Introduction
Hey! I’m Whyball and I’m a graphic designer. Since I was a little kid, I loved to draw; at first I started drawing all kind of things that I saw in the books – usually animals were my favorite subjects! After a while I started to create original drawings.
A few years ago I discovered the digital drawing and was excited to see the simplicity of using the graphic tablet. Once again I was combining those 2 ways of drawing: copying and using the imagination.
I recommend to use this technique of copying something when it helps you to save some time while you’re working, or to achieve better quality. For example, if you need to draw a hand in a specific position, and you’re not so sure you can draw it from imagination, my advice is to take a camera and capture the position & form of a hand. It’s useful to have a timer function so you can take picture of your own hand easily.
Here is an example of some wings I drew using this technique. These wings are yours to use in your designs royalty free and can be purchased from the Go Media Arsenal.
In this tutorial I want to show you how I draw a hand using a picture plus some imagination, and make it all look like a classic pencil drawing!
I use this kind of drawing to give to the design an artistic look. In my opinion the hand drawing effect looks great applied on anything from animals to gothic ornaments. Another advantage of this style is that you can make great artwork using only one color.
Let’s get Drawing!
Step 1: Find a Reference
The first step is to take a picture of a hand, you can use the same picture that I used in this tutorial, see the download link below; it already has the opacity reduced to 30 % so it is exactly like the one i started here with .
Step 2: Sketch Guidelines
After that, you should sketch out how you will adjust on the picture. In this case I’ve increased the size of the fingernails, and made a a white area in the middle of the hand where I want to put a small brain. Just make a place holder for now, but make it a little smaller than the actual brain will be so you can draw the hand tightly around the brain without gaps. You can draw some drips too. You can put them between the fingers, and on one side of the hand, like i did. You will sketch all this on a separate layer.
All that being set up, you should start drawing the hand.
Step 3: Build the Outline
The file size that I us is somewhere between 50/ 50 cm and 70/70 cm at 300 DPI. Get your graphics tablet set up & operating properly. Take a look at the settings that I usually use for the brush. These settings work well for the file size we’re using; I recommend that you try them.
For drawing, use a dark brown or gray color (something like 3f311d ), not black. Black has a too strong of a contrast with the white background which gives your linework an overly sharp appearance. So my advice is to use those colors for the brush, but if you want to use black for the brush you can change the background color to a light cream or gray and everything will look OK.
Start by making a new layer where you will draw the outline, it should look like this. You will also draw the lines that you consider will help you in the next step; (the first level of shades), so look for thicker and darker lines from the picture and draw them too.
After the outline is done you can start making the shades, but first I made those red dashed lines which follow the shapes of the hand. You should always have lines like this in your mind when you start hachuring, so you can represent the volume in the right way.
Another thing that I recommend you to do before you start is to adjust the contrast of the picture until it will look like this. This will help you to see where to put the darker and most important shades. You will see that after this first level of shades are made, the subject will start to look good.
Step 4: Begin Hachuring
Now, when you start the hachure, don’t forget to make a new layer. I recommend that you always make a new layer when you do something new or different on your design and you’re not sure how it will going to look.
We all know how bad is to work on a wrong layer…. :)
Now your drawing should look like this. The hatchring it’s made from overlapping lines in different directions and different lengths, so where you want to make a darker area you will draw thicker lines. In lighter areas you will leave only a few lines and you can make them thinner for an even lighter tone.
The hachure should look something like this, here you can see how on the left/down side is darker then the rest. That’s because of the multiple overlapped lines. If you will make it smaller you will see the effect that I want to achieve; and that’s to look like a textured gradient.
Step 5: Add Details
After you have finished with the darker tones, make another layer, and start working on the details. You should not make too many details, or at least not small ones because you will not be able to see them when the drawing will be printed.
To assure that you have enough details you have have to look at the drawing at approximately the size that it will be printed and see how it looks. Or better yet you can print it on a paper at the real size so you can have a preview of the final work.
Drawing the Brain
Now in case you are not used to draw brains, find a picture of one and try to imitate the texture that you see on it. The most important thing when you will draw it is to respect the light source when you make all the ‘’wrinkles’’. This will actually make it to look like a brain.
Now it’s time to merge the layers you created while drawing the hand. Once merged, apply a color overlay effect to give it a red color. Now you can see the parts from the hand that you will have to erase, parts where the brain and the hand are overlapping.
Now you will understand better why I told you earlier to make the placeholder for the brain smaller than the brain will be. It’s easier to erase what’s behind the brain.
Now you can delete the color overlay effect and get rid of the unwanted layers, if you have some. If you think that you may want to color the drawing later, you can keep separate layers for the hand and for the brain.
