• Software: GIMP (or Adobe Photoshop)
• Level: Advanced
• Subject: Kitar - Potion Assassin

Just some intermediate screenshots on the progress of this project.

Mid-tone Rendering

Here, I take the mid-tone of the skin color and flesh out the details.

A little extra care is taken on larger accessories (like the potion bottle).

Dark Tone

Before proceeding to the highlights, I work on the darker tone, to get a better definition of the shapes.

Stay tuned for updates!

• Software: GIMP (or Adobe Photoshop)
• Level: Advanced
• Subject: Kitar - Potion Assassin

In the last part, I was done with setting the color palette and creating the flats for this project. Taking time on the color palette, and creating the flats layer with patience goes a long way in making the painting process easier and much more fun.

Painting

After making the copy of the Flats layer and renaming it as Painting, I start taking the lighter shades of the different parts and start fleshing out the shape. To do this, I use a large round brush with pressure sensitivity on the color and opacity.

Use the hidden Flats layer to select the different portion, and then switch to the painting layer and start painting. This keeps the brush strokes with in the parts. Use line the line art as a guide and avoid pillow shading. (More on pillow shading in a separate post).

I keep progressing on to the lighter tones and build up the volume and shape. The weird orange-brown tone may look weird, but the color study showed that it worked. So, I am not going to worry about it now, and tweak it when I am going to detail. At this phase, all I want to do is get the general shape of the character.

Close Ups

Here are some closeups that should give an idea of the painting approach.

As I progress towards the lighter tones, I start using a smaller brush that the previous stage. Also, I establish my light source and put in the mid-tone appropriately.

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• Software: GIMP (or Adobe Photoshop)
• Level: Advanced
• Subject: Kitar - Potion Assassin

As seen in the last part, for this concept I have been tweaking it continually. The process I follow to enhance/modify a particular sketch is something along these lines.

I merge all the sketch layers except background when I am satisfied with that stage. The older layers I make almost transparent before merging. Once merged, I reduce the opacity of that layer, and create a new layer over it. On this new layer, using the layer underneath as a guide I tweak the different parts.

Line Art

After repeating these steps several times, and I am satisfied with the result, I combine all the sketch layers one final time and start with a fresh layer for line art.

This is in full resolution of A4 size at 300 dpi.

Color Study

When making elaborate paintings of landscapes or characters, I have found that it helps to do the color study before hand and stick to it.

Since I want to keep this painting as a series, part of the earlier one, I import the color palette into this paintings color study and derive the different color palettes from them.

Flats

The flats layer make is so easy to paint with in the lines. Using the Path tool of GIMP, I mark out all the areas and apply the darker hue with pressure sensitivity switched off.

When I continue to paint, I will be taking a copy of this Flats layer, named ‘Flats Copy’, and hide it. The visible one, would form the canvas for painting and rendering using the other hues and tones.

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• Level: Beginner
• Subject: (Angry) Cat profile

This would be a simple walkthrough on drawing a cat - the profile or the side view.

I did this particular sketch in GIMP, but you can use any software - or even try it out on paper with pencil.

Guides

If you are doing this on paper, draw the guides using fainter pencil strokes. (You do not need to use blue or any particular color). In GIMP (or other software), start with a new layer.

Bisect the top right quadrant and then draw a triangle at the end of it. (Do the same on the top left, if you want a right facing cat). This would be for the ear.

Draw a similar, but rounded triangle on the left bottom. (Right bottom if you are doing the opposite). This would be a guide to draw the mouth and nose.

Almost at the middle of the left half, mark out the area where the eyes would go.

Sketch

Now on a separate layer, and black color, draw the line art using the guides. On paper, use more pressure and create darker line. After some practice, you can even use black ink pen.

Use the guides underneath and it should be easy. Most of the deatils are on the left bottom quadrant. The nose would be a small traingular shape. Across the disection, draw the mouth line. Over it, draw the whiskers.

Observe the flow of the fur. The outer edges need not be perfect curved lines, as long as the direction of the jaggedness matches the flow of the fur.

Now you can switch of the guide layer. If you had done this on paper, you can use the eraser to lightly erase the guide lines.

You can apply further treatment to the line art for practice. But after a couple of runs, you should be adept at drawing the cat in the profile view. You can further practice by displaying different moods by changing the directiton of the eyes, mouth and the ears - the basic technique though remains the same.

