How to: Flats

Day 3: Flats

What are flats?

Flats are the filled in blocks of colors on a piece. In traditional painting it is almost equivelant to an 'underpainting' layer.

Option 1: Just use the brush tool

⦁ Just use the Brush tool (B) and on a layer below the inks, paint in.

*this takes a loooooong time

Option 2: Paint around the rim and fill

⦁ Use the brush tool (B) and paint AROUND the edge of the shape you want.

⦁ Once done, use the Magic Wand tool (W) and select the inside that still needs to be  filled.

⦁ Go to Select > Modify > expand and expand by 3-5 pixels so that the selection completely fills in everything

⦁ Go to Edit > Fill > make sure 'Foreground color' is used and hit okay

Option 3: Magic wand tool

⦁ Use the Magic wand tool (W) and select the OUTSIDE space

⦁ Go to Select > Inverse (now your object is select instead of the outside space)

⦁ Go to Select > Modify > CONTRACT and contract by 3-5 pixels

⦁ Go to Edit > Fill > make sure 'Foreground color' is used and hit okay

Now duplicate this layer (drag the layer in the layer window to the 'create new layer' button)

Lock the layer by selecting the box next to the word lock in your layer window.

Now either use selection options or the brush tool (B) to start separating out your blocked in colors.

Step 1: Have a base flat layer (any color)

Step 2: Above the flat layer, do more flats for different sections.

Step 3: Have a layer ABOVE the flats that is a Multiply layer for your shadows.

And done!

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How to: Thumbnailing

Thumbnailing

Goal: Understanding the importance and simplicity of thumbnails.

Check out this perfect explanation of why we thumbnail. SOURCE: Tristan Yuvienco

What thumbnails are: simple, messy, quick, not always right

What thumbnails are NOT: perfect, super detailed, time consuming

Each thumbnail should take you around 5 minutes. They are ideas and concepts and can be as silly and quick as they need to be for you to understand them.

One rule: DO NOT COPY OR TRACE. This needs to be YOUR work.

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Brushes: How to Make a Brush in PS

Making your brushes in Photoshop is an essential skill. It will allow you to become more efficient and personalized with your art, and is invaluable to create certain graphic design elements.

Step 1: Create a new brush tip shape

Open up a new canvas (ctrl+n)

-          Recommended around 300 x 300px and 300dpi. Anything larger may cause your computer to lag.

On a new layer, begin drawing out the shape or texture you wish.

-          Note: the brush tip shape only registers black and white. Draw in black.

Save your brush tip shape. Go to Edit > Define Brush Preset

-          Name the brush tip shape whatever you wish and hit ‘Ok’

Step 2: Adjusting your brush settings

Open the ‘Brush’ window by going to Window > Brush

In the new pop up window, navigate around the settings to change attributes of your brush.

Most commonly used attributes to play with are:

-          Brush Tip Shape > Spacing: adjusts how far apart your shapes are

-          Shape Dynamics > Size Jitter: as you paint, the size of the shapes varies

-          Shape Dynamics > Angle Jitter: as you paint, the angle of the shape varies

-          Scattering > Scatter: as you paint, the shapes scatter

-          Color Dynamics > The jitters here will transition the colors as you paint in various ways

Step 3: Saving your brush settings

In the Brush window you were just working in to adjust settings, click on the menu at the top right.

Select New Brush Preset

Name this new brush and hit ‘Ok’

You will now be able to see and use your brush from the drop down menu in Brush Mode!

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