important to note too that your underdrawing doesn't have to be perfect because what really matters is the next step which is the ink. So, I'm just going to get the final details of Tampopo here which are her feet. If you have trouble drawing feet, you should definitely, draw your own, and practice that. There's a lot of things that are difficult to draw, but then you'll find things that are really great at drawing. So, make sure that you don't just focus on the things that you're having a hard time with, but also the ones that you really love and enjoy. All right, so Tampopo's hand, just grabbing here, all right and now just will get Kouros's face in here. Again, getting that sort of sinister. Look, he's got this sort of devil eye. It's not Tampopo, it's kind of like the pupil here. Again, remembering this is the underdrawing. You don't have to be perfect. There's his mouth. Very evil grin. Okay. Now, we're done the underdrawing. We can move onto the inks. 8. Inking: So, the next step here is the inking part. This one and depending on how detailed you made your under drawing, can be really fast or it could be a little more time-consuming because this is when you really have to be focused on the details and the layering so you want to make sure that you're comfortable with what you've drawn because the ink is not, you can't erase it. So, every line counts but do you know what? Don't worry because you got your white out which I use a lot so, it's okay if it's not perfect. But now, we're going to do the inking stage and after the inking, we're going to do the scanning and digital part. Now, there's no science where to begin exactly, but I tend to draw what is on top first because it's like, for example, if Tanpopo's hair on her face, it's above her eyes, so I tend not to draw things that are on the three-dimensionally like whatever's on the bottom layer first. So, I'm going to start with Tanpopo's hair. We're just going to draw this and. If you're using a pencil, you're under drawing if it's too thick you can slightly erase it, so you just use your eraser to go over it very, very gently because you don't want to smudge anything too much. So that it maybe helps to uncover some of these layers that you've drawn. Then use your brush so you just wipe it away. If you're using the non-repro blue pencil, you don't have to do that. It's pretty definitive as an under drawing. All right, so now what I tend to do is put a very light amount of pressure on my bic. I actually do light bic drawings first and then I'll go back in with my other pens when I want to do more defined outlines or for example like her eyelashes and, I'll show you. For right now, let's just concentrate on the first stage of the inking, which is just to get the shape. Now to keep yourself motivated, I know you guys can as I'm doing this lesson I don't have my headphones in, but usually I will be listening to an audio book or some great music just to get you in the mood. So try that when you're drawing to keep your energy levels up. Yeah, I remember when I first started drawing comics, I was really into J-pop, so I would constantly listen to as much as J-pop as I could and then as my musical tastes changed I started listening to all sorts of different genres and a really amazing one to listen to you while you're drawing and it gives you a real clarity is classical music, believe it or not. I absolutely love listening to Mozart and Beethoven. You can go on YouTube and get like the greatest hits. I have to say this, when I'm drawing I was drawing the parts I like the best first, so her hair and the wings. I can't help it. I know I should probably focus on the more difficult parts first but I like to do the fun ones and then I'll focus on the harder parts. This is something because I use a bic pen I have a little piece of paper that I just clean my bic with. So, Bics tend to get a little bit of build up when you use them, so you just clean them off on a little spare piece of paper. Manga is all about, they're very detailed, but they don't have a lot of expression lines, so lips, depending on your style, they're often not drawn in by a manga artist or like dimples and the characters are very smooth. So you don't want to add too many details. One thing about manga artists is that they tend to give their characters really dramatic haircuts. Anytime you read Naruto or Bleach you'll see they've got some pretty gravity defying hair. I know Kuro doesn't use gel but if he was a real boy he would. There's no way to have that kind of like style without gel. Again really light strokes. We can see that my brush or my pen stroke isn't continuous. I'm just defining it first and then when you get into those areas like this just small little pen strokes. So it's also okay that when you're drying, if you're unsure about something to get a second opinion. I know that when I was first starting out I really appreciated when people give me critiques and sometimes it's really difficult to hear that you really know you've drawn something wrong or that you've made a mistake and it's totally normal to feel nervous about that. So now I want to draw Tanpopo's feet. Tanpopo is always barefoot because I tend to really like during feet. But if you're not comfortable with drawing feet, that's okay too. They're difficult. Now I'm just going to move back to her hand here. I'm going to redraw the hand. Hands so are the hardest part for me to draw. So don't worry about it if you guys are having a hard time too. Everybody has their weakest part. So normally I would have my laptop in front of me and I'd be able to take pictures and I would manipulate my pose so I can see how temple will be clutching and how cool are we holding something because I've never actually 'mdrawn them before. So I'm going to try to struggle through this here. So the way Kuro would hold her would be very gentle. I would imagine and her hair flows around it. So, as you can see, I'm jumping from back to the previous step but it's okay, nothing is really finite. So I tried to draw Kuro's hand with his fingers out but I don't really like that look so can I can just erase that. Now I want to actually establish Tanpopo's other hand, which I think she would be holding it like this. So we're just going to curl that in. Okay, so now draw Kuro's hand here. So, we're almost done. The inking part and now what I'm going do once I'm finished this is erase it so we can see what it looks like and then add more details. 