Rendered Cartoon Illustration Technique Part 4
Moving forward to the monster, I continue the same basic methods, drawing shapes such as the eye, nostrils, mouth and teeth with the pen tool and rendering them in with the “grainy” airbrush. I turned off the grain for the teeth to keep them smooth looking. I used the Oval Selection tool for the eye and nostril masks.
One final technique variation I used here is Gel layer overlays to build up value on the monster. I just put flat color on a new layer set to the Gel composite method above the monster’s body layer. This will be transparent, and I can also increase or decrease the layer’s transparency to further control the value effect using the transparency slider on the Layers palette.
In this detail you can see how I put highlights back on top of the Gel layer on another regular opaque layer. These give a sense of form and reflected color and light.
I added the claws on still another layer above the monster’s body. I put final details on the telephone pole, hydrant, and water. For the straight lines of the wires I just set the brush to the straight line strokes option (button on Property bar or lower case v on the keyboard). I make final adjustments of color and value throughout the piece until I’m satisfied.
To sum up, I think one should remember that the real key to an illustration such as this is working on the drawing, style, and composition BEFORE you start to render it in on the computer, no matter what techniques you finally use. I often point out to my students that a common mistake beginners make is to rush to the finish too fast without doing preliminary planning. I call this “icing a cake before it’s baked”. A stylized image requires a different approach than a more expressive or reference-based picture.
I hope someone will find this information useful. I’ll try to post a new image and some pointers (although not such a long tutorial-whew!) monthly or so.