Tools vs Cheating, a Photoshop BrushesTutorial

When I talk to traditional artists (even the one in the mirror) I often find myself discussing Photoshop as something akin to an artistic moral gray-zone. One woman at a coffee shop once asked me what "Real Artists" think of what I do. I tried to explain that I am a "Real Artist" and that Photoshop is just a tool, but Photoshop seems to have a deceptive "Cool Factor" that sets it apart from "Real Painting." Truth be told, I often find myself wondering how much my artistic muscles are atrophying by using this particular tool. I was asking one of my teachers (a traditional artist who has never used Photoshop) about this particular dilemma. He asked in return if I had made the computer I was working on. No.... I didn't. Did you make the car you drove here in? No. Before this, did you make the brushes you used? No. Did you grind up stones to mix your paints? No.
When I was in fourth grade, I had to do free hand geometry drawings. I had to learn to draw a circle, and even complex patterns, without the aid of tools other than my pencil. In fifth grade I had to make my own compass. By sixth grade I was allowed to use a real compass, and by that point I had learned its value. A compass is not a cheat for making circles, it is merely a tool. If it is used before you learn to draw a circle, however, it becomes a crutch and thus a cheat.
Photoshop is a very powerful program, and it is what I do a great deal of my paintings on. Regardless of how powerful it is, there is no "make awesome $*@% painting" button. This always strikes me as a bit of a disappointment whenever I find a new trick. Nonetheless there is easily enough depth to drown oneself in.



Making Brushes
So, enough with the long winded intro, time for some tutorial-ness. Several people have asked me how to make brushes in Photoshop, so I figured I would just make a demo. The first thing I would suggest, before making any brushes is to learn how they work. Go to Windows and pull up the brushes menu.

This is going to be your new best friend. Don't worry, though it's not very talkative, it is also not much of a secret keeper.

My suggestion would be to play with every setting until you find out how each one works.

This is your standard brush. Nothing has been added or changed, it is at default. Note that for this brush, default already has been modified--the brush changes size depending on the amount of pressure you apply.

So really this is default.

These are all that same brush while just playing with the section.

Above are different settings for the same brush in the section.

This is also the exact same hard brush with the exact same color of orange selected--with different brush settings turned on. Play with your existing brushes and the brush settings until you are fairly confident that you know what each one does. If you want to know what the brush does without testing it, look to the bottom of the brushes menu.

Note that the box at the bottom does not show color changes so if your are turned on, you may not know it by looking at that preview. Also Color Dynamics can get a bit dicey, so if you have them turned on they may be affecting your color in bizarre ways.
Now, take an hour and play with those brush settings with different brushes you already have. And have fun with it. Remember that you have UNDO at your fingertips (the one function in Photoshop that really IS a cheat) Also note that if you make changes to a brush, they are temporary--you are not permanently changing your existing brushes, so don't worry about messing up a good brush. If you do find a setting that you love, save it. Even saving it won't overwrite your old brush settings.

Let's make a brush!

First you want a new document. You want it to be grayscale. If it is in some other mode, go to images and change it to grayscale.

Now Let's make a new layer and paint something on it. Photoshop views brushes much like a rubber stamp that has already been rolled in ink. The part of the image with black has ink on it and will thus print. The part that is white will not. Gray will be a lighter opacity.
This is just a random shape I made.

Then I painted some texture over the top to make it a little more fun.

Now go and define brush preset, and put in the name you want. Now save. Look at your brushes menu, it will now have a new brush at the bottom...it is yours.

This brush is at default and is hence inches from useless.

So here is where your previous knowledge of the brushes menu comes in handy. Let's play with it.

Once you have something that you like, save it.
Now you have your own brush that YOU made. Go paint something weird and wacky =)
In the Vein of cheating, remember, brushes are tools. The more you can control them, the less they will control you--and the less they will feel like a cheat. A brush won't do the painting for you, but the right brush at the right time can give you a little added support.

I hope this was helpful. If you have any questions or comments, please don't hesitate to post them.

...Blogger says that I am exceeding the maximum space allowed for a post, so I shall sign off now and wish you all a fantastic day!

A Week in the Life

Hello fine folk of the interwebs. I have been meaning to put up process drawings for some time now, and to answer a number of other questions I just decided to upload everything I painted in the past seven days. Here goes....

To introduce myself to the project, I did a quick painting to feel the mood of the movie. This is very artsy sounding, but then again, you are reading the blog of an artist =)

The current visual development project is to design a scene from the Fifth Element that wasn't in the movie.

My process usually starts with thumbnails (very small and quick versions of the final painting) to get the feel for the shot.

With this assignment I decided to design a fertility shrine on the pleasure planet Floston Paradise.

What peaked my interest was just how amazing a planet would have to be to motivate someone to travel, outside of the solar system for a short vacation. This place would need to make Hawaii look like a dump.

I realized that if water and rocks could float, the environment would seem completely magical. I decided that some of the sand was made of a superconducting silt. Of course, problems arose with that idea.

If the water is so low density that it can float, swimming in it would be similar to swimming in a cloud..... it wouldn't work well.

Furthermore, the water would be highly conductive.... as would everything else. This, by the way, is my first attempt at animating straight away in color. It's a total blast. I did a couple other short animations this week, but they weren't quite as interesting so I left them out.

Of course local plant life, like these giant flying lily-pads, would gain oddly gravity defying traits.

I find that sometimes, my personal work ends up influencing my decisions. For example, this speed painting made me realize that a fertility shrine would likely have some sort of guardian statue.

These thumbnails were a result of that caustically colored painting.

After thumbnails and idea sketches, the line drawing is the next step. I put in some value for a little added clarity.

Of course then it struck me that this still has to feel like it belongs in the fifth element. So now I have to go back to thumbnails. Ah well.... such is the process.

This is just a fun little painting I did to show the location as it would be seen on a tourist pamphlet. The rest of my paintings are personal.

This was a three hour painting from a model. As with most of my personal work, it is both a study and a time for relaxation. The rest are all speed paintings between ten minutes to an hour each.

Some seem to work pretty well.

Others don't work quite as well.

And just like a sketchbook, odd themes start to come up. For example, red eyes...

...and the relationship between this small creature and its captors.

Every once in a while, you need something to make you think outside of your normal process. I was in Cafe Frascati today with my dear friend Steven Celiceo and we decided to give ourselves a challenge. We decided that we would do one hour speed paintings based on words that someone else gave us. We asked for two random words and a random color.

The words were "Fart" and "Knockers" and the color was "Green."

Yikes! That was a very long post, and it is now nearly 4 o'clock in the morning. I hope you all are having a totally splendid day! Now for bed =)

Getting into the Element

So, I haven't posted in forever. I don't have a lot of time to wax philosophic. I am working on a Fifth Element themed Visual Development project. I didn't have a feeling for the environment, so i decided to make an animatic for myself yesterday. This is what I came up with. It's a bit rough, but it was absolutely a blast to make. The first frame is a screencap from the film, the rest is all painted in photoshop.

Have a lovely evening, fine folk of the interwebs =)