9. Inking Continued: So now that I've done on use of my Bic pen, I'm going to erase the pencil drawing now. If you've used the non-repro blue pencil you don't have to do this stage because you'd be able to clearly see your lines. So, I definitely suggest you do it very carefully. So, one thing to remember while you're erasing is to hold your paper down that way you don't get that wrinkle effect. I've ruined so many drawings that way where I was erasing to vigorously and I didn't have a hold on the paper and it crumbled and I know every artist out there knows exactly what I'm talking about. So, just make sure that you hold down your paper and that won't happen. Okay. So, there we go, and now what you want to do is just use your brush, and just wipe it all away it gets a little messy. All right. So, as you can see I'm just thickening some lines and outlining. This, I tend to when I'm thickening a particular area, I'll use quick short pen strokes that way I avoid making mistakes when I do that. And then to when I draw a continuous line that put a lot of pressure on the pen. Now, this particular pilot G Tech does not have a very delicate nib, it has a very strong metal point. So, I can press as hard as I want and it won't push in like other pens will. I just want to establish the hair and thicken up some of those finger lines and if you still find it too confusing, I'll use my sharpie which has even thicker line. There we go, I think it's important when you're drawing or if for example my style of drawing is that I have finer lines and then I have the thicker pilot or sharpie lines which adds to the depth of the piece. And then I'm going to just delicately continue to add details to turn purple. There's a lot of artists out there that do crosshatching which is a really great way to show shadow in my style I don't actually draw a lot of shadows. I prefer not to do large solid ink pad blocks so I don't do them. But if you want to that would be great you can absolutely establish a lot of your shadows with your inks, which is what a lot of inkers do in the industry they establish the lighting, by adding dark shadows in the chin like. For example, you could do that with cural just add more really thick line there. But for myself I prefer to add the shadows in with my lighting effects with my colors. One thing to establish with clothing is that unless it's basically sprayed on, there's always going to be a lip for the clothing. So, you want to make sure that with temperable shorts you want to have you want to seem the line is off of the leg line. So, you establish that it is actually shorts and not just painted on pants. Just use your sharpie here. We're done the stage in the drawing and I can see some things that I want to change, and those are things I'm going to fix digitally which luckily Photoshop can make wonders happen. But if you find that there are mistakes in your ink drawing that you'd like to fix use your white out. So, I'll show you parts in the in the drawing that we need to white out for just to make just to and clean a few things about. For example, her hair here not really I think I made a bit of a mess there. So, I always use the white out pens, this one is a Bic one. So, you want to get it started on another piece of paper just to test it out, okay. Then start in one spot and slowly push very very gently outwards so that it doesn't have big clumps, and if you press too hard with your white-out pen it will just go everywhere. So, be very very cautious when you're doing this. But the nice thing about that is that it is white out so you can always draw over top of it. I would caution not to make the white out too thick because then when you do draw over top of it it will actually be really difficult to draw over to thin layers. For example, am not a big fun of that hill, so just clean that up [inaudible]. Yeah, and there we go, we've got the final product. 10. Inking the Background: So, now that we've finished the drawing of tempo bon crue, we actually have to consider the background elements which in our original sketch, there's going to be the mask of Red Death behind them. So, that requires me to do a separate drawing which then I'm going to layer in Photoshop. Again, that's because I'm doing it that way because I know that I'm going to be coloring this digitally, and Photoshop is great for that because you can put as many layers as you want. I've actually had some illustrations that have had fifty layers, I know artists that have lots more than that. So, on a separate piece of paper, what I'm going to do is draw Red Death in here and some of that smoke effect. So, I'm going to just try some smoke here, just his jaw which again you can use reference for teeth. So, that's your basic under drawing for the background of Masked of Red Death. You don't want the background to compete too much with the foreground, so you don't want to add in too many elements. Okay, and now we're going to do the ink drawing and this is where his shoulder would be, so you just want to add again fabric elements, so that it looks like it's bunched to him. Because Red Death is really creepy and really rough, I'm not going to have him as clean lined as tempo bon crue because they need to stand out more than he does. So, I'm not too worried about how ripped up by make this and how messy the lines are because I want them to be, I want that energy. Okay, once that's done, I want to erase everything, and again holding your paper down so it doesn't crumple. Don't erase over top of your beaks tend to smudge if you erase over top of them, you have to give them a couple of minutes, sorry a couple of seconds to dry before you erase over them. So, there's creepy Red Death being creepy. I'm just going to go in and define the drawing a bit more and with Red Death unlike tempo bon crue, you can add in those fine little lines in details that the young characters don't get, makes it so much creepier. Okay, I use my Sharpie now because it's a little thicker. Okay, I'm done drawing The Mask of Red Death. 