Photoshop and Me...

I received a comment on my previoius blog post from Mr./Mrs. Anonymous that went like this:

Now I know I am going to come off as a photoshop dummy, so I am warning you in advance. I love drawing cartoons and am beginning to become interested in photoshop as most of my favorite artists (you are totally one!!) use it. It is so expensive and definitly will not be an impulse buy. Would you mind giving me a very basic "This is photoshop and why I use it" tutorial?

No dummies here! I'm glad you asked. There are still a lot of artists out there who are reluctant to embrace the digital arts. Here is my rapidly-typed response with a couple of images included for illustrative purposes. I'll probably be editing and updating this for the next three years, so if you're at all interested you might want to check back on a regular basis! Ha!


HOW AND WHY I STARTED USING PHOTOSHOP
This isn't part of your request, but you might be able to relate to my initial feelings about working on a computer. I clearly remember saying: "Create art on a computer? Never!"

I was a "traditional illustration" kind of guy -- acrylic, gouache, pastel, oil, watercolor -- and I was not even slightly interested in creating art on a computer. The digital art I saw was obsessed with a slickness and shininess that did not appeal to me.

But I started seeing digital drawings and paintings done by classically trained artists-- and I couldn't tell that they were digital! Well, I wanted to play, too. I sought out articles and tutorials and I slowly gained an understanding of how to use layers and how to modify the drawing tools.

In 2001 I landed my job as an illustrator/graphic artist for a newspaper. I worked with another artist who was a more advanced Photoshop user and he was interested in the new wave of digital art-- so I watched and learned and experimented. It took a while, but I became comfortable with the process, and I continue to learn new ways of working.

Today, there are YouTube tutorials a-plenty! It's easy to discover how artists are creating their digital art. With all those how-tos on YouTube I bet I could learn in a few weeks what it took me 5 years to figure out on the job. No exaggeration.

Old iMac and Wacom held together with tape.

MY TOOLS
I use a Wacom tablet to draw. My newest tablet is about 5 years old, so I can't vouch for any of Wacom's more recent products, but I've heard the bamboo pen tablet is spiffy. I've only worked with the smallest tablets; I did a demo on a mid-size tablet for a couple of hours but it seemed about the same. You can find others who feel differently, but it made no difference to me. (And smaller tablets are cheaper.)

Photoshop CS, CS2 and CS4: Dang! I just looked it up on the web and CS5 is 650 bucks! That's huge money. I qualified for an education discount when I purchased CS4 last year-- it wouldn't hurt to ask if there were discounts available.

Or you might want to try purchasing an older version of Photoshop. I mostly use the first CS-- it's on an old computer at home that is not connected to the internet (pictured), so I can't pop open a browser and fritter around on the web when I should be working. At work, I use CS2, but it seems the same as CS as far as I can tell.

If you purchase an older version of Photoshop, do a little research first and make sure it will work on your computer! The Adobe forums might be a good place to ask about that.

CS4 is totally fab, though. It does amazing stuff and is a big leap over the older Photoshops, but I'm not really comfortable with it yet.

My very first day with Painter 7!
A study of one of John Singer Sargent's portraits.

Painter! I should mention Painter as an option. I don't use it, but I wish I could!

A long time ago I bought Painter 7. It ran very slowly on my computer. I have no doubt that the limited horsepower of my lime-green iMac was to blame, but it was so slow to respond I couldn't take the frustration.

Later, I purchased a newer computer and upgraded to Painter 8... and it was still so pathetically slow I couldn't stand it. I was very disappointed because the results were amazing! Wonderful texture, and the way the colors behaved and interacted-- it was just like real-world watercolor, pastel, acrylic! Couldn't use it, though.

I installed Painter 8 on my newest computer a year and a half ago and it does the simple coloring jobs well... but the performance still lags horridly. I'm so comfortable with Photoshop that I haven't felt the urge to do more than dabble occasionally.

A lot of artists swear by it-- they probably have more powerful computers than I do; I swear AT it.