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After painting Anwun I felt like attempting another character design. So, here I made up another character.

Kitar, is an assassin from the same Order as Anwun. Assassin she might be, but her techniques are quite different. Her arsenal includes potions and powders and extracts of exotic herbs - for most part they aid her mates in the order, but she has used the same effectively in completing certain high profile missions.

With the basic idea sorted out, I went about doing some thumbnailing and selected one particular pose.

These are very small images, not more than 500 or 600 pixels high. At this point, more than detail, I am concerned with the overall structure of the pose of the character.

I spend a bit of time roughing out her costime. There are some repeating patterns that should help it create a harmony as a whole. There needs to be a style that is easily attained by having repeating patterns in shape as well details. Currently, I focus on the shape.

Next, I scale up the image to A4 size at 300 dpi.

This would be the point when I should be able to go ahead and draw the line art. But since I am not yet that good at human anatomy, I take time to study the muscle groups (see the green lines on her legs), fix proportions (her right hand) and even go about fixing her costume (her shoes are made knee level with the same repeating pattern).

I should be ready now to create the line art, but opt to take a day’s break to come back at this piece with a fresh eye.

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2008 © Subrose

The plant clipart has been used once again. Unlike the earlier case, Subrose wanted to use it in cover design of custom books for her clients. Hence, I licensed the use of image for this purpose to her.

She does all kinds of custom order, and sells her product over at Etsy. You can head over to her page on Etsy and browse.

Image above is copyright of Subrose. More Images: (1) (2) (3)

• Software: Inkscape (or Illustrator)
• Level: Intermediate
• Subject: Sword

This would be a cursory look at an approach to illustrating a sword. Remember that there are many types of swords, and hence, there are many ways you can approach its illustration.

The Blade

Draw a long rectangle, and then covert the object to path. (Path > Object to Path). After that, use the node edit tool. In Inkscape, you may need to delete the duplicated nodes at the corner. After that, bisect all the sides, so that you have eight nodes instead of four.

Delete off the bottom corners, and move the two mid nodes of the (earlier) vertical line further down towards the tip. You can leave it at this or make if more interesting by adding some more detail to the shape.

Curve the vertical lines inwards. Next, create a perfect square, and rotate it by 45 degrees.

Convert the square object to a path, and use the node edit tool to pull down the bottom corner node.

Squeeze (scale down) the object horizontally and line it up with the main blade using alignment option. (Object > Align and Distribuite).

Subtract the smaller shape (cut it out) of the larger blade. To do that, select both the object and choose Path > Difference.

Hilt

For drawing the hilt, take two rectangles roughly the same size and place them perpendicular to each other. After aligning them vertically, use Object > Union to combine the two shapes. This will also automatically convert the objects to a single path object. Use the node edit tool to remove any duplicated nodes.

Using the node edit tool, bring the top edges of the hilt a bit above, and the bottom corners a bit inwards.

After that, curving the different segments/edges should give you a nice shape of a hilt.

Assemble

After this, there is not much to assemble the parts. Just align them vertically and you are free to explore your creativity in rendering it up.

Here is my version.

Use the comment form below to post links to your version.

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• Software: Inkscape (or Adobe Illustrator)
• Level: Intermediate
• Subject: Grapes

In this tutorial, you will look at the process of creating a vector illustration of grapes. Drawing grapes is quite easy - with all the oval shapes put together. Applying color renders on the other hand can become a bit tedious, and it helps to keep the color palette organized.

Lineart

Try drawing the grapes bunch in GIMP (or Adobe Photoshop) and get the general idea of the color palette with respect to the light source. Import it into your vector editor of choice (Inkscape or Illustrator).

You can download the above color study if you want: Grapes - Study (PNG format)

Reduce the opacity of the imported image to around 40% to 50% and use a polygon tool and mark out all the outline key points.

Using the node edit tool ( [F2] in Inkscape), shape the polygon tool exactly around the grapes bunch using the underlying image as a guide.

Draw another shape outlining all the inner shapes of the grape fruit. I drew them one by one using polygon tool and then performed a Union operation on them. It is show as a red line above but the color is not important as we will be making the stroke width zero after we apply the colors we want.

Flats

Apply the darkest tone to the outer shape, and the next lighter tone to the inner shapes. After that, turn off the outline of both these shapes.