11. Editing in Photoshop: Now, I work on photos in Photoshop and I work with the Cintiq. You don't have to have a Cintiq to be able to do what I'm doing. I work with Photoshop. There's a lot of artists use the mouse but this is mine too also. I'll show you how I do it. Now, the stage that I didn't show you which is actually the scanning stage, it's important to note that when you scan your image, you scan it at 600 dpi. You scan it as a TIFF, not as JPEG because JPEGs, they're not high-quality image files. So, you want to make sure it's a 600 dpi TIFF file. When you're working in Photoshop, you want to work in an 11 by 17 page size but lower the dpi down to 400 because if you work in a 600 dpi, it's going to crash your computers. It's much too larger file. The reason why you scan it at 600 dpi is because it gathers a lot of more information. So, you want to have a very high image scan. So that all of the information, all the details in there. Then, what ends up happening is that you shrink it down, which I'll show you in to fit into your 400 dpi 11 by 17 screen size. So, there's many different ways to scan your image. If you don't have a flatbed scanner that can accommodate an 11 by 17, you can do the cut and paste method where you scan another portion then you Frankenstein it in your Photoshop. Otherwise, if you don't want to go through that trouble, you can always go to Staples or you can go to Kinkos, or any print shop that actually does scanning for you. Make sure that you give them the correct settings. Okay. So, now, in Photoshop, you open up a new file that is 11 by 17 400 dpi. If your image is going to be printed, you want to work in CMYK. If it's going to be only web-based image, you can work in RGB. That's because RGB colors are not print colors. Printers print in cyan, magenta, yellow, and black. So, they're limited to what kind of colors that they can produce. Whereas, RGB colors are what we see, what the eye sees, which is millions and millions of colors. So, the effects that you get in RGB or the colors you see in RGB, some of them can be really bright fluorescence, and those won't actually print. So, you have to understand that there is a difference between print colors and screen colors. The only problem is that Photoshop, with your RGB settings, you get different filters. So, if you're going to be doing a lot of filter work, then you want to have your image in RGB but be careful of the colors you do select. So, this image is in RGB right now because the image that I scan is in grayscale. The image when you scan it, make sure that it is a grayscale image. Don't scan in black and white or in color because your color scan is going to pick up the Non-Repro Blue pencil. If you scan it in just black and white, you'll miss out on a lot of details that the big pen, it varies, it has a grayscale to it. So, make sure that your scan is in grayscale. So, once you've got your 11 by 17 file ready to go, you pull up your scans. So, here we have the mask of our death scan ready to go. So, what you do is you just pull it over. You'll see that the image being a 600 dpi, shows up much larger, which isn't a problem because it's a layer. So, all you have to do is resize it, which the shortcut for that is just Command T. If you have Photoshop, you can create your shortcuts however you like. There's also the standard ones. Here's a trick that I learned in Photoshop to resize an image and keep the proportions correct. If I did that, it would make it wider, and if I did that, it would make it more narrow. So, what you want to do is hold down the Shift key, and then it will resize perfectly. So, I'm actually just going to leave a little bigger because it's in the background so I haven't. So, then that will just alter. Okay. Now, I've got Tanpopo and Kuro, and I'll pull them over now. So, they didn't show up because Red Death is actually the top layer. So, make sure you just move Tanpopo and Kuro up to the top layer because they're in the foreground. So, they're you going to be on top of that. Again, you wanted just to resize them. So, now, if this was going to be a cover, you have to make sure that you leave enough room at the top for the title. But since this is a poster image, we don't have to worry about that. I'm just going to leave the- maybe a little smaller. It's easy enough to resize these. Now, we're going to clean up the black lines by going into your curves. So, I already have a shortcut for that which is Command M. Then, when you use curves, it will darken the blacks and it will brighten the whites so if there's any flex. You can always preview if you don't like it, you can do that. I really like that. I like it a little darker. You can do the same thing to the mask of red death. If you don't like curves, if you want more control, you can use Levels, which is this. This is Levels here. So, you would just adjust the whites. So, as you can see, you can make all these adjustments. So, I'm just going to make it lighter. So, there's a lot to learn in Photoshop and what I suggest you do is you play around with Photoshop, get comfortable because it really is a lesson all on its own, on how to use Photoshop. But I'm going to go through this and show you how I color Tanpopo which has a lot of layers. So, what I want to do is cut out tempo and coral. So, I use my magic, my Wand Tool and I press on the outside. Since I had really strong outlines, it hasn't picked up any of the inside there. So, we want to zoom in and see. I want to keep those feathers. So, I just want to remove them from the the portion that's going to be cut. So, once you cut that out, which is Command X then you see that Tanpopo and Kuro have now popped up. They're floating around as you can see. They're just floating around. There's no more white space. 