How you learn to make digital art? Can you make a tutorial or give some advices for beginners?
That’s a big question, and I don’t think I necessarily have the right tools and expertise to answer it, for I myself am still learning each and everyday. I could talk about my personal experience, but I should mention first that much of what I’ve learned I owe it to the school I’ve attended for three years (2013-2016), in which I haven’t just acquired the fundamental skills for digital colourization and comic design, but have also received a heck of a lot of useful tips and advices. And one thing I’ve learned is that there’s no magic secret knowledge to uncover to start learning digital art, the best way to start is to just draw and experiment with the tools: tutorials are a great resource and I recommend you to gather as many as possible, but remember that there isn’t JUST THE ONE RIGHT WAY TO DIGITAL ART, IF YOU DON’T DO IT LIKE THIS YOU’LL NEVER BE A TRUE ARTIST, this is simply not true and it’s the most harmful mindset.
This said, I can show you my method for digital colourization with this old illustration of Jester Lavorre, from Critical Role. I use PhotoshopCS6 as program and I have a Wacom Intuos Pro tablet as tools.
Of course, I’ll start with the sketch. I usually sketch on paper, upload the design on Ps, do the lineart and then delete the sketch level so that I don’t keep too many levels on my file (bc the program will slow down considerably if the file is too heavy)
Then, with the Lasso tool I slowly outline the lineart, covering the whole figure, and then I fill the outline with a shade of gray. I will use this level so I can easily select the whole figure with the Wand tool if I need to later.
Helping myself with the grey outline and the Lasso tool, I gradually put in colour. I have my own set of palettes which I use for almost every piece I do, so that the colours will be more armonized
I add blush on the skin, decorations and textures. For textures, I have a ton of saved images, from paper textures, to watercolour stains, to whool, to steel etc. etc. and I usually apply them in the Overlay method and by selecting the specific areas I need with the Wand tool, and cutting the excess away with a Mask.
Then, the shadows. Here, I used two levels because I needed a stronger contrast in certain points of Jester’s figure. These levels are specifically Hue/Saturation, from the Adjustment Layers section. I insert some specific parameters for the hue (dark blue or purple, usually) and saturation of the shadow, and then set the method to Multiply. I tend to use a mix of hard brushes, soft brushes and the tool Gradient.
For lighting, I copy the Colour level and then set the method to Overlay, then adjust the luminosity as needed and add a Mask to put the colour in the areas I need.
At this point, I usually add a simple background with a texture in Overlay, and paint over the lineart layer with a Clipping Mask layer.This is a very generic explaination, if you want clarifications over certain things I can help, but keep in mind that I’m not a qualified teacher and can only help to a certain extent. Hope this was useful!
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