KalaaLog

• Software: Inkscape (or Illustrator)
• Level: Intermediate
• Subject: Sword

This would be a cursory look at an approach to illustrating a sword. Remember that there are many types of swords, and hence, there are many ways you can approach its illustration.

The Blade

Draw a long rectangle, and then covert the object to path. (Path > Object to Path). After that, use the node edit tool. In Inkscape, you may need to delete the duplicated nodes at the corner. After that, bisect all the sides, so that you have eight nodes instead of four.

Delete off the bottom corners, and move the two mid nodes of the (earlier) vertical line further down towards the tip. You can leave it at this or make if more interesting by adding some more detail to the shape.

Curve the vertical lines inwards. Next, create a perfect square, and rotate it by 45 degrees.

Convert the square object to a path, and use the node edit tool to pull down the bottom corner node.
Read the rest of this entry »

• Software: Inkscape (or Adobe Illustrator)
• Level: Intermediate
• Subject: Grapes

In this tutorial, you will look at the process of creating a vector illustration of grapes. Drawing grapes is quite easy - with all the oval shapes put together. Applying color renders on the other hand can become a bit tedious, and it helps to keep the color palette organized.

Lineart

Try drawing the grapes bunch in GIMP (or Adobe Photoshop) and get the general idea of the color palette with respect to the light source. Import it into your vector editor of choice (Inkscape or Illustrator).

You can download the above color study if you want: Grapes - Study (PNG format)

Reduce the opacity of the imported image to around 40% to 50% and use a polygon tool and mark out all the outline key points.

Using the node edit tool ( [F2] in Inkscape), shape the polygon tool exactly around the grapes bunch using the underlying image as a guide.

Draw another shape outlining all the inner shapes of the grape fruit. I drew them one by one using polygon tool and then performed a Union operation on them. It is show as a red line above but the color is not important as we will be making the stroke width zero after we apply the colors we want.

Flats

Read the rest of this entry »

• Software: GIMP (or Adobe Photoshop)
• Level: Intermediate
• Subject: Potion Bottle

A potion bottle may seem like quite a complex thing to paint even for a simple shaped one due to all the reflections and colorful contents. But a pretty straigthforward workflow makes it easier.

Lineart and flats

Make use of extensive guide lines in a separate layer to get the shape of the bottle right. You could even use other tools like Inkscape - for now, I just went free hand.

You may imagine the potion bottle to be quite colorful with bright colors and think of using brighter colors as flats. But choose some dark value color - it is the contrast of the bright colors against the dark ones that makes it look colorful.

Painting back to front

The key to paintinig objects with transparency is to render them from back to front. Here, the far side glass is rendered first, and then the containing liquid and the cork.
Read the rest of this entry »

• Software: GIMP (or Adobe Photoshop)
• Level: Advanced
• Subject: Rocky Landscape

This would be a short post detailing on the practical application of the theory of Depth by Color.

Lineart and Flats

As we did with the vector application of the theory, the lineart and flat color application is same as you would do for any digital painting.

The subject too is quite simple - a landscape scene depicting the rocky structures up to the vanishing point of horizon.

Color Palette

Applying the depth theory to color in digital painting, unlike the vector method, would require us to decide on the colors before applying them. You could use layers and apply the same techniuqe as vector, but painting by hand gives it a nice painterly feel.

Construct the color palette either on a separate layer or a new file.

Looking at the above color palette, it might look a bit elaborate. But I tried to show how I arrived at each color. I start with the flat (true) colors - at the left top. After making a quick gradation for the sky (A), I take the flat colors of the rocks and create variations of the color by applying a yellow light of the sun.
Read the rest of this entry »