Do some research and ask around online; ask artists about it on their blogs, post a few inquiries in digital art-related forums. It's MUCH cheaper than Photoshop and, again, some folks love it.


WHY YOU SHOULD WORK DIGITALLY:
All your art supplies are included! You never have to buy paper or paint again.
You'll never run out of cerulean blue and you won't be inhaling the fumes of your cadmium red. No paint thinner! You don't have to wash out your brushes! Etc.

Speed and elasticity!
No drying time. You don't have to mix paint. You can stop at anytime and you don't have to set up your work space all over again later. You can change colors on the fly, even after you have painted them! Your cats cannot tread in your palette; they can stomp the keyboard and wreak havoc that way, but at least they will not make a mess.

If you work with a professional printer you have total control over how it comes out! You can personally prepare the files for print yourself! (This'll take some cooperation from the printer, of course, but never before has it been so easy for the artist to become involved in that process!)

If you take advantage of the ability to work with a lot layers you can shift and change whole sections of your work without damaging other areas. Without a doubt this ability has come in very handy at my newspaper job. In many a tight pinch, I have been able to make wholesale changes under tight deadlines.


HOW I WORK
Here's a quick diagram of the art for my previous blog post. This is the basic layer structure I use for most of the art I create on the job. It's very simple and an easy way to work.

Bottom: I have my original drawing on the bottom layer. This is a drawing that has been done on paper and scanned; it just as easily could have been drawn in photoshop.

The layer is locked and I cannot directly deface it. I can only work on the layers above.

It does not suffer any damage as paint on it! I can go back to it later if I have to.

Middle: Above that is a layer of flat color-- wide, simple patches of color.

Not to get too technical, but you can set the layer to be transparent, so that the drawing shows through the color.

For most of my work at the paper, that's about where it ends. Art below, color on top. If you just want to draw cartoons and color them, that's all there is to it.

Top: If you're interested in digital painting then you can go further, like I did in this one. Here, the top layer is my rendering. I also often use a top layer for highlights and special effects. I've created a few brushes in photoshop that have more "natural" textures and look like what you see when you paint on paper/canvas, etc. If you're into painting then you'll want to learn how to do this at some point.


IN CLOSING
The brutal truth. If you have any aspirations of working commercially, you have to learn how to create art digitally; not necessarily in its initial form, but it will become digital art eventually. It is the best way to show and to share your artwork. Two minutes after you finish it, you can post it for an audience. Everybody's work goes digital and it will continue to do so.

The beautiful truth: It is fun and gives you tremendous power over your creative process. Once you get used to the technology-- not as hard as you might think-- it is a completely natural way to express your artistic vision. I'm not saying that it's the only way to create art, but it is necessary and can be completely satisfying.



Any more questions, class? I hope I sorta addressed your concern. I think I got way too chatty here. I could probably lop off about 12 paragraphs and make it less painful-- starting with this paragraph, I bet.

If you have any more questions fire away at any time-- I'm only too happy to write a novel-length response!

Geez, I get on a roll sometimes. I'm going to be late for work!

The End

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Head Painting

I haven't done any digital painting in a while so I thought I'd take a couple hours on one of my days off and go after it.

I drew the head a couple of weeks ago. I didn't have any reference for him, I just dragged the pencil around on the paper and sort of let it take shape on its own. I then went in with a big brush and inked him.

Today, I attacked him with photoshop. I beat him about the head with several textured brushes for about an hour and 20 minutes. He looked a bit better about 10 minutes before I stopped, but this'll do.

I liked the challenge of taking a cartoony looking face and trying to give him a slight touch of realism. Sorry about that ghastly green behind him -- Truly hideous. I don't know what I was thinking with that!

Frank Hamer

Here is a quick drawing of Frank Hamer, Texas Ranger, the man who tracked down and wiped out Bonnie and Clyde.

Created with pencil and brush on very cheap paper. Colored with absolutely no enthusiasm in photoshop.


