043 - IFX tutorial - Digital pencil drawing
This tutorial was written for ImagineFX magazine Issue#26.
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Digital pencil drawing
Some programs are better for drawing, while other programs are better for painting.Personally, I find Photoshop CS good for most things, and if you want to take your art more in the direction of drawing instead of painting, there are a couple of tricks to help you on your way.
First of all; you HAVE to use a drawing tablet to be able to emulate your pencil strokes, and how hard you’re drawing on the board.
This does take a while to get used to if this is new to you. If you think the tablet feels too hard and that your pen is sliding too much, you can try to tape a sheet of paper onto the drawing surface of your tablet.
This might make it feel more natural when using the pen.
What creates the effect is having the right brush, and to create a very basic pencil brush, start off by selecting a standard hard round brush, open the Brushes dialog (F5), and play around with the following settings.
Remember to save your brush when you’re done.
Shape Dynamics:
- Roundness Jitter- Play around with the Minimum Diameter slider if you think the brush size is too small when drawing loosely.
Texture:
- Find a pre-made, or make a nice noise texture, to emulate the texture of paper.- Play around with the scale slider.
- See if you prefer having the “Texture Each Tip” box ticked on or off.
Other dynamics:
Make sure the control under Flow Jitter is set to Pen Pressure.
You can use almost any major drawing program for emulating pencil drawings.
What matters is having a brush that is right, and a drawing tablet.
Get even closer to the traditional way of drawing by simply taping a piece of paper on top of the drawing surface of your drawing tablet.
Easily create your own pencil brush in Photoshop.
Remember that you can play around with the settings even more than explained here.