Wednesday 7 December 2011

character design made possible with ipad via sketch pro

i remember i have got an ipad on my last birthday from my wife, well i did have an iphone already...most of the task and aps are shared....there's one good thing i like about, i did try out some finger painting on iphone, however the screen is too small, it's very very difficult to execute detail drawing, even though is possible. well now that i got ipad, i can sketch and sketch and sketch and explore on character styling without worrying on killing more trees, now i dun really need papers anymore.. : )

hmmmmm by right i shud be sharing only some of the works but today, i wish to share some of the technique which i always apply when i do detail sketching and steps to create a piece of drawing with an ipad or an iphone (the concept is quite the same anyway). perhaps the pictogram of a black and white air brush, pencil and paint bucket in a piece of fictional political icon in black and white.


1. get the anatomy right. every sketch you shud determine what sort of character u desire, whether or colour or black and white it doesnt matter. getting the character anatomy ratio right is the best thing anybody shud do.

2. after getting the anatomy right add a rough idea of what your character shud look like. sketch it out on the rough detail on the hairstyling,  facial expression, apparel and what ever u could think of. don't worry too much, every thing is editable made possible by ipad and sketch pro.

3. once u have done, on the top right corner, touch on screen and open a new layer. upon opening the new layer, u can always set the level of transparancy of the first layer. this will enable you to totally follow a semi transparent background and sketch on top of it. Do bear in mind, since it's a digital sketching, straight line is hard to achieve especially when you are using your finger to sketch, often u would find many many fine sketch line. of course the thickness of the drawing tool point can be set according to preference, bear in mind every medium produce different effect. even u select on the same colour. 



4. spread your finger wide on screen constantly to zoom as maximum as you are comfortable with, for my case i would normally zoom my sketches until it gets pixelated. from here i can perform a series of multiple strokes....and form a very very detail drawing depending on your patience. dont worry about the line, you can set to invisible mode later. please find the picture below. and compare with 5th picture when it's zoom to 100%. 

5. now as u can see below a basic detail sketching is out, basically very acceptable already. so what now. with such sketches obviously nobody would say anything about it, cause it's just a piece of  drawing, what more value can u add to the drawing, why not add a background? now at this time, open up the layer window to draw on the b/g, u can later overlap or goes under it, depending on how u plan the whole drawing. so now open up another layer.

6. background in progress, if you guys are as impatience as me, and did not master the tool well, u would probably goes through around of using or maybe trying to find the easiest way to navigate. simply place 3 finger on screen and a simplify tool will pop up for you to adjust the level of opacity of your ink, and the thickness of your drawing tip.



7. you can then revisit your character and use the bucket fill tool, to fill which ever area u desire in your desire colour, but you have to make sure all boundary all enclosed. now after you do that, you would normally find that there are lines or gaps that is not filled, it is because the ink would stop until the enclose boundaries if the the ink flow logically. now u can choose to filled the gap or line, with existing body colour by using other tools like brush, air brush or pencil tool, or the line colour.


8. zoom in here and there to asses all the area that should be filled with strokes or shades. depending on the styling. basically adding details to the working pieces.


9. overall the piece is close to finished, however instead of hair stroke, i still find a grey shaed with subtle lining would be better for my piece, so i use 50% transparent of grey ink and air brush it. so the line is still visible when u zoom in detail. another tips that i always like, erase and fill. check out the hairline great white strokes, which i deleted and refer to bottom.

 10. you could repeat as many part as you based on the above technique, usually it brings a more  realistic feel and make the sketched looks livelier.


now that you got it a black and white, fiction asian political cartoon character.











No comments:

Post a Comment