Zine experiments
- 2. Illustration experiments As the style of my fanzine will have a handwritten look, I wanted to experiment with hand drawn illustrations. On the left, I created a pencil sketch, and on the right I created an ink drawing. I wanted to see which would look better when scanned in and applied in various ways.
- 3. First, I scanned the images in. Then I opened the image in Photoshop and adjusted it to make the lines clearer and sharper. To do this I adjusted the exposure and contrast of the image, alongside adding a black/white filter in case any unwanted colour came through in the scan. I also edited out the sketchbook binding that showed up in the scan using a white brush.
- 4. For my first experiment I wanted to see how my sketch would look over old looking paper, so I found an antique paper texture on Google and overlayed it using a Multiply blend layer. I did the same with my ink drawing. Overall I liked how the pencil sketch looked with the overlay.
- 5. Next, I wanted to try colouring the sketch and making it look more like a painting. The first thing I did was get rid of the background on the sketch layer. Since I was using the edited sketch from my first experiment, the lines were well defined and sharp and I was able to use color range to effectively remove all of the white background, leaving it transparent, This would allow me to colour better.
- 6. I next added flat colours beneath the sketch layer And then added simple shading over the top with Multiply and Color dodge layers. Multiply for the dark shading, and color dodge for the highlights. I used an airbrush tool for the shading.
- 7. Next, I added a gradient map to adjust the colours. I duplicated the gradient map and used the color burn blending mode for one of them. This darkened the result, but still kept the necessary highlights. w/o color burn
- 8. To create ripples, I drew lines circling the figure with an airbrush. Then, I used the liquify effect and used the Forward Warp tool to push the lines around, creating ripples. For the highlights, I airbrushed a lighter red colour for the general area. I then airbrushed some lighter lines and liquified it to create a light reflection. I used colour dodge for both these layers to make them stand out.
- 9. Lastly, I added some more shading and highlighting to the helmet, as the darkness of it blended with the background. To help make the helmet stand out more, I put a red circle behind it, which ended up looking like a blood moon – I thought this fit the theme of the drawing. For the last adjustments, I edited the exposure and brightness. This was to create more contrast and make the colours more vibrant.