I've been finishing off a drawing pad that I've had for over 20 years and the paper is terrible. No wonder I never used it. But I've decided to get my money's worth out of it. Almost finished.

Quick Study and a Doodle

I'm totally in love with the work of Gene Colan. I've always been an admirer but I've recently been picking up some Daredevil and Tales of Suspense comics from the late 60s and early 70s out of the 1 and 2 dollar bins at the comic shop next to work; so I'm seeing a lot I've never seen before. He's absolutely brilliant. That word is used way too often, but it applies to Colan.

I've also snagged a bunch of his comics shopping online for about the same price. Classic comics and artwork for much less than the price of a new comic! I seriously can't afford new comics and I don't like them as much as I like the old stuff. I check out new comics at the library but they just don't appeal to me as much as the old books do.

Anyway, sometimes when I have ten minutes to spare before going to work I will do quick studies from photos or old comics. Most of them go to the trash, just because I don't get around to finishing them. The top panel I swiped from Colan a couple of weeks ago. Later, I freestyled the two characters below just to fill the spot. I was going to toss it out when I thought I'd color the thing and fill some space on the blog.

Here it is!

Drawing and Coloring Studies!

Last year I started writing/drawing a short story. Some portions I drew like a comic, some of it was written in sloppy longhand as a script/short story. I came close to finishing it, but I can't find a bunch of the pages! They must be around here somewhere.

I wonder if it might be too irritating to read one story presented in different formats. The beginning done in comics, the second part perhaps presented as a tv script with camera and stage directions included, and the final act written as though it were traditional prose fiction. Would the reader be able to follow the story over such an uneven surface?

In the moments since I finished the last sentence, I've thought of a few examples. Dang. For a moment I thought I had a brand new, innovative idea. Nah. I stole it.

Getting back to the first paragraph, I've been doodling around while thinking about my crudely concocted short story and it's re-shaping in my head. The pages I drew in comics form are still pretty good-- I'll probably post them later-- but the characters don't fit the mental images I have of them now.

So, here I'm experimenting a little with one of the characters and trying a variation on a coloring technique that I've used before.

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Pencil, pen on paper with Photoshop colouring.

Summer Fun Art

This illustration ran with a story about keeping the kids busy during summer. A lot of activities were covered and a broad topic can be a challenge for an illustration. In the end, I opted to focus on one image emblematic of the the story; it also is very representative of my best childhood summer memories.

During the summer my folks would drive me and my sister to a cousin's house and we would swim in a big pool for hours on end. It was a lazy, dreamy, wonderful time and I still think about floating in that pool, laying on the hot concrete, the smell of chlorine and the grass of the lawn. Ahhh. I'm there right now.

A really wonderful time. Mmm.


Okay, I'm back.

I had several ideas for this assignment before I zeroed in on the final presentation. In this rough, I addressed a few of the suggestions in the story, conjuring an iconography for them. I took a sort of aggressive tone with the main figures-- the father dragging the kid away from the video game, telling him to go outside and play, dammit.

I kind of like it! This could've worked.








This was my first rough. The story pitch mentioned a summer activity including a trampoline. I think, personally, a horrible idea. Has there ever been a more obviously dangerous thing to purchase for your kids? Has anyone ever bounced on a trampoline and come away uninjured? Awful, awful idea. Great opportunity for a fun image, though!

Still needs work, of course, but I like this!

So, this is the development of the final. I stole the kid in the foreground from the trampoline rough. It seems obvious to me that an attempt to get kids out and away from the TV/computer/entertainment console is going to be near impossible in this, the age of the laptop/iPod/Pad. Certainly, one of the little tech-addicts is going to bring his tech-toys with him. I certainly would. I certainly do.

I'm working on that, by the way. I don't bring the ipod with me when I'm out and about. I kept getting it out to check if I could log on to wi-fi wherever I happened to be. I wouldn't DO anything; I just kept checking to see if I could see the internet. I hate being that dumb.



