cap52 comic

8/13/2019 Cap52 Comic

1/5

Illustration: Frazer Irving, 2003 Rebellion A/S

Feature Digital comic art68

8/13/2019 Cap52 Comic

2/5

Feature Digital comic art 69

o create the digital comic art on

these pages, professional

illustratorFrazerIrving started byscanning in line art and adding

colourbeneath it. Ive tried to blend the line art

and colour organically while still retaining that

natural media effect, he explains. I have no

interest in creating smooth 3D figures or photo-

realistic landscapes; I see an inherent quality

within paint/pen strokes and its these Ive tried

to emulate. In many ways, Im trying to kick back

at the glut of shiny Bryce andPoserfigures

polluting the world of illustration.

In the tutorial which follows, Frazer takes us

through the simple process hes devised forhismost recent digital comic art work in 2000AD.

The final illustration was intended to be

monochromatic with colour-coded scenes, and

the brief was to make it look like rough pencildrawings with colourloosely painted on, to echo

the brutal nature of the story.

This is the first fully digital work which Frazer

has done using his dual-processorG4 and a

big A4 Wacom tablet.

T

Join us as we create a dramatic 2000ADcomic strip in Photoshop

Expertise provided by Frazer Irving, a

professional illustrator who works primarily

on 2000AD. You can view more examples

of his work, which ranges from dark

Lovecraftian horror to retina-searing

psychedelia, at [w]www.frazerirving.com

and [w] www.2000adonline.com. Frazer canbe contacted at [e] [email protected]

8/13/2019 Cap52 Comic

3/5


Part 1: Initial stepsCreate a set of documents and start drawing in Photoshop

Once the basic action is decided upon, thedocument is flattened and each page is copied

into its own document. For this strip, its set at printsize but at a higher resolution (500dpi) so that I canadd in detail without too much hassle. The pastedlayer from the thumbnail is lowered in opacity so it

interferes less with the next stage of pencilling.

The next stage is to create a new layer andpencil in very rough placements of figures and

action. I can use multiple layers here to experimentwith different layouts, compositions and background

ideas until I find something that suits me.

First, I lay out the action using a template ofeight or ten pages on one document. The

document is A4 in size for ease of printing, and600dpi so that I can get some detail in there if Ineed to. The first stage, seen here, is to allocatepanels to the directions in the script.

Next, I work into the pencil layer, altering thesize of the brush to create broader strokes and

smaller lines where needed. Keyboard shortcuts areessential here, because I change size on the fly andI need to be able to do so almost unconsciously.

The result of this is a layer which has a clearerdefined set of outlines for the action, with key

ideas being defined, such as the simplicity of thebackground contrasting with the detail of theforeground figures.

I create a new layer to act as the final pencilart. I then select a brush from my tool presets

which is designed to simulate my pencil size ofchoice, and I begin to draw a tighter version of theaction over the original sketch.

This stage is now complete, with the pencil artall finished. The next part is to flatten this

document and then use the Burn tool to darken anyareas which lack a bit of punch. Note the openspaces on the page. The plan here was to create adepth between the main action and the backgroundaction. By drawing detail on the main figures andleaving the paint to create the rest, we effectivelyisolate what we need to see.

Zooming in compensates for the inability to sitwith my nose touching the paper. Here, I can

zoom in and shrink the brush so that the tiniest ofdetails can be executed with ease.

One of the limitations of drawing in

Photoshop is the lack of flexibility with regardto the position of the paper. Unlike in Painter,whererotating the canvas at will is a major feature, inPhotoshop I have to rely on the rotating of theimage in increments of 90 degrees using actions setto hot keys. This is clumsy, but it still allows me todraw scenes at odd angles such as this one.

1

2

3

4 5 6

7

8

9

Alternative styles

Othercomputer-using comics

artists, not surprisingly, have

theirown approaches. Some,

such as Dave Gibbons, preferto

produce the basic line art using

traditional pen-and-paper

techniques, then scan this in

andadd colourand othereffects

on the computer. To preserve the

crispness of the line art, it needs

to be scanned at quite a high

resolution, say 600dpi ormore.

8/13/2019 Cap52 Comic

4/5

Feature Digital comic art 71

Part 2: Introducing colourChoose a background wash and build up the layers

Love those layers

If you simply want to replicate

the look of 1960s (and earlier)

comic art, t heres nothing simpler

than painting areas of flat colour

inside a holding line but its

far more effective to keep the

colourand the linework on

separate layers, then bring the

linework to the top and only then

flatten the image. Forthat even

more authentic retro look, artist

Simon Frasercombines 600dpi

linework with a less defined,

150dpi colour layer.

Once the painted colour paper has been set, Ipaste the pencil drawing into it. This is then set

to Multiply to allow the textures to show through.