Final Touches
Step 6: Add Extra Shading
Finally let’s put some shades around the brain as you think it would reflect on the hand. And you should remember to keep the same light source whenever you put new shading.
And now you can merge all the layers together, and you’re done!
You can use this technique for making t-shirt designs, illustrations, posters, you name it. From my experience I can tell you that it will be appreciated very well.
Step 7: Add Texture to the Final Presentation
If you want the drawing to have more impact when showed to a client, I recommend you to change the white background to one more ’’artistic’’. Usually I use a combination of different textures and old papers pictures, and it should look like this.
Here are some details from the drawing, and some designs that i created using this technique.
More Examples of this Technique
I hope you liked my tutorial and find it useful, for any other question, don’t hesitate to write here or contact me at whyball@gmail.com. Thanks for reading!
Go Media is a creative agency based in Cleveland, Ohio. Besides the GoMediaZine, we also work for clients and sell stock artwork and design files on the Arsenal.
January 20th, 2009 at 12:14 pm -
wow. very cool. i really like your sardine can.
January 20th, 2009 at 12:14 pm -
This tutorial is just sick! Awesome work. It’s great to see how other creatives utilize their tool sets. Brilliant!!!
January 20th, 2009 at 12:15 pm -
This is a great tutorial! I just wish I could draw well enough to make it useful.
January 20th, 2009 at 12:34 pm -
Great post, I’ve always wondered what were good settings to get a pencil feel with a tablet. Thanks.
January 20th, 2009 at 12:34 pm -
I always wanted to know who did that SICK shirt with the Hummingbird on DBH, it’s one of my alltime favs! I assumed it was hand-drawn, I can’t imagine doing that much detail with a wacom, but obviously it’s possible! I too like hand-drawn stuff, but I’m a sucker for pen and ink scanned in the computer. I just can’t seem to get the same control! Thanks for a great tutorial, and keep up the amazing work! Keep an eye out for my tutorial in the next week or two, also! -Maren
January 20th, 2009 at 12:40 pm -
This is really awesome! I hope to, one day, have such gnarly skills. Good work, once again!
January 20th, 2009 at 12:42 pm -
Great tutorial. Love the cross-hatch technique.
January 20th, 2009 at 12:59 pm -
Great process breakdown. I enjoyed experiencing your work process.
January 20th, 2009 at 1:04 pm -
Very nice. You have quite a unique style.
January 20th, 2009 at 1:22 pm -
Thanks a lot guys!
-BetterThanHuman : i think, if you like to draw, with some practice it wouldn’t be a problem to make this useful :)
-Maren : thanks a lot for your appreciation and like i said, it’s all about practice! i’m looking forward to see your tutorial!
January 20th, 2009 at 2:23 pm -
really amazing tutorial, thanks!
January 20th, 2009 at 3:45 pm -
Incredible !!!!
January 20th, 2009 at 6:41 pm -
is there a cross hatch brush?
January 21st, 2009 at 11:56 am -
Wow, I have loved your work, but appreciate it more for your process. I never thought to use the guide lines, or change the contrast to get more of the deep tones! Great tut!
January 21st, 2009 at 1:16 pm -
brian _ you can make a brush if you want, but it won’t work like this :(
January 21st, 2009 at 10:23 pm -
God I always wondered what technique you’ve been using Whyball. Its great.
Although I think from my experience Cross hatching works better with a pen and paper! Although as you show here you have more control over it with photoshop. Nice tutorial!
January 22nd, 2009 at 2:06 pm -
Once again, amazing stuff to read and look through. Congrats on the Obamaboard!
January 23rd, 2009 at 3:14 am -
Drool :)
January 23rd, 2009 at 8:36 am -
good stuff for sure, beautiful work!
January 23rd, 2009 at 11:16 am -
amazing simply amazing. i need to brush up on my hatching though before i even attempt this.
January 23rd, 2009 at 4:03 pm -
I don’t mean to sound pedantic (yes I do), but I wish you guys would stop naming your posts “how to DRAW this and that”, “DRAWING something or other”, “yet another DRAWING tutorial” when the post is how to trace a photograph, then do funky stuff to your tracing.
Don’t get me wrong. There’s a lot of talent that goes into doing what you do, and not just any monkey with a wacom can trace a photo and make it look good. But drawing does not equal tracing.
Makes me think…if 1,000 monkeys with 1,000 wacom tablets were locked in a room for 1,000 days….would they know better than to use the default drop shadow in Photoshop?
January 25th, 2009 at 12:57 am -
I’m astounding!! This is awesome.
