Crit Assignment 3: Tinted Drawing

Assigned: Assignment 4: Colored Pencil

Specs

MORE

Setting up the Colored Pencil Drawing

My version setup: khazarj-assignment04-01.psd.zip

My finished version: khazarj-assignment04-23-cmyk.psd.zip

1. Use these brushes: MART325_Color_Pencils.abr. Review here on how to add them to Photoshop.

2. Create a new document, 8in x 10in, 300dpi
3. Set the background color when you create the document
4. Save the document as lastnamefirstinitial_assignment04-01.psd

5. Add a image for your Source. Size it. Make sure it's embedded and not linked.

6. Add a layer to gray-back the Source, fill it with your background color, and set the opacity to 66%

7. Add a layer for Outlines

8. Do a quick tracing of the edges of your Source image on the Outlines layer

9. Add a layer for your colored pencil work

Make an optional Scratch Area

1. Choose Menu>Canvas Size...>

2. Set the canvase size to 4 inches wider. Make sure the Anchor is set as shown above!

3. You should see this result. If your image is centered, then you forgot to set the Anchor. Next we'll add a gray background to the scratch area and a copy of the source image so we can see it while we're working

4. Add a new layer, call it Scratch, and fill it with gray (use the marquee tool to limit the area of the fill to just the new Scratch area)

5. Make a copy of the Source layer, drag it down to just above the new Scratch layer, then move and size it up into the upper right corner

6. Select both of the new layers and click on the folder icon to put them both into a folder, then name the folder Scratch
7. This is where you can easily keep a set of colors to suck up with the eyedropper tool, or with the option/alt key held down when your in the Brush tool. And you'll always have a reference for the source image available for grabbing colors and referencing your work.

8. You might want to add a top layer of black to cut off the visiblity of the scracth folder's content. If you were going to print this, you would either crop it to 8x10 with the crop tool, or indicate to the printer that they should only print the left section of the image.

You are now pretty well set up to start drawing.

Start Coloring

Words to the wise and rules:

• Check the assignment, but just to be clear, use only MART325_Color_Pencils: MART325 Prismacolor Pencil (for color layout) or MART325_Color_Pencils: MART325Verithin (for details).
• Optional: Use the opacity number keys to change opacity and build up color more slowly or do blends
• Advised: Use the option/alt keys to pick up color
• Advised: Use the scratch area to keep color swatches and a small version of the source image
• Advised: Put the Outline layer above the color pencil layer, and take down its opacity
• Advised: Build color up slowly with different colors, overlapping them to get smooth gradients. This is where the magic happens