These two textures are copied and pasted intothe main document and set to Soft Light to

allow the respective qualities to show through. Thisis my effort to simulate the effect of real paintings,where a background wash is applied to create ageneral midtone. It also suggests a mild texture tobreak up any dull flat areas.

First, open another pre-sized document.This is again set at print size and 500dpi, this

time in RGB. I select the appropriate colour from acolour guide, showing which colours correspond towhich scenes, and fill the document. Then I opentwo scans of painted colour textures, saved as

greyscale images.

The new layer is set to Multiply. Together theselayers create a warmer, more harmonious line

art. It may seem dark here, but once the light isadded, the subtle variations in the hues becomeapparent. This provides me with the dynamic rangeof tones in the linework that traditional mediaprovide naturally.

The new layer and the duplicate pencil layerare merged. Then I lower the opacity of the

original pencil layer to reduce its impact on the newblue pencil layer. We can now see how the greys arevery different without the new blue.

The pencil layer is duplicated and set to Normal.Then a new layer is created and filled with the

foreground colour. This layer is set to Colour to givethe lines more harmony with the background.

Next I have to paint in a mask for thebackground shapes. This is meant to suggest a

crowd at war and create a sense of chaos, so I usethe Brush tool to paint shadowed bodies of humansand winged people, mixed with many spears.

I need to separate the three main areas of focusin this page, which I do by using masks. First up

is the mask of the main figures, which can be prettyrough thanks to the abundance of thick outlines.

Next, I use the Wand to select the gutter

around the panels. A new layer is created and Iselect a new brush, labelled cloud. I then begin topaint in the white around the main image. Again,this is to simulate traditional methods. Whereas itwould be easier to simply fill the area with white,this method has more in common with thetechniques Im attempting to mimic.

1 2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

8/13/2019 Cap52 Comic

5/5


Part 3: Painting light areasUse white to add atmospheric light and fine details

Next, I start to paint in the whites behind thefigures. By painting behind the lines, I soften

them up and allow the blue to show through,transforming the black lines to blue. The areas I

dont paint remain darker.

I select the main figures mask and delete thewhite from the background layer. Rough

edges arent such a problem at this stage, because Ican always paint into the image again to cover up

these parts.

Once the masks are done, I embark on the finalstretch, which is the painting of light. I create a

new layer on which to paint the background, andpaint in some very light, broad strokes in thedirection in which the rain is supposed to be falling.Then I select the background figures mask and addwhite to the sky to bring out the figures.

The main layers of white have been paintedin. We can see the two separate layers along

with the line art. At this point, I wasnt sure ifI needed the same sort of background in the finalpanel as I had in the rest of the page, and layersallowed me to explore this variation. In the end,I decided to stay with the original plan.

Here, we see the allocation of white on theimage. Sometimes I see new ways to render

certain elements of the pages by experimentingwith layer order, and so on. Here I noticed that thesubtle pencil lines of the background shapesdetracted from the effect I wanted, so I decidedto remove them.

I create a new layer on top and begin paintingwhite onto this. This allows me to add

highlights onto the solid dark areas and to use linesto create textures with light. Painting white on topof the linework also creates a variation in the hue in this case, a slight purple/grey is introduced. I likethis because it adds some character to themonotony of monochrome.

The final stage is to add the rain. I create a newlayer and then use the Marquee tool to select

the panels individually. Then all I need to do is dragthe brush swiftly across the image in the direction Iwant the rain to fall. I save the image in this format,and then prepare it for print. This entails removing

all masks from channels, converting the image toCMYK, reducing the resolution to 300dpi (printresolution) and saving as a TIFF. I also create a low-res version in RGB for emailing previews. This is allthen sent by FTP to the server, and text is added inQuarkby 2000ADs letterers (this strip was letteredby the marvellous Ellie De Ville). cap

As I did with the pencil, I can zoom in and adddetail with the white. Here, Im painting over

some pencil lines to soften them further, and tocreate some variation in the colour by creating grey.

Using a different brush, I can draw white ontothe image much like I would with a pencil.

Here Ive drawn grass twice: once in the pencil layerand once with the white, allowing the backgroundtexture to serve as the midtone. All I really need is asuggestion of grass with the black and white. Thetop layer also enables me to add a further level ofdepth to the image by drawing grass passing infront of solid elements, such as the foot shown here.

1

2 3

45 6

7

8

9

Filmic effects

Artist Mark Harrison goes even

furtherthan most, combining CGI

and Brycebackgrounds, 3D and

Posermodels with painted art.

He readily admits that many of

the effects he favours are based

on traditional film effects work,

hence the filmic look. He even

renders Brycestarships against

green orblue, to allow foreasy

extraction from the renderin

Photoshops colourrange just as

in bluescreen work forfilm. For

more on Marks and othercomics

artists techniques, grab yourself

a copy of Computer Artsissue 87

you can orderone through our

back issues service on page 74.

cap52 comic

Documents