I just recently got a small wacom tablet and sadly I have been too bunged up with client work to really get to grips with it.
One thing I have realised is that my drawing abilities have seriously been harmed since I was a teenager!! I need them back….
January 28th, 2009 at 9:09 pm -
I THOUGHT I JUST READ THE IMPORTANCE OF HAVING A BLACK BOOK!
PRIOR ARTICLES….
MAD RESPECTs GOMEDIA.GO WHYBALL KEEP IT FRESH…
February 2nd, 2009 at 7:15 pm -
very inspirational!
February 3rd, 2009 at 4:31 pm -
Thanks a lot guys for all your comments and appreciation!
February 7th, 2009 at 11:28 am -
I’ve had a graphics tablet myself for a while. I used to use it for animation in Flash, but I’ve drifted away from it and am now focussing on web design. Anyway, nice tut. It’s gotten me all inspired to take up drawing again.
February 9th, 2009 at 8:44 am -
This is very, very impressive. Thank you very much.
February 10th, 2009 at 4:38 pm -
Wow, great work! great tip! higher standard than the big leauge! thanx a million!
February 15th, 2009 at 6:53 pm -
This is an amazing tutorial, I can’t wait to have a go at it tommorow! Great work
February 16th, 2009 at 2:48 pm -
WOW!!! This seems way beyond my skill level. I could never do this – at leaast in the near future. You guys are AMAZING!!!
February 16th, 2009 at 5:06 pm -
looks good man. i kinda use the same process on CS4. its funner and it makes you a better artist. i use it over live trace.
February 19th, 2009 at 7:52 am -
my problme is : i don’t have the brush wheh i do the options regular brush, sniff help me plz Med from algeria
February 19th, 2009 at 4:21 pm -
Hey sindakwell,i would like to help you, but i don’t understand what are you saying so if you can try to be more specific i will be glad to answer to your questions.
March 3rd, 2009 at 7:05 pm -
this is gnarly gross/awsome
March 3rd, 2009 at 7:07 pm -
hey whyball he means he cant do it with out a paint brush i think
March 8th, 2009 at 5:16 am -
Hello, I tried to make even regulations of my brush I had not good result to make the digital painting then I do not manage to have the realistic effect
March 15th, 2009 at 11:01 am -
yes, when i choose pen presser the brush cant change… why??
August 20th, 2009 at 3:19 pm -
sick! just sick!!!
November 11th, 2009 at 3:35 am -
You can get some interesting results with shades of gray in your hatching and the Hard Mix blend mode http://www.digitalartform.com/archives/2009/06/...
November 24th, 2009 at 5:47 pm -
While the artist is talented, this is not anything like a “tutorial” — it is a demonstration. The description makes it sound like you'll learn how to take a photo and use Photoshop to turn it into what looks like a traditional pencil drawing. It turns out that the instructions in the “tutorial” amount to 1) trace a photo with the brush tool 2) draw over the photo such that it looks like a traditional pencil drawing (duh). There's virtually no leveraging of Photoshop techniques other than the obvious — using a tablet to control line weight, drawing on a separate layer.
I am an illustrator. I already know how to draw, so it's not helpful to just tell me to draw over a photo. And if I didn't know how to draw, the advice would be just as useless, so I have no idea who the target audience is. The point of a Photoshop tute is to show how one can use it to do more than one could do with a simple piece of tracing paper and a light box.
December 31st, 2009 at 5:07 am -
I thought this was a great post. You are really very talented.
To those on here who are posting saying that this is just tracing, ok, I tried this one out myself and in truth yes you do trace the basic hand shape, just as anyone using a reference image before drawing on an traditional medium. I just got my tablet today and have been drawing for over 12 years. I had to teach myself how to draw all over again, because everything I had taught myself (ie. muscle memory) changes with using a tablet. I didnt have any idea where to begin. This post along with another tutorial I read through that gave simple but good excersizes to get used to drawing with the tablet helped out a lot.
I used a different technique than cross hatching for the shading, and although the basic shape of the hand is traced It doesn't give you that much to start on, the rest is left to your own creativity. Those in here not complaining about not wanting to learn to draw, it intruiges me that they wasted enough of their time to read your post and leave a comment.
Thank you again for this tutorial it helped me tremendously. Its always good to see the techniques of all different kinds of artists, especially those that are this talented.
April 28th, 2010 at 3:12 am -
WOW!
May 5th, 2010 at 4:24 am -
Thanks for this nice work!
dizi izle
May 23rd, 2010 at 8:51 am -
wow…Huge tutorial…Thanks for sharing…
August 12th, 2010 at 5:05 am -
Very good tutorial! Thanks for the post.