How to make illustrations. Draw a colorful illustration in Photoshop

For many, morning is a time that the body painfully experiences, hoping to wake up as quickly as possible. And when planning our day, we often forget about those few hours in the morning that can also be used usefully.

The average human life expectancy is approximately 70 years. Let's add another 5-10 years (after all, we eat right and read Lifehacker) and we get 75 years. Multiplying this number by 365, we get approximately 20,000 - the number of morning hours that we often waste.

I hope you've thought about how to fix this. And there is a solution. Of course, you can drink coffee in the morning, get up an hour earlier, but you know all this without us, and we’ll try to think through more interesting tips to make your morning and day more efficient.

Manage energy, not time

If you feel your brain works best in the morning, then why not dedicate that time to tasks that require the most brainstorming?

For example, I try to write articles in the morning because that's when I feel more creative. I devote time to messages, emails and calls during lunch, because they do not require much brain activity. And in the evening I try to go to the gym and play sports, thus distributing all my worries from the most exhausting (from a mental point of view) to the simplest.

Prepare in advance

If you know you have a hard day ahead of you tomorrow, take the time to spend 15-20 minutes making a list of tasks and small notes for the next day. You can do this before bed, but remember that some things are better

Don't open your email before noon

Sounds simple. But who does it? Nobody. Learning to forget about email before noon takes a long time, but it's worth it. Understand that all emails, with rare exceptions, may wait several hours. No one will write you a letter while in danger or in a matter of life and death. So, leave the mail alone and don't worry about it until the day comes. Use your morning for the most important tasks.

Turn off your phone or leave it in another room

Or on the next table. Or in another universe. Anywhere but nearby when you work. This will allow you not to be distracted by Twitter and other anti-work stuff. Once you do this, you will immediately see an increase in efficiency in your work. Although you will also see less news and tweets. It's up to you to decide what's more important.

Work in a cool place

Can you concentrate on anything on a hot day or in a stuffy office? It's unlikely, so it's worth keeping yours workplace in the cool. This will help you concentrate on work easier and sweat less. Or do you like to sweat?

Do physical education minutes

It doesn't have to be a complex set of exercises. The fact is that, for life and for work in particular, the brain needs oxygen. But when you for a long time sit in one position, the chest contracts, and the diaphragm begins to put pressure on the lungs. This makes breathing difficult and reduces the amount of oxygen reaching the brain.

Even the fact that you just get up and walk will have a beneficial effect on the body and, as a result, on work efficiency.

A little tip: place a bolster between your lower back and the back of the chair. It will support your back and prevent it from rounding.

Don't neglect food

As you know, the more often you eat, the better. Therefore, do not forget about breakfast, lunch and small snacks. The 15 minutes of time you spend eating will more than pay off in health and well-being.

Create your own ritual

For me, it's a glass of water on an empty stomach in the morning. For some it might be 10 minutes of meditation or a morning conversation with a loved one. Just add a small ritual to your life that will signal to your brain that now is the time to get into work mode and start completing tasks.

The Power of a Morning Routine

As a rule, few people achieve success overnight. Just like few people ruin their lives in one day. In both the first and second cases, the main thing is repeated actions. It doesn't matter whether they are good or bad. Most ineffective behavior patterns consist of bad habits. An hour of wasted time on Facebook here. Unproductive morning there. And so on.

For example, take Jack Lalane. Every morning he woke up at four in the morning and studied in the gym for an hour and a half. After that, he swam or ran for half an hour. For more than 60 years he did the same thing every morning. The fact that he is one of the most influential people in fitness suggests that Lalane knew what he was doing. In addition, he lived to be 96 years old.

This is not a coincidence. What you do every morning is an indicator of how you will spend the rest of the day. These are the choices we make every day that determine how we live. You have 20,000 morning hours. What are you going to do with each of them?

Hello! We haven't seen each other for a long time and probably haven't written off for even longer. Today I want to convey to you all my experience that I have gained while drawing for this blog over the course of last year. Let's go!

I would like to boast of a large number of it, and even as an application to newspapers, magazines, news portals, books, which can be appreciated by tens of thousands of people every day... but the experience is modest and consists of one newspaper for pensioners and this blog.

