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From Pencil Drawing to Digital Art


hankakston

hankakston

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This is a tall order, I know. But where to begin? Books? Tutorials?

I have hundreds of pencil drawings I'd like to convert to digital art, but not "slick"--keeping somehow the style of the finished product.

Will post an example link when allowed. Meanwhile see my website at deviantArt for an idea.

Book recommendations, advice welcome.

Thanks,

Robert
 
Hi Robert and welcome to PSG.
There probably isn't any single way to do this that will work on all of the drawings but this shouldn't be a problem

Once you post an image, or link to one, we can figure out what will work.
 
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Thanks Steve.

Looking forward to all masters' suggestions on this.
 
Are you looking for advice on how to get them into Photoshop, such as scanner or camera.... or what to do with them once you have them as digital images?

As a general tip, you are probably going to use a lot of the same filters/processes more than once so if you find something that works create an action or script for it to save yourself time.
 
hawkeye said:
My first suggestion is to buy a pen tablet.
Click to expand...

hawkeye, thanks. Got that. Have had a little Wacom for the PC for 8 years and a 6.5 x 11" for the Mac since '05.
 
Got the scanner and camera. I'll work on actions and/or scripts (the latter on the Mac?) once I get started. I generally scan them at 300 - 400 dpi in Grayscale.
 
Well only you know what you want it to look like, I thought it looked great as is.
You didn't actually say you wanted to colorize it but I went ahead anyway and worked up a few variations, just to get the conversation going.
I did this fast so the work is sloppy.

color.jpg

water.jpg

buzsim.jpg
 
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Thanks Steve. That is fast work. It is something like colorizing I'm aiming for. I like your #1 for keeping the pencil lines, although I might try to get it to look like the finished W/C in the end. Your #3 is good for having rid the BG of the smudges in my file--this is the first thing I tried and gave up on for I saw it'd take forever with the Clone tool. Anyway I wanted to keep the pencil strokes as long as possible till I know where I'm going. But color is where I'm aiming. Since I don't own or even know where the original W/C is I'd like to reproduce it but in digital media. Sorry to be so vague, but I really don't know where I'm going yet; certainly not how to get there.

Now, how'd you do these quick studies?
 
Here's the PSD file.
Turn the layers on and off to see what they do.
Turn them all on to see the final image.
 

Attachments

  • girl_earring_drawing_copy_s.psd
    1.6 MB · Views: 15
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Thanks. I almost see how it's done. At least I can take your layers and change the colors at will. But that's all. How did you select the skin hair, Red and Layer 2? You did this quickly. I never use the pen tool and find the Lasso tool to be not precise so I always use Quick Mask mode which takes forever. Filter Extract is useless for me. It would seem to be quicker than Quick mask but never so precise.

I'm using PS 7 on the PC. PSCS, version 8 on the Mac.
 
I selected the skin color from what looked like a good spot on the color image you posted, same with the hair.
Usually though I start with #f6ccbb for the skin.

I create a new layer for each component being colored.
The dress, skin, hair, lips, eyes, etc. in my opinion should all be on separate layers so they can be adjusted separately.
These layers should be set to Color in the layers palette.

There's no need for a selection tool like the lasso or the pen.
You just paint the color on with the brush tool, like a paint by numbers.
If you go "outside of the lines" erase the mistake.

When I'm 100% done with the coloring and adjustments of all the colors, I combine all the color layers (without the background) on a new layer and turn off the individual color layers.

Where the hair and skin meet, you can blend and blur to make it look more natural.
You can do the same in other areas if you think it needs it.

There are a bunch of ways to do something like this, this is how I do it, and I didn't do all of these steps with your image, like I said it was a quick job.
 
Thanks a million, Steve. This is enough to get started. Just like in traditional painting I can actually see the end as I start. Will post the finished image when finished.
 
Got a problem. Suddenly, using the brush erases instead of adding. Also I wonder: in layers I have it at Color/Opacity=20%. Above in the Brush I left it at Normal/Opacity=100%. I saw nothing wrong with this, and it was effective at first. As I try to apply a darker color to say the arms now it erases what I had before. Trying this and that to no avail.
 
Check your settings, you may have switched to the Eraser tool.
If you accidental hit the E key (or Shift+E depending on your setup) you switched to the Eraser tool.
If you're using a tablet and pen make sure you're not holding the pen upside down, that's the eraser.

Look at the settings highlighted in red, that's what you want.
Opacity can be set to whatever looks good to you but you must have the layer property set too Color in all the "painting" layers.

screen.jpg
 
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