Digital Illustration Class-Original 3-part 1

Okay, since the process to do these is pretty fast, and I was having a hard time visualizing what my finished illustration would look like in this style, I did several practice pieces today.

Llama:

• I basically tired to follow the process from yesterday, but since I was technically inventing colors, it took alot more adjusting. i also ended up adding a highlight color.
• For the paintbrush i used "oil Pastel Large" size 63 (which comes standard with photoshop brushes) I set the Flow on jitter pressure. Went to the Shape Dynamics options and changed the angle to directional (thanks to Mr. Babcock.) I did not use this brush yesterday, it is a new one I built.

Tiger:

• I started to folow the process from yesterday but found myself completely skipping the final linework step...I did practically all the finish work on the copy-merged-layer. I really like how it looks like an acrylic painting.
• Something else unique i did was when correcting the colors with Hue/saturatino I turned the lines off so I could see how they interacted with each other. i also did this with the shading too.
• The brush I used for this was created like this: start with brush "Chalk 44 pixels" (which is also a default brush in photoshop). Turn on Texture, I used a paperish looking base. Turned off "texture each tip". I then turned it COLOR BURN mode. next I went to the Dynamics direction and turned the flow jitter to pen pressure (which allows the texture of the brush to show through at will). I also turned the angle jitter to directinoal (this is such a cool feature. I'm glad I learned about it.)

Girl:

• So for this picture I actually branched out and completed a full character (head to toe) final sketch, but in order to cut back on time in painting I stuck with just the profile.
• As expected I started out with the process established yesterday, but found myself merging several steps, and even going back and forth...so basically like yesterday but scrambled.
• Once I was 100% done I found myself playing with the color options...color balance, levels, auto contrast etc...I was basically trying to idealize the colors...

Further notes:

• All sketches were done on a 8-1/2 x 11 sheet of cheap print paper. I usually filled up a good portion of page and scanned them at 300 dpi (did that for you Mr. babcock).
• I acquired a photo from FileMorgue and used it for reference for the girl: http://www.morguefile.com/archive/display/144167 (btw filemorgue is a site that anyone can use anything on it and not get in trouble!!!)
• For the tiger and llama I used photos I took at the Kansas City zoo as reference.
• I put my wacom on a 15% tilt (like on a drawing table) to see if it would relax my pen grip, and it did a pretty good job.
• Oh yesterday I misquoted some info...in order to get rid of red and blue sketch lines, in the HUE/Saturation menu take the saturation to -100 and the brightness to +100. Do that for Cyan, blue, magenta, and red...or whatever color used as a prep sketch.

How I used my reference photos for these:

• Part of the problem when I use photos for reference in the past, is it is hard to stray from what is there...so this is what I did to avoid that:
  

1. stare at the photo and find what emotion the character is, or might be, or you make it convey, then find ways to generalize/exaggerate/summarize the character.
   
2. Next I put away the photo and drew from memory as much as I could...basically I'm trying to get my own characterization before I look at the reference again.
   
3. After I get well established I then look at the reference again and add extra details, and make minor corrections. If you look at my reference for the girl, you will see how drastically different my sketch turned out. I also imagined expressions and using a hand mirror made them in order to see what they might look like on the characters.

OOOOkay...now to try and think of a good narrative illustration I can do and finish by tomorrow (in order to make Illustration Friday deadline).