At this stage I've finalized the characters and begun experimenting with an approach to the coloring process. First, I colored with simple, flat color. Then, I took those simple colors and overlaid them on a scan of paper that had been painted with a broad brush.

By using a combination of adjustment layers, I applied the texture to those colors. I then replaced the flat colors with the spiffy new, textured colors. I've done this before but it always takes a while to get it to look pretty good. There are some colors that behave entirely differently with the adjustment layers so I have to go through the process of tweaking each color to get it to look right. That's why I tried to keep the coloring simple in the first place.

What a headache.

At this point, I had gone a little wild. I got carried away because I had extra time to work on this and I was having fun. I decided that I would give each kid his own wave to be floating on.

I was really getting into it. But, as I was sorting through nearly 80 individual layers -- adding more waves and more adjustment layers as I tried to get it to look better -- I glanced back at the original rough.

Geez, I thought, that looked pretty good. Now, it looks like the kids are in rough seas; I'm almost worried about them. There should be a life-guard swimming in there somewhere to put the audience at ease.

So, I ditched the nonsensical turbulent water shtick and went back to the original pool. It was quick work from there.

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Bonus doodle: Here's the first drawing I did while brainstorming. I quickly colored it before bed the other night.

Everything done in Photoshop.

Bored Democrats

This ran in the paper a little while back; I can't take much credit for it, though.

The story was about the California Democratic party and a perceived lack of energy on their part heading into the election season; the bored Democrats. I'm all for donkey/elephant cartoons! A long-standing American tradition and one that I'm only too happy to carry on. I've done it MANY times.

This time, Chuck Todd-- King of the graphics department-- had a terrific little drawing mapping out this idea. Looked great! I tried to talk him into using his drawing, but he felt he didn't have the time to work it up properly, so I simply took his idea and drew it my way.

Easy stuff! Didn't even have to do any thinking! 

Roughed out in real pencil and then scanned and buried beneath photoshop coloring. Of course, the story goes into the box there. I'll try to dig up a pdf of how it turned out and post it later.

The Worst Thing I've Ever Done?

I almost feel pain when I look at this. It's taken me a while to confront this one, and writing about it has been very difficult. It's a traumatic experience I don't want to think about. But it's all about getting back on that horse, isn't it? So, here I go.

Sometimes you take a swing at something, like a fastball, and miss. Stee-rike. That's alright. Dig in, get ready for the next pitch.

Sometimes you swing at something -- like a pinata -- and you miss. Worse, you stagger when you swing, and flail three or four times amidst the screaming congregation. (Is that screaming or cheering? You can't tell. Keep swinging!) The pinata seems kind of soft when you club it. When you are finally knocked down and the blindfold is torn away by those who have subdued you, you do not see the cheerful sight you were anticipating. Instead there are bruises and welts and blood everywhere. Party over. No candy.

For this illustration I feel like I sorta clubbed the writer. What a crummy illo.

I work hard to make all of my work "good enough." I'm not saying that I strive for mediocrity, but there are times when things don't come together well. Maybe the concept isn't well-thought out, maybe the application of the idea isn't clear, maybe the subject doesn't inspire, maybe it's an off-day for drawing; an art slump. Still, the professional has to fight through those negatives and try to deliver a piece that is strong enough to stand on its own. At the very least you must try to hit close enough to the mark that nobody will be outraged. Well, I'm a little outraged by this one.

This was for a story about the resurgence of Betty White. All the elements that should buttress the story are there, aren't they? The crowd beneath, holding up the laptop, symbolizing the on-line campaign to persuade the producers of Saturday Night Live to have Betty White appear as host; the lotus flower, growing out of the laptop's screen, symbolizing re-birth of Betty White's popularity. Gag me. An awkward couple of concepts topped with a crummy caricature.

Does it even look like Betty White? At one point it did, but I think I managed to obliterate the resemblance as I went along.