I won’t tell you that “you need to do it this way and no other way”... although, in principle, I never said that, and I’ll just share my experience in creating illustrations for articles for a blog site

What is illustration

Let’s leave the free interpretation of this term in the depths of my head, and turn to the global web.

An illustration is a drawing or any other image that explains the text; this includes photographs, engravings, and much more.

The purpose of the drawing is usually to highlight the subject about which we're talking about, rather than showing form, explaining or showing textual content by graphic methods.

Used to convey emotions, the atmosphere of the text, depiction of the characters in the story, demonstration of objects, step by step instructions and diagrams in technical documentation.

How illustrations are used

Where do we meet them most often? IMHO, the priority is children's books, then websites, newspapers, magazines, and other books.

Newspapers mostly depict caricatures that ridicule the situation described in the text, while magazines use more photo collages and, if necessary, drawings that can be purchased on stocks.

A real treasure trove is children's books and websites. There is an opinion, and not just mine, that a person whose portfolio is made in the same style and similar topics than someone who has a hodgepodge of styles, techniques, topics, etc.

And what conclusion does this suggest? That's right, if you want to make money by drawing pictures to accompany the text, then you need to adapt to the market, and not the market to you.

In fact, when you understand the rules of the game and stop resist, showing off your “D’Artagnan” at the show, then you can count on working in this field.

With websites, in my opinion, the situation is different. There are many of them, and despite the fact that you still have to adapt to the client, no one here forbids you, and even recommends making your portfolio as diverse as possible, so that the client can choose the style in which he wants to accompany the illustrations on his portal.

So, to summarize, in order to draw a commercial illustration, which is what paid drawings are called, you need to choose the area in which you want to apply your talents, create a rich portfolio in one style ( for a narrow area, such as children's books), or in different ( for websites and projects with a wide range of topics) to demonstrate your experience to the customer.

I hope we both understand that today the question of whether how to draw in general and talk about idea and concept, not shapes and lines. Here we go... again!

1. In the first lines you need to understand, or rather ask how the customer sees the illustration . If the answer is in the style of “At your discretion,” then consider yourself lucky, while others create a picture in their head in advance and complain when it does not coincide with what came from your pen.

Of course, I am my own customer and performer, but if I ordered illustrations from “someone,” I would definitely say what exactly needs to be drawn and how I see it, and not “there is text - illustrate.”

2. As a rule my illustrations are based on subtitles , but there is not always enough information to form a clear picture. In other cases, I re-read the text and isolate a sentence from the entire section, or better yet, the context and try to somehow play with it.

3. I have a blog and according to my observations Most of the illustrations drawn for Internet sites are of an entertaining nature. and they want to make the reader laugh, dilute the atmosphere, and give them a break.

Large online publications, like adme, lookatme and others like them, often need specific and creative drawings. With books it’s simpler – just a drawing illustrating the text, without any allusions or secret meanings.

4. Illustrations on websites are needed first of all so that the reader doesn’t go crazy while reading this sheet. Therefore, the more drawings there are, the better. However, be careful, drawing eight illustrations for one article is difficult, but possible, and drawing eight illustrations for ten articles is fucking suicide (I know T_T).

The same is true for books. If the customer strictly determines the number of drawings per square centimeter, then first of all you need to assess whether you can do it. How to evaluate? Take it test, maybe even unpaid, because if it suits you, then they will cooperate with you, and if not, then you will buy yourself FREEDOM from slavery to a project that in the future you will associate only with pain.

5. The color in the illustration sets the mood for the entire text. Light and bright drawings associated with good mood and they say that the text is “friendly”, is not written in depressive tones, and does not try to scare you. Dark colors on the contrary, they can thicken the colors to convey all the horror that is described in the text.

6. Black and white drawings are created faster than colored ones, but not as fast as it seems at first glance ... Okay, this advice is useful, perhaps exclusively only for me (with my drawing style...), but in Lately I’m starting to add colors more and more often and... I wouldn’t say that I’ve been drawing noticeably longer. So this is it, advice for those who don’t know how to paint yet and think “my style will be black and white” - as I thought.

7. Optimize your backdrops. Often in an illustration the object is important and the background is not at all important. The background can be abstract or just some pastel color. If the customer does not require such an “Atmosphere” from you, then don’t bother - you’ll save yourself a lot of time.

8. Try to stick to one drawing . Yes, very strange advice, the answer to which can be the phrase: “The stump is clear!” But we are beginner artists (if you are not, then what have you forgotten here?) and each of our drawings teaches us something new and after each work we draw better and better.

9. For websites, newspapers, magazines: when you choose uniform style drawings, then sometimes it is possible to come up with a character. If you remember the illustrations for the newspaper, which I constantly looked for as a child, there was such a character as Petrovich. Honestly, he was drawn terribly, but it was catchy how the same character gets into different situations.

That’s what I did for my blog, I have two main characters (well, I’m a substitute), who illustrate everything that happens in my articles.

10. If the text is descriptive, draw an object; if it is narrative, draw an action.. Now I’ll explain - if they describe to me what a gorgeous vase my neighbor has, then I draw the vase, if they tell me how this vase got to him, then I can draw its entire path from the factory to the house, how it was produced, how it was dropped , glued, transported, etc.

11. Not the most categorical advice, purely in my opinion, the more details, the better. Yes a large number of little details lengthens the production process, but at the same time helps the reader read the picture better. The eyes cling to one thing or another and the image is deposited in the head. But there is a fine line between a moderate amount and a strong excess... you have to find this line yourself;)

Well, there’s not much here, but as I said, this is my experience in creating illustrations and some points that I noticed for myself personally.

I hope you found it interesting and got some useful knowledge.

And, yes, don't forget what to create digital illustrations you need Graphics tablet)) I've been looking at Aliexpress lately, there are a lot of tablets by low prices . I have bought things from the Chinese more than once and in the near future I am planning to buy myself a brand new tablet... otherwise my vakcom is already completely worn out T_T

Creative mood to all, friends!

This tutorial will help you learn how to draw a 2D illustration using standard Photoshop brushes. We will go through all the stages of creating an illustration, from sketch to background, gradually working out and drawing all the details. You can successfully apply all these methods to other illustrations, as well as in the design of other types of projects, such as logos, for example - drawing and painting skills always come in handy. The author used Photoshop CS3 and Wacom Graphire 3 to create this illustration.

1. Sketch

I started with a sketch. Having decided on the forms, I paid attention color scheme, highlighting the main and background colors. To do this, try to imagine the picture as accurately as possible. On Blank sheet Photoshop I sketched out the color spots. I don’t like working on a flat filled canvas - color transitions help give the right mood to work. I added a general background fill. You see, there is a lot of green grass - the good old song comes to mind about “...we dream of grass, grass near the house...” Try to imagine yourself in such a place: next to the house grows that oak tree that you often climbed as a child ...

2. Customizing brushes

We will add details using a brush. In this illustration I'm using only standard Photoshop brushes. If you want, you can download others and work with them. Let's set them up for work. Here are the brushes I will use:

3. Color selection

Let's determine the main colors we will work with. Here is my palette for this illustration. As usual, I want to draw something brighter. For the background I chose shades of yellow and blue. The remaining colors are for the landscape. Save your palette as a separate file. And while you draw, keep it open at hand.

4. We work on objects

I decided to remove the old car that was originally parked near the house. She doesn't look that good there. The car is an optional object in this illustration. So, I erased the car and drew my oak tree - and maybe you can draw another tree. To do this, I applied the main spots of paint with a hard round brush, and then schematically drew the details with the same brush, but smaller. You also need to create a separate layer for the grass and draw it in general terms as well.

5. Meadow

We continue to draw the grass in more detail, using both a small hard brush and smoothing out the transitions with a soft one. Later I can change the grass, add flowers - red, blue or yellow. I'm not thinking about it yet, but the green grass will definitely come in handy in this illustration.

6. Working with the palette

When choosing a color, I usually do this:

7. Wood

Watch how I paint wooden fence boards. In this lesson I don't draw different types wood, there are only 2 types - for the door and for the fence.

8. Canvas size

To draw details well, you need a large canvas. If you see that the size you have chosen is clearly not enough, at this stage you can still increase it. For our work we need a canvas of at least 2000 or 2600 pixels.

9. Drawing with a small brush

Draw the details with a small brush. Take a look at how I work with the roof detailing:

10. Grass

Now I'll create a couple more new grass layers. I fill the areas again with the main color and then work in the shadows with shades of it. I also paint bunches of grass blades in separate layers. Why draw grass in different layers? To make it easier to make changes that you later have to make. It is much easier to correct mistakes if the main elements of the work are in separate layers. In addition, somewhere you can save time and effort by duplicating successful layers with blades of grass in different places work.
How to draw grass, you ask? Just take a brush, pick up some color, and paint a blade of grass. Then change the color and draw the next one, just like in my example. And so many times.

11. Clouds

It's time to start detailing the clouds. To draw the cloud, I outlined its shape on a separate layer and then set the layer to overlay to achieve the effect you see in this picture.
My sky consists of two layers: one contains the main colors, and the other contains all the bright places and gaps. Try to achieve harmony by changing the shape of the brush and painting the clouds with different strokes.

We need to set shadows and light. If in doubt, look at pictures of clouds. Check Google to check different types and cloud shapes.

12. Clouds

I also want to add bright sun rays and gaps in the clouds that resemble lightning. After going through several options, I settled on the following. The light spots are still pretty rough for now, but I'll finish with them later. I note that each of the elements is on a separate layer, which allowed me to quickly select them and easily carry out all the manipulations with shades, brightness, etc. : Ctrl + click on the desired object selects the corresponding layer, and Ctrl + click on the preview of this layer in the layers panel gives us a selection in the form of a layer object.

13. Adjustments Settings

That's what really matters. By choosing the appropriate shade, you can change the entire atmosphere of the illustration. Now I change the colors in Color Balance. Then I'll adjust the brightness and contrast. As you can see, the result is obvious.

13. Let's summarize

Merge all layers into one. Can add finishing touch— apply the Smart Sharpen filter to the resulting image to make details clearer. This helps a lot in manifestation small parts, like glare.
Time to close Photoshop I hope you enjoyed it!

This lesson was translated for you by Hatice Bayramoglu. We will be glad if you dare to show off your results)) Good luck in your studies!

Comments

DeVeL
December 9, 2011 at 6:20 pm
Somehow not quite a lesson. Rather just making of, and not the most detailed one.
Islam
December 17, 2011 at 6:53 pm
But I think it can still be called a lesson, just follow the logic and everything will be ok.))
Vladislav
March 25, 2015 at 4:53 pm
I am a project manager at the Children and Parents Against Cancer charity foundation. www.deti-lipetska.ru
Our foundation is starting to publish a newspaper where I want to publish my fairy tale. Here is a link to the first three chapters:
lipetskblog.ru/blogs/blog...ste-glava-tretya
The fairy tale is unusual because it is written for children who have fallen under the heavy millstones of a serious and painful illness. Therefore, the fairy tale is a little sad but with powerful life motivation.

Need illustrations! But since we have a charitable foundation and the newspaper is free, I ask you to show complicity and offer your own illustrations for free. We, in turn, will definitely indicate this in each printed chapter of the fairy tale. Thank you!..

Write to us by email [email protected]
Katya Answer:
November 5, 2018 at 5:52 pm

I can try) =)

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French artist Xavier Collet explains how to make the painting process more efficient using his work with a dark fairy surrounded by a forest.

I think the following drawing rules can help you develop your skills, but sometimes it can feel like they are trying to limit you. Trying to satisfy a wide range of artistic criteria such as: character design, thoughtful compositions and effective color schemes– you can slow down, but fast work is not always of high quality, remember this.

I believe that the best way to the top is to learn to feel, to do things instinctively. With practice, seeing the things that are in the image and identifying those elements that still need work becomes second nature, filling the subconscious as you work.

With practice, it becomes second nature to see things that need improvement.

The only thing I did before I started drawing was to step away from everyone and the photos in my head so that my subconscious could start generating ideas. After that, I completely immersed myself in the drawing process.

Initial sketches

I don't know how far I'll go with this illustration. But I know that I want it main character was a queen of sorts—someone who would make you feel afraid, uneasy, when you looked into her eyes.

So I'll start with a rough sketch to get an idea of what the composition will be like. She walks in the forest and watches you. Well, let's start drawing someone who will make you feel real fear and mesmerizing horror.

Fifty Shades of Gray

It is important to take into account the depth of the image and decide on the planes: a background with two or three levels of depth; your character's main plane and foreground.

I start in mono - it's faster and it will be easier to change something. I chose a palette of many shades of gray and, adding horns and long dress in full height, I began to determine her character.

A starting point

We all have our little weaknesses. Mine is that I can't resist drawing the character's face in the early stages. It is often said that detailing elements in isolation is not a good practice because you end up missing the big picture.

Helpful advice, no doubt, but I can't stand the fact that there will be only a few details on the face, I'm terribly itching to add them. So I took some time to draw the face, crown, horns and hair.

Sometimes it is very difficult to determine what colors the illustration will be in. So here you go little advice. Take old drawing or even a photograph, it doesn't matter. Duplicate the image layer and apply the Gaussian Blur effect to the duplicate. Then change Blending Options – Blend Mode – Overlay. And see if this color scheme inspires you for your work illustration.

Search for a color theme

After that, I adjusted the Hue/Saturation and painted with the brush in color mode. Another tip is to apply Auto Levels or Auto Contrast and then play around with the layer blending modes. Sometimes happy accidents will inspire you and help you overcome the wall of “uncreativity.”

Add details

I start drawing out the details of the character, starting with the head and bust, before moving on to designing the clothing.

I'm not doing any ideas for the dress, as I said, I'm just flipping through a large selection of different images to get my creative juices flowing so I can come up with an unusual design for the dress.

Contrast

It's good if there is contrast in the drawing. More specifically: the contrast of shapes, brightness and color. My choice for this illustration is a bluish light that will indicate magical power and control over all living beings in this picture.

More details

Now that I'm happy with the colors I've chosen, I can finalize her costume by adding details like jewelry, and introduce a range of materials like fur, leather, metal, and glitter that all add up to make the design more interesting.

Plastic surgery is your friend

Remember the benefits of digital graphics programs. Photoshop's Plastic filter is a powerful editorial option. Here in my illustration I use it to touch up the fairy's face since I decided it was too long.

Let's finish with her

Time to complete the final details of the character. I added the finishing touches to her corset, painted a skull on her staff, added a blue glow to her costume, etc.

Now it's time to spice up the background with some light and some noise. The speckled brushes in the Foundation Lightening mode are perfect for me.

We create pets

I want my dark fairy to have...pets. The bottom of the composition is a little loose, so it's perfect place, to draw creatures that come to life with the help of her dark magic.

I don't have a specific idea of what I'm going to do, so I sketch it out with a dark brush and then use a brush in the Dodge mode to add details like eyes and mouths with wisps of magic coming out of them.

Menagerie of Monsters

So far I'm working instinctively and I'm quite happy with the design of my creature. Now I can add others. I use the same workflow: create a small sketch and then add details using the brush in the base dodge mode.

Blurred elements

I'm almost finished with this illustration and will now be applying some of the tricks I've learned over the years. I want my fairy to look at the observer - the spectator who is hiding in the forest.

So I'll finish off the branches with hard brush strokes. There is no need to draw them in detail. Then I added a Gaussian Blur effect to them and that's it - they're ready!

Grain adds texture

I love adding texture to my drawings. Sometimes it's just a paper texture created using a Layer Overlay. But now I will do something completely different.

I added a neutral gray layer (Saturation - 0, Brightness - 50) and applied Filter>Noise>Add Noise twice (set to maximum) and Filter>Blur>Blur three times. Then I set this layer to Overlay (Overlay) and clicked on the Layer Opacity, setting the settings to 5-6%

More magical life

I decided that the picture needed more life. My solution is to quickly draw butterflies on foreground, again give the drawing more depth.

The final trick

Last tip. An easy way to add a little more variety to your art is to create a new layer and fill it with a soft cloud brush.

Set the base color to a light gray and use a soft cloud brush to create contrast. Then set this layer to Blend Mode.

I followed my own advice and finished the drawing!