12. Editing in Photoshop Continued: Red Death, I want to do the same thing with him because I want him also to stand off from the background. I have something particular planned for him, but I didn't outline him. So, this is where it gets a little tricky, and that's where I have to go in, and actually outline him or you could do what I do, which is to just add in some lines. Now, your brushes are, it's up to you how, what kind of brush you like to use. There's presets, you can create your own brushes. I like to use brushes that are, can simulate a pencil. So, I'll just choose that one, that works for me, and then you can make it smaller. Again, with your keyboard shortcuts. Then you want to zoom in to make sure you get, draw it in there. So, this part can be a little time consuming, and you can also change the setting of your brushes with flow and opacity. So, that if you want to show more of the grainy texture of the brush, you change the flow. I never keep, I always keep mine less than 100. You don't have to do it this way. I mean you can just use your Wand Tool, your Lasso Tool. So, as you can see now that I've closed up all of the lines, I can actually delete the background, which you can't see because it's white, but I'll show you. So, once I'm done this, I'm going to save, because Photoshop files can get really large, and if you don't save every time you make a change, you actually end up losing a lot of information, and I have, that has happened to me. I've lost hours of work because I just forgot to save. All right, so there we go. So, I'm going to save this now, and you always make a backup, and then a backup of your backup, because you don't want to lose everything. All right, and so here. All right and make sure you save it as a Photoshop file not a tiff. So, now that you've got your clean-up layers what you want to do is correct any mistakes that you've made that you don't like. So, I'm just going to turn off the Masque of Red Death layer, because what I think I'd like to do is actually make Kuro a little bigger. I think Tanpopo kind of got away with it for me. So, I'd like to make him larger. So, make sure that you're on the layer you're working on, also label your layers. When you start to have, when you have layers, like 50 layers, it gets confusing as to what is to what, so make sure you label them. All right. Okay, so probably what I'll do is shrink Tanpopo, and it's okay to make these adjustments. Actually, I think I'm going to shrink his hand too. I like this size of the hand. Okay, so I shrunk it about four percent. I think that looks better. I'm shifting her over with my keyboard, which is wireless. I'm not a fan of wired anything. So, you just shift her over with your your arrow keys. Okay, and now you see that there's black patches, which is okay, because it's a layer, so what you want to do is create a new layer. Put underneath Kuro and Tanpopo, and then just, yeah, just do this, and what this is, is me creating just a, basically I'm filling a patch. So, the layer underneath has just been filled. So, if you can see it's just a glob, and it's just underneath them, and it fills that black patch. 13. Editing in Photoshop Continued: Now, that I've completed that alteration, I'm going to go in, and I think that his hand is a little small now that I've shrunk that portion. So, I'm just going to go in there and enlarge it. I'm just making my little changes here. So, few quick fixes, cleanups here. I'm going to move this over a bit more. These are sort of things that you could never do if you didn't have Photoshop and get away with it. But don't get too used to making mistakes that you can just easily fix. You should try to make it perfect the first time. All right, so manipulating your images in Photoshop is really important, and it's really fun and creative. So, make sure that you try that when you use your different layers in Photoshop. For example, I have many images that I use for Tampopo, so I have images of dandelions, and then I manipulate them so I block them out. Basically, I have these flat graphic design images of dandelions that I use throughout the series. Because Tampopo actually means dandelion, and it's this metaphor that continues throughout the series, so I have that. I also have a lot of dot patterns which I'll use in the illustration. So, those are things I can't give you. Those are the things you're going to find out for yourself or take pictures of dandelions, or buy images online. Don't pirate anything, make sure that you pay for your images because there are people have taken their time to take the photographs, and to give you those images. So, accumulate various different photographs. I have a lot of blood splatters, a lot of paint spotters, dot patterns, dandelions, and crows as well, which are all going to add to the different textures and layers of this image. When you're coloring your image, I think it's very important to establish what kind of mood you want. So, for example, if you want to do something that's really intense and dramatic, you want to use really vibrant and sort of aggressive colors like reds, and purples. If you want to do an illustration that is more softer sort of colors, you want to use more blues, and yellows. So for this image, I wanted to be really intense and really like, you're scared for Tampopo. So, I'm going to use a lot of purples and reds for this particular illustration. So, make sure that when you're doing, whatever illustration your coloring, that you use your colors to really affect the mood that you want other people to perceive. 14. More Creative Classes on Skillshare: