Here’s another how to draw video for the visually-minded. Two much shorter videos this time with much of the redundant parts edited out so that you can really quickly get to the good stuff. This was a really experimental tutorial with a bunch of new techniques thrown in. I don’t usually draw this kind of stuff, but I had some visual images for different scenes. I hope you find these videos helpful in some way!

Tags: drawing, Photoshop, shading

I just discovered the power of youtube and desktop recording software

I love to write more than anything else in the world. But there are some things that you can’t really show with text and pictures. Also, some people just learn better with video. So to be helpful in that way, we’re going to be posting videos in some of our tutorials on how to draw and create other forms of art. Please comment and let us know what you think.

These tutorials were done using Photoshop CS2. Don’t worry, we’re getting a digital camera soon so that we can post video tutorials on how to draw traditionally.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Tags: Art Tutorial, Digital Art, Photoshop, realistic, shading, Tutorial, Tutorials

Bonjour mes amies! C’est va?

First off, Alex and I apologize for being down for the time being. We forgot to update our publisher, so we were hacked. Alex contacted the wonderful support people at PowWeb for being amazingly awesome and rescuing the site. They truly are THE BEST! Thank you guys from the bottom of my heart! I say it again: YOU ARE THE BEST!

In other news, Sketching House is now on Facebook! Type in Sketching House in the search box, and become a fan!

It’s the wonderful and beautiful month of September! The color begins to fade from the trees, the air turns more crisp, children are back in school, and fall festivals are about to start! I can’t wait! With the fall festivals comes pumpkin roll, and with pumpkin roll comes a very happy Mari! I LOVE pumpkin roll! If you haven’t tried it, I highly recommend that you do because you will NOT be disappointed!

Class started again today, and so far, I love the composition class. Tomorrow’s class I already know I will not like. *Yawn* But like you guys care, right?

In that case, how about a tutorial?

I just recently discovered how to create a wood texture in Photoshop, which is really neat and very simple too. So, if you want to create boxes and even trees, this is the tutorial for you. Click to read more …

Tags: Creating Texture in Photoshop, Layers in Photoshop, paint tutorial, Photoshop Filters, Photoshop Painting, Photoshop Shading, Photoshop textures, Photoshop Tutorials, Shading in Photoshop, Wood Texture in Photoshop

I’ve been practicing more intricate skin tones for the past week. If you spend your whole life looking at photographs, you might not realize how much color is on skin. Much of the color found in skin is not picked up by the camera, but you can put these colors in a painting. When setting out to create skin tones, most artists do not realize how many colors are in the skin. Besides the pigmentation, there’s redness in the cheeks, blue or green in the chin, sometimes yellow in the forehead and other colors that end up on the skin because of reflection and colored light.

Click to read more …

Tags: Blending, Color, coloring, darkness, eye, face, forehead, hair, high, highlights, iris, Lips, shading, strands, Tones

Shading… and highlights

There is nothing quite like shading in the world of drawing. Shading is one of the most important parts of realistic drawing. Shading also plays a major role in the stylistic aspects of animation. Shading tricks the eye into seeing 3D on a 2D plane. With shading, an object can really jump out at you.

Shading can be as difficult or easy as you want it to be. Light from a powerful and consistent light source like the sun, creating a gradual increase in the darkness of tones the farther you get away from the light source. Objects can block the light source and create shapes that have defined or blurry edges. Shadows can occur gradually or can be cut off abruptly. Highlights shine and sometimes even reflect images opposite of the object you are drawing. Shading can be a pain and creating guides on how to shade can be a pain. But the results are oh so worth it.

There are tons of ways to shade. Since there are so many factors that affect shading, one of the easier ways to shade is to break shading down into different components. Also, since different kinds of lighting and different objects interact to create different shading effects, with this guide I am going to focus on skin and hair with an overhead sun.

Learn to love shadows. The only way to truly learn shading is to observe objects and their interaction with light.

Click to read more …

Tags: Blending, high, light, shading, Tones

If you haven’t read it, please take a look at part 1

Thanks for checking out my latest tutorial. Like promised, I will now be looking at the iris. The iris ended up taking up the entire guide because I didn’t take into consideration how very complex the iris can be.
Irises are where the eyes can get really fun and captivating. If you don’t believe me, just look at the iris of a friend. Irises have all sorts of colors within them with little lines of color. These lines exist because the iris actually has the ability to widen or close in order to get more light in dark areas. Eyes also have a shininess to them, making them even reflective under the right lighting conditions. Neat to look at, but tough to draw. That is, until you get used to it.
With cartoon eyes, you can completely skip the iris and just draw circles with dots in them. If you’re lazy, you can even just draw dots. These are great for simplistic cartoons and save enormous amounts of time. But artists who want to draw eyes that are prettier try to capture the enormous amounts of color found in the eyes. Blending a variety of shades and colors works fine for cartoon eyes, but to achieve the realistic look, much greater care must be taken.

