| 1. Okay,
first of all I drew a little quick sketch of a rose called "Bewitched".
I used a photo from a gardening book for this drawing so I know where the
shade and light will be at. The only way to draw real stuff is to
draw from photos, still-lifes, or models. Unlike the Klonoa drawing
from How to CG Cartoons, this rose is already
shaded in. Your picture doesn't necessarily have to be shaded with
pencil or ink, but I did it because it would be easier to figure out where
the shades will be. If your picture is already colored and you used
a color scanner, then good for you. You can pretty much skip most
of the processes and start smearing using the smudge tool. Use a
bit of airbrush to define the image. |
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| 2. Using
the paintbucket tool, fill in the picture with the main colors. If
you didn't totally fill in those tiny gaps, that's okay. You can
fix it later. If you're wondering where the shades will be, just
check out what you drew it from (in this case, mine's from a photo). |
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| 3. If you have
layers, start using it! It will make the process
much
easier. (I don't have layers, so I have to suffer! ^_^*) Add
a layer for this process. Now find a shading color for the picture.
Here, I have a dark pink as my main shading color. For color CGs,
you should never use any shades of black unless the object itself is a
type of black. Use airbrush or paintbrush to paint over where the
shades are. They don't need to be in detail. We'll worry about
that later. |
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| 4. Here's the
picture zoomed in. Okay, check out what I did. I started really shading
it in. Use the same layer for this. Notice as I move out, the
the colors are lighter. Use various shades to blend the color together.
For realistic CGs, you need at least 3 shades and 2 light hues. Right
now, I am concentrating on the shading and not the highlights.
Notice that my shades aren't smooth enough. A real picture needs
that smoothness and smudging gives it that smoothness. Use the smudge
tool (the finger tool) to blend the colors. Try not to cheat by using
the toning tools or the gradient tools; I rarely use them because I usually
get bad results. |
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| 5. Here's my image again.
Just shading everything else. . . Check it out: there's no outlines.
You can use the airbrush or paintbrush to go over the outlines. Real
objects do not have black outlines on it so just make sure there's no outlines
on yours. ^_^ Keep in mind that I haven't highlighted it yet; we'll do
that later. Notice the shades are a slightly different color from
the picture above. I modified it to give the rose a more pink look
and less brown. That was a bit of a mistake on my part. Make
sure to save your picture frequently. It is usually a good idea to
save several versions of it in case you mess up and want to start from
a specific process. |
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| 6. Once you're satisfied with your
shading, be ready to highlight. Before you start the highlighting
process, add another layer. Remember to look at your photo or whatever
for shading and highlighting guidelines. With the airbrush, I applied
white to the highlighted areas. Make sure the pressure of the airbrush
is really really low because a low pressure will retain some of the pink
color. Again, use the smudge tool to blend out the highlight.
Make sure to add some texture. The rose is smooth, but the petals
curl so I blend it in the direction it curls. Notice that in this picture,
the shading takes up more of the rose than highlights. |
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| 7. Okay, that's pretty much
it. I just did the leaves and background. A little touch-up.
Click on the image to see a close-up.
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