From Cosmo The Merry Martian comic books...profoundly unfunny (but still captivating in their weirdness-osity) single-page gag fillers featuring Z9 'n' Z7, Squarehead, and Jimmy Jupiter...
Click on any page for a full-size comic book scan
Click on any page for a high-resolution comic book scan
Well, after thinking about it some more, I guess these would be pretty funny if you're eight years old, which is the target audience for this comic. Anyway...they're so awkwardly bizarre that they're intrisically groovy.
Here's a look at Cosmo The Merry Martian himself...
Click on image - BIG video will open in new window
ArtRage time!
That's right -- we finally made it through all of the Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop tutorials... and now it's finally time to play with the paint!
I use ArtRage every time I paint a cover for Nickelodeon Magazine. ArtRage is a digital painting program that imitates the look of real paint, as well as other natural media like pencils and pastels etc. etc. The thing that makes ArtRage such a wonderful program is that it's ridiculously easy to use -- you can just jump right in and play!
And it's not like I knew how to paint before I used this program. ArtRage is so easy and so funny use that I just gradually picked up the techniques and going to show you by playing around with the program. I've never even read the manual! Okay -- every once in a while I'll look something up in one of the tutorials... but 97% of all the tools and features are totally intuitive.
But it isn't just for play... I've been using this program for professional jobs for the last two years, and I don't need to look any further for a digital art program that gives me exactly the tools I need and the results I want.
Here's the weird part -- for some bizarre reason, this amazing ArtRage application only costs $25. Twenty-five bucks! The "other" famous digital painting program costs $400, and it's so freaking complicated that I always end up tearing my hair out before I can actually get any work done.
There's even a free starter version available at the ArtRage website, but after you try it out, I know that you'll see that the $25 for the full version is the bargain of the century. I strongly encourage you to download this application and try it out. And ArtRage runs on both Mac and Windows!
They have a bunch of great tutorials and very helpful forums on the ArtRage website, too.
Since this is the first video in the series, it's primarily dealing with setup and tools. And a lot more trimming on this series so we could get to the good stuff really fast. ...and just as I did before with the Adobe Illustrator tutorials, I'm going to show you the exact settings that I use every time I fire up ArtRage.
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How to import a PSD file into ArtRage
#1 When you import a layered Photoshop PSD file into ArtRage, it has to be in RGB mode, not in CMYK mode. You can change the mode in Photoshop before you bring it in to ArtRage.
#2 When you import your drawing, ArtRage will put it on the lowest layer and give it an opaque paper background......To be able to see through your linework to the color paint below, DO THIS: On your imported Drawing layer, go to "Edit Paper Settings" and near the bottom of the options dial the "paper opacity" (NOT the layer opacity) to 0%
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I already have the next two videos ready and lined up for posting this week -- so after you watch this one, keep checking back for the next few chapters. This whole series is going to be fast-paced and chock-full of useful information and killer tips
I'm coloring the line art on SpongeBob in today's Adobe Photoshop tutorial video. Most of the steps are the same as they were for coloring Patrick in the previous video... but since repetition is the mother learning, I think that'll help to see it all once more on a different character.
The way I select all the line art on SpongeBob is to use the magic wand tool on the clear background.
This selects all of the clear areas of the canvas... but then I use the inverse command from the selection menu to flip the selection to SpongeBob's line art only.
I imagine there is an easier way to do this, but this screwy little method has always worked for me.
The advantage of having all the line art selected is that I can go over it with a big fat color brush, and I don't have to worry about going outside of the lines. I still have to use the brush tool (rather than the paint bucket) because not all of the lines are painted the same color.
Another key tool that I use frequently is the eyedropper. The eyedropper tool lets you sample colors from any place on the canvas.
I usually import a small reference drawing of the characters I'm working on so that I can quickly grab any color I need to. This is especially important for licensed characters that have a very specific and unchanging color scheme.
As an added audio bonus: about one minute into the video, you get to enjoy the sound of an ambulance siren passing by outside my window. It adds a little bit of real-life drama, doesn't it?
I'm not a big fan of using Photoshop as a painting tool, but it's definitely my go-to graphics application when it comes to image manipulation and coloring simple flat line art. Only the outlines are going to be colored in Photoshop -- all of the fills and background art will be painted in ArtRage 2.5, a wonderful painting program that beautifully simulates the look of natural media like oil paints and pastels.
And the three best things about ArtRage 2.5? It's super simple to use, it's ridiculously inexpensive, and it produces results that are good enough to allow me to continue painting covers for one of the most successful magazines in America. Stay tuned, because with the very next video, we will start a brand-new series on digital painting with ArtRage 2.5!
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...and to catch up on the previous tutorials:
Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop Cartoon Inking tutorial videos:
Some people use Photoshop channels to isolate the line work, making it easier to color only the lines. I have never really understood how to use channels. It's probably not very difficult, but I seem to have a mental block against it. Every time someone tries to explain channels to me, my eyes glaze over in my brain gets vapor lock.
I have my own crazy system for isolating the line artwork: Use the magic wand tool to select the background (every thing that's not the line work)...
...then use the invert command under the selection menu to invert the selection.
Every thing that was selected is now not selected, and every thing that was not selected before is now selected. You know something is selected when it has those dashed lines moving around like marching ants.
Now all of the line work is selected. Next, I use the eyedropper tool to sample the character's color off of the model sheets.
When you're working on characters that have a consistent color design, you can't just guess at the color. It has to be perfectly on model 100% of the time.
Now, when something has selection lines around it, that becomes the only area that can be worked on in Photoshop. If you paint over a selection, the paint will only stick to the area that is selected. So no matter how sloppy you are, it is impossible to color outside the lines when you're working on a selection. This is a great feature because it lets you color the line work really fast and loose, but it always looks perfect when you're done.
The only dangerous thing about using selections is when you forget that something is still selected. If there is a small area on your canvas with a selection around it, you can't paint or draw or do anything else outside of that small selection area. This is one of the most common causes of "Total Photoshop Roadblock." Nothing seems to work anymore!
So make sure to always deselect your selections after you're finished working on them. You can go to the Select menu and choose "Deselect," or the quicker ways to use the keyboard commands: Command+D on Macintosh, and Control+D on Windows.
UPDATE: "Anonymous" left this super comment about this post:
"something you might find useful: There's a checkered button above the layer box, and when you click on it it locks all the transparent pixels, which allows you to paint the lines without going out of bounds without having to select everything."
Well, I tried it, and it works beautifully! In fact, it also solves that antialiasing problem, which means that working withantialiased line art will work after all! When I get a chance, I'll go back and put that info into the video ^_^