Click to read more …

Tags: cartoon, circles, Color, eye, Eyes, highlight, iris, Photoshop, realistic, shading

Good afternoon everyone! Oh my goodness, Alex and I apologize for our VERY LONG absence. As mentioned in a previous post, Alex and I had a summer class, and it involved A LOT of writing and research for our final paper. So again, we apologize. For those of our faithful viewers who stuck with us through our absence, thank you. Faithful viewers like you keep us alive. I’m sorry for sounding like a public access television station, but it’s true.

I’ve received emails from people asking how, when an image is colored, to shade white objects and clothing. One of the main complaints is how an object looks “dingy” or “dirty” when people shade using shades of grey. Well, shading white objects and clothes is something I learned a few years ago when I was still in high school. Grey does drag white down and often makes it look dingy. White is suppose to be crisp, clean, and fresh. I discovered that using shades of aqua help with the shading process. Why? Aqua plays off the white, making the white pop off the paper/screen and shout “CRISP!” Additionally, the white also makes the aqua pop creating the illusion of true shadows. Of course, in the non-drawing word, objects that are white often have grey shadows, but remember, when drawing, sometimes art doesn’t intimidate life. Let’s that a look, shall we? Click to read more …

Tags: Aquas, coloring techniques, coloring white, drawing tutorial, shading, shading techniques, shading white, white

Back I am. Hopefully for good this time if life doesn’t get in the way. Just wrote one of the toughest final essays ever.

Eyes are incredible. There are so many ways to draw them and so much emotion and personality can be conveyed through the eyes. The eyes come in a good variety of styles. Not only are there realistic, digital and cartoon eyes, but each of these kinds has their own sub-categories. Eyes have different shapes, even though that might not be so noticeable. Eyelashes have different lengths. The spacing of the eyes and the position of the eyes on the head can mean so much when conveying your character’s unique look. Eyelids can be tricky, the iris can be intricate and the eye color can be rich and beautiful.

This week, and maybe next week, I’m going to take you through the miraculous world of eyes. I’m going to cover all of the different styles of eyes. But in addition to that, I’m going to do something more. Eyes do not have to necessarily fall into one category or another. Serious subjects might ask for realistic eyes, but these eyes might take far too long to draw for a time-pressed artist or an artist who wants to focus on other aspects of a drawing. Artists have been known to lighten up the eyes in order to emphasize the emotion contained within the character – and artists have also downplayed the eyes so that they do not distract from the actions that the character happens to be carrying out.

This guide can be completed with:
Pencils
Markers
Pens
Tablets
Graphic Programs – Free downloads: www.gimp.org/downloads/ /> Click to read more …

Tags: cartoon, Comics, s

Hi everyone! Here’s a how to draw tutorial on mesomorph and ectomophic body types, focusing on arms in particular. These body types go along with the endomorphic body type covered in the last how to draw tutorial. The mesomorphic body type is generally associated with more muscular characters, though mesomorphs do not necessarily have to be muscular. Their bodies are compact and curvy, with muscle hanging well on their bodies. When learning how to draw the male version of these types of characters, imagine the football players and boxers of the world. For female characters, they are very curvy. When they become emaciated, you can still see the muscles stubbornly clinging on to the bones, which can be difficult to learn how to draw. When they are more chubby, their bodies are a synthesis of muscle and fat.

The other body type to learn how to draw is the ectomorph, which is most commonly defined as a tall and frail individual. These characters are typically all skin and bones. As these characters become more emaciated, the bones can actually start to seem visible. If the character attempts to put weight on, they typically end up with larger guts while the rest of the body continues to appear slim. These characters have a difficulty developing a lot of muscle and often appear more toned than muscular. These characters would be great on the basketball team if they are tall enough.

Click to read more …

Tags: arms, draw, lines

I know… I didn’t draw their feet. I really hate drawing feet. I’m not too good at it and I never know what angle to draw the feet at. Maybe eventually I’ll learn how to draw them.

I still need to name the character on the left. Maybe I’ll do that right now. Um… Pan… Pangan… Panganiban! Gani for short. He’s a character I kept envisioning in my head but I couldn’t get him from my mind to the screen until now. Does he look how I envisioned him now? Who cares?

I’m starting to feel restless about the ratios and after I finish the next how to draw guide, time to master the anatomy of the limbs, folds, shading and fine itty-gritty details. For now, let’s finish the tutorials on how to draw different ratios. Click to read more …

Tags: Anatomy, brushes, characters, circles, features, Nose, opacity, Photoshop, shading, tone