As time was running out before deadline, I thought: "Geez, this looks lousy. I hope I can pull this thing together." I don't think I did. In desperation I pumped up the saturation of colors before I sent it; at least it would be colorful!

The End.

Meanwhile...

I've been trying to find the time to create some samples of comics pages. I used to write and draw stories, but for the past five years I've failed to make any progress. So, I sat myself down and sternly set the goal to create a comic page in a day. Three months later... I finally got there.

I haven't even been goofing around much. Really! I've been (almost) THAT busy.

There's not a lot going on here-- just a few simple shots so that I didn't get hung up on creating detailed environment. There was no story in mind when I started it-- although now I have one. Obviously, I won't get around to making the whole thing unless mankind's life-expectancy suddenly grows by a decade or two. It's not that great anyway; just a sci-fi/western thing with no real plot.

I had a great time writing the dialogue in ten syllable bursts (not strict iambic pentameter, tho-- I just made it fit the syllable count.) It took a couple of days to do that, but that was because the story was growing and sorting itself out while I wrote-- I kept changing things and writing notes and making doodles for the rest of the story on a couple pieces of paper.

The writing took much longer than the picture-making. I'd guess there's about 7/8 hours drawing time here and about the same for coloring.

I stole the general layout from Steranko-- I've seen a couple of examples where he's done this: Full-length figure going top to bottom, and three panels falling down on the right.

Because it's bothering me so much, I'm compelled to write this: I am not a fan of word balloons done in vector and laid on the artwork after-the-fact. I dislike that a LOT. I much prefer to see the balloons drawn on the page, so I cringe and weep when I seen them all over my work. Is it resistance to change? I don't think so-- I hated it the first time I took notice of it and that animosity has not diminished. So, maybe it is resistance to change! Either way, it sure it quicker and easier to make adjustments on the fly. I see the appeal, but I despise the look.

I hope to do more pages for fun and portfolio, soon!

The End

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A Very Slow Month

And by slow I mean not much art has been getting done. Horribly busy.

I've mentioned my second job before, but I don't think I got around to saying what it actually is. I've been teaching an online class for the Academy of Art. I enjoy it a lot. It's very rewarding personally, but it is time intensive.

Billiam Franzem

The online environment is interesting and effective if the students are studious and committed; they're pretty much on their own when it comes to doing the work. It's not like a real classroom situation where I have face to face contact-- if someone doesn't turn in their homework in person I can raise the eyebrow at them, let them know that ain't right. Online, you don't have those loaded non-verbal weapons to use on the slacking student. Perhaps there's an emoticon for that...

A simplified description of the class is:

1) Students read the lessons online, and they get a homework assignment that pertains to what they've read. There is one lesson for them a week, which also involves a quiz pertaining to that lesson.

2) I answer questions the students may have about what they have read; they often come up with some real puzzlers, so I have to know what I'm doing... or I have to scramble quick and go find the answers.

3) The homework is submitted to a message board where I critique and encourage, with the students (hopefully) joining in and doing the same. In effect, I am a message board moderator that all participants sort of feel they have to be nice to. Pretty good situation!

I stray off-topic a bit and try to get some chatter going about... whatever. Mostly art, of course, but I think it gets pretty dull when we only type about homework. I try to turn it into the art-conversation forum I would like to post in.

All kidding aside it is a lot of fun, and I feel great about it when I see a student progress and improve over the semester. Can't beat it.

It does, as I said, take a lot of time, but this week is the last for me until the Summer semester begins (although I'm not sure if I'm going to do it-- I feel like I need to get some personal artwork going again! I'd rather take time off from my real job, but reality intercedes...) I have a couple of household projects that need to be addressed, but I hope to get in some artwork, too.

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Oscar Fentwick Zimm

These heads have been sitting here for some time, ready to go. I started to write a story about them, but I realized the story wasn't about either of these guys; so, I drew a couple more pictures for the story and the story grew.

I'm still working on that post. Should be done soon.

So, here are these heads. No story, but at least I gave them names.

Pencil, brush and P-shop.