Hello there! Today I’m going to teach you how I drew a picture entirely digitally three years ago. It’s been a while, and my methods have probably changed, but I’m sure they’re still valid to some degree. Anyway, here goes!

Tools Used:

  • Corel Painter (for sketching)
  • Adobe Photoshop (for colouring)
  • Wacom Mouse Pen (for everything)

Step 1: Sketching the Basic Image

During this stage I use Corel Painter, a marvelous program if you want to simulate real media like pencil, charcoal or watercolours. I’ve still not fully utilised its awesomeness myself, but if I do I’ll be sure to post up a tutorial or two about my adventures.

This is a rough sketch done over two layers. The first layer is the basic cross-haired circle for the head, and the second layer is for the rest of the face. Often I will have an extra layer on top of that just for the hair.

I like sketching with a mouse pen because of the pressure sensitivity, just like the real thing. I have trouble achieving the same effect with Photoshop, but this is probably because my mouse pen is one hundred years old.
Step 2: Cleaning Up the Sketch

Next, I clean up all the loose ends on the sketch. Personally I prefer a sketchy look, and depending on the look you are going for cleaning up may or may not be necessary, but generally speaking if you are going to be colouring your work in sketchy lines can distract from the over-all effect of the piece. You decide!

Step 3: The Flat Colour Stage

Here is where the cross-over between Corel Painter and Photoshop occurs. At the moment I find that Corel Painter is best for natural-looking colour, whereas Photoshop is great for more CG-oriented effects or simulating cel animation. That’s just my opinion though.

I usually put each colour on a separate layer in Photoshop to allow for easy manipulation when it comes to shading, and also so I can afford to be careless with the flat colour, smearing it all over the picture without fear of repercussion. Be liberal with your colour at this stage. Don’t be scared to colour way over the lines. This can always be cleaned up later (as seen above) and the important part is to know what colours you’re actually going to use in the piece.

Kiba is probably alarmed that I am including her in a tutorial even though I don’t draw her anymore.

Step 4: Shading and Finishing Off

Okay, to be fair now, this isn’t actually a finished piece. There is still a lot to be shaded and fixed, but I can’t be bothered finishing it years after its creation!

But! You can see how the shading has begun. There is much use of the dodge and burn tools, as well as the airbrush and a lot of smudging with the smudge tool.

When you begin shading, select the colour that you are going to be editing, eg. the entire orange of the face. Then save the selection (Select > Save Selection) as something you’ll remember, eg. “face_orange”. This way, even after you have shaded everything so that the colour is in a gradient or whatever, you can still be sure that you can easily select the whole section again if you need to (Select > Load Selection > face_orange).

And there you have it. That’s how I roll. Sometimes.

Please keep in mind that this is just a basic tutorial showing which tools I used and when, as well as the stages of the drawing/colouring process. I will probably upload other tutorials at a later time showing more detailed explanations for how each step is accomplished. Write to me if you really want to know something in particular; if there is a lot of interest in learning, then I’ll upload more tutorials, more quickly!