Before we proceed with the rendering, observe the color palette we would be using. For the five/six grapes that are directly in the light, we are using the color palette which has richer variations (P1). For the ones in the shadow area, we are using the second palette (P2) which has lesser gradations.

Rendering Shadow Area

Rendering the shadow area is qutie easy. Just create concentric shapes for each fruit and apply the brightest tone in second palette (P2). To get multiple gradations, have each of those layers at 50% opacity.

Rendering Light

Rendering the lighter areas is similar to the one in last step - using the tones from palette (P1) on concentric shapes, each at 50% opacity.

Since you have a lot more color tones in this area, remember to make those concentric shapes much tighter and closer to each other. This step requires some amount of patience.

Finish up

Use those two highlight tones sparingly, and you are done.

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Do use the comment section below for questions and posting your artwork done using this tutorial.

This would be a short post detailing on the practical application of the theory of Depth by Color.

Lineart and Flats

As we did with the vector application of the theory, the lineart and flat color application is same as you would do for any digital painting.

The subject too is quite simple - a landscape scene depicting the rocky structures up to the vanishing point of horizon.

Color Palette

Applying the depth theory to color in digital painting, unlike the vector method, would require us to decide on the colors before applying them. You could use layers and apply the same techniuqe as vector, but painting by hand gives it a nice painterly feel.

Construct the color palette either on a separate layer or a new file.

Looking at the above color palette, it might look a bit elaborate. But I tried to show how I arrived at each color. I start with the flat (true) colors - at the left top. After making a quick gradation for the sky (A), I take the flat colors of the rocks and create variations of the color by applying a yellow light of the sun.

For most part of the plain, we will need to create a set of colors as variations of the base brown. To do this, first make a patch of the brown color. Next select the blue color of the sky, and decrease the opacity of the brush to 20%. Paint the blue over the brown color to almost 3/4th its length. Let go of the mouse button (or the pen) and then with the same brush settings, paint another layer over it, this time half the lenght. Do the same process once more for a smaller segment. This way, you will be building layer upon layer of the effect of ambient light on the brown color. This gives us the color palette (B) for the background plains.

For the rock structure in the mid ground, we do not need to make variations for the depth - just one 20% tint over the different value effected color is sufficient (D). For the foreground rock structure, keep the colors rich - and hence, do not apply any tint (C).

Detailing

To avoid going back and forth between your painting and the color palette during detailing, you can apply the different colors with a 100% brush first.

Start of by smoothing out the sky and detailing the background.

Finish of by detaling the mid and fore groudn rock structures. Since we have already chosen the color palette considering the depth, we need not worry about color while rendering the rocks. Just make sure that you choose only those colors that you have layed down.

Check the deviantART entry for a slightly larger view of the finished painting.

Please post links of the results of your experiments in the comment section.

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• Software: Inkscape (or Adobe Illustrator)
• Level: Advanced
• Subject: Banana

Here is a tutorial on illustrating a fruit - banana.

Base Shape

The most important step is to get the base shape of the banana.

Create a rectangle and then segment the lines to subsections. In Inkscape - convert the rectangle using Path > Object to Path. After that, using the node edit tool [F2] select the four nodes and select all the nodes, and use the first tool button (on the top below menu), to insert new nodes between selected nodes. Do this three times.

After that, with the node edit tool still selected, move the nodes to get the basic shapes proper - use reference images if needed. After that, smooth out all the nodes except the three nodes each on both sides.

Base Colors

Create another inner shape using similar method, and make a copy of it and place it exactly over the same place. In Inkscape, use [Ctrl]+[C] and [Ctrl]+[Alt]+[V].

After that, prepare a color palette. This would make it easier to assign colors to shapes as you create them later on. (Copy the image to your local PC, and import it into Inkscape - then you can use the Eyedropper tool to select the colors I selected above). Give the outer shape the darker brownish tone, and one of the inner shapes the mid-tone (yellow) at 50% opacity. Over it, on the second of the shapes, give it the green color - again at 50% opacity, along wtih the gradient applied at the point where it meets the flesh of the banana.

Details

After this point, it is up to you in terms of the amount of details you can put into it.

Draw new shapes, and copies of the inner banana shape to create panel like parts of the banana peel. Use different opacity percentages for the mid tone color to create a sense of depth. Turn off the outline of all the shapes and you should get a good illustration of a banana.

I went ahead and added some blemishes and subtle texture details.

For a final image - look at the deviantART entry - Banana.

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