Tutorials and other cool ideas

[SRD Art]

Here's a thread where we can post cool ideas or links to helpful art based tutorials. Thanks for sharing!

[SRD Art]

Here's a couple good ones that were posted a while back...

https://lateral-g.net/forums/showthread.php4?t=17267

[SRD Art]

Here's a basic tutorial on how I did my 58 Sedan Delivery for the November art show. Hopefully it'll help some of you guys starting out with using the programs. I used Adobe Illustrator CS2 and Photoshop 6, however everything I did you should be able to duplicate in just about any version. The forum only allows 5 photos per thread so this will be spread to more than one thread.

1. First, do your research on the web, finding several views of the car you've picked out. Then do a sketch of the car large enough to see some detail and scan it into the computer. If you don't have a scanner, you can always place a photo on a layer in Illustrator, select the photo, crank down the opacity a bit on the transparency pallete (window/transparency on menu bar) and lock the layer (window/layers). Sometimes when I have very little time to do a project I use this method, but I prefer to use a sketch because it enables you to put your personality into it or you can put a twist on perspective for a little more flair or maybe some body mods like chopping the roof, etc. Once you've got something to work with, create a new layer (layer pallete drop down arrow in the upper right/ new Layer) to use as your art board. Here is some of my inspiration...





2. Use the pen tool to trace the sketch, starting by creating the shapes that will hold the majority of the color for the car. In this case I had a gray shape for the bottom half and a black shape for the top. This gives you a basic outline for the whole car. The pen tool has it's own palette that if you click and hold on the little arrow to the bottom right the pallete will pop up. If you go over to the arrow on the right of the mini pallete you can "tear off" the pallette and have it next to your art so you don't have to keep going back and forth to the tool bar to change pen tools. I usually use a bright green or pink thin stroke with no fill to draw with. These colors show up well above your background art and no fill makes it easy to get all your lines in. I occasionally fill them with color as I go along to make sure it looks right, then delete the fill and go back to creating lines. Here is a shot of the finished "wire frame".



2. Sometimes you can use a little photoshop to speed up the process and/or get a cool look that would be difficult to create in Illustrator. In this case I didn't want to create a grille from scratch, so I chose a subject photo from the web, a late model Ford p/u, and tweaked the photo on photoshop to get the angle, stretch, and color I wanted. Read below to see how to do this with photoshop. Then I brought it into Illustrator and cropped it so it would fit behind the bumper without protruding past the line art. To do this, select the photo, and make sure it's embeded (window/links/menu drop down arrow on upper right/embed image). Then trace the basic grille opening on your car with the pen tool and make sure it is placed above the photo. (The hot keys for moving things front to back are Ctrl (or apple) +] for move above or Ctrl+[ to move below. Holding shift+Ctrl+[ or ] will send the object to the bottom or the top accordingly. ) Select the line shape and the photo by holding shift and clicking on both, then go to object/clipping mask/ make, or use the hot key Ctrl+7. This is what it looks like after it's clipped.



Select it and place over the opening, then use Ctrl+[ to place it in the shape order you want it, in my case behind the bumper. See wire frame photo above.

Continued below...

[SRD Art]

While working on the grille I changed the factory bumper by removing the 4 large bullets in the grille and added a 57 Chevy light bar. Inspiration...



Here is the car after starting some shading on the front clip. I use the gradient tool on the color pallete for blends and for the light highlights like on the hood you can either use white and turn down the opacity, or if you don't want a "see through" shape, you can use a lighter shade of the same color. Easiest way I can think of doing this is to double click on the fill box on the color pallete bringing up the color picker pallete and then simply drag the spot to a lighter shade.



Here is the car with as much as I wanted to do in Illustrator and ready to import into photoshop.



Continued below...

[SRD Art]

Once in photoshop, duplicate the original layer by using the drop down menu arrow in the upper right and delete the original by clicking and dragging it to the trash can. (There may be a better way, but I still can't figure out how to unlock the "background" original layer, lol!) You'll want to do this so you can tweak the original art if needed. Then create a background color layer and drag it below the original art layer. Then create a new layer above your car and using the airbrush tool start adding highlights and bling. Here's the photshop file with only my highlights and black background layers showing.



With the car art finalized start working on the background. In this case I had a cool photo of some graffiti a friend sent me a while back. I don't know who the photographer or artists were so sorry I can't give them credit.



I didn't like the road so I used the pen tool to trace it, then go to paths/make a selection (the dotted open circle at the bottom of the pallete) then making sure you're on the right (grafitti photo) layer, hit delete or use the eraser tool to remove. From here I used image/adjust/hue & saturation/ and turned it black and white. Then on the layers pallete I cranked down the opacity to get the darker color as some of the black background will show through.



To create the road there's a way simple step. Use the pen tool and creat a shape of the road (the shape was already in my paths palete, I just clicked to select as above). With the shape selected create a new layer above the photo and under your car and go to filter/add noise. Play with the settings on the noise palette to get it where you want it. Simple as that, you've got a road. For a cool effect you can put a slight motion blur on it and then do a radial blur on your wheels and it looks like the car is moving. I used the burn tool from the tool palette to create a couple stains on the pavement.



In the upper left I added my "SRD" logo to the wall in the same fashion I tweaked the grille insert. Bring in your file and use edit/transform to get the right perspective, then because my background was black and white I went to Image /adjust/hue & saturation to make it look like it fit. Then I put a slight blur- filter, blur,gausian blur, to give it a bit of spray paint effect. Add your signature and any text like your website and you're good to go!

[tahoe_185]

great tutorial. definitely some good tips. btw... to unlock the background layer in Photoshop, just doubleclick and rename.

[SRD Art]

'been using photoshop for prolly 10 years and never knew that. Tried it and sure enough it worked. Thanks!

[city_ofthe_south]

If you "open" your Illustrator file with PS you don't have to worry about that background at all.

Good lookin tutorial. It's crazy how they seem to be happening all at once. Another forum I belong to just set up a place for them and I've been writing one for deviantart the past week. A bunch have been posted in various places as well. I guess this is a good reason to post one here too.

[XcYZ]

That's way cool.

[city_ofthe_south]

OK so I'm posting my tutorial. It is really more of a tips and tricks thing for artists who already use Ai or have a pretty good idea how to, rather than beginners.