Level: Intermediate
Tools Needed:
- Paper and pencil
- Scanner
- Pen tablet (I use an Intuos3 6×8)
- Photoshop (I use CS2)
Note: I use a PC. I mention keyboard shortcuts occasionally throughout this tutorial, and I have no idea whether or not they apply to Mac users as well.
First, I make a rough sketch on paper. Not everyone does it this way, though. I despise tracing/paint overs, so I choose a photograph to reference. For this tutorial, I’ll be referencing a picture of Elitenick.
I never worry about making the rough sketch too perfect or anything – we’ll fix any mistakes in Photoshop.
So once you’ve got your sketch drawn up, scan it into Photoshop. If you intend to print your picture, I’d scan in at 600 dpi, provided that your computer can handle working at large resolutions. However, because the intended output for this drawing will be for the web, I’m going to scan it in at 300 dpi, since the final version will be resized to 72 dpi.
Rotate as needed, then make a new layer and name it “Line Art”.
Now, make a solid fill layer between the Background layer and Line Art layer. (I selected a periwinkle blue).
Then set the blending mode to ‘Screen’.
This will make the pencil lines of the sketch appear in your chosen color, like this:
Now, to prepare for inking, set your colors to default – black foreground and white background. The quick way to do this is to hit ‘D’.
♥ Oh, how I love keyboard shortcuts ♥
Now select the brush tool. I generally use the round brush on the following settings:
Diameter=3 px
Hardness=100%
Opacity=100%
Flow=100%
But that’s just a guideline. Sometimes I use a larger or smaller brush, depending on the area that I’m inking. It really depends on your personal preference.
Then, open your brush palette.
Select ‘Shape Dynamics’ and set the ‘Size Jitter’ to ‘Pen Pressure’.
I turn all the other shape dynamics off, but you may prefer to work with with the ‘Angle Jitter’ set to ‘Pen Pressure’ as well.
Then, make sure ‘Smoothing’ is checked.
Now you’re ready to start inking. Don’t forget to make sure you’re on the ‘Line Art’ layer!
Zooming in is essential in the inking process. That way, if your lines aren’t exactly the smoothest, they’ll at least appear to be when you zoom back out.
Useful Shortcuts:
[ and ] = Toggle brush size
Ctrl + Plus sign = Zoom in
Ctrl + Minus sign = Zoom out
Hold spacebar while clicking and dragging on your picture to navigate while zoomed in
I like to keep my reference picture available while I’m working. Because cartoons are a simplified and exaggerated version of people, I only refer loosely to the picture.
And so I keep working away, using the background sketch layer as my guideline…
And, don’t forget to save. Nothing sucks more than having to go back and redo everything. Usually when I’m working on a picture, I’ll create a new folder and save many versions as I work.
So… I’m happily inking away and suddenly I realize, I can’t stand the right eye. It just looks bad.
Thanks to Photoshop, all I have to do to remedy this is use my Lasso tool (keyboard shortcut ‘L’) to select the eye, then use the Move tool (shortcut ‘V’) to move and transform the eye to my liking.
Note: When using the Move tool to transform, select ‘Show Transform Controls’.
After fixing the eye, I deselect (Ctrl+D, of course!) and continue inking.
As I work, I occasionally toggle the visibility of the background layer to see what the Line Art layer looks like on its own.
Okay, so now I’m done inking!
Since we no longer need the background layer, go ahead and turn off the visibility.
Now, double-click on the left-most box in your ‘Color Fill’ layer and change from periwinkle to white.
This will place your finished line art on a plain white background.
But wait! I still hate that eye, so I go back one more time to fix it. Now is the time to fix anything you hate before coloring. As you can see, I’m a bit of a sloppy inker, but that’s just part of my style: half-assed ;]
And now we have the finished line art!
Comments
Leave a Reply
Rype
October 15th, 2008
Wow this is a great tutorial. I will be giving it a try. I just gotta figure out how to work my scanner.
Nick
October 17th, 2008
You should do a tutorial on sketching ’cause I can’t even get my sketch to look as good as yours!
ghawyy
October 21st, 2008
you are more than great i really enjoy applying that tut its great thank you do much
Michael Stewart
December 9th, 2008
Awesome effect looks a lot like a sketch, keep up the great work.
kumar
March 18th, 2009
plz send me the photoshop tutoriels to my mail id
Karl
March 18th, 2009
I agree that a tutorial om sketching wouldn’t be to shabby! :-) Great tutorial, could this be achieved in fewer steps?
LAWL
March 19th, 2009
Lawl, that shit looks NOTHING like the guy.
Nick
March 19th, 2009
@LAWL: Lol, do you even know what “cartoon” means?
tablet pc laptops
April 12th, 2009
Hey, got a question about your blog. I noticed it loads pages lot faster than mine. Do you host your blog on dedicated server? thanks.
tom l
June 30th, 2009
Great tutorial, although a wee bit hard to follow at points, it
Best 10 digital painting tutorials - Grafstorm
September 3rd, 2009
[...] 5. How to Ink and Color a Cartoon Portrait Using a Pen Tablet [...]
Lezlie Stiegler
May 1st, 2010
Hi! Just wanted to respond. I thoroughly loved your post. Keep up the awesome work.
33 Imaginative and Useful Photoshop Drawing and Painting Tutorials |
May 5th, 2010
[...] 28.How to Ink and Color a Cartoon Portrait Using a Pen Tablet [...]
75 Most Wanted Digital Painting Tutorials | Painting.DTuts - Free Tutorials by Digital Painting and Mattepainting
July 1st, 2010
[...] Read this tutorial >> [...]
30+ Amazing Techniques And Tutorials That Help You Become Master Cartoonist | Free and Useful Online Resources for Designers and Developers
March 28th, 2011
[...] Man movie wallpaperCopying Cartoon To IllustratorCute Cartoon BunnyDrawing Cute Anime Kids How to Ink and Color a Cartoon Portrait Using a Pen Tablet Adobe Illustrator Cartoon Bug TutorialAdobe Illustrator Mummy Gradient TutorialDraw a cartoon [...]
誰でもイラストレータになれちゃうチュートリアル30 | impowiki
March 29th, 2011
[...] How to Ink and Color a Cartoon Portrait Using a Pen Tablet [...]
30+ Amazing Techniques And Tutorials That Help You Become A Master Cartoonist – Php scripts, Opensource, Ecommerce, Cms, Html, Xhtml scripts, Web Tutorials, Resources, Web Trends, Code Snippets, Themes, Templates, Css, Psd tuts, Photoshop,tuts,web,w
April 1st, 2011
[...] How to Ink and Color a Cartoon Portrait Using a Pen Tablet [...]