First I start with an inked picture. I've left the inking as general outlines, since I intend to use the computer to digitally colour and shade in a cross between digital painting, and cel colouring. There are various styles that call for more inking, more spotting of the blacks, but this isn't going to be one of them.
I take the inked picture, and scan it in. My scan settings are generally a little brighter than than the default, when scanning inked and pencilled art. This is because I want as little of the pencil marks and the paper tones to come in as possible. Once it's scanned--I import directly into Photoshop--I desaturate it. (Desaturate can be found under the Image menu in the recent Photoshop releases.) Then I tweak the contrast and brightness. Generally since I want crisp lines, I will pump up both the contrast and brightness. Brightness generally does away with the little flecks of pencil remaining after the scan, and the heightened contrast ensures that the lines stay crisp and thick. If you pump up just the brightness, the lines will dim and fade. If you pump up just the contrast, the flecks will get darker. So it's necessary to tweak and experiment to get the right mix. You can clean up any major flecks remaining after this point with a paintbrush and a little care.
Once we have the cleaned scan in place, we need to sketch the major structure of the foreground that the elfboy is sitting on. I make a new layer (or two or three, in this case) so that I can erase bits and pieces of my roof without worrying about the elfboy's lines. While not true perspective, it is easiest to create a line on the rough angle of the roof's edge, and then to duplicate the layer that it is on, until you have enough lines delineating the top and bottom of the bricks and the edge of the roof and the ledge. Then on another layer, I draw all the vertical lines for the bricks and join up the edges of the roof. Then I erase the places where lines would overlap, and flatten the roof layers together. At this point I have two layers: one for the elf boy, and one for the roof.
Before moving onto the next step in the process, I'd like to point out two things you will notice on these images that will be missing on the next. The first are the two locks of hair dangling from the elfboy's neck. I decided I didn't like these and before progressing onto the next step, I carefully painted over them with white on the artwork layer. The second is the dangling ring hanging from the dagger. The new perspective forced by the bricks didn't allow the ring to hang like that, so that too was painted over with white.
My steps for a clean scan of inked artwork:
- Scan.
- Image >> Adjust >> Desaturate
- Image >> Adjust >> Brightness/Contrast (+/+)
|| How I Make A Digital Painting || Step 02: Colours